...or so say a couple of lawyers who specialise in matters blogging. They've put together a list of top tips to keep bloggers within the law when it comes to writing blogs and pretty much writing anything online. The best tip being to avoid 'blog rage'. I concur. If I'm ever suffering blog rage, the way round it is to still write something but never ever ever publish it and never ever let anyone else see it!
Some very good commonsense advice there so worth a read if you ever comment or write anything online, and that's a lot of us these days.
Tuesday, May 08, 2007
Tuesday linkage
Mobile gaming and LBSHave you played The Journey II yet? It's a mobile game - designed for Symbian phones (so that'll be Nokia Series 60 phones then).
"The Journey II" interweaves your real environment with the setting of a thrilling detective story. To solve the mysterious case, you have to go outside and walk around, literally. This concept makes "The Journey II" the world's first location based mobile adventure game!"If you have tried it, do let me know how it worked. [Via Tom Hume]
Text to Win Sales Promotion
Coca Cola Company's new text to win a Wii campaign goes live on 14th May until the beginning of July 2007. Running on 182m cans and bottles of Fanta, Sprite and Dr Pepper, you have a chance to win 10 'ultimate Wii Games Rooms' which consists of a Nintendo Wii Console, Wii Sports game, Samsunb 26" LCD TV, a mini fridge and a case each of 330ml Fanta, Sprite and Dr Pepper. The campaign is heftily supported by above the line advertising and extensive PR as well as the Get Up and Play website. You enter by texting in the unique code on the underside of the ring pull or on the back of the bottle label.I wonder what the chances are of you actually winning anything bearing in mind the promotion is printed on 182m cans of drink...? I'll give it a go when it goes live and see what the interaction is like. Wouldn't mind winning one of those Wii Games Rooms myself!
Has the bluetooth permission marketing conundrum been solved?
TeriMobile claims to have sorted out the permission aspect of bluetooth marketing. They've offered me a trial of the service and I haven't had time to take them up on the offer yet, but if anyone else has, or has a comment about the service, please do let me know via email or by leaving a comment her on the blog.
Movers and shakers
Angel Gambino (ex MTV) and Laurence Pichot (ex Orange) have both joined Bebo recently - Angel will be driving their music strategy and Laurence will be looking after marketing and partnerships. And Hugh Griffiths (ex O2) joins Microsoft (seems to me to be the 'live' division which covers off MSN Messenger amongst other things). Seems with Microsoft's recent acquisition of mobile advertising firm ScreenTonic and Hugh's appointment, they are, at long last, taking mobile seriously.
The consequences of mobile phones in Star Wars
Or at least a good reminder to turn your phone off when at the cinema or theatre.
How to build a brand through Social Networks
Online social networks and social media are something I play around with routinely - as a way to keep up with friends but also to keep an eye on web 2.0 and digital trends that may or may not be relevant to what I do or what my clients do.
Case in point being this blog.. I started it as an experiment to see what the 'blogging' phenomenon was all about and the best way to work it out was to start a blog myself. And here I am 383 posts and more than 2 years later still blogging away so it turned into a bit more than an experiment. Some key benefits for me have been creating my own archive of thoughts, links and stories which goes one step further than Delicious, taking part in online conversations about things mobile with other bloggers around the world and in generating business as it's a very visible resume.
But what about b2c online social networks - the likes of facebook, myspace, bebo, librarything et al? We're still making up the business models as the future is unclear, although Moblog UK seems to be doing a pretty good job around the sponsorship model.
As with anything 'social', on or offline, people move around according to where their friends hang out - whether it's a website, a bar or a nightclub. So if you want to learn more about social media and what it means in the commercial world, I have 3 tips for you..
1. Read mashable - it's a great blog covering all aspects of online social networking and is a great read (you can even get the feeds via twitter)
2. Have a read of this particular post of 'how to build a brand through social networks' from the mashable guys
3. Join Lloyd's London Social Media club which meets every Thursday in Central London where you get to do and talk about social media. And no, you don't have to be a geek to attend. Just like you don't have to be a geek to have a page on facebook.
Case in point being this blog.. I started it as an experiment to see what the 'blogging' phenomenon was all about and the best way to work it out was to start a blog myself. And here I am 383 posts and more than 2 years later still blogging away so it turned into a bit more than an experiment. Some key benefits for me have been creating my own archive of thoughts, links and stories which goes one step further than Delicious, taking part in online conversations about things mobile with other bloggers around the world and in generating business as it's a very visible resume.
But what about b2c online social networks - the likes of facebook, myspace, bebo, librarything et al? We're still making up the business models as the future is unclear, although Moblog UK seems to be doing a pretty good job around the sponsorship model.
As with anything 'social', on or offline, people move around according to where their friends hang out - whether it's a website, a bar or a nightclub. So if you want to learn more about social media and what it means in the commercial world, I have 3 tips for you..
1. Read mashable - it's a great blog covering all aspects of online social networking and is a great read (you can even get the feeds via twitter)
2. Have a read of this particular post of 'how to build a brand through social networks' from the mashable guys
3. Join Lloyd's London Social Media club which meets every Thursday in Central London where you get to do and talk about social media. And no, you don't have to be a geek to attend. Just like you don't have to be a geek to have a page on facebook.
Mobile Marketing Principles - Permission
I was just reading about Mark Logan's thoughts on mobile marketing principles over at bemomobi. He breaks it down into 4 categories:
1. Embrace User Control
2. Get Personal
3. Optimise for Mobile
4. Provide Value
These are not dissimilar to my 'Key Success Factors' slide that I use in training and seminars. However, Mark has missed a critical point - getting personal isn't enough. What Mark has missed on his list is the fundamental "Permission". He talks about 'embracing user control' but this isn't quite the same thing so I'll elaborate as to what I mean...
You need permission before you do anything mobile. The assumption is generally that you need a list of mobile numbers to begin with but this isn't necessarily the case. Yes, a list can be useful, if it's opted in (that's the law) and has a close link between what customers signed up for and what you want to tell them (ideally being your own list as many, although not all, third party lists are dubious in their effectiveness). Permission is also when a customer texts back in response to having seen an advert on the TV, in print or heard it on the radio or seen something on a packet of crisps or can of drink. In texting in, the customer gives permission for you to reply back, thus starting the conversation.
Mobiles were designed for communication and so it's a two-way street. No longer can you send out one-way text messages - you must allow the customer to reply - not least so they can unsubscribe. (Lakeside, when are you going to do something about this? - I'm *still* getting SMS from you with no reply path). Not all customers will reply to you, but some will. Some will say thank you, some will have another question, some will just want to give you feedback (both negative and positive) and a fair few will tell you to s*d off (you can take that as an unsubscribe request). Indeed, in my ZagMe days, one chap texted in to tell us he'd dedicated a record to us on Capital FM - praise indeed.
So, don't do anything without permission (although on it's own, it's not enough) and keep the lines of communication open so that people can reply to you.
1. Embrace User Control
2. Get Personal
3. Optimise for Mobile
4. Provide Value
These are not dissimilar to my 'Key Success Factors' slide that I use in training and seminars. However, Mark has missed a critical point - getting personal isn't enough. What Mark has missed on his list is the fundamental "Permission". He talks about 'embracing user control' but this isn't quite the same thing so I'll elaborate as to what I mean...
You need permission before you do anything mobile. The assumption is generally that you need a list of mobile numbers to begin with but this isn't necessarily the case. Yes, a list can be useful, if it's opted in (that's the law) and has a close link between what customers signed up for and what you want to tell them (ideally being your own list as many, although not all, third party lists are dubious in their effectiveness). Permission is also when a customer texts back in response to having seen an advert on the TV, in print or heard it on the radio or seen something on a packet of crisps or can of drink. In texting in, the customer gives permission for you to reply back, thus starting the conversation.
Mobiles were designed for communication and so it's a two-way street. No longer can you send out one-way text messages - you must allow the customer to reply - not least so they can unsubscribe. (Lakeside, when are you going to do something about this? - I'm *still* getting SMS from you with no reply path). Not all customers will reply to you, but some will. Some will say thank you, some will have another question, some will just want to give you feedback (both negative and positive) and a fair few will tell you to s*d off (you can take that as an unsubscribe request). Indeed, in my ZagMe days, one chap texted in to tell us he'd dedicated a record to us on Capital FM - praise indeed.
So, don't do anything without permission (although on it's own, it's not enough) and keep the lines of communication open so that people can reply to you.
Monday, May 07, 2007
New installation from Txtual Healing
I really like what the Txtual Healing artists do and the latest project, DripTxt is no exception. They've taken a famous (Jesus Saves) graffiti artist's tag style and made it into a font. They they ask the public to text in their message to their system, it then formats it into the graffiti artist's style and projects on to a massive wall - the latest ones being in Brooklyn, New York. They've also created a video to show more about how it works which is worth a look too.Way back in 2003, I came up with a similar concept for a client who was putting on a Hip Hop event. No, honestly, I did! It was all about creating your own graffiti tag although we didn't plan to project on to buildings at the time. Maybe we'd have won the business if that's what we had proposed...
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