simonsdigital

Sapient joins the agency #fail video meme (updated)

2011-11-15T18:09:00.001Z

Here's a new entry into the "agency fail videos" category, this time it's Sapient Nitro's turn:

Essentially, if you work for a digital/creative media agency, unless your fun/promotional video is better than Star Wars, delete it. Now.

Most of these videos are not to my taste, but the creative world is so bitchy that any self promotion must be objectively *amazing* for it not to be slated anyway.

If I were to do a one, I'd use this song, "Shit from an old notebook" by Minutemen. But I wouldn't, because if I did, I'd be an arse.

Get the lyrics here.

My buddy and media whiz Dan Calladine has created an agency fail video stack on Delicious. Do you have any more to add?

**Update** Sapient have acknowledged the situation, fair play to them. I sympathise, and it's a storm that eventually blows over.

This great vid from LeanMeanFightingMachine is the best agency video I recall. No song in sight!

Next Generation Media October 2011 is here

2011-10-13T13:56:00.004+01:00

More great stats and examples of digital, social, mobile media from @dancall1. Get yourself a brew and have a read!
For example, did you know that 5 of the top 10 markets for time spent with social media are in South America?

Next Generation Media Quarterly October 2011

View more presentations from Dan Calladine

Great source of thought provoking digital, mobile and social stats curated quarterly

2011-09-27T13:49:00.003+01:00

Well worth a look and subscribing - I believe we'll be ready for another slug of stats and trends that tell a good story about where we are going in October!

Next Generation Media Quarterly July 2011

View more presentations from Dan Calladine
follow Dan on teh Twitterwebs too

Facebook's timeline re-engages me and brands need better apps

2011-09-23T13:55:00.003+01:00

Yesterday at f8, Facebook’s developer conference, CEO MarkZuckerberg announced some major changes to Facebook. Now with over 800 millionmembers, astonishingly, Facebook gets 500 million users on a good day.

Mark Zuckerberg in front of the Lifestyle Partners for the new Open Graph

Profile – your HQ onFacebook is now the scrapbook of your life, AKA your “Timeline”

Your timeline scrolls down below in groupings of activities,images, actions and interactions, when you friended someone, where you checkedin and with whom. Actions, apps and relationships are presented in littleblocks stretching back in time. It’s easy to see what’s happened, and it’s eveneasier to remove that content if it’s not important to you, or you’d like toremove it.

I’m a reluctant personal FB user – it’s great to keep intouch with family and some friends, but it’s been a long time since I’ve feltsome magic, and this Timeline makes me want to fill in the gaps of my life (thetimeline starts for me in 2007), and has done a good job of picking out keyevents and relationships in my life to date. I feel a stronger emotionalconnection to my Facebook life now than I have had for several years.

Updateyour profile to the timeline by following these simple steps from Mashable.How does it make you feel? Post in the comments below.

Zuckerberg stated how it’s been designed for mobile and itlooked great on the big screen, but I’m not seeing my new Timeline view on theiPhone yet (this probably needs an app update rather than mobile webpage).

“Likes” are not theonly fruit – say hello to “Gestures”

If you’re a keen cook you probably don’t just ‘like’ a recipe,you ‘cook it.’ Gestures mean that you can say you’ve ‘listened’ to a ‘song’ or ‘read’a ‘book’ rather than just ‘liked’ something. Brands, products and services cancreate their own actions to boost relevance and forge a connection with theirfans/users/customers.

Apps

Apps are now more social with updates from apps able toappear in the news ticker. Apps don’t go to die on the left hand side of yourprofile, well used ones will appear in your timeline when you use them, withthe update being shared in the news ticker... This will aid uptake and sharing ofcontent more than before. Sponsored stories can also take activity directlyfrom apps to be used in ads.

More entertainment willbe delivered through Facebook

At f8, Zuckerberg announced partnerships with Film(Netflix), TV (Hulu), Music (Spotify) and News/Media (Yahoo! and others – see pic).Facebook now becomes a social layer over our entertainment lives and sharing. Sharingwhat you’re listening to on Spotify, for example will be shared with yourconnections in the newsfeed, meaning more discovery and shared experiences betweenfriends.

See more about Spotify here in this vid fromTNW.

Implications formarketers and brands

· “Engagement” and brand utility – it’s now so easyto remove updates, unsubscribe from activity and apps, so brands have to beeven more focused on engaging with customers and providing genuine use – information,fun, incentives, utility. Branded services like Nike+ keep on looking better and better!

· Enhanced targeting If we can take users' actions from the news ticker for ad targeting, we could e.g. target movie viewers whowatch a lot of action movies on Facebook, or Spotify users who play a lot of aband or a kind of genre, or readers of e.g. TheGuardian’s news on Facebook

· More ammo for Sponsored Stories – we’ve coveredhow important Sponsored Stories are to Facebook’s advertising plans, and the f8updates will enable much more social information to be used for advertisers toboost the social relevance of advertising

· Entertainment content delivered on Facebook willprobably open up possibility for more formats in time (e.g. VOD pre-rolls), butalso sponsorship and loyalty schemes where brands can help fans accumulateFacebook credits to access content

Industry questions

· How will the business side of things work for mediapartners? Referring traffic is one thing but will Facebook share ad revenuearound the content? I can see it working well for Spotify, as they will getmore paying customers and sharing/referrals, but will accessing editorialcontent through Facebook mean more paying readers?
I use the paid for GuardianiPhone app, but can if I can access it all for free via Facebook then why shouldI pay for the next update?

Visit f8 on Facebook

Mashable onkey changes

NMA’stake on the announcements

As outlined in Tuesday’s ‘Facebook in a nutshell’ (Carat Manchester industry presentations), we haveseen Facebook falter recently in terms of visits and usage, yet it remains the dominantsocial network in Europe and the Americas (with some exceptions e.g. Orkut in Brazil). We knew entertainment and content delivery was key, and this is a huge signal of intent for the future.

This is a shot in the arm, and then some - no wonder they held off IPO!

Facebook overhauls privacy settings and moves its location-based check ins about

2011-08-24T18:02:00.008+01:00

Facebook announced significant changes to privacy and sharing settings which also has a knock on effect to its location based Places service. These changes announced in a blog post titled “Making it easier to share with who you want” will begin to roll out from tomorrow. The most significant changes (in my mind) are:

1. Post updates and choose the circulation of that post: just as Google+ allows with its circles, I can choose the visibility of every post as I post it – to my connections, to the public, or to my select group of pan-pipe prog-rock enthusiasts (if I had one set up)

2. Checking in via Facebook Places on smartphone will be removed – users instead can tag their updates with a place as one would add a photo or link

3. View your profile as it would appear to your connections or what’s public – easiest possible way for users to see what they are sharing

4. Approve images you’re tagged in before it hits your profile – handy for the morning after! Similarly you can untag, block or request content is removed right away

In allowing users to select the distribution of each post is very “Google+” and welcome, but equally interesting to me is the change for Places. The last stats released by Facebook showed that only around 1/5 of mobile users had ever checked in (the stats page has been updated since and the places stat removed). Moving location information to a tag as part of any update ought to encourage more use both by mobile but also on laptop/desktop.

However, the real strength in moving location to updates is that users can now:

1. add location information to photos or things that have happened in the past

2. add location info to updates (as before, but more easily)

3. add location to updates about the future e.g. when planning a night out with friends

As Techcrunch also picks up – this is an improvement for Facebook because there is now more information attached to a location tag. This has future applications for Deals (location based incentives)e.g. Planning a restaurant for a get together from Facebook and choosing one because it has a Deal and future applications for Search e.g. more tailored results on Bing if signed into FB.

Here’s how Deals will work (from Techcrunch):

GlobalWebindex Wave 5 August 2011

2011-08-18T17:35:00.003+01:00

Wave 5 Trends - GlobalWebIndex - August 2011

View more presentations from Tom Smith

Once again a very interesting read

Google launches ‘limited field trial’ of new social project: Google+

2011-06-29T14:05:00.016+01:00

What is Google+?

Google+ is a social network/ collection of comms tools designed to reflect and complement our complex offline relationships: e.g. organic, multiple groups with differing ties and levels of influence; they could be grouped around interest (e.g. digital media, jogging), a specific circle of friends (e.g. old Uni friends) or very tight ties (e.g. family). Read their announcement here.

It’s not like we didn’t know Google were working on this – ex Google employee Paul Adams (now at Facebook), uploaded this Slideshare (see image Top Right) which lead with this loose tie/tailored groups philosophy as opposed to Facebook’s Friends concept, way back in June 2010, and RRW covered some of Google’s work in this area at SXSW March 2011.

Key Google+ features:

Circles – as Google says, “not all relationships are created equal” so circles will help the user create specific groups between friends/connections e.g. family/inner circle (every boring photo of their kids for example), work and industry contacts (this SEO blog post or that industry link), or event hobby group (sharing XboxAhoy’s new video to other gaming enthusiasts).

Hangouts – face to face video, again with grouping, intended to bring a little bit of spontaneity back into messaging and video conferencing.

Huddle – “group messaging” instant messaging for groups which could take over some Twitter/DMing action as well too.

Sparks – “online sharing engine.” In my case I can share my tech/gaming links with gaming friends, without having to share with my friends and family. Combine this with editorial and mass recommendations from others and this has lots of potential as a way to discover content.

Mobile – can add a location to our communications, and also upload our mobile images immediately to the cloud.

Why is Google+ new/interesting?

Google+ has been made for Android and with the assumption that mobile will be the primary computer in people’s possession. If you didn’t know already, Android is the fastest growing mobile Operating system and analysts expect Android devices to have 49% of global market share in 2012 (vs Apple IOS 2ns at 18.9%). By integrating Google products and looking to deliver better for mobile, it has a better chance of take up.
Google+ could also provide an even more interesting ad/offers platform e.g. in the example of Huddle – where friends choose a rendezvous and end up picking a Greek restaurant – in the same way Gmail runs ads that are relevant to the email content (usually), I could see Google presenting a restaurant ad and a Google Offer for that group to go to a rival Greek restaurant.
As it’s from Google, it should be easier to manage ones privacy settings, manage information flow between connections and It will likely integrate with most/all Google products e.g. Maps, location based services and aspirations like cloud based storage and services. It’s also hard to miss the +1 button in many of the video clips.

Should we mention the F(acebook) word? What are Google+’s obstacles?

This is clearly aimed at leapfrogging Facebook, fixing what’s perceived to be broken with Facebook (e.g. all friends are equal). Google+ wants to be peoples’ primary social layer which they place over their online and mobile lives...
The major obstacle for Google will be volume – Facebook has reached critical mass. Everyone’s on it, which is what makes it so useful. It is difficult to take ones contacts off Facebook, and it will be difficult replicating/retracing all those connections on Google+. Facebook Connect’s APIs help take friends connections out across the web (although Circles and Spark looks to be able to do this with knobs on).
TV ads use Facebook as a call to action rather than web addresses at the moment – an indication of just how ingrained Facebook is in our everyday lives. Also Facebook’s demographic information and targeting make it an attractive advertising property, whereas right now, the social element to Google’s advertising model (we’ve only just seen +1) is still a work in progress.
Key to Google+ take up will be how well it can curate and take the effort out of creating these social circles. For example, my Google profile is fairly complete, I’ve linked my blog, Twitter, Quora, Linkedin etc and I use Gmail and Google Reader for the blogs I follow (Reader+Sparks will be interesting)... I’m not tied to Facebook per se but its value is in its ubiquity. If Google+ helps me get those contacts and replicate my networks and reflect my spheres of interest I’m sure the value of its services will jump out.

Read the official Google+ explanations in full and watch the films here. The films themselves are also a departure from the snappy ‘how to’ flowchart/cartoon explanation films of old too. Much more organic and human.

ReadWriteWeb has written about its 1^st night with Google+ – read about their experiences here

Sentiment and meaning in social media monitoring.And the Colosseum

2011-04-27T13:43:00.007+01:00

I used this image, "With a Turned Thumb" by Gérôme in the Social Media Monitoring Nutshell (Nutshells are our regular learning sessions here at MediaVest, we take in turns to present to the wider team and any clients who want to come). It also inspired Ridley Scott to make Gladiator. I found it when searching for examples where the wrong meaning had been ascribed to common language/communication.

Did you know that the thumb down/hidden by the other hand meant 'Live' and the thumb horizontal/pointing up meant 'Kill'? I didn't, but perpetuated by Hollywood, the wrong gesture seems to be used the world over. 'Thumbs up' mimics the upward sword-thrust under the ribs to the heart.

The Colosseum setting is a bit like social media because everyone is shouting out, but the gladiator needs to find out if it's 'Live' or 'Die' – and he'll probably go to the most influential people (the rich seats/the Emperor) if in doubt, especially if he can't hear a clear winner.

Also because now if something is 'the sh*t' or indeed 'sick' that probably means it's good and so marketers and automated sentiment counters (they analyse tweets etc for positive or negative sentiment) need to bear in mind that language and meaning can change.

We also covered a few free tools with searches for that wedding thing at the end of the week – you can try them below.

Twitter – twitterfall, tweetfeel
Blogs – blogpulse
Forums – board reader
Facebook – facepinch, social bakers
Social mention

I LIKE (sorry) Google's +1

2011-04-04T09:53:00.007+01:00

Last week Google introduced +1 to c. 2% of its search engine results. +1 allows people to add a mark of approval to search results, and in time to product/pages across the web in the same way as Facebook's "Like"

Google already uses social influence in its algorithm, but +1 also opens up PPC and SEO to even more brand lead campaigns, and potential for new social relevance to Google’s ad platforms.

It DOES looks very ‘me too,’ but I believe that Google HAS to look into layering social connections over its results (even as a clickable filter) in order to compete.

On face value it might appear underwhelming to some, but I think it it’s a first step in challenging Facebook over social recommendations longer term. There are other social networks like http://blog.joindiaspora.com gambling on alternatives to Facebook and I’m sure they’d welcome +1 type functionality too.

Google has succeeded in defining search, video, blogging, email, maps, groups across the internet. If you use a Google mobile app you are likely to be signed in (I’d like to know +1s on bars and shops for sure). Google Offers are coming too. Using Google open id it’s possible to use LinkedIn, YouTube and 3rd party properties across the web.

I’m sceptical how many people with sparse Google profiles will update theirs just because of this benefit. For it to catch on, there needs to be more incentive to complete one's Google profile (despite using blogger, Gmail etc I hadn’t added much stuff till this news prompted me to do so) but I think anyone who uses a Google service has at least a sparse profile. Google Offers when it launches might provide encouragement to fill in profiles...

Key issues – are your Google contacts (currently) the right network? I'd say no. @lakey has more on this – agree this is an issue – Facebook is where the volume of most people’s social connections are, and personally, I think Twitter is my best network for recommendations I’d like/act upon.

However, in my Google profile, I've now added my Twitter and Quora accounts, so again, Google could be in a position to aggregrate all my connections and influence (except Facebook of course). Perhaps it will know which of these networks to add weight to depending on on what I'm looking for - in which case I will get scared, unplug and go and live in the wilderness, survivalist style!

Two music phenomena, one powered by hate (Rebecca Black), the other by Coke & fans (Maroon 5)

2011-03-24T09:42:00.007Z

As featured in my "Viral In a Nutshell" presentation on Tuesday morning (quick presentations for MediaVest team and clients), Rebecca Black's effort has also been doing the viral rounds (safe to say it's largely powered by people's dislike rather than love for the song). After the terrible news of the Japanese Tsunami, it was the largest trend on Twitter last week. Apparently it cost $2,000 to make this content. Some reports suggest she is making $27,000 in ad revenue a week - good ROI even if the sentiment is a little off!

Interesting to note that Lady GaGa has defended her (without actually listening to the track it seems) and already Rebecca's having interviews and is able to use her fame for good – donating to the Tsunami fund and planning a sequel (help us). It’s a real meme now too - here is a Bob Dylan style cover of the song.

It's still amazing to me how quickly good or bad content can travel through social media. She's been brave and kept her clip up and is standing up to the 'Haters.' If she can ride it out, I’m sure a career in reality TV or an advertising deal will come to her... endure/enjoy it yourself here and watch the real time trolling on tweetfeel.

On Tuesday evening (GMT), Maroon 5 and Coke (USA) began a live, 24 hr collaboration with fans through social media to inspire Maroon 5 to write a song, to be made available for download on April 1. Here's the site and edited highlights. Coke has provided unique access to a band and allowed its fans to be involved in the creative process. Plus they're sponsoring the #withmaroon5 hash tag. A big production, safe to say many multiples of $2,000.

Incidentally, Maroon 5 seem to be really open to new experiences with YouTube - like this collaboration with Kutiman, a remixer and DJ, where they supplied clips from their tour and he created a new song from it last year.

As you can see from the monitoring below (from 22-24 March), Rebecca Black has held the news focus and the Twitter agenda, despite #withMaroon5 being a promoted tweet.

What next for Rebecca?

My mum and Facebook

2011-03-07T19:31:00.005Z

It was about a year ago that I reached that new milestone in life in the digital age... my mum friended me on Facebook.

She's a wonderful artist and as well as exhibiting around the UK and having an agent, twice a year she does an 'at home' exhibition - so friends and art lovers can come to her house, see the pictures, have a glass of wine and talk about the paintings... even buy them!

Anyway, she now has a page on Facebook for her art, as opposed to a place to post pics of her cat or stalk me or her overseas friends. Art of Mary-Jane Alexander on Facebook (tip: LIKE)

I'll be very interested in how this works out for her, and I'll be lending her a hand too.
Art of Mary-Jane Alexander on Flickr

Brands, sponsorship, DLC and in game advertising

2011-02-21T22:04:00.004Z

I pass the Hyde’s brewery frequently, the Fosters one less so. They would be perfect for a DLC for Call of Duty or similar. Look at the inside/outside spaces/vantage points, opportunities for cover and sniping points – if it was created by the game developer, published on the network and if Mr Asian Beer brand/Cuban rum (I'm playing Black Ops at present) offered it to me for free (map packs cost £4-8 on average), I’d be pretty darn happy and very much have that brand on my mind.

Black Ops was the largest entertainment launch in history, making $650 million in 5 days and is still massive in the charts. Here is a neat COD BlackOps infographic to show you the scale and immersion of the property - why is this not a media channel yet?

It requires a much bigger commitment than billboards in a game and the negotiations woudl be long, but the engagement and awareness would be far higher. It could easily be a noodle or snack factory for the complete male slacker demographic ;) either way, all DLC accounts are for people with credit cards so less healthy food or booze brands could get involved.

Making a level clearly takes a lot of money and studio resources, but the awareness and recall from the players if a global brand agreed to supprt the dev process and leave creative sign off to the developer would be incredible. I dont think Tony Hawks style billboards would fit the Call of Duty universe, but this could be much more harmonious.

I'm going to ask Call of Duty Black Ops community man @JD_2020 and industry expert @Gamesbrief for insights on the numbers. It might go nowhere but I want to find out!

How else would you solve the issue of expensive DLC for map hungry global gamers?

Update 4 March 2011

Thanks to Nicholas Lovell who got back to me with some links & figures. Looking at these would suggest that for a brand to present a map, Acitivision would need to be compensated between $6 million - $12 million for one map due to what they could make from 1/5 of a map pack's sales, to what potentially a free map might cost them in lost revenues from users not downloading more DLC (based on Stimulus package figures). A map pack might cost a sponsor to $35 million.

Learning: essentially impossible to price up without Activision, but I still think that a one off map, released outside a multi map DLC to reduce cannibalisation would be a snip at $6+ million which can claim 2.5 million downloads in one territory in one week (for chargeable content)! The lifespan of brand presence would be years, and a truly global audience. Looking back at that infographic, if I were a brand manager I'd be looking into this.

I'm a PS3 and Modern Warfare 2 was my idea (apologies to Windows 7 ad campaign)

2010-01-12T12:21:00.005Z

In February 2009 I emailed Infinity Ward community manager a link to this blog post FourZeroTwo to ask the team about silenced shotguns in the next Call of Duty game.
I was chuffed that not only did he take the time to read the post, he commented (liked the idea) and would run it by the team.
Fast Forward to Nov 2009 and hey presto - Silenced shotguns a plenty! If we designed Windows 7 (see an ad), I definitely designed Modern Warfare 2!

Now we just need Gulag, Afghan cave network and Oilrig multiplayer maps - next week for under a fiver ;) anybody there?

Google's experiments in digital creativity - great summary of what's been good lately

2009-10-08T09:40:00.002+01:00

This has it pretty much everything that's been interesting in the past year or so. OK I'm lying but it's a fantastic resource. Go and see Google's experiments in digital creativity right now if you've not already - how many have you seen before?

FaceBoxLive

2009-08-07T11:38:00.008+01:00

Interesting example of the blurring between 'mainstream' social networking and games and the interesting convergence we are getting to...

Facebook and XboxLive - as Eurogamer noted, plans are afoot for XboxLive-rs to use Facebook through the 360 (as well as Twitter) in the next few months. Although the boards question how much they actually want to share their gaming habits, tweet achievements and the like with their friends, it has a lot of potential - from easily adding your FB friends to your gaming friend's lists to (dare I say it,) targeted advertising that might also be a bit more engaging. If nothing else it will make redeeming beta demo/map pack codes off twitter easier!

Let's take Facebook and gaming to its logical conclusion - as we all know, Facebook is actually just a massively multi-player online game where the aim of game is to collect 'friends' ;)

Unreal Call of Brothers 5: a labour of love

2009-05-19T11:18:00.005+01:00

I have loved making this - as an avid FPS gamer (first person shooting games) on PS3, this was a great little project for Be Broadband.

We (the company I work for), were asked by w00tmedia! to create a game for Be to showcase their broadband offering and show why it's so good for FPS gamers - where great connection speed and crucially a low ping rate is important.

Using our own experiences of bad connections (usually being fragged online by a few shots whilst you've emptied a clip into the target) we came up with the game concept and mechanics. And for the treatment - we wanted to shoe-horn as many FPS games as possible (see the cyborg-terrorist baddies f'example), all in a casual game - well if you could you'd be playing a proper game right now too - wouldn't you? ;)

Play it at http://blaster.bethere.co.uk/ Turn your headphones up, and if you like it, embed it to your blog or whatever!
Illustration pwnage by SketchyBeast and AS3 carnage by Barrax

Unreal Call of Brothers 5: FPS game for Be Brodband

2009-05-18T15:06:00.007+01:00

Pizza Hut / Midnight Club LA: great example of brands and games bumping naughty bits for WIN:WIN

2009-04-16T17:09:00.006+01:00

Midnight Club Los Angeles Pizza Hut Tournament. MCLA is a street racing game, and this tournament invites PS3 and Xbox360 gamers to download a (free) map extension of LA, and race for the best times on it in order to win a big prize.

This is a helluva lot better than a bunch of in game billboards or what-have-you: a DLC driving map, an amazing prize (year's supply of pizza) and a brilliant brand tie in. This is great because:

it's free, so no feelings of "hmm. I just paid more cash for DLC to be advertised to. Again"
there is a real prize, and a good synergy (yeuch bad word, sorry) between gamers and brand/product
it sounds like a carefully considered, tailored promotion

I hope the map is great, the tournament well managed and it goes well - as it shows how brands, marketers and gamers could all get along nicely in future.

Rockstar, PSN and Xboxlive get to turn their property into a media space, and Pizza Hut get to engage gamers in a deeper way than just interruption or mere in game branding.

Infinity Ward Crowdsourcing on Twitter

2009-03-10T13:32:00.011Z

@fourzerotwo, the community manager for Infinity Ward, makers of the massively successful Call of Duty 4, asked for community feedback on features for its sequel, Modern Warfare 2. He asked us to use Twitter, hash it as #mw2, and it went pretty mental. you can see the #MW2 twitter usage here.

Working in digital marketing and loving COD4, this was a very interesting example for me to follow. As it became the biggest twitter trend within a day, I'm very interesting how 402 will mine the information. There is plenty of crowdsourcing the community here on the official IW forum too.

Personally - I used Wordle to make the word cloud you see above, and also used a trial profile on a social media monitoring tool to drill down, which really highlights why a system like that is worth the cash - the degree of granularity that is possible (as well as being able to pull in #mw2 stuff from other sources) really opened my eyes. I could dig into a topic, cross ref by time and even look at each tweeter's other social media connections (402, if you're reading, give me a shout!).

For my money, here's what I think the community wants:

Guns: more guns (duh)
Snow: a snow map
Persononalisation/customisation: for the in game character and gun customisation
Better integration with online community and achievements (off PSN, XBOX Live etc)
More perks, attachments (silenced sniper a big ask) and rewards for prestige mode (ranking up constantly)
A bigger, co-op story mode
Maps: more of them and a UGC/map editor for consoles

Image shows a wordle of Twitter's #mw2 xml feed. Dan got me on to Wordle.

Kutiman's thru-you YouTube music project

2009-03-09T11:55:00.007Z

Sometimes I'm asked to define what social media is in a little soundbite. It's damn hard as it's a very broad term for a lot of stuff. Essentially I define social media as: anything which allows someone to publish, create, collaborate on content, and form networks around that content digitally. But as you see, this means little (although it does kind of cover your arse).

I'd prefer to point to examples and Kutiman's YouTube project "Thru-you" is a wonderful example of social media and creativity. He's taken individuals' music clips and made his own tracks from them. He's linked to them/credited them too. The sum of its parts is greater than each element on its own; it's a kind of mash up and still it needed a great creative idea (his vision to make new songs from others') to be special. This is not just a case of asking the community or adding a Digg button!

As his site can go down here's a link to the 'mother of all funk chords' on YouTube.

Call Of Duty - turn off your mic! Great vid (Via @fourzerotwo)

2009-02-24T16:17:00.004Z

Note to Infinity Ward / FourZeroTwo: silenced shottie please!

2009-02-05T13:01:00.007Z

I finally watched 'No Country for Old Men' last week (yeah I know - no excuses really). Of course - it's a fantastic film but I'm not going into that here.
What did strike me was how interesting the silenced shotgun was. The gun itself was a good metaphor for Anton (quiet but absolutely visceral). A silenced shotgun would be brilliant for jazzing up a stealth class or two, will we see it in MW2 (Modern Warfare 2)?
Perhaps there could be a floppy bowl-cut-barnet perk? ;)

And here is the official Infinity Ward forum asking the community what they'd want. Talk about free market research, and a company that listens!

A map editor for UGC levels is a MUST for this - Far Cry 2 did this already for a console FPS game.

(Image ruthlessly, silently pillaged from IGN.com)

Lloyd-Webber-Rock-Hero, a terrifying vision of the future!

2009-01-14T17:43:00.014Z

Bear with me, but I'm expecting Domesday anytime soon now.
Two stories hit me so far this week, one being that on Tuesday (13 Jan), Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock crossed sales of $1 billion in North America alone, the other being Andrew Lloyd-Webber's company has spied all this cash to be made and wants in on it. In fact Wired anticipates all the singstar/hero possible ways we could be playing 'Super-Sing-Cats-A-Star' or what have you with his show tunes - but this skims the surface of the pure evil that could happen with new PS3 eye (a camera), a mic and a mashup with those terrible TV karaoke shows, not to mention find me a prime-time Jesus/Maria talent quest!
If you got a hi-score banging out 'Music of the night' it could fire up your Eye, and give Sir A L-W a quick screentest/audition clip online. Or perhaps even a mass participatory Don't forget the lyrics/find me a Maria sing along between you and Denise Van Outen!
I'm scared now - so I'm off to destroy my TV, PS3, etc just in case this actually happens in a couple of years time.
Or perhaps on a more stable note, it does show that the gaming audience is continually shifting mainstream, and that many creative forces (and not just film directors etc) are getting into the gaming space.

Video Gaming Trends: fantastic presentation on the $34 billion dollar industry we all love!

2009-01-12T13:27:00.003Z

This reads like a personal manifesto - only I might have referenced John Woo on slide 42 (but then I doubt the rest of it would have been so great). Everyone. Read. It. From advertisingpawn. Via @dancall.

Video Gaming Trends

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: marketing advertising)

Games are destroying the youth of today etc etc.. Meh!

2009-01-12T13:06:00.003Z

Big family do at my house this weekend. Including 4 of my wife's cousins aged 9-15. Ok, after the birthday cake we fired up the PS3. What did they also play? Chess. On my grandfather's set. Bloody ace.

Rickrolled Sackboy

2009-01-09T11:17:00.004Z

Hooray - finally some decent online marketing for Little Big Planet! The TV ads broke too late (way after Xbox price-drop carpet bombing in November) but Looks like this year Sony is having a good go...
Here's a beautifully recreated 'Never gonna give you up' video in LBP - complete with bartender and shadows go to www.sackroll.com then sackrickroll everyone!
Via @jemimakiss

Awesome internet meme chutney

2008-12-21T14:07:00.006Z

I have made some Christmas chutney, using the totally awesome River Cottage Year Book's 'Glutney' recipe. The most awesome thing on the net is probably still Chuck Norris, so that's what this stuff is being branded as!

Little Big Planet: 1 month on

2008-12-10T17:21:00.006Z

Phew - what a month! PlayStationVault's 1 month on reminded me to get my arse in gear and recap on the first month (or thereabouts) from my point of view, so here is my tuppence's worth...

Firstly, in late October, the wonderful Stephen Fry on Twitter asked his followers how they were getting on with LBP (he voices the brilliantly scripted intros and tutorials) - little did he know the release had been delayed due to some music featuring words from the Koran put to music. So I didn't get my LBP until 6th November!

By Nov 13th there had been 85,000 user generated levels created, but the homages to other intellectual property caused SCEE to go a little crazy over moderation, killing some hard work and fun levels in the process - this is a good way to kill a community so let's hope they are more balanced in the future. Just look at this vid of a LBP 9/11 level (and its comments) though to see why there is such debate about how and if to censor levels.

I've mentioned official costume tie ins for sackboy already and I have to say I love some of these. Sackboy is cute and his unique look and feel is a great asset (and metaphor) for the game as a whole.

All this has been against a backdrop of perceived disappointing sales of LBP and PS3s when compared to price-dropping Xbox360. Does Sony have a plan for this at all? As a PS3 exclusive, slower LBP sales are not good.

In terms of what I actually think of the game (not the hype or the business implications):

The pre made levels look wonderful, mostly play well but feel a little cruel at times
I used to like the jump controls unreservedly, but from time to time I seem to fall foul of the variable jump. Grrr
I love the range of levels, slapping other sackboys whilst playing together online and discovering random levels
I haven't created a level yet, and I really want to - that's what my Christmas break is for!

BUT

LBP needs a YouTube like interface for its many levels - just stumbling from one to the next is fun, but (and maybe I'm getting to be an old git), I'd like more obvious ways to search, find and file levels. This is only going to get harder the more stuff it made
It's sooo cute and lovely, I find myself needing to fire up COD4 and bayonet some people to make up for all the nice gaming - I used to enjoy killing civilians in Vice City after my Northern Line commute, read into this what you will 8).

And here's a link to one of the coolest tie ins I've heard about: LBP and Vice mag. (image: Viceland.com)

PSN Home beta key - I got one!

2008-12-02T17:20:00.002Z

Sackboy + Street Fighter = YaY!

2008-12-01T17:53:00.004Z

This is completely ace - Street Fighter Sackboy costumes on the way. Loads of games have homage levels, and many have official sackboy outfits too. LBP is an evolving community where people make brilliant content and companies produce things that the community wants - simple eh? As it's nearly a month since it came out here in the UK I'll do a recap of some key discussion points soon too.

Tevez and Blanka - Is it just me or ....

2008-11-28T13:02:00.002Z

have YOU ever seen them in the same place at once?

PS3 Ring of death?

2008-11-19T17:42:00.005Z

Hmm.

My 40gb PS3 started refusing to stay switched on and kept beeping, going back to standby, when I had just just been trying to switch it on from cold. So not an overheating issue. After repeatedly trying, it stayed on for longer and longer until the problem went away, but I knew this was bad, with my 1 year guarantee up just after Christmas.

After teasing my Xbox friends who suffered the ring of death, I felt that perhaps some hubris had come home to roost.

I called Sony helpline on Monday. A nice lady took me through some questions about the issue, my purchase and said I'd get a new (ish - fully reconditioned and guaranteed) one today (Wednesday). I deleted my payment details on PSN and then formatted the PS3 ready to be picked up. She sounded like this was an uncommon issue, so here's hoping PS3 has no ring of death kinda feature.

I'll post how easy it is to get the new one going, and how quick I can get some more LBP and cod4 action going, not to mention some DVD action! So far, nice service on SCEE's part. Early days yet...

Update Thursday 20 November

Up and running last night in under an hour - just found my wireless connection; installed the latest updates; transferred my game saves from a usb stick; signed into PSN and downloaded the content I had paid for (e.g. cod4 map pack). OK - so it will take longer to get Siren and 'rub a dub' (I do have a daughter, so a kid-friendly game is a must!), not to mention install MGS4 again (lol) but it REALLY was that simple. As long as it doesn't happen again. All in all, an easy process, esp for a luddite like me!

Infinity Ward's Fourzerotwo goes awol after Treyarch 'douche' bitching sesh

2008-11-14T12:46:00.005Z

Infinity Ward's community manager lays into Treyarch PR mouthpiece on his own blog. It was a week ago now, plenty of time for the dust to settle. Essentially IW and Treyarch 'take turns' to develop games in the first person shooter 'Call of Duty' series published by Activision. 402 pretty much flamed the Treyarch spokesperson and publicly slapped him for talking about cod4 rather than Treyarch's new COD gameand being inaccurate over single shot kills with bolt guns in previous COD games.

Plenty of fall out and comment on his own site and sites like the Guardian. What's interesting to me is:

that 402 has always been fairly positive about Treyarch's game dev team, but this time had a real strop directed at a production spokesperson

from being a popular community manager, 402 has had a lot of negative posts on his own site from gamers and industry insiders about his outburst

that he has since been silent on the subject, no online apologies or 'no regrets' statement (to my knowledge), although he has posted that Treyarch's COD: World at War is out and it's good

My conclusion is that he must have just flown off the handle and posted in anger (everyone in his sphere already knows about the game so unlikely to be a publicity stunt), but it highlights a danger that although it's best for a community to be serviced by a knowledgeable enthusiast, it will have probably been a sore issue for Activision and Treyarch/IW public relations, and why has no one from any of those 3 outfits commented on it? (I suppose because if anyone official recognises it, it stops being a community matter and becomes a corporate one).

In any case, I think he has probably been told to leave it well alone and focus on games rather than the politics of publicising them for a while!

Gaming tributes in LBP: from Tetris to Mirror's Edge

2008-11-12T17:30:00.010Z

I had better warn you: there will be lots of Little Big Planet (lbp) posts to come. The concept of a game where you can create and share content is very close to my heart and I think that already, the community has shown how powerful a creative platform it is.

But how can you share this off the PlayStationNetwork (PSN)? I'll look into ways (other than YouTube).

For now, here are some of the game tributes I've played:

Tetris

Dance Revolution

Mirror's Edge (parkour game out later this month - all grab-able bits are in red)...

Will all new games need an LBP level as part fo the social media mix? I think this could become the case from now onwards!

Please ADD your LBP spots in the comments below!

LittleBigPlanet YaY!

2008-11-12T17:00:00.006Z

I've had LBP for nearly a week now, and I have to say it's very impressive. The game looks organic, beautiful, quirky but always intuitive. It plays well.

But most of all, I've enjoyed playing other people's levels, the first true next gen user-generated gaming experience is here!

You may recognise this calculator level from youtube and the beta - well it's there (and that's me on it in the pic). And below I'm using the jetpack to see the calculator's workings (phenomenal)!

Burnout Paradise: vote Obama!

2008-10-14T14:33:00.000+01:00

According to Game Politics Obama ads are on Xbox Live! Hot on the news that Microsoft will have dynamic ads in Sims 3, which is hot on the heels of Google in game adwords! Blimey - a lot is happening in IGAs this month!

Update: Gigaom confirms it's for real
(Image from Dragunov and Game Politics).

Little Big Planet hands on thanks to a 'pop up shop' in Manchester

2008-09-16T15:58:00.000+01:00

Wow - that was fun - after picking up lunch with a mate , we went to the LBP shop (found via a ps3 feed I get). It pointed to a flyer on flickr here. Nice and close to my work, so I had to visit.

Good staff (one with a very respectable looking afro too) and plenty of PS3s in a well decorated space.

Onto the game - which looks as good you'd expect. The controls were intuitive and respsonsive, and I loved the emotion ranges and expressions, plus giving Chris' sackboy a little slap across the levels with my own nattily designed sackboy (flight hat, aviators and neon blue stripey pants as you asked!). The physics is spot on - gentle yet definite but you get the impression it can ramp up quite a bit to allow for more sophisticated gaming and more complex levels.

No time to try the level design but I'll go back for that, it's the feature I'm truly excited about! Genuinely excited about this one launching now - and I can see myself playing this with younger members of the family as well as mates on PSN and together with some beers.

Four Zero Two tells us new about new game modes

2008-07-23T22:21:00.000+01:00

This is great news: new COD4 modes announced by Infinity Ward's community manager. I really like the way this guy is part of the gaming landscape - and how real gamers respond to a games developer who invests in the community like this. Just look at the comments on his site and the way he operates.

And of course I really like the new modes on the way... COD4 is the best fps and if they just keep making new maps and modes we'll be happy until IW release the next one (not really excited about cod:waw).

Call Of Duty 4 - still loving it

2008-07-04T17:53:00.001+01:00

I am still loving COD4 - the first game I got on my PS3 in December 2007. I played 1p on hardened (not that I'm good - just wanted my money's worth and to train for online). Once completed, I have been a slave to online play.

Domination is my favourite game type, and I've stuck to level 55, as a new(ish) dad and a husband etc, I don't have the time to get back my Barrett '50, my claymores and the grip on my RPD.

But will there be there be a contender to online FPS action in 2008? I'm not so sure. Anyone got any ideas?

If you like COD4 you have to visit COD4 Central, it's great site, full of info and tips. If you're on my team, please shoot the chopper - you have been warned. Tap me up if you want to play online (NB although not a n00b, I'm not exactly seriously clan material).

Update - I've obviously realised I was being pathetic above and have been prestiging! ;)

Rockstar Social Club - a games social network

2008-07-04T16:43:00.001+01:00

Heralding the launch of GTA:IV came the social club - I signed up on the day (was c.58,000th just so you know) and eagerly awaited orders from the most controversial of games developers.

It was/is a fantastic concept - an example of a games creator being useful by helping GTA players to log progress, share experiences and as a great app to take ZIT tunes off the radio. It links your online life with your PS3 exploits in Liberty City.

But is anyone else disappointed so far? I am a mite - I have started online play, but it looks a bit sparse... still after being live for over 2 months. Where are the community features? Just a couple of leaderboards.

WOWOW - postmodern gaming from the onion

2008-06-11T17:36:00.001+01:00

'Warcraft' Sequel Lets Gamers Play A Character Playing 'Warcraft'

Sumo Slam from Capri-Sun

2008-06-02T18:12:00.000+01:00

Declaring an interest: I work on this brand, but that shouldn't stop you from playing Sumo Slam and making your own levels! It's been likened to Smash Bros on the Wii and is doing rather well in terms of games played.