Thinkful

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Download free books with Google Books

Google launched Google Books. Full download is restricted to public domain books (copyright free or expired). It is similar to Project Gutenberg which has 19,000 free ebooks for download. Google's value is that you can search any books like you search websites.

Search Engine Watch does a great review of the service.

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

Myspace users balk at phony profiles, advertising

There seems to be growing complaints about Myspace getting "too commercialised". We are talking here about fake profiles "in which brands can create their own pages and have their own friends list". It reminds me of Mazda or Captain Morgan.

Rachel Honig, from Digital Power & Light comments: "(...) at some point the fictional character isn't going to be able to interact with you anymore, and the novelty will wear off (...) As a marketer, it's all about creating a long and meaningful relationship with the consumer, and if you leave them feeling sort of cheated, as it were, that's not helping."

The Online Media Daily points to a Universal McCann survey that found that only 10% of users said corporate messaging in blogs "can add value to my experience."

How web 2.0. aware are you?

My colleague Guy sent me this "web 2.0 Awareness test".

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Advertisers wary of advertising on social networks

New Media Age (Print edition – 24.08.06) carries a short article on how major advertisers are wary of putting ads in social network sites. The main concerns are that brands could be seen in an "inappropriate context" and could be “destroyed by teenagers”. Control, control and old models...

I like Jeremy Verba’s quote: “Brand marketers will go where the audience is (…) when MTV and cable TV launched, advertisers didn’t want to be there.”

Tuesday, August 08, 2006

Google Myspace deal

Google will provide search and ads to MySpace. Peter Chernin, president and COO of News Corp: "The real potential for a home run is combining Google technology with our demographic information".

Article on Marketing Vox

Thursday, August 03, 2006

Agency.com's extra cheesy pitch video to Subway goes viral

I came across this story through Steve’s bellicose posting. I started to write a contrarian post to defend Agency.com’s much mocked-after video pitch to Subway, diligently posted on Youtube for the world and its viruses to enjoy. However, after reading comments on AdFreak, Adrants and on Youtube, I changed my mind. There is ground for reputational damages.

I thought that the clip’s cheesiness was a cultural trait but to my relief, most bloggers across the pond found it heavy to digest too. Yet, I do like the idea of doing a pitch video of a team doing a pitch video and I can see while a client would like to work with such motivated, jargon-savvy and enthusiastic team. There is nothing remotely interesting happening throughout this 9 minutes movie. It’s like watching “The Office” without the irony. Yet it was viewed 20,720 times since it was posted 2 days ago (that’s a big number). It attracted 170 comments (that’s big too, even if we minus the agency’s staff). It certainly didn’t let its viewers indifferent... and that is the snag: this viral effect was fuelled by derision.

This will impact Agency.com’s credibility and could drag Subway’s down too, by association. A perfect example: Coudal, a Chicago based integrated agency made a spoof video where they take the piss of Agency.com’s movie while spitting out Subway’s sandwiches. I could see that easily snowballing into an Agency.com & Subway spoof video parody frenzy. Both brands will not escape unscathed. I hope that Agency.com gets the business to bring a happy ending to this.

Friday, July 28, 2006

The Long Tail explained in video

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The London Blogging School

London Business School launched its own blog. It is designed for MBA applicants who want to know more about life as part of the London Business School community. The site is managed by the MBA Admissions Team with content provided by students and alumni.

Very proud!

Via Divine Miss N

Advertisers' opportunities in video-games

Following from my previous post on in-games advertising, I found this video from bruceprokopets showcasing different ad formats for video-games. Nice work and there is a CNBC report thrown in too.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

Youniversal Branding: in-games advertising and online communities

A superb and comprehensive report from trendwatching on opportunities available for brand in games and virtual worlds. There are several case studies mentioned but I will just highlight some numbers here:

More than 100 million people worldwide log on every month to play interactive computer games (source: NYT, December 2005).
Gaming is, for gamers, the third-most-popular use of media entertainment in the last week, after watching TV (96%) and listening to music (94%) (source: Mediaedge:cia, December 2005).
In 2005, advertisers spent approximately $56M placing ads in video games, up from $34 in 2004.
In-game advertising results in a 60 percent increase in awareness for a new product and animated 3-D ads achieve twice the recall of static billboards (Nielsen Interactive Entertainment)

It's me and me again!

I rarely comment on my public speaking engagements or publishing mentions but I decided to be more upfront. So with a total lack of subtlety, I am pointing out to two recent contributions: an article on blogs in Corp Comms magazine and a merit award for Atticus, WPP's thought-leadership magazine for the piece I submitted to Global PR Blog Week 2.0. last year. Apparently it will be published in the next issue.

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

It has been a long time...

Since my last post. I have been incredibly busy with work, travel (for work) and studies, finishing my third term core courses exams. Two words: corporate finance... I am starting my electives with our summer school, and it does feel like summer. Nothing to do with workload as we have courses throughout the day, and often assignments to hand out for the next day, but because we are enjoying the heatwave that is striking the UK. I am very much looking forward to my first weekend without any homework sine the beginning of this year and will be back blogging next week.

Monday, July 03, 2006

Hitler Cats

Only on the web, a blog dedicated to cats that look like Hitler....

Sunday, July 02, 2006

It's France v. Portugal in the semi final!

And they did it without stamping on any Brazilian! The sky is the limit now... I see a France v. Germany final, which doesn't bode well for us as we always struggled against the Germans (no pun intended here).

Chinese blog more popular than Boing Boing

The directory of wonderful things lost its crown as most popular blog to an online diary by Xu Jing Lei.

Friday, June 30, 2006

5 reasons why social networks fail, succeed

Tristan Louis gives us 5 reasons why social networks fail and 5 reasons why social networks can succeed.

I would add that social networks can fail or succeed depending on whether they attract the right type of crowd at the first place, then balance members quality and quantity. Example: if you and your friends joined a social network, only to find out that the coolest kids in your class are on another one, will you switch? Most likely because cool people will attract more cool people. This networking effect is behind the success of Linkedin, who has many members at VP level and above. So if I were to look for a job, would I go to the place where VPs hang out or just any social network as long as it has loads of functionality?

Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Geoportail: exclusive picture

I managed to get as far as the homepage. One day I hope to click on these promising maps of exotic places such as St-Martin, Wallis and Futuna or even "la France continentale".

Monday, June 26, 2006

Geoportail offers closer look on France (when working).

The French government launched a rival to Google Earth in France with more detailed maps and photographies of the French territory. The service, a joint project by the National Geographic Institute and the Office of Geological and Mineral Research is called Geoportail and it went down a few hours after launch due to an"unforeseen number of visitors". I wanted to use this post to question the role of public funds v. private sector for such initiatives or highlight the lack of an English translation on the temporary error message but I am in a bad mood and rather keep my praises for the actual service, when it will work.

Geoportail offers closer look on France (when working).

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

Cannes Lions Advertising Festival Slams Google on Failure to Build Brands

From Publishing 2.0. quoting an article from the FT where the Chief Executive of Mediavest USA admonishes Google for not putting enough branding in its search results. Google and Yahoo! push back and argue that traditional agencies and clients need a bit more "self education".

I understand Mediavest's concerns: they are not making a lot of money when their clients spend their media budgets on Google AdWords v. TV or online ads. And yes, most advertisers are still in the dark as to how AdWords work.

Yet, to advertisers 1.0's credits, their brand (and clickthroughs to their sites) would certainly benefit from having pictures or videos displayed in search results. Google AdSense already does that with click-to-play video ads. When searching for designer perfume, to use Publishing 2.0. 's example, I could tolerate some visual ads in the sponsored results. This is the thin line between providing me with relevant information and enticing me to click and as long as these two do not contradict each other, why not? Note of caution: I would recommend Google to test whether its users would accept seeing Google’s purist white layout turned into a billboard before wide-scale rollout…In the meantime, advertisers will have to relearn writing compelling copy.