nvestment group pays £50m cash for Hirst's diamond skull

When it comes to reconciling art and money, Damien Hirst is the King of cash.
Article on Evening Standard.

Only 5% of UK corporations use blogs on a regular basis,

They are not alone, "less than 6% of the Fortune 500 and 2% of the Forbes 200 Best Small Companies blogged in April and June 2006". Article on eMarketer.

Where do chinese people eat out in london?

Great post on Dim Sum (read the comments too). My regular haunts are:

- Young Cheng (Shaftsbury avenue) for quick lunch
- China China in Chinatown for mixed meat takeaways when I feel lazy and skint
- Royal China (Bayswater or Baker Street branch)
- Four Seasons in Bayswater for duck noodles
- The Hare & Tortoise on High Street Kensington for their soft shell crabs
- Pearl Liang (hidden gem in Paddington for posher meals - lobster noodles is recommended)
- Kiasu on Bayswater for authentic Singaporean fares

World's strangest laws: In Indonesia, the penalty for masturbation is decapitation...

The Times Online showcases the world's 25 strangest laws. My favourites (apart from the one above):

• "It is an act of treason to place a postage stamp bearing the British monarch upside down".
• "In France, it is forbidden to call a pig Napoleon."
• "In Ohio, it is against state law to get a fish drunk"
• "In Florida, unmarried women who parachute on Sundays can be jailed."
• "In Chester, Welshmen are banned from entering the city before sunrise and from staying after sunset."
• "In the city of York, it is legal to murder a Scotsman within the ancient city walls, but only if he is carrying a bow and arrow."

How to Make Skype Portable via USB

Mark O'Neill explains how to carry your Skype around on Read/WriteWeb. I am summarising it here.

1. Create a folder and copy the file "skype.exe" into it.
2. Create another folder inside your folder and call it "data". Inside, create a text file called "skype.bat" with the following text: skype.exe /datapath:"Data" /removable.
3. Copy to your USB key. Done.
   

Wired: Advertisers waste millions in Second Life

Wired has an article on how corporations jumped in Second Life without really understanding what they were getting into. The end result: millions of dollars spent on virtual headquarters or "brand experience"than no one visits and plenty of marketers with nothing to show for their money but for learning how to create an avatar and stroll around. I came to a similar conclusion earlier this year: unless brands provide something of real value to SL users (which is NOT glorified advertising), why should they bother?

A periodic table of visualisation methods

How cool is that?

Via El Blogador.

TheFunded.com, when entrepreneurs rate venture capitalists

TheFunded.com

5 stars for the idea.

Battle at Kruger, one of the most popular video on Youtube

Amazing stuff.

Food branded McDonald's just taste better. Ask the kids.

Fascinating study from Stanford and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation showing the power of advertising. 63 children age 3 to 5 get to taste burgers, fries, chicken nuggets, juices and carrots bought from Mc Donalds. Some are presented in their original packaging, some in non branded packs. The results:

• "almost 77 percent said the labeled fries tasted best while only 13 percent preferred the others".
• "54% percent preferred McDonald's-wrapped carrots versus 23 percent who liked the plain-wrapped sample".
• "29 kids chose McDonald's-wrapped burgers and 22 chose the unmarked ones" (not clear cut).
• "Fewer than one-fourth of the children said both samples of all foods tasted the same".

As a marketer, this is a great study to argue about why companies should invest in building brands. As a human being and citizen, this pavlovian conditioning is so sad and terrifying that I am now considering raising my children in Bhutan.

Article on CNN

Steven Wright

Witty. Emailed to me by El Blogador.

1- I'd kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.
2- Borrow money from pessimists - they don't expect it back.
3- Half the people you know are below average.
4- 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.
5- 42.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.
6- A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.
7- A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.
8- If you want the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain.
9- All those who believe in psycho-kinesis, raise my hand.
10- The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.
11- I almost had a psychic girlfriend but she left me before we met.
12- OK, so what's the speed of dark?
13- How do you tell when you're out of invisible ink?
14- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
15- Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
16- When everything is coming your way, you're in the wrong lane.
17- Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.
18- Hard work pays off in the future, laziness pays off now.
19- I intend to live forever - so far, so good.
20- If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?
21- Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines.
22- What happens if you get scared half to death twice?
23- My mechanic told me, "I couldn't repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder."
24- Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?
25- If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.
26- A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.
27- Experience is something you don't get until just after you need it.
28- The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.
29- To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.
30- The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.
31- The sooner you fall behind, the more time you'll have to catch up.
32- The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.
33- Everyone has a photographic memory, some just don't have film!

Useful sites for those considering buying a property in the UK

Property Snake shows how much a property's asking price has dropped in your area.

House Price Crash has been warning of an impeding crash for a while (called a "slowdown" or "soft landing" by property agents, surveyors, lenders and builders). I reproduced it above as it is such a powerful message.

Sony is blogging

Sony's blog.

Thanks to the Divine Miss N for the tip.

Introducing Yugma

Yugma does what WebEx do but is entirely browser based, and cost a fraction of the price (it's free for all basic collaboration services including web conferencing). I am using ioften with colleagues from the US and I am impressed by its simplicity of use and powerful features.

Paris to offer free Wi-Fi

105 Parisian locations will be covered by free Wi-Fi. They include libraries, parks, public places and so on. Would Mr. Livingstone consider a similar initiative? How about getting corporate sponsors to fund it?

Article in French

London underground dinner party

Hats off. And as one of the commenters accurately noted: " I've never seen Londoners smile on a tube before".

Shift happens

Prepare to be surprised.

Teens Leaving MySpace For Facebook?

I am reading and hearing more and more about this. See this post from YPulse for example.

European Internet users spend more time online than watching TV or reading newspapers

European internet users spend 14.3 hours a week online, compared with 11.3 hours watching TV, and 4.4 hours reading newspapers or magazines, the research group said. 36% of people who go online said they spent less time looking at the television as a result.

BBC News

Will Facebook kill Linked-In?

Bernhard Warner thinks so in a recent Times article. He his rooting for Facebook against Linked-In, which he finds too “stuffy” and prone to macho “my network is bigger than yours” attitude. By contrast Facebook users are more laid-back and you get to know more personal stuff about them.

I've been on Linked-In for a few years and signed-up to Facebook recently, as most people I know in the UK (network effects?). I receive a lot of “spamvitations to connect” from Linked-In, mostly from people with whom I have no real affiliation to or no desire to connect with. I always politely refuse and explain that I rather have a small network of people I really know and trust rather than a loose constellation of passer-bys, only interested in their “500+” networkers’ badge.

Networking is not about collecting “connections” but getting to know people beyond what’s written on their business cards. Too many Linked-In users treat the network as a customer database. Facebook, at least for the moment is indeed a better tool than Linked-In for quality of relationships, which determines a personal network's value.

New UK Fiat website

Fiat re-launched its UK website with sleek 3D flyovers. Nice work from AKQA. I am waiting to see what is in store for the re-launch of the Fiat 500.

Fiat is a Digital PR client in Italy.

Preserving our collective memory in the digital age

The BBC is running a warning from the Chief executive of the UK National Archives: "Unless more work is done to ensure legacy file formats can be read and edited in the future, we face a digital dark hole."

Think about it, we can still read 5,000 years old Egyptian hieroglyphs or medieval manuscripts but we can't access a file on a floppy disk, read a Betamax tape or a Philips CD-I... There is a danger of loosing our collective memory because we record it on highly perishable media. And the pace of change drives the cost of re-recording it again and again for national archives, who are often poorly funded.

I reckon that in 10 years time, it will be fashionable to handwrite letters again, just because it involves efforts and makes the recipient feel special. And your letter will be preserved for hundred years for posterity, unlike that "reply all" email.

BBC article

Funny Hansaplast condom ad

The world's most expensive external hard disk

As seen on Amazon.co.uk this morning. Usually I prefer typos to go the other way.

Are search engines responsible for the content of the websites they link to?

Brian Retkin, a UK businessman is suing Google over claims that the search engine directs people to 'deeply offensive and commercially damaging' material about his companies on the internet.

If the case is successful, any search engine accessible in the UK could be liable for defamation suits.

From VNUNET.com and Tech.blorge.com

Just one in five customers getting broadband service at speed advertised

From Thisislondon.co.uk.

Jason Lloyd, Head of Broadband at the survey commissioner: "I urge all people to check what deal they are on and then ask their broadband provider for a free upgrade".

I will follow that advice as my own broadband provider delivers me speed of up to 20Kbps at present...

Bob Thurman: Becoming Buddha -- on the Web

From Ted.com

Myspace v. Facebook? Social sites reveal class divide in America

Finally, something interesting to blog about: The BBC reports on a 6 months research project from Danah Boyd (I used some of her work for my own MBA research project and I value her insight). Her paper: Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and Myspace concludes that Facebook users come from wealthier backgrounds are are more likely to attend college - which makes sense since Facebook was initially restricted to those with a college/uni email address. Myspace users are more likely to be "non-hegemonic" teens. Now if we were to throw A Small World into the mix...

Hamster powered phone charger

From Ananova.

Le blog de Valéry Giscard d'Estaing gives me a French lesson in blogging

81 years old ex French president Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has opened a blog. It gave me the opportunity to learn how to translate blogging vocabulary into French. By using the following words on your blog, you too could add some French flair and sophistication to your daily "billets" (postings).

French blogueurs vocabulary:

• A blogger = un blogueur. Plural: blogueurs
• A blog post = un billet. Plural: billets
  
• A comment = un commentaire. Plural: commentaires
  
• A trackback link = un retrolien. retroliens
• RSS feed = fil des billets

Merci Monsieur le President.

G8 summit, Nicolas Sarkozy and treacherous vodka shots

French President Nicolas Sarkozy looking worst for wear (and late) at a press conference after a lengthy meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin.




Via Guy who saw it on The Register

iGoogle

Customise your Google homepage with dozens of widgets through iGoogle. I like the fact that I can access my Yahoo!, MSN Hotmail and Gmail accounts on one page. This type of personalisation has been around for a decade and most "portals" provide it but somehow iGoogle has the extra "cool" factor that will make me use it past its novelty factor.

Steve Jobs: Stanford's commencement speech

Very inspirational.

Online adspend up to more than £2bn in UK

UK advertising expenditure on the internet increased by almost 50% in 2006 to over £2bn, while most other media suffered a decrease in revenue. Via BrandRepublic.

Engadget send Apple's shareprice tumbling

Neville Hobson posts on how an incorrect memo about iPhone and Leopard's delays leaked from Apple employees and found its way to Engadget, causing Apple's shareprice to dip momentarily (yet dramatically). I don't have information as to whether Engadget's post was solely responsible for that, or whether the memo reached investors through other channels, but it's a startling reminder of disapearing boundaries between internal and external communication and of the influence of blogs on corporate matters.

Via an email from El Blogador.

Youtube water and whisky experiment highlights failings of science teaching in the West

How to transfer the content of the glass of water into the glass of whisky and vice-versa, without an additional glass?

What's even more entertaining is to read comments to that simple physics experiment: "it's magic!", "it's a fake!". This is a nice segway to this article that compares science curriculum for 14 years old students in the UK and China.

MIT Scratch

Scratch is a free programming tool developed by MIT that allows anyone to create their own animated stories, video games and interactive artworks.

Flickrvision

Flickrvision is a mashup between Google maps and Flickr. Watch pictures based on their origin in real time, as they are posted. Pretty cool.

Via El Blogador

New MBA online community

MBAmarket.com is a brand new online community for potential MBA students, current MBA students, and MBA alumni. Just been launched by a Kellogg alumni. He is looking for some users to help test and populate the site.

France has spoken...

... and has given Nicolas Sarkozy with over 53% of votes a mandate to reform France (click "Watch Sarkosy speech"). Congratulations Monsieur le President!

Most popular French blogs

According to Wikio. Politics and technology are most popular themes in the top ranks.

Half of social network users dismiss ads

Half of social network users dismiss advertising found on social networks, according to NMA and YouGov. 2/3rds have seen ads but 49% said they were ummemorable. Only 10% rate ads on social networks as trustworthy, 11% rate them as informative.

Useful stat: 36% of US web users consult Wikipedia regularly

From e-consultancy.

The best cooking shows are British

Tags: posh nosh, cooking, cuisine

1st round of French elections: encouraging yet worrying

Nicolas Sarkozy,: 30.5% v. Segolene Royal: 25.7%. Two diametrically opposed visions of the world will clash in the second round of the French presidential elections.

I am encouraged that Sarkozy won what is probably the highest score for a "RPR now UMP"* candidate in the first round for the last 20 years. I am concerned about what Bayrou's supporters will do next with their votes, given that they didn't really think that through in the first round. Many socialists voted Bayrou believing he would have a better chance to beat Sarkozy in the second round...

Royal, since she has no program that any decent economist would support is building an "all but Sarkozy" coalition. I watched the live BBC 24 coverage of the elections and apparently, French people now understand that they need to change if they want to survive in the 21st century. Royal is positioning herself as the agent of "gentle change" as opposed to Sarkozy's more "brutal" methods.

Mathematically, if Sarkozy does not win Bayrou's voters, he will lose to Royal. Now imagine France as a car whose handbrake has been released, sliding slowly downhill towards a cliff. Voting Royal is like pressing the accelerator with both feet.

* Let's compare UK and French political parties: the UMP, which is "right wing" in France would be at the left of "New Labour". That's how liberal we are. Royal's supporters would be speaking standing on a box in Hyde Park corner.

Tags: sarkozy, royal, french elections, elections francaises

French elections: an analysis for French expatriates.

George Walden thinks that France is a "vegetating catastrophe". I agree that the country is in worst shape that it seems, especially when seen from outside. But there could be a glimmer of hope if the France that is prevented from working prevails over the France that holds on to its “avantages acquis”. Will it ever happens? French politicians know what to do to alleviate France’s ills, they just don’t know how to get re-elected after doing it. I followed the campaign through soundbites gleaned on the French and foreign press online so that makes me more qualified than the average voter to give you my political analysis on what’s on offer this week-end:

• François Bayrou

Not sure I understand what his program is about. I know he likes horses and wants a government of consensus with the left and the right. Not a recipe for change to me. But French people love that: more of the same. Likely to be in the second round. Out.

• Olivier Besancenot

I knew many people like him when I was in high school. They spent their days sitting down in cafes, smoking cigarettes, wearing black turtle necks and talking about how great the communist revolution was. I guess most work for the French post office now. Out.

• Jean-Marie Le Pen

He has been consistent for a few decades: boot all immigrants outside France. 15% of French people are ready to vote for him. When I said the country was in worst shape than it seems… Out.

• José Bové

Made his political career out of smashing McDonald’s windows. Out.

• Marie-George Buffet

Mainstream communist party. Out.

• Arlette Laguiller

Famously said that CEOs of companies that made profits yet fired employees should be jailed. She is a “French Trotskyist communist politician”. There are not enough goulags in France for the program to work. Out.

• Frédéric Nihous

Never heard of him before. Hunting party (people who like to kill other forms of life for fun). Out.

• Gérard Schivardi

Another Trostkyist … Out.

• Viscount Philippe de Villiers

The French revolution abolished the monarchy 218 years ago. Out.

• Dominique Voynet

Green candidate. Don’t know what her program is. Out.

• Ségolène Royal

She definitely campaigns for change: Turning the clock back to 1970’s style of French socialism with a bloated state, massive handouts, more taxes and protection from the “evils of liberalism”. Wrong analysis of the problems and wrong solutions. Since she is one of the top three candidates likely to go into the second round, it is fair to say that her election would probably be the worst thing that could happen to France. At least Bayrou would sit on his hands for five years… Out.

• Nicolas Sarkozy

I have being contaminated by the evils of liberalism therefore only Sarkosy’s program seems to make some sense to me (and I stress “some”). Yet I don’t think France as a society is ready for it. Only 36 percent of French people think that “a free market economy” is the best system compared with 65 percent in Germany, 66 percent in Britain and 74 percent in China... Furthermore, Sarkosy may not be the liberal and change agent he proclaims to be and I doubt that he will be able to do much if elected without massive civil unrest. France has the candidates it deserves. Compare to the others, he is still the least worst so I would cast my vote for him.

Et voila, I did all the hard work for you so that you don’t have to think too much when voting this weekend. I’ll watch the results live with the French club at my school. I’ll comment on Monday.

Tags: sarkozy, royal, bayrou, france, lepen, voynet, de villiers, schivardi, nihous, laguiller, besancenot, french elections

MySpace takes on Google News and Digg

MySpace is going into the news business with a service that will scour the internet for news stories and let users vote on which ones receive the most exposure.

Via Times Online.

Tags: myspace, digg, google

Weblin: surf the web together with your avatars

With weblin you can create avatars that can interact with others who are browsing the same webpage than you at the same time. Surfing the web together and chatting live about websites make for a richer experience than usual web surfing. I could see brands creating weblin avatars to engage people surfing their websites or websites who sell their products. The flipside: If I was enraged about a particular company, I could organise a protest with dozens of avatars and picket their homepage... the possibilities are endless.

Simplycity: online community for those who value simple, soap

Simplycity is a "community for those who value simple" (simple is a toiletry brand).

By answering regular polls (such as helping choose future packaging or a model for a poster campaign), registered users become "advisers" and earn points to spend on discounted products in an exclusive online boutique. There is a blog too and comments are enabled, albeit vetted by an editor.

The press release talks about "web 2.0" but the site lacks tools for users to actually express themselves or connect with each other. This means that the site is falling short of being a true community and viral growth will be driven by the availability of discounts more than anything else.

Nonetheless, it's a good step forward for a FMCG brand in engaging with consumers in co-creation. Why not push it slightly further and ask consumers to suggest packaging ideas of their own too?

Thank you Gaylene for the tip.

Tags: simplycity, simple, web 2.0, marketing

Watching the French elections in London?

Do you know a good pub/place to watch the French elections live in London this Sunday? The Fulham Tup is fully booked and the TV at the French House is broken...

U.S. election campaign pros give French counterparts a lesson in spin

Cultural clash narrated by the International Herald Tribune. Our US spinmasters were shocked to hear of three communist candidates campaigning. They were very impressed by Sarkozy's website.

The thankfully stillborn bloggers' code of conduct

Following from Kathy Sierra's encounter with the "dark side" of the blogosphere, Tim O'Reilly (Web 2.0^TM) proposed a "blogger’s code of conduct" which is getting a lot of media attention and a lot of flak from bloggers. I don’t have time to go at length as to why I think this is daft or even a dangerous idea as I am struggling to finish my MBA thesis (I shouldn’t be blogging but I could not resist on that one). I am pointing you instead to two bloggers who best encapsulate what I would have written: Tristan Louis who does a great job at explaining how unworkable this proposal is and Jeff Jarvis who shows the flipside of it.

Tags: code of conduct

Immigration: The human cost

Immigration: The Human Cost

The Onion News Network has set the standard for globe-encompassing 24-hour television news since it was founded in December, 1892. The network boasts channels in 171 languages and can be viewed in 4.2 billion households in 811 countries.

The Times: MBA Podcasts

Ten of the world's leading business thinkers provide the latest in economics, management, finance, strategy and marketing as 30-minute podcasts. Times Online MBA Podcasts.

Tags: mba, podcast

Second Life Flooded

For a good cause: to highlight the potential devastating effect of climate change. Flood courtesy of Ogilvy for Adventure Ecology. They partnered with Anshe Chung who owns large amount of land and real estate on SL to make that possible. Brilliant idea. Via Giles Rhys Jones (see pictures on his blog).

Europeana: Google Books Competitor And Another Unimaginative Name For a European Project

Europeana: Only in French at the moment though one can search for books in other languages (including English). I haven't spent much time on it but I already struggled to get multiple filters at once in my search criteria. I can search for books in English or books written in the 2oth century but not for both at once... I assume that you can do it and that I am not fully awake yet on this Sunday morning to use the interface properly. So far Europeana has 12,000 public domain texts. Worth using as a complement to Google Books.

On my list of things that annoys me is why everything funded by the European Union as to have "Euro" something in the name? My take: it is the lowest common denominator that everyone can agree on so we will be stuck with dull names and creative decisions run by committees for the next 50 years.

Tags: europeana, google

Resident Advisor

I subscribe to the Resident Advisor podcast and cannot recommend it enough for all fans of electronic music. I missed "RA.033 Geddes" so if anyone there has it, please let me know where I can download it.

See Resident Advisor

NBC Universal and News Corp plan Youtube rival

NBC Universal and News Corp joined forces with Yahoo,AOL, MSN and of course News Corp's MySpace. Via Forbes. John Murrel sums it up quite nicely: It will be just like YouTube, only with less You.

Tags: Youtube

Breakout: new Japanese version (so it seems)

Does CSR impact consumers' purchasing habits?

Millward Brown talked to over 20,000 consumers in UK/US and found that only 4% of Brits/5% of Americans would boycott a product if they disagree with a company's ethic. This despite 87% of Brits/89% of Americans saying that firms should behave responsibly.

Via PR Week, UK edition.

Tags: csr

Hill & Knowlton commended at Revolution Awards

Our LG Chocolate bloggers relation campaign was commended in the technology/telecom category (the most crowded with 8 entries from the like of Nokia, Sony Ericsson, HP, Samsung...). See video on Revver. Category winner was the 118 118 campaign.

Tags: revolution awards

Revolution Awards tonight

I will be at the Revolution Awards tonight where Hill & Knowlton is nominated for the LG chocolate blog campaign. If you are there, please come and say "Hi!". Chances are that I will say"Hi" back.

Tags: revolution awards

Retailers get more traffic from social networks than search engines

Research company Hitwise found that TopShop, who created a Myspace profile for its Glasgow shop gets 4.63% of its visitors from Myspace, making the social network 3rd behind Google and MSN Hotmail in terms of traffic referrals. Fashion site ASOS has more visits from Myspace than Yahoo! Search and MSN UK search combined. Google is still leading the pack but social sites are increasingly taking on search engines. Obvious implication for marketers: re-evaluate your online spend to include social networks.

Via New Media Age, 15th of March 2007

Tags: myspace, topshop, hitwise, social networks

The Ad Generator

Mashup using Flickr picture.

Via ProgrammableWeb.

Viacom Sues YouTube For $1 Billion

Viacom's statement: "After a great deal of unproductive negotiation and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube continues in its unlawful business model,'' (...) Therefore, we must turn to the courts.''

Via Bloomberg.

Tags: Youtube

Virtual Worlds Review tracker

Virtual Worlds Review tracks 28 virtual worlds. Include some white papers too.

Thank you Heather.

Tags: Second Life, virtual worlds

Do you find online consumer reviews useful?

How much do you use online consumer reviews? Do you find them useful? Tell us all in a short survey, help a final year MBA student complete his report, do a good deed and win a $20 Amazon gift certificate. All for 10 minutes of your time only!

Click on the link or paste it in your browser:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=632133464397

Thank you

Sony to launch Second Life competitor

"Playstation Home", a 3D world will be free to all PS3 owners. Everyone will get a free flat (Habbo style), free clothes, a TV and stereo where you can stream programs. Plenty of opportunities for multi-players gaming too. I can't wait to see that and I can't wait to see Linden Labs' reaction too.

Via IT Wire.

Tags: Sony, Second Life

Future of television: Free Tube

"Welcome to FreeTube - a site that lets you watch TV online for free without the need for any special software, hardware or subscription service. We are a completely free alternative to cable television that lets you watch tv channels and tv shows online using just your browser".

Works well.

Tags: IPTV

A Second look @ Second Life

Second Life article. More articles on Ampersand.

A Second look @ Second Life

The Second Life tidal wave has finally crossed the Atlantic and is leaping on European shores. By in large, communication professionals are perplexed about whether they should surf the hype or not. But to their credit, they recognise a “PR opportunity” when they see one: over the last 6 months media coverage related to Second Life (SL) increased by nearly 150%[1] while SL blog mentions increased by 260%[2].

This begs the question: How long will the Second-Life media frenzy lasts? And if not for PR, what is the value of investing time and money with avatars when marketing budgets are under renewed pressure to deliver real dollar returns from real consumers?

While a reality check is overdue, I would argue that there is more than meets the eye in SL and there is genuine value to be extracted for brands that are willing to learn the dynamics of the ‘metaverse’ and play by its rules.

Second Life is a land of plenty, not of many
There are over 2.9 million registered users in SL[3] however most reports talk of about 300,000 active users and it is estimated that concurrent users are only around 20,000[4] (there are about twenty thousands users on average at the same time in SL). Marketers are interested in knowing their audience. Reliable estimates on SL demographics are hard to come by but it is thought that 25% to 45% of users come from outside the U.S, mostly from Canada, UK, Australia and Western Europe[5]. SL is developing fast outside North-America and local European enclaves such as a virtual Dublin or Parioli, a replica of a Roman street (the city, not the era…) are flourishing. The average SL user has a median age of 32 years old, with equal gender split[6].

Residents are marketing savvy and patriotic
Second Life residents have been busy shaping their “little” world since 2003 and it is only since last year than big corporations have discovered this vast untouched land, and decided to plant their flags on it. Some think that Second Life could turn into another ad funded Myspace. I won’t bet on that. The flood of announcements about companies being the first “fill in the blanks” in SL has triggered a growing backlash from residents against brands who are perceived to be invading their turf.[7] In addition, it is fair to say that the PR value of setting up a presence in SL follows the law of diminishing returns.

When corporations occupy virtual land, they often go unnoticed. The most popular places in SL are grassroots and resident -run (mostly in the casinos/nightclubs/ adult entertainment arena…). None of the corporate outposts is achieving decent traffic in comparison. According to New World Notes, the only corporate venue that gets decent traffic is Thomson who offers educational content, i.e. something of value[8]. A lesson to all?

The right rewards beckon companies with the right expectations
Despite the hype, SL is growing fast. And it is not alone: World of Warcraft passed 8 millions players in January[9] while the BBC is launching its own virtual world for children[10]. Consumers are moving away from watching TV commercials, magazines and online banners to places where they can be their own director and actor. If consumers are spending more time into virtual worlds it makes sense for their favourite brands to follow them in their virtual life. Toyota, Pontiac, American Apparel, Starwood Hotels are among those already established. Philips, ABN Amro and AOL have made announcement for 2007. Even the French socialist party has set-up an outpost in SL. Anecdotally; it is the only place where I saw avatars smoking…

To set expectations right, buying an island in SL or commissioning an avatar of your CEO will not terraform your brand into an epitome of coolness. The value is not in being present but in being active. Most companies in SL think about their presence from an advertising standpoint. That is a place for people to “experience the brand”. A visitor to such experiential venues (think agencies’ virtual offices or trendy company showrooms…) will quickly notice more often than less that these places are devoid of any life forms. SL is a platform for interaction and if there is no one to interact with, the fun of wandering up and down designer glass stairways quickly wane. Why stay or come back? Think about sustaining your investment: spend less in building a fancy shop and more in manning the shop floor!

Think co-creative marketing and immersive learning not clickable billboards
There are countless creative opportunities to promote your brand in SL, besides virtual billboards and showrooms. The only constraints are of the platform itself. Talking of which, it is worth mentioning that when more than 40 people/avatars are confined in one place, SL slows down considerably. When organising events it is therefore advised to prioritise quality over quantity as the inability to achieve the latter is seriously detrimental to the former. Technology blog Tech Crunch has another useful insight: holding SL only media announcements irritates time poor and technology challenged journalists[11] (who often writes about Second Life from their experience watching the corporate video on the website…)

SL residents like to create. Unless they are provided with tools to contribute to the “brand experience” there will treat your efforts the way you treat an ad poster: pretty to look at once, nothing more. Spending time with the SL natives and enrolling them to develop your SL footprint will increase the chance of successfully “blending in”. For example, you could launch a competition for SL residents to design your building or hire brand supporters to engage with visitors. If you stuck for ideas, just ask the natives. Could you sponsor local fashion designers or inviting a SL virtual car designer to your real design studio? How about limited digital versions of your products offered or sold underground to trendsetters to create some buzz? Or publishing a guide to the coolest venues?

The whole of SL is user generated, the very same trend driven by hard to reach Gen Y and Gen X consumers. What better place to gather first hand consumer insights or indulge in a bit of consumer ethnography? Your SL venue could be a perfect way to train your marketing staff across the world on social media, consumer trends and conduct workshops ; providing you with an opportunity to practice what you teach and to reduce your company’s carbon emissions.

By engaging with the virtual community and offering something of value, you will turn every interaction into a genuine understanding of what makes consumers want to create and converse. This is happening now, in virtual worlds, in Myspace or in Youtube. Stepping in Second Life is not about PR or showering avatars with ads. It provides an opportunity to understand the mindset of today’s connected consumers. This will turn your investment in Second Life into a real competitive advantage in First Life and deliver real dollar returns on your marketing investment.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] Factiva. Percentage increase comparisons between months of August 2006 and January 2007.
[2] Blogpulse. Keyword mentions “Second Life” over last 6 months as of 25th of January 2007.
[3] http://secondlife.com/ as of 25th of January 2007.
[4] http://gigagamez.com/2006/12/18/second-life-hype-vs-anti-hype-vs-anti-anti-hype/
http://many.corante.com/archives/2007/01/04/
real_second_life_numbers_thanks_to_david_kirkpatrick.php
[5] http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/
second_life_stats_expanded_early_2006/
http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/05/in_the_me tavers.html
[6] http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/conten t/oct2006/id20061030_869611.htm
[7] http://www.secondlifeherald.com/slh/2006/11/pr_flacks _banne.html
http://mutually- inclusive.typepad.com/weblog/2006/10/backlash_agains.html
[8] http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2006/10/why_mixed_reali.html
[9] http://www.blizzard.com/press/070111.shtml
[10] http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/6290585.stm
[11] http://www.techcrunch.com/2006/11/13/dell-to-make-announcement-in-second-life/

Tags: Second Life, marketing

A Second Look @ Second Life

I wrote an article on what marketers should realistically expect to achieve in Second Life for Ampersand, Hill & Knowlton's global newsletter. Would love to hear your views.

Tags: Second Life, Ampersand, hill & knowlton

Google challenging ITV to be UK’s top advertiser

ITV' estimated 2006 advertising revenues=£1.47 billion. Google’s UK advertising revenue =£825 million. Channel 4= £800 million.

Via The Times

Second Life finds a voice

Spatial audio through VOIP to be tested by Vivox next week with full roll-out end of March. I reckon that this will boost virtual commerce by making information exchange more natural (thanks to haggling).

Tags: second life

French elections fought in Second Life

The French socialist party has established an outpost in Second Life a few months ago where you can smoke "gitanes" and dream of a more equal virtual world where terraforming work is restricted to 35 hours a week only. Loic Le Meur, who has been campaigning on and offline for Nicolas Sarkozy has announced that he is opening an island for UMP supporters. Article in French - with pictures - on TF1 and Loic's blog.

Apparently, 12.73% of the SL population is French. Don't ask me how this figure was calculated...

Tags: second life, france, web 2.0

Milestone in 3D imagery: photo-realistic humans

See the picture of a virtual Korean actress on Gizmodo and the making of on the artist's site.

We teach the machines, Web 2.0 explained.

Love the video and the narrative. I will use it for a forthcoming workshop to explain web 2.0. to my PR colleagues.

Via Kevin Davis.
Tags: web 2.0

World statistics updated in real time

Worldometers: World Statistics updated in real time.

The Luke Johnson Phone Experiment

The coolest idea are usually the simplest. Luke Johnson invites you to call him on his mobile (he calls it a "cell phone" but he really means "mobile phone") to see how many people would call a stranger whose number they found on an Internet video. +1 602 435 3694

Tags: luke johnson

Fake blogging to be made illegal in UK, Europe

According to PR Week, print edition 9th of February 2007, "flogging" or fake blogging is likely to be made illegal when the EU's unfair commercial practices directive passes into UK law in december 2007. The directive prohibits "unfair commercial practices" such as "representing oneself as a consumer". This will of course applies to astroturfing in blogs but also in discussion groups or consumer rating websites.

Tags: astroturfing, flogs

The long tail of search

According to Read/Write Web, four search engines account for 99.99% of searches: Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and Ask.com. Charles S. Knight compiled the top 100 alternative search engines that makes up for the remaining 0.1%.

Yahoo! Pipes

Yahoo! Pipes lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. Good idea. Would be nice to have more options to layout or export your output.

Tags: yahoo pipes

Wikileaks: Anonymous wiki for government and corporate whistleblowers

Wikileaks is "an uncensorable version of Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. It combines the protection and anonymity of cutting-edge cryptographic technologies with the transparency and simplicity of a wiki interface." It i snot affiliated with Wikipedia, has already received 1.2 millin documents and will launch in February or March this year. More work for PR agencies...

Tags: wikileaks, PR

Wikipedia to launch Google search engine competitor?

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales talks about his vision for a user driven, open source search engine. The first beta will launch within a few months. EETimes.

Tags: wikipedia, google

What is better? A Mitchell or a Webb?

Anyone who uses the web for more than 6 months has become naturally trained to avoid online ads. My field of vision stops just below the banner line and ignores tedious leftish skyscrapers. Then came Apple’s latest campaign featuring Robert Webb and David Mitchell. I noticed the ads instantly and it worked a treat for me. It reminded me of what I didn’t like about other TV series and why Peep Show is definitely a superior entertainment product. I am now keener to buy the series’ DVDs.

Charlie Brooker of the Guardian reignited the PC v. Mac feud on his blog (look at the comments). You can see the ads there too.

Tags: apple, peep show

French join exodus for la vie en rosbif

Sunday Times article that perfectly summarises my feelings and the countless conversations I have with young French "refugees".

• Stifling bureaucracy,
• Stagnant labour market,
  
• Unwillingness of employers to give chances to young job applicants (...) because of attitudes often criticised as rigid,
• “In France if you read classics and history at university you can become a teacher, but not, say, a banker. Things are more flexible here (in London)",
• “People here can laugh at themselves, it’s part of good manners, but people take themselves a lot more seriously in France.”

Google to loose "Gmail" in Europe?

German entrepreneur Daniel Giersch trademarked "G-Mail" in 2001 for his company doing emails... After a court case and failed talk of a settlement, Giersch was awarded the right to use "G-mail". He plans to bring the matter to the European court to validate his claim across Europe. In the meantime, Google will have to use "Google mail". Article in French.

Wikipedia issues warning to PR agencies

About writing about clients they represent on Wikipedia (or paying others to do so). "If it persists they will be banned". Front page of PR week UK.

Tags: wikipedia, PR

Scoble Not Getting Attention

A most bizarre post from Robert Scoble about one of his stories on Intel not being linked by Engadget. Interesting insight into the mind of "A-List" bloggers. Seth Finkelstein's comment: "It must be very nice to be an A-lister. Then even your complaints about not getting enough attention get lots of attention."

The Truth In Ad Sales, MyTube, YouSpace

London Business School ranked 5th in the world...

... and 1st non US school by the Financial Times.

Tags: mba

Sweden to open embassy in Second Life

Via Neville Hobson courtesy of Guy. Will it be financed by Swedish taxpayers?

Tags: Second Life

Bebe cat begs

We "cat-sitted" over the new year for a friend and ended up with "Bebe", a very talkative cat. It travelled all the way from Hong-Kong with its owner, survived its quarantine in the UK and learnt a few tricks on the way to get its favourite tibbits. Couldn't resist posting it.

Judy, if Bebe becomes famous, let's say we settled for 25% of direct income and royalties...

Tags: fun

Fox subpoenas YouTube over Simpsons and 24

Beginning or the end?

From Reuters.

Tags: youtube

LinkedIn starts "Yahoo! Answers" like service

LinkedIn starts "Yahoo! Answers" like service.

Tags: linkedin, yahoo, answers

Rent a protester

Young, good-looking, and available for around 150 euros (£100), more than 300 would-be protesters are marketing themselves on a German rental website.

Via BBC

Boo Box: Is Pay-Per-Post getting increasingly popular?

My friend Guy forwarded me this post from What'snext on Boo Box , knowing that it will upset me. A "boo box" is a button you place on your blog in or next to your reviews. If your readers decide to buy the product you describe, you get a share of the sale. BL Ochman thinks it's "a cool idea, as long as bloggers behave ethically with this tool". I am going to bang my old drum here. As a blogger, I am suddenly incentivised to write positive reviews that sell so I can generate more income... Therefore as a review seeker, I am suddenly incentivised to look elsewhere for genuine unskewed reviews. Ethics v. economics.

Tags: pay-per-post, boo box

France's second largest TV channel partners with Google video

France 2 partners with Google video on a dedicated website to cover the 2007 French presidential election.

Mel Gibson's Apocalypto is a cinematographic triumph

I saw Apocalypto last Sunday with my wife. It is one of the best movies I have seen in ages (and I am a movie buff). Apocalypto is a phenomenon: it has a very simple story, it is a different setting to what you are used to, you really care for the characters (no A, B or C-lists actors here but real local casting), it has superb pictures and you are glued to your seat for 138 mins wondering what is going to happen next. This is story telling at its best. And Mel Gibson got a #1 in the US with a movie in Mayan… Amazing achievement. Mel Gibson is establishing himself as The Director to watch. We will watch it a second time this week-end. Go and see it, you won't be disapointed.

Tags: Apocalypto

Second Life Open Source

Liden Labs is releasing some of SL's code to the open source community. Via BBC. Very smart.

Tags: Second Life, open source

Can web 2.0 companies build competitive advantage?

Can they create it and sustain it? How?

That's what I am trying to find out in my management report (final year Executive MBA "thesis" at London Business School).

I would like to interview marketing or management executives from the likes of Bebo, Myspace, Facebook, Kaboodle, Linkedin, Match.com, Friendster or start-ups in the field (relying on attracting and maintaining a critical mass of members to succeed).

I am keen to get a better understanding of the industry; the strategies used by major players and identify the golden rules for success. Interviews will be highly confidential and all data will be presented in aggregated format.

Benefits for executives are:

• Instant feedback/ideas from social media / online PR expert (and MBA student).
• Receive a copy of strategic overview when report is compiled.
• Open up a contact with London Business School (useful for future recruitment, interns and so on...)
• Doing a good deed

I can provide further details and my research tutor's contacts and references. Any help is much appreciated.

Thank you!