Yikes the knives are out and Signor MySpace had better watch out for the stiletto of spam at it’s throat.
Via Read/Write and Techcrunch we learn that MySpace is set to launch a 3rd party developer platform. Given their track record of blocking widgets on personal pages we can all sleep soundly knowing Facebook will live to see another day. ‘Bring on the virtual poop.’ goes the battle cryfrom the turrets of Castle Zukerberg.
Marshall Kirkpatrick at Read/Write makes some very good points, notably that Facebook has not garnered such rapid user numbers just by opening up it’s platform.
‘I have said before and I’ll say again that the rise of Facebook has been in spite of the opening of the Facebook platform, if anything. It’s a result of the maturing demographics of social networking services, a backlash against the wretched user experience of the poorly designed and spam ridden MySpace and the power of syndication represented by the Facebook wall.’Read the rest of this entry »
Vainly trawling Google for any further viral leakage on ‘appvertising’ I stumbled across this report from the Graphing Social Patterns Conference in San Jose which is currently taking place:
Seth Goldstein (inventor of Food Fight on Facebook):
‘Advertising = Appvertising.
Facebook could provide the promise of personalized advertising because advert is tied to social data.
Facebook will provide new models of advertising that weren’t possible until now.
You can ask questions across applications that can reach hundreds of thousands of people.
Need to build advertising specifically for social networks.
I was shocked how Facebook users provided information about themselves.
In our Food Fight application people earn virtual money by answering questions and then they can pay for food to throw. We found many would pay 20 times more for throwing “poop.”
Can you make a business from throwing “poop?” People want to do things they can’t do in real life. I don’t do it and I don’t think it is sustainable. But the engagement levels are out of control.’
Dove’s first viral in the series, Evolution, won a Grand Prix at this year’s Cannes Lion Festival. Now they’re back with Onslaught and as a father with a young daughter this hits you like a well moisturized stream train.
‘Michel Gondry’s imaginative new film for Motorola attempts to incorporate the functions of the RAZR2 into the fantasy world he has created. Gondry mentioned that this was a particularly difficult shoot, because all of the scene transformations were done mechanically and in-camera (which is not unusual for him, however he pointed out that he doesn’t think he has done it before at this level).’
The Fallon/Sony partnership has so far produced coloured balls and explosive tower blocks. Their latest collaboration features stop-frame animated coloured bunnies hopping around New York whilst Mick Jagger & Co croon about ‘rainbows’. It’s Morph on acid, Play-Doh porn, genius.
‘With most agencies still getting to grips with the multimedia world, Fallon’s argument is that you just have to be very entertaining and the medium may do the rest for you.’ (MediaGuardian 1/10/07)
It’s not what the client wants to hear, but Fallon’s success is testament to the new rules of marketing, it’s no longer about what the brand can tell you, it’s about what they can do for you, simply put, ‘entertain’.
Last day at FOWA and Eric Rodenbeck of Stamen gave an understated and blistering demo of their data visualization work for Trulia. He was kind enough to explain his trilby wearing, adamant that he started wearing one before Ryan Carson, further confirming my suspicions that this hat stuff is some signifier of a secret pixel mixing coven.
Eric wants to see ‘data visualization as a medium’ , like painting or sculpture. I’m already looking for a trilby on ebay (I have a big head, not deformed, just bigger than average) . Data visualization is an art form if done to the Stamen standard, and work we are inspired by at Fat Man.
Lunchtime, back on the beans. Halo 3 being played simultaneously on 4 consoles next to your sponsored bean bag is a little distracting and the pot of pens I stole from this morning has been replaced by a bamboo pipe… weird.
Felix Petersen (Plazes) and Jyri Engestrom (Jaiku) talked about The Future of Presence, microblogging, not liking the term microblogging and streams full of location based info rather than guppies. Jyri talked about our friendship networks surpassing the importance of Google search in our lives. We have become addicted to our friend’s lifestreams, the way we check Facebook to keep a track of what our friends are doing. Read the rest of this entry »
Paul Graham the jovial soul behind Y Combinator just said, ‘If Chuck Norris can wear pink, any man can’. Everything you could ever want or need in a religion/cult/club/masonic lodge 2.0 is encapsulated in that sweet sweet pop philosophy.
As religion has yet to under-go the Web 2.0 treatment, I think there is a great opportunity here, the Cult of Chuck already has a healthy following online and in customized apparel. Could a new world order also be on the cards? Read the rest of this entry »
I’m sat on a beanbag sponsored by Microsoft Visual Studio watching a hoodie breaking his thumbs on one of the on site XBOX 360’s. It doesn’t get much more futuristic web app expo than that.
Ted Rheingold just gave a suitably ‘cool’ talk about the business of Dogster and Catster. As an aside I have just noticed that all the flaxen haired ladies are students which bodes well for the Future of Web App Conferences, which is a conference I intend to stage on Christmas Day in The Maldives, because as my Mother always says, ‘you can never have enough fish’.
Despite Ted’s baffling cap sporting a design as if he had been run over by a bike that had just cycled through white paint he gave some good insights into subscription models, basically, ‘don’t bank on it, but make it feel exclusive so people join the club to feel a part of something in the same way you buy a Gucci bag’. I’ll tell my wife that, she likes bags. Read the rest of this entry »
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Yikes the knives are out and Signor MySpace had better watch out for the stiletto of spam at it’s throat.
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