Mobile, Mobile, Mobile.

This is quite a simple video but it makes a point. Mobile is growing.


Shocking I know, because as you yawn, you knew that too.
RTE have said that Irish mobile penetration is 100%. No mean feat.
But you knew that too because you have one and so does everyone you know.


Mobile Adspend predictions for the US in 2012? 2.6 billion usd. Which means it's stealing big money from advertisers.


And why? Because it's targeted and engaging.


Mobile App development too is exploding (500,000 Apps on the Apple Store alone right now) and they drive usage. 


Notably like Flipboard which I raved about yesterday on this blog http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/04/flipboard-what-every-press-publisher.html

Or Highlight http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/highlight-and-how-ill-know-all-about.html. Location based mobiling will become bigger than ever.

And we all know the story of Draw Something, launched in February and just sold for 200m usd to Zynga last month http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/instagram-apps-and-100000-dollars-in.html

That blog also mentions Instagram and what that does to make photographs beautiful so you can use them on the amazing, Pinterest. A mobile App that's helping to drive Social Media. http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/pinterest-pinteresting.html

(If you haven't been on Pinterest yet, don't waste another day. It's truly incredible - try pinterest.com/streamabout)

Researchers 'Forrester' reckons that the App market alone, will be circa 38 billion usd in 2015.

Equally the huge level of increased sales of Smartphones (who doesn't yet have one) allows the transmission of video, live streaming and all rich media.


In fact the mobile will become the closest personal feature you'll have. 


Don't take my word for it - Here's the man of the moment, Pete Cashmore of Mashable at SXSW. Just sold to CNN for 200m usd http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/youtube-mashable-death-of-tv-and-henry.html
and co-incidentally just before a time in his life when his voice was changing from Scottish Aberdeen to downtown LA. 

With increased product design (bigger screens), it will be the place where you will engage with all content and Social Media. Tablets will grow too of course, but mobile offers greater flexibility and closeness to consumers.


Brands need to get more engaged on mobile media platforms and think about it differently rather than an old-fashioned device delivering SMS text messaging. 


It's rich media allowing you to create programming (perhaps a show broadcast daily on mobiles only), live streaming of events as they happen and great looking applications that consumers will want to keep and use. 


Imagine that. Your brand on a mobile phone..... for life. As Coke have done, Nike have done with their Apps and lots of others, but few Irish brands.


Engagement? Of the very best kind.


Mobile has a real future but in lots of ways it's here already.


Time to start thinking differently.
If we applied ourselves with as much vigour to this media as we do in the traditional space, we will reap better benefits.


Mobile is one great space.
Don't miss it.

Flipboard. What every Press Publisher was looking for.

Just when you thought it was safe to go into the water, along comes Flipboard......

It's an Iphone/Ipad App that connects your content with your social media with their content with everything. And you read it like a magazine. Beautifully.


In fact it is just that, a Social magazine.


It is exactly the web application that press publishers have been looking for and should have thought of. Stunningly.


This will re-invent newspapers and magazines, backed by real leading internet venturists including CEO Mike McCue. I haven't been blown away by something like this since playboy.com. Amazingly.


Perhaps it's biggest compliment is Google's Propeller which is coming in similar form.


But this will change Print. Totally.


Go out. 
Download it. 
It's free.
Tell your friends.
Put it on your phone.
Use it on your Ipad.
Now. 
Blog over.

Advertising Restrictions. You're Fired!

Last week, yep, just in the teeth of the worst recession on record, The Broadcasting Authority of Ireland (which used to be The IRTC), announced another code restricting advertising.


Any restriction on advertising of course, means less money in the hands of media owners who are struggling enough as it stands. Of course too, it seems unfair to me anyway, to grant licences to media owners on one day and then later, reduce the commercial attractiveness of those licences with the other hand through further restrictions of advertising. 


In particular they are now restricting products High in Fat, Salt or Sugar ('HFSS' as they refer to them) in many different ways but notably, by reducing the availability of media airtime given to these products in a day. They'll restrict the right to advertise them - meaning less Ads for breakfast cereals, confectionery, fast foods and so on. Some which are the main advertisers on some radio stations. So it's a big move.


Of course it's still draft, but you get the drift. Confectionery causes obesity, caused by advertising. Ban advertising and you'll cure all from obesity to early hair loss. Mad isn't it? Ban alcohol advertising and you'll cure binge drinking and alcoholism. Really? Ban tobacco advertising and you'll cure smoking. Huh?


More concerning however, is Government interference in broadcasting media through the licensing regime administered via The BAI. In other words, if you want to broadcast in this state you must have a licence to do so. Kind of like China.


You apply for the licence to broadcast and if it's reviewed favourably you're in business, if not, you're not and worse still, it can be withdrawn.


Now I should not need a licence to broadcast.


For example, if I want to start my own radio station and play wall-to-wall Lady Gaga songs, 247 and I've a Bank Manager who is foolish enough to support me in that, then I should just be allowed to do so. 


And yes of course, provided I do so within the law in general (in other words, not start broadcasting racist views for example). But I should not need a special licence. 


The State in issuing a licence, which they can withdraw, is insidiously excercising control over the broadcaster.


And does it?


I have had many conversations with senior owners of broadcasting licences who admit, that through their broadcasting, that they will not treat the Government unfairly, because of their fear of licence withdrawal. 


Sure, they may not actively generate or influence pro-governmenent news, but they are certainly wary of broadcasting unkind coverage. Broadcasters admit that privately, they may not admit it publicly - because it's dynamite.


Think about it too yourself. In the same position where your business wholly depends on "not rocking the boat" with the Government, would you? Not on your nelly.


However as the web grows and more streaming goes on from far away places outside of the jurisdictional control of The BAI, and without the insidious control of The BAI, they'll have a problem on their hands. Freedom. A problem about people being able to broadcast freely, which they can't touch. They can't regulate the web.


Another reason why broadcasting streaming is taking off. And therefore, advertising regulation is going to be a waste of time because it can't be policed locally.


Potential online broadcasters take note.
It's a new media away from the constraints of State interference and influence.
Opportunity or threat? 

You'll find more about the BAI here  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadcasting_Authority_of_Ireland

It's taken 100 years to get here.

One of the great difficulties with advertising is knowing whether it works, or not. An age old problem.


Of course Advertising sells....in the main (!) and it builds brands, but we just don't know why exactly and by how much. The ridiculous adage of "50% of my advertising doesn't work" now can be binned to history.


Sometimes you produce work that's good and it works, but at a lower level for some reason. You're really really proud of it, but it just doesn't spark. And sometimes you produce mediocre work which explodes. How many awards festivals have I been at to, where the great work fails and the stuff you thought was "okay", wins. A lot.


I remember the classic 1980 Arks Advertising campaign for 'Harp' beer by Frank Sheerin. "Sally O'Brien and the way she might look at you" as a case in point. Fairly innocuous stuff at the time, at least on paper and I'm sure that Frank would agree with that, but once broadcast, it exploded.


Huge success, huge brand impact, huge Harp drinkers for what was well, ordinary creativework - but cleary it wasn't ordinary to the consumer.


Why?


Advertising is an art not a science. Get over it.


All we, as advertising creators, can say, is that we learn from experience what tends to work and what doesn't. 


Yes sure, we can measure it to a point through "pre" and "post" research awareness testing, both prompted and unprompted, by I'm not a fan of that at all. Worse still, the craze for research pre "concept testing" which is supposed to "fine tune" creative work, to make it 'better'. Yep, a futile attempt to make advertising a science.Largely of course, produced by researchers who've never worked in advertising agencies. 


In fact, no creative person, worth their salt, should agree to let a pre-research group of men + women on the archetypal "Clapham Omnibus" tell you if your Ads are good or not. Either you're on it or you're not and no research should be allowed to change that. Have the confidence. Either you can do Ads or you can't.


Equally too, concepts that are "safe", work well in concept testing because they're more easily understood. I've no doubt campaigns that are ground breaking do badly, for exactly the same reason. They're hard to understand in research.


Do you think classic campaigns like "you've been tangoed!" would have researched well? Or how about going with Audi's "vorsprung durch technik" on a car commercial aimed at the British market? Not a chance.

So that's the problem. A continual strive to get Results. And as Agencies try to attempt to pretend to clients that they've found the holy grail through dubious metrics, is like selling snake oil. It's frankly, bollocks.


Measurements such as Media viewership is in some ways scientific but I do have this long standing burning feeling that the data is dubious. It's most certainly not regular enough, especially in the print area which accounts for nearly 50% of the spend. I mean a newspaper that promotes readership numbers based on 3 readers a copy? Not in my house anyway.


Online attractiveness to brands is of course, clearer measurement. It deals with this long-standing problem really well.


The numbers who click-thru, the now sophisticated analytics of website traffic, the ability to measure search keywords, the ultimate measure of numbers of online sales...all contribute to a medium that is replacing traditional. 


I KNOW how many friends I have or that my campaign has generated on Facebook and so I KNOW when I post a message how many will see and by using influencer sites such as Klout, I KNOW if it's being re-posted and working. I can measure followers on Twitter, I know the impact on Pinterest and on and on it goes.


Communication now has a return on investment. A further blow to traditional media.


Worse news than that, is what happens when online media activity is sold based on sales instead of space? 


If I have an Ad on a site, and say they say it's completely free until I sell a 100 books and then it's 2% of book sales? Or ticket sales or training course sales or clothing sales? Real hard to argue with that.


Would I not move more money online away from traditional media? Be sure of it.


And don't tell me you can't build brands online. Actually it's the great brand-leveller.


I happened to hear an interview on Sky with a senior Outdoor executive from JC Decaux, the big global player, who said he'd never heard of a brand being built online. What the?


What's Amazon if it's not a brand that has become the biggest bookseller in the world? What's Twitter? Mashable? Facebook? if they're not brands and brands that the world wants to be associated with, big time. The Huffington Post is not a brand?


One of the great things about the web is that it has allowed young, spotty idealists to compete with long established brands and throttle them, quickly. Bezos, Cashmore, Zuck, Jobs and Larry Page.


And do you know what, it's not even nearly there. A new land of brand opportunity of results driven communications.


Just what our clients have been looking for. 
For nearly 100 years.

Homage to Madmen. 10 magnificent magic commercials and 1 spoof

This might seem like a cheap blog. But it's not meant to be. It's just a bit of a homage to John Hegarty, Ridley Scott, Hugh Hudson, Frank Lowe, David Trott + all the madmen who made it terrific.

And anyway, it's one way to store my archive.

If you haven't seen the Carling spoof of Hegarty's Levi Launderette, go straight to it, number 2 on this reel and wait through it..... BTW - It was completely reshot with Hegarty's permission. 

But first up the original. Ahhh possibly the most powerful 30 seconds of film ever shot. Hegarty mastery at BBH and it sold Nick Kamen, Raybans, Boxer shorts and Levis by the truckload. If ever you questioned the power of advertising, just go back to this. 

Hope you enjoy them.

  

Remembering Madmen + Better value beats them all

What you see is greatness from one of the all-time great Madmen. This is Leo Burnett (1891-1971) in his farewell speech "Take my name off the door" which is shown to every Leo Burnett employee since. 


His Dad was a dry goods store owner and sold apples. Hence, Apples are still in the reception of Burnetts to remind people where they all came from. But this is about his principles and change as he left the Agency he started.

My Dad made Ads too, but he was no Leo Burnett, except to me. Commercials, like "on the telly" and as a kid I always saw him as almost a  movie director, or so I told my school pals.

"Better value beats them all"; "Get on the scent of the Cookstown sizzle"; "Fiat fights running costs" were slogans consigned to my memory for when I was asked what he did. I would do it casually, like it wasn't really important.

“Yeah shucks, that’s what he does”, as schoolyard pals were captivated and I would swop my Peter Osgood football cigarette cards for two Norman Hunters. Cigarette cards aged 10, talk about advertising regulation....

Our house was full of Oatfield Sweets, left-overs from some TV shoot or other and we were dressed by Dunnes stores. Better value after all, beats them all.

I would crawl out of bed late and unbeknownst sat on the stairs listening to my dad and another agency man, rehearse some presentation in the "good room" where we were only allowed at Christmas.

A bed sheet was sellotaped to the wall showing 35mm slides from a carousel projector whilst making their way through a bottle of Chivas Regal the night before the big pitch.

They'd laugh, knock over the carousel (or casserole as I knew it) and spend the evening putting them back in upside down, a bit worse for wear. Tomorrow didn't really matter because they knew what they were doing. Down to their fingertips.

My dad would truthfully recount presentations where he picked up fellow presenters from the pub on the way to it. Like actors, it didn't matter, because when they performed, they were perfect. And perform they would.

However, only one ego can fit into any one room and ego, or confidence, they had in abundance.

He was a salesman for sure, but a great one and advertising ideas is the hardest sell of them all. Adpeople are all ultimately salespeople or so they should be.

But then it all changed.

When I started in the late seventies, of about 40 Irish advertising agencies then, only 2 were foreign owned. Today it's exactly the opposite.

38 foreign owned and in affect, there is no indigenous Irish advertising business anymore. Pity, in a sentimental nationalistic sort of way, but smashing for the Irish agency owners who collected cheques, most of whom were simply, nicely, stark raving.

Ad agencies then, were never run by businesspeople but simply by pure admen who just did it because they were able to, nor should they have been. Most couldn't read a Balance Sheet and no bad thing either, but they knew their advertising onions.

What happened to advertising since, is that the bean counters took over as they acquired these local agencies as they've done the world over.

The business formerly run by admen, quickly became run by plc's whose concern was share price rather than output. You don't make stock market gains if you do good ads but you do, if you do good numbers.

Saatchi’s acquired OKB Dublin in the 70’s and my Dad was there. What made Saatchi’s famous was that they saw that growth wasn't necessarily organic but rather by acquisition. In other words, you could simply buy the business, buy the clients.

Indeed we all know the Saatchi’s story but you may not know that their financial controller was none other than “shorty”, Martin Sorrel, who went on to buy WPP and now owns major agencies such as JWT and Ogilvy - probably the biggest agency owner in the world today. He had a point to prove that the Saatchi success was not built on good advertising but rather clever financial leveraging.

Agencies with great long track records dissolved into being run by a financial guy. The lunatics had left perhaps, but the suits had definitely taken over.

The lunacy is that the advertising suffered and the "lunatics" were the great Madmen characters - their departure marked the end of real talent.

My old man would tell me about visiting clients who brought him with great deference to their Boardroom, took out the fine china, Marietta biscuits and listened. Because they believed the adman had the magic dust in their pocket, which they could sprinkle on their product, and it would sell. Respect.

It can be great again.
If we apply ourselves - online.

(you might also be interested in this, the legendary pitch for British Rail: http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/madmen-they-were-greatest-pitch-of-them.html)

At last. A great Ad online.

You know I often wonder about the demise of traditional advertising and what if, ad people like me, from traditional ad agency backgrounds, embraced the technology rather than dismissed it?


Honestly, I wish we'd stop doing dismissing it because it's like going out to Dollymount Stand and trying to push out the waves. To sound sophisticated I often say, we're like the peasants in Lamb's essay....we know not how to roast pork other than to burn the house down (good isn't it?)


What I mean is that the game is up. It's over - so now get involved or lose it all.


You see apart from being second generation adman and my son possibly being a third, I was also a spokesperson for advertising being a former President and Fellow of The Advertising Institute (iapi). It's been a long time in advertising - since the breakfast table.

So it's not that I'm critical of advertising agencies, it's more that I wished they just stood up and realised that this is the fun of the 'madmen' era and is actually the most imaginative, creative space they could be in. Instead of being a threat to their livlihoods, it's possibly the greatest opportunity for their talent.

And just when despair became bleak, up stepped McCanns of Israel and creative director Nir whose Facebook page is at the top and who deserves to have his pic repeated here. And no, I've never heard of nor met him, unfortunately. 

Funny too that at almost exactly the same time I was reading an article by Tonia Ries of Modern Media in Social Media Monthly - a publication run by Bob from his Apartment in Washington DC. And if you see it, buy it, it's smashing.

Basically what Tonia is saying, which she bases around a concept called "realtime", is that with the rise of social media, geolocation and realtime services, brands have a massive opportunity to target consumers in realtime, based on 'expressions of interest'. Consumers of course, constantly tell you things about themselves - "likes", status updates, comments, video uploads, location, relationships and so on. 


You know that. And you know that brands traditionally interrupt their day, frequently, not because of expressions of interests but because of their media habits only and they keep telling them about the brand. Shouting at them repetitively whereas this way means you target consumers with relevance.


For example, I tweet that "I'm on my way to the airport". Your brand sees that and Tweets back "flights delayed due to fog so take your time" from say, "Mr. Coffee", then I appreciate the relevance and am likely to remember you.


Or I have arrived late at the hotel (don't we all) in a foreign place and I check-in via Foursquare to see a restaurant on the corner opens late and will give me a free beer. Thanks, I'm there.


Yes it requires automated personal activity based on detailed analysis of activity (have a look at Klout if you think this level of detail doesn't exist because it does). The web is a network of computers so advertising can be as accurate as it wants.


So Nir Refuah, sitting in McCanns in Israel and his team, clearly gets that and he has a problem to promote his client 'Opticana'. So he designs a "banner" based around eye tests. It's called an 'iphone pinch banner'. But he links it to the most common expression of interest that we all do, squeezing the text on an iphone.


If you squeeze it you make it bigger. If you need to make it bigger, you might need an eye test. At Opticana.

So here's an Agency, McCanns, about as traditional as you can get, thinking in the new space and doing a wonderful job for their client. And more importantly perhaps, doing a wonderful advertisement for the ability of admen in the new space. 


Thank you Nir and the whole team at McCanns, Israel.
I hope the rest of us are watching.

Google Classic Ad Campaigns. Volvo updated.

You may have been reading my blog about how Google are trying to bring classic campaigns into the digital age.


Coke is a great story - "I'd like to teach the world to sing" and you can read it here: http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/ad-agencies-have-future-thanks-to.html

Next up was a classic Volvo Campaign from 1963, "Drive it like you hate it" and it's here http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/google-show-ad-agencies-have-future-if.html

That story was about finding a man called Irv Gordon who had a Volvo with nearly 3 million miles on the clock.


What's happened since is they're updating Irv's story on his way to the 3 million miles. A great extension and posting the new videos. I love this. Watch these two journeys, if you are interested at all. The first one is called 'Perfume' - "it's not about getting to the 3 million miles, it's about the trips that get me to the 3 million miles" - love it.

The second is a journey to Luray caves. Beautifully shot and great storytelling for Volvo.

Ad Agencies take note. A campaign with real longevity online and not a banner ad in sight.

Madmen they were. The greatest pitch of them all. True story.

Allen Brady Marsh was an Agency which started in London in 1965.

(My Dad was in Saatchis at the time and this story did the rounds. I have to say too, it wasn't unusual to see my Dad walking through the Agency after lunch with a glass of red wine in one hand and a cigarette in the other. The real era of Advertising.)

ABM was fronted largely by Peter Marsh, who sometimes welcomed visitors from a throne, they were song+ dance men. You might get a sense of that from them above celebrating winning Guinness and the "Guinnessless" campaign.

Top hats, tails and playing the jingle on a piano was not unheard of from Peter Marsh. In fact, you expected it. He had started as a writer and producer for The BBC. In 1991, the Agency was sold to Lowe Howard Spink.

The great story, which I'm often asked to tell to lonely advertising people, normally in pubs, is the infamous pitch to Sir Peter Parker and his marketing crew at British Rail. 

ABM at the time, were very much the underdogs on the list and unlikely to get it as it was a huge account. 

So ABM decided they may as well throw everything at it to get noticed because the reality was, they'd nothing to lose. And they did.

On day of the pitch, at 11am as agreed, the "serious" suited team from British Rail turned up at ABM, walked into reception to find it deserted. The stood at the desk and waited and the chairman, Sir Peter Parker, checked his watch. Yes, they were on time. He looked around, no one - just a very scruffy reception area. Crumpled newspapers, litter, cigarette ends on the floor, cushions with holes burned in them. This was the worst agency they’d been in. 

A young giddy woman appeared, brushed past them and sat behind the desk as if the receptionist. "Sorry", she said, "I'll be with you in a minute, have a seat" and proceeded to take up the phone and continue a chat with a friend about where they'd been last night. 

Phone cradled between shoulder and neck, she went on to explain to her friend, whom she eventually "went home with", as she filed her nails with a nile file found by rummaging in a drawer. 

Sir Peter politely coughed, she ignored him. He coughed again, she looked up.

"Yes?" she said,

He said “Excuse me, we’re here to see….” but our ace receptionist interrupted, “Be with you in a minute love” and continued the conversation about last night but brought it to an end quickly.

"Yes, sorry" she said, almost apologetic, "you're from the rail people, aren't you...Mr. Perker isn't it? I'll tell Mr. Marsh you're here" and proceeded to phone 'downstairs' to let them know. 

"Coffee?" she then asked, which was greeted reluctantly by a positive nod.

Up comes a girl "from downstairs" with formica tray, 5 plastic cups, sachets of sugar (now wet from spilt coffee), plastic spoons and a small cardboard milk carton with the top roughly torn off. "Help yourselves" and she was off.

It was all becoming enough for Sir Peter Parker and his team.

Whatever Agency they'd seen, clearly this was not the Agency for them.
Parker turns to the team and they nod in agreement, that's it we're off.

So Sir Peter turns to the receptionist and explains;

"Please tell Mr. Marsh, we were here on time, we have waited 20 minutes and thank him for his interest in our business but that this is not the agency for us". And proceeded to leave.

At that moment a door burst open and out stepped Peter Marsh, as head of the agency. 

He’d been watching everything. He shook the chairman’s hand warmly. 

He said “Gentlemen, you've just experienced the problems at British Rail, now come down and see the solutions". And he took the British Rail management into their boardroom and went through an all-singing, all-dancing presentation of how bright the future could be, if ABM was their agency. Which, of course, it became. 

Madmen Series 5, starts Tuesday 9pm Sky Atlantic.
Those were the days.

Highlight. And how I'll know all about you... Yes, you.

                                   


Highlight. Honestly, I don't want anyone else to tell me about it. I know,it's interesting and very, very scary.


If you haven't heard the controversy, click the Forbe's video interview above with Highlight founder (is a user a highlighter? just sayin') Paul Davison, 32, Californian.  


Highlight is an iphone App (no android version yet) which logs in via Facebook and was the most talked about at the SXSW Conference in Texas (South X South West. SXSW geddit?).


Talked about in a "Oh, I'm not sure" kinda way but definitely talked about.


What happens is that you download the app to your phone and it takes all your Facebook information. Next time you're within a 100 yards of someone else with the App (basically a football field away), it tells you about them, and them about you.


What they like, who you have in common connections, their profile etc.

Walking down the street and just forgot her name? Not any more.
Have a secretive discrete dinner date? Not any more either.

But here's the OMG! moment. It seems (if you and I are both on Highlight) that you can see my friends and I can see yours. 


However what that means is that you might be notified that my pal Tom, who is also on highlight, is walking across the street from you right now and you think, "who the hell is Tom?".


Click and discover is that he's one of my friends and that's what we have in common. You can message him. "Hey Tom, I'm one of Stuart's friends waving at you". He will be pleased. Expect a visual answer.


But one sec, I don't want people whom I don't know, knowing about me in public because I happen to be someone's Facebook friend. David McWilliams has 176,000 of them. He won't be able to go out anymore. "Hey Dave, I'm a friend of one of your 176,000 friends!"


Pity Lady Gaga going incognito to the store in baseball cap and shades. Nope, not anymore, she has 20 million of them.


So now I'm unfriending my Facebook friends who are on Highlight. All 3 of them.


So it's this balance between being useful and scary. Do you want that person coming towards you to know all about you? well, do you?


This is not, strictly speaking, a location based App but it does work off GPS, something I am close to and understand, having tried to develop gps/gprs trackers some time ago.


What I do understand are two clear things that Highlight won't have sorted, when using GPS;


1. GPS (and so Highlight) runs down battery life when enabled. BIG time.


2. It's not good at locating indoors, at all. So when you hear the highlight users stories about tracking a pal in a porn shop, don't be so sure. Hard thing to do with GPS.


And I don't think Highlight has got around these issues notably the battery life drain which will really upset downloaders in time. 


The other issue that arises, is the same one that always does, privacy.
But that easily dealt with, they say:


You download Highlight, you're in. You don't, you're not so if it bothers you, don't do it, they say. If you decide to download to be 'cutting edge', you can switch it on and switch it off, they say too. Yeah, right. 


But not if I'm just someone's Facebook friend and now you know about me too. That's a big privacy issue. Big trust issue.


However, one commentator has said that the App is just "too early" and it's something "we'll all have sooner or later". And he could be right. But I've read that many reviews, almost all of them irate right now. Maybe they're just "too early". And I'm sorry, I'm with them. I think Paul thinks Paul is a bit too early too. Add to that, I hate the logo.


Location based applications haven't really had traction yet ('Foursquare' to a point) and there's an evens bet that they will. Highlight is first in if that's the case and readily positioned to become dominant.


And location based applications are great for.....Ads. 
Ads as you shop, Ads as you walk past the store, Ads as you visit the bar....
So what happens when Highlight starts suggesting where I should go for coffee because I've been there 3 times already?
Hmmmmm.....Now there's a thought.

"Draw Something" just sold to Zynga at 210 million

Sorry this is probably more of a Tweet than a Blog but after my blog today http://streamabout.blogspot.com/2012/03/instagram-apps-and-100000-dollars-in.html where I suggested that Zynga might be buying the "100,000 dollar a day App" Draw Something, they just have. Rumour is 180m usd + earn outs bring it up to 210m. 


Think I might have been one of the first out with The CNN Mashable deal too. So sorry, bit of a good feeling. Forgive me! 


210 million dollars. Not bad for an App that launched in February 2012. Not bad at all. Ad Agencies take note.

Instagram, Apps and 100,000 dollars in advertising every 24 hours.

Instagram. Yes indeed another file sharing, photo sharing, media sharing proposition and App. Like the world needs another App, I hear you groan. Seemingly yes, it does. Badly.

But what makes Instagram different is that it's purely mobile based (and iphone based only with an Android version promised soon). 

What it does is that you upload it to your phone, take a picture and through many different effects, enhance your picture. In particular they create a more "olden times" feel and in some ways create that Kodak nostalgia. You then share those Instagram pics across all accounts, as you do.


If you search it through Google "images", you'll see what I mean and stunning photos a lot of them are. Ideal for Pinterest pinning for example.

Sharing pics is important because as we all share our pics more + more, we want them to look, well, nicer. And it does work, really well, with more and more effects coming along each week.

So this is an applicaton based entirely on Social media activity. Social Media on top of Social Media.

But it's a great story too with the marketing initially driven by celebs (Justin Beiber being the winner as the first to reach 1 million followers last Tuesday. Want to see Justin's pics? Nah, me neither).

Started in March 2010, Instagram raised 500k usd in seed capital and a further round a year later raised another 7 million usd. 'Techcrunch' reports a more recent round raised as much as 40 million usd so it has got its "fans".

In December 2010 (9 months after launch) it had a million users, 10 million by September 2011 and now a reported 25 million users with over 200 million photos downloaded. That's what I said, 200 million. And was Apple's 'App of the year' for 2011.

So a massively succesful App that's only mobile and as yet, only iphone based. Wow.

Which brings me to Apps of which there's 500,000 in the Apple Store and Google with less, but catching. 

Story of the week was of course "Draw Something" a "pictionery interactive" style app launched early in Feb 2012 which has gone straight to the top of the charts.

And not suprisingly.

Yes it's free but revenue is generated from ads on the free version (you can upgrade to a non-ad version) giving a billion impressions a day. And wait for it, the revenue a combination of both ads and upgrades, is a cool, 100,000 usd a day. That's 700,000 usd a week and growing. It became the biggest game on Facebook last week.

Zynga, the biggest social media gaming company in the world) are talked to be a purchaser potentially paying 150-200 million usd. Not bad for an App started in February.

According to 'Techcrunch' (whom we bow at), there's others interested too so the talks have not yet hit that crucial "exclusivity" stage. 

But the point here is that 100,000 usd a day is Ad dollars that would normally have been spent on Tv, Press, Radio, Outdoor.......

One wonders if Ad Agencies had not spent their time more constructively building Apps? 

So ladies and gentlemen, the advertising model is changing.

The world is changing.

Live Streaming. What it is and why Content is still king.

Content is king. Probably the greatest cliche in internet history. But for a reason, because it's true. 

The best way I can explain why, is to take you on a short journey of my experience going back 15 years. Only, 15 years which really is, yesterday. But I hope it might explain the transition to content.

What I'm trying to show (yeah, probably badly...) is the manner in which the web started and the stages since then to today's stage, content. It started as connectivity for the chosen few, then search, then web design, then social media and then video/live streaming. So by telling the history, I can explain why we are where we are. Or so I think, so here goes.

At that time in the late 1990's, me and a man called Tom Kelly set up an 'isp' - internet service provider - largely giving internet access to the domestic market, called 'Club Internet' (club.ie). We were second out of the box in Ireland following another isp 'Ireland-on-line' (iol.ie) which was a soundalike of AOL and had, 100 customers. Possibly then there were 300 people with email access - the killer app. I nearly knew them all personally.

It was all Cisco routers and the "new" Microsoft (1985 ships Windows version 1) and becoming largely MSDOS based, it was really about business/corporates scrambling to get a presence online then. Simple web design of 2/3 pages consisting of the classic "brochureware" with a huge 'contact us' button and nothing more. 

Even domain registry hadn't started so you couldn't promote your own site name as such. It was all sub domains (www.clubi.ie/xxxx). So it was www.clubi.ie/ulsterbank or clubi.ie/irishrail and hence the need initially for search. Mad isn't it? Mad that it's only 15 years ago.

So it was about getting content up in some shape or form and I recall doing two sites - one for RBS/Ulster Bank and the other for the national railway, Irishrail.ie - which brought us the envy of our peers. We actually made the front page of a national paper, me and Tom, as the new internet pioneers. Swear. 7 html pages and we were front page news.

Of course too, there was no room for content, because of no bandwidth and so a new surge came in bandwidth providers as everyone wanted to get on board. Which was the second surge - connectivity and bandwidth. A surge that goes on and you'll have noted The Virgin announcement this week of super fast download speeds. Bandwidth is now a competitive issue rather than an availability one, exactly the same as the business of hosting. Anyway.                 

                                              

            

I recall well the first ever internet exhibition in a small hotel in London where we took a stand. 20 stands maybe in total, largely selling modem technology-based products such as modems, routers etc  (!) and beside us a strange looking man starting a search business. After the show we went with him for a few beers and Jerry Yang asked us would we like to get involved in his new search business. "Search? search what? some of these people are crazy" we laughed and we stayed in touch with him for years after. Until of course Jerry got a jet after the huge success of his search Yahoo! It was the dominant search engine quickly.

See, we were true visionaries....doh.

Once bandwidth arrived and people got more access to the web, the growth was in web design (or web authoring it was called) bringing sites from 3 pages to 10 and this time with navigation! Bandwidth moved on from the 14.4 and supreme 56 modems over dial-up. Remember the dial up sound? I do. But this was the design surge - the ongoing demand as corporates sought out better, more comprehensive web pages.

There was so much activity of all sorts, we floated the business on Nasdaq in March 2000 - the first bubble. So did 26 others on the same day, all tech companies. Honestly. Our IPO was done by none other than Lehmans. 

So now there was a base of content (websites) and then along came interactivity. Websites became a bit dull to look at it. After seeing one set of annual reports & accounts on one site, you kind of get bored.

We started to look up to myspace, started in 2003 and sold to Murdoch/News Int for 530m USD in 2005. Yep, that much and that's 7 years ago only. We saw Bebo (supposedly 'blog early blog often') and blogging started too. Michael Birch started Bebo in 2005 and sold it to AOL in 2008 for, wait for it, 850m USD. 

But the web had become content driven and entertainment became a use. People wanted to share chats through IRC. Content. Share photos through Flickr and now the Facebook wall. Content. Share videos through YouTube. Content. Got into search with Google to find content. Share locations on foursquare. Content. Share thoughts on blogging, vlogging on Blogger.com, on Tumblr. Content.

Content had become the driver whearas email had been the cliched killer app to start it all.

And then came more content in the form of Social Media notably of course, Facebook which, as you probably know, was started by two twins in 2004...Ha. 

Social media is of course content sharing at its best. I won't go on about Twitter, Tumblr, Pinterest and so on but you get the point. Facebook is 8 years old and valued at 100 billion USD. The second bubble is coming and it's about content. Mashable (only a "blog" they say but it's more) sells last week for 200m USD. Blogging is real content too so that's going to have real value. Or video blogging, vlogging.

                               

So now that we've done all of that and got so used to clever web design (cool example is see www.takethislollipop.com), photo sharing, social media sharing, tv iplayers, ipads apps, video sharing... the next wave is live streaming sharing. Which is what we now do at Streamabout.

So what is live streaming? 

(actually that's the highest search term in our category currently "what is live streaming?". 250,000 searches last week so you get a sense of the interest).

It's taking events you're already doing - awards, dinners, conferences, press conferences, staff meetings, garden shows and so on, and then companies like us streaming them live globally online. Sometimes free, sometimes to generate revenue from the viewer paying.

You need production (filming) expertise, technology (4G/Wifi/Wimax and knowledge to bring the live feed robustly to a server) and a streaming backbone platform support (livestream.com, justin.tv, ustream.tv etc). So not something a corporate can do themselves.

As an aside, that's even changing as we speak.

You can stream for free on your Facebook page - imagine the interest and traffic that would bring - and YouTube announces 100 pro-channels for free in the US last week. After all, look at their slogan, "broadcast yourself". Google+ have 'huddles' and they won't be far behind since they own YouTube. A serious head-on threat to livestream and those backbones but it's because YouTube want content. They want your content to become a big TV online broadcaster. So it has value.

What's happening too is that you can create an event to generate streaming. In other words, don't wait for something to happen, make it happen.

Your own cookery programme from your ecommerce enabled Facebook page? No problem. Get your friends to pay to view and download your recipes. Or a former stock market buyer gives tips online? people will pay for that.

Or a former Advertising Agency guy? well, yeah fair point, it's not for everyone....

A show in February live streamed, got 321,000 viewers. Nope, it wasn't about porn, it was about coffee. Look at the success of Netflix and Amazon's Love Film as streaming. The story this week was about Amazons deal with The Discovery Channel. Why? Content.

(And I'm going to bet now that this is a play on Kindle Fire (E books) by Bezos. They're developing that device as a low cost ipad that gives all content easily. So now they're starting to accumulate content such as The Discovery Channel. Why else? Watch this space.) 

Last week's other story was also about buying content when Twitter bought Tumblr's biggest rival 'Posterous', launched 2008 again to give them a bigger focus on content. Nevermind the sale of The Huffington Post to AOL 315m usd last year.

Live streaming - not video - is the new content and what you need is an A to Z (filming to broadcast) business like Streamabout wherever you are. They're growing but there's only a few now. 

The second bubble is starting. Get your marketing into gear. 

Create interest in your site by providing better content and right now, that's live streaming.

It was only 15 years ago when it all started and boy has it changed.

But what hasn't is content and that old cliche, content is king.

Windows Version 1. It's been with us for 25 years and now it is an opportunity to do something great online and I have never seen it all change so much as in the last 6 months. It's now really at a hot pace.

Get thinking - get streaming - or get something else that draws attention and traffic. There's people out there getting ready to buy it.