>
BJ Fogg on Simplicity from BJ Fogg on Vimeo.

Posted in Apple, Interview, iPhone, Social media | No Comments »

>

Posted in Facebook, Motion graphic, Social media, Trailer | No Comments »

>

Hi All,

for all the Dutch people that are interested in Digital Interactive Branding and Games as a Marketing tool in particular:

Come visit my presentation at Marcom 2010 upcoming Thursday at 16.00 hours. I will reveal a few insights of my book, which is about to be released, and present the best game-cases that I’ve seen the past year.

If you can’t come – no worries. I will also present during the Marketing Online Summerschool on August 25th at the beach in Bloemendaal. This program is more extensive and I will have 2,5 hours instead of 25 minutes at Marcom. This workshop offers much more of course.

Hope to sea (see) you there!

Posted in Events, Presentation, Social media | No Comments »

>
Impressive how many people play these so-called social games…

Great marketing opportunities and learnings!

Posted in Facebook, Research, Social media | No Comments »

>
More people playing FarmVille than there are Twitter accounts!?

“The iPhone is a Swiss army knife. Converged technology only works in pocket size… that’s why the i-Pad sucks!” According to Schell…

And what about the new Ford that contains a minigame. The less gas you use, the bigger the virtual tree on your display grows… Games are everywhere! – Video down below.

Posted in Apple, Facebook, inspiration, Social media, talks | 1 Comment »

>From our buddy Matthew Jeffery at Electronic Arts some data:

The explosive growth of Social Media

Take a look at www.insideea.com and the story ‘The explosive growth of social media…..statistics that shock’!.

FACEBOOK

– Second largest website on the web
– 400 million active global users
– 50% of active users log into the site each day. This equates to at least 175m users every 24 hours.
– More than 35m Facebook users update their status each day.

YOUTUBE

– Third largest Site on the Internet
– Largest video site on the web
– 1 billion views per day (that’s 11,574 per second, 694,444 per minute, or 41,666,667 per hours)
– 10 billion videos uploaded per month
– More than 200 million minutes of video (or 34, 560 hours), is now uploaded onto YouTube per day

LINKEDIN

– LinkedIn has over 64 million members worldwide.

TWITTER

– Twitter now has 75m user accounts, but only around 15m are active users on a regular basis. It’s still a fair increase from the estimated 6-10m global users from a few months ago.
– Towards the end of last year, the average number of tweets per day was over 27.3 million.
– The average number of tweets per hour was around 1.3 million.

Posted in Facebook, Social media | No Comments »

>

Source: Lightspeed research UK

London, (March 19th 2010) – The rising popularity of games played on social networking sites is well documented, but findings from the Global Web Index www.globalwebindex.net, a collaboration between online market research provider Lightspeed Research and Trendstream, have identified the most addicted players. The stereotype of ‘geeky’ teenage boys obsessed with computer games certainly doesn’t fit social gaming which appeals to people with large families, women and divorcees- all embracing the new ‘geek chic’. By engaging with a more diverse and larger audience, social gaming is revolutionising the gaming market and having a big impact on the types of games produced. This new way of playing games promises to deliver mass market appeal, as well as fresh opportunities for brands to engage with consumers.

Women take the lead

The large majority of UK respondents (54%) claim that playing games is one of the main reasons they use the internet. Online games are competing head-on with PC games: 28% of users play online games and 24% of respondents play short/casual games on a social network.

The survey shows that at 27%, women are more likely to play online games and social games than their male counterparts (22%). Tom Smith, Managing Director of Trendstream who led the research says “Women are particularly attracted to short, casual games involving an active community like Farmville, Cafe Wars or Pet Society. Women also spend more time on social networks in general. Social games are accessible, free and they don’t take up much time. Plus they are distributed through the network, which is a key factor driving their take up.”

Posted in consumer, game, Research, Social media | No Comments »

>

Copied largely from http://www.gamasutra.com

Social game developer Zynga announced that its prepaid game cards for titles like FarmVille and Mafia Wars are now available at several major U.S. retailers, including 7-Eleven, Inc., Best Buy, GameStop and Target.

The $10 and $25 cards, which offer an alternative way of buying in-game goods (e.g. virtual furniture, power-ups) to consumers who don’t have access to credit cards or bank accounts, will work with Zynga’s free-to-play titles on Facebook, as well as on standalone sites such as FarmVille.com, MafiaWars.com and YoVille.com.

Zynga’s titles attract over 235 million monthly active users and 67 million daily users. FarmVille alone, which is easily the most popular application on Facebook, has more than 82 million monthly active users on the social network. The company’s other well-known games include Cafe World, Texas HoldEm Poker, Fishville, and dozens of others.

The purpose of a game like FarmVille is to seed and harvest crops to make money to buy other gamecontent like a nice farm or lifestock. You can also invite vriends to become your neighbours and fertilize each others crops. Instead of having to wait weeks and weeks and harvest loads of crops you can also choose to buy extra content using Paypall, a credit card or… PRE PAID CARDS sold in retail (US Only for now).

“Social gaming is going mainstream and consumers around the world are connecting with people through games like FarmVille and Mafia Wars,” says Zynga’s senior vice president Vish Makhijani. “By partnering with 7-Eleven, Best Buy, GameStop and Target, our games can be accessed by a broader audience of new and existing players.”

Posted in Facebook, micro transactions, Social media | No Comments »

>The latest insights on Digital Interactive Branding using the CoCha model as a tool to develop an interactive branding strategy within the renewed media landscape.

Posted in consumer, inspiration, Presentation, Social media, Trends | No Comments »

>

The past three days I kind of hosted a three day masterclass about Social Media. Although I think most of the content on the internet is in some way social (diaologue = interactive), it gave great insights to the options we have these days for Digital Interactive Branding.
Speakers were Ralph Beuker (Design Management), John Meulemans (Some like it social), Yme Bosma (Hyves), Ingmar de Lange (Hyves), Rene Jansen (Winkwaves), Pieter Waller (Bacardi), Jeroen de Bakker (2010 Amsterdam), Paul Blok internet Guru and myself as host and kick-off speaker.

Things that stayed top of mind most are the following conclusions.

Although the largest communities (another word for social media) may vary per country. The largest worldwide are Facebook, Youtube and LinkedIn. Twitter is upcoming champion. The largest community in The Netherlands is Hyves. An overview per country can be found here

Most cases, where social media was used as a branding tool, were about Hyves, Youtube, Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook. I guess the biggest networks rule.
Good targeting is key by the way, so in most cases specific consumers or communities within the social networks were targeted. For Bacardi the target group was always older than 18 for Dutch campaigns. They presented an impressive case, promoting cocktails in general and Mochito specifically through the Hyves network in 2008. The latest example of innovative use of social media was Martine & Youtube. If you’re over eighteen, you can see it below.

Other cases (branded utilities / widgets / apps) came from Amstel (Teamlink) and Wieckse Witte (zonneradar), which I also describe in my book.

The three days were divided in three categories: short, middle-long and long-term. It was interesting to see that according to some speakers, using social media didn’t need a strategy, you just need to do it. Others said it was good to define your objective, get a clear vision of your target consumer/community and think about your relevance within the community to add value in order to start and build a relationship.
I always compare acting within social media as going to a birthday party where you don’t know anyone. If you behave too remarkable you might be ignored, if you are coming on too strong, you will scare people away. There should be a good balance between giving attention and asking for it.
The whole social media model is based on PULL instead of PUSH anyway. By being remarkable (a good product, a funny campaign or a great game) people will notice you and start talking about you. Brands can become friends!

The most important thing that the crowd (‘students’) where looking for was a model or structure how to place things in the right context and helping them to make the right choices.

Therefore I kicked-off with my CoCha model which is based on the belief that internet is not a medium itself (it’s more a multi-medium since you can watch TV and listen to the radio on it, etc. etc.), but merely a connector of all digital data (content).

The mode is stated below. A presentation and explanation of the model can be found on www.brandnewgame.nl or anywhere else on the web, just search for Cocha-Model or BrandNewGame.

Apart from my own model, two speakers referred to Forrister‘s POST model, which comes down to the same in a way. The POST model stands for:

• People (consumer / crowd / community in a certain context)
• Objective (what goal do you have in mind) – This is the starting point for all our actions I believe.
• Strategy (how will you accomplish your goals – in other words: what content will you create and which channels will you use to achieve your goals)
• Technology (choose your engine / platform / device)

General goals that were heard and are ‘critical for branding’ are:

1. Be REMARKABLE – otherwise you will not be noticed and will not be considered different from any competition
2. Be RELEVANT – add value to the consumer’s life, the crowd or community you are visiting. Respecting the set of rules (culture) within that circle of play.
3. Build a RELATIONSHIP – to ensure long lasting commercial potential. A focus on quick wins will not get you loyal customers. According to Forrester there are three ways to achieve your goals:

Through Paid media, Earned media and Owned media (Brand Broadcasting). The first two forms will generate short term effect with short lasting results. The latter can have long lasting effect on emotions if you succeed to be remarkable and relevant!

For more information about what Digital Interactive Branding can do for you, visit BrandNewGame and check the News & Information section.

target=”_blank”

Posted in Events, Presentation, Social media | No Comments »