Soda - Keeping Curious

I’ve decided to put that current hobbyhorse of mine, the ‘fragments’ idea, back onto the agenda. I’m intrigued by an image I have of multiple snapshots that have been generated by the interactions of millions of lives, each offering up, to whoever is interested, a glimpse, an insight, a window (be it a narrow one) on to an individual’s life. In my home library I have hundreds of biographies, (yet only a few autobiographies) the longest of which is no more than a 1,000 pages, with the average being more like 400-500 pages. Many carry the words ‘A Life’ in the title, suggesting that you can cover someone’s life in comparatively few pages. It might be worth noting here that the average lifespan is less than 1,000 months. Less than a 1,000 pages, less than 1,000 months, is there a connection? (Some might argue that even at 500 pages some lives don’t deserve the workout a biographer has given them).

What’s dealt with in a biography are the really important ‘fragments’ of that person’s life. By putting these fragments together through the course of reading a biography we can also let our imagination fill in all the mundane gaps that never get a mention. The questions I’d like to ask of these ‘gaps’ refer to the mundane rituals of a person’s life, those bits which somehow make that person ‘human’ again, or at least makes them someone like us.

For example, I’ve been fascinated (like many) by the life of Winston Churchill, and, with over 50 books on him already, I can claim to know a thing or two about the big, important fragments of his well studied life – the distant but hero-worshipped father, the mother that ‘shone like a star’, the internationally acclaimed Boer War hero, the mad architect of the Dardanelles fiasco, etc. All good, larger-than-life stuff, but there’s also those nagging thoughts, such as what did Churchill have for breakfast and where did he buy his shoes? (Actually as a prolific writer and journalist, Churchill may well have let slip the answer to these two question).

Hold that thought however and now fast forward to the present and the topic of blogging. Is it not true – especially if we see blogging as a form of biography - that we are now just as likely to read about the mundane facts of a person’s life (let’s be honest, more so), that reading about the larger-than-life exploits so well amplified in a traditional biography. The smaller fragments have become as important, because we have made it so. Blogging as helped made it so, and, surprise, surprise, we find it interesting.
When visiting an historic house we look forward with anticipation to visiting the ‘below stairs’ areas, as much as the beautifully decorated public salons. This may in part be due to a question of identification – we English still seem class-conscious/proud. Different parts of a house attract different stories, with different ‘fragments’ on display. When we choose to blog we offer our own fragments from a life, as anyone who’s kept a diary knows, partly to make sense of it, and partly to attest to those fragments we feel compelled to share.

In the digital world there seems to be a continuous battle between the old way of doing business and the new. Quite often deals are brokered to ease these transitions, but occasionally, people like to take advantage of negotiation preceding and try to get much more than their fair share. You may or may not be aware of an ongoing battle running alongside the usual lawsuit press surrounding the music industry. Internet radio is becoming a large market, it is offering many different specialised stations catering for every different persons tastes and preferences. So much so is this diversity, that in America alone 7 million people listen to online radio every day. All that is set to change by a very real threat.

I’ve been involved with Internet Radio for many years now, ever since some friends of mine created SHOUTcast some ten years ago. Back then I had the advantage of being sat on very fast Internet access in my dorm at university, at a time when the original Napster didn’t really exist and there wasn’t the saturation of networks that there is today with the likes of YouTube and Bittorrent.

Streaming my music back then was a luxury I didn’t have to pay for. But it did require fast internet access, and that did cost someone money. Today, many hobbyists are doing the same, but not many have the luxury of subsidised bandwidth. You wouldn’t know it, but the big guys such as AOL do offer lots of bandwidth for free to many stations to aid the growth of this industry, purely because the networking costs are just far too high for popular stations otherwise. Simply put, the majority of Internet stations out there run AT A LOSS. That isn’t to say that the record companies do not make money from them.

Currently, Internet radio stations pay more expensive fees than terrestrial or satellite radio. It is these fees that, under examination, are going to see a hike. Already lumbered with the overhead of running at an acceptable loss to fund their hobby, many station owners will see their losses increase substantially. To further drive the stake, these charges are going to be backdated, effectively fining Internet Radio as a whole.

Today marks yet another date on the calendar for people to try and get heard about this issue prior to the new rates and backdated payments coming into effect. To do that, the big players and small alike are turning their normal programming off for the day, either going offline or broadcasting an informational message about the issue, urging Americans to call on their congressional representative to force a change.

You can read more about the ongoing issues at SaveNetRadio.org. An old acquaintance of mine who rightfully has made his way up the ranks to be recently appointed General Manager of Yahoo’s Music division has posted a much better explanation of the issue on the Yahoo! Music Blog. You should read it, he’s in the unique position of having worked both sides of the fence.

Two weeks ago today the agency released its latest and greatest online creation. I present to you the new Alton Towers website.

Exercising our knowledge of Alton Towers brand to create an online explosion displaying all aspects of the Alton Towers resort; the site offers the consumers a media rich preview of many of the features that make Alton Towers one of the top attractions in the UK.

But that’s not all. Coming soon is the Alton Towers Day Designer. Allowing families and individuals alike to plan out and print their day. Watch this space.

We’ve been keeping tabs on consumer commentary, so I’ll address some of the questions raised briefly:

1) More videos. We hope to add more content in the coming months, but right now our focus is on getting things complete and running as smoothly as possible.

2) Phase 2 and 3. I’m not sure where these concepts came from. We’ve been working alongside Alton Towers for a long time producing print media. We have bigger revisions to come, the day designer being one example of content that was not completed for a release alongside the main site. There’s more on top of that I’ll post about at a later date.

3) Sound Effects. All but two sound bites were taken directly from recordings made on park, Sorry. One of the two sound bites sourced externally is the steel drum used on the Water Park video. I think the reason people are confusing the sounds with RCT is because we dropped the quality as a file size trade off. That or RCT sampled rides at AT?

With regards to the sound on the site, we developed what I believe to be a world first (I’ve certainly seen no other site ever use something similar). The Alton Towers site has one volume button that controls volume across the entire site. My colleagues will assume I’m talking up my own work (which I am), but I only mention it since I plan to post instructions and code samples here at a later date. Flash people rejoice!

What’s wrong with you… scared of fast rides?

It would probably be appropriate to begin this update with an apology. I see that the previous post already contained one of those, so I’ll skip right ahead.

Not one to let Becky get the better of me, I’m here to announce (belatedly I admit), the launch of the new Playtex website.

I’m not the best person to explain the virtues of good site design, but I really like it. I hope you do too. You should check it out.

Also launched alongside the site was the Moonwalk microsite. Following the same theme of the Playtex site, but contrasting it, the microsite aims to offer tips for people taking part in a very worthy cause.

Two of our own agency members will be taking part in the walk later this year. Hopefully we’ll get an update out of them afterwards.

Many apologies for my lack of updates in the last couple of months, we have been rushed off our feet working on a big project, which has now been launched.

The project is a new IPTV site Friction.TV and is a joint venture between a small group of investors and The Together Agency. We developed the online technology and have been playing a role in the launch and content of the site.

The basic premise behind Friction.TV is a “global platform for user generated news and debate”. It is a place where you can share your thoughts with the world, be challenged and perhaps create some friction around a specific issue. It is intended to provide an alternative to the sanitised views of the conventional mass media as it delivers true user generated opinions in an unedited, uninhibited and necessarily challenging way.

Basically, users record a short 30 second to 3 minute long video on an issue that is important to them. The issue can be global or local, personal or of worldwide significance. Other visitors to the site can then debate the issue via text or video responses. Kind of like an online Speaker’s Corner!

To date we have had some exciting submissions, from the general public, from organisations such as The Countryside Alliance, The League Against Cruel Sports, FOREST, ASH and b-eat and from public figures such as Boris Johnson, Tommy Sheridan and Nick Griffin of the BNP.

Friction.TV promises that content will not be edited in any way (as long as it remains within the law!). We have received a lot of positive feedback from organisations and people that are often either ignored or censored by traditional media.

A feature we have found to be particularly successful is highlighting a current issue on the homepage to encourage debate around this issue. For example, during National Post Office Week we had a customised banner which led people to debate the closure of regional Post Offices. We are now looking forward to running a campaign giving a voice to both sides of the debate on London Congestion Charges.

Soda readers are encouraged to take a look at the Friction.TV site, comment, debate and let me know what you think!

The Interactive Advertising Bureau and PricewaterhouseCoopers have released their figures for online advertising in the US for the first half of 2006.

Indications are that the total spend of $7.9 billion is looking to surpass estimates for 2006 given at the end of last year. New estimates show an increase of 38% on last years total, bringing the current yearly spend to a healthy $16.5 billion.

Search advertising was accountable for 40%, unchanged from last years figures. A combined 31% of spending was on traditional banner advertising, “rich media” adverts, sponsorships and video advertising. Classifieds making up the rest.

Last week Terry Semel, CEO of Yahoo, warned of a slowdown in two of their largest sectors, ‘autos and financial services’. At the time, analysts indicated their belief that this was not a market wide problem, expecting growth to continue. David Silverman of PWC indicated that further growth in new sectors such as video advertising would increase spending.

YouTube, the popular video sharing site reported in July that it was serving 100 million videos per day. As yet, it has made little effort to exploit video advertising.

Revver, a service that allows users to make money from video sharing, has just gone out of beta and into it’s first version. Users upload videos in the same way as with YouTube, an unobtrusive advert is then placed onto the end of the video, this is known as “Revverizing”. Whenever anyone clicks on the advert the user is paid. Revver allows free hosting and comes with a suite of tools to allow users to distribute the videos across the net. The revenue is split 50/50 between the user and Revver.

Since I joined Second Life (see my other article) I have come across some excellent ideas and have begun forming friendships with builders and designers within the virtual world. One idea I am following particularly closely at the moment is W Hotel’s “Aloft” project. The chic hotel brand has employed builders from The Electric Sheep Company to build a virtual hotel in Second Life, that will mirror the new “Aloft” style of hotel that they are developing in the real world.

The construction began in July, and I must say, from what my avatar is allowed to view and what I have read on their blog, the progress seems astonishing. Within the Second Life world they have set up a viewing platform where you can observe the exterior of the hotel (as you can see my avatar doing).

The exterior appears complete, it now seems they are building and designing the layout and furniture inside of the hotel. After this, I presume they will concentrate on the landscape and buildings around the hotel, as they have an entire island to play with! I am hoping to wangle a chat with the builders at some point, but until then, their blog is fascinating.

The potential of Second Life for marketing and promotions is something I am really interested in. I feel that the more I use it and talk to the residents, the more I learn about what could be possible. In fact, the virtual hotel idea is one we were considering ourselves recently, but it looks like we were beaten to it! In the meantime, I will continue to observe the progress and perhaps we can learn some lessons from W Hotel’s venture…

EDIT: I have just been reading a guy called Steve Rubel’s blog where in one of his most recent entries he examines the hype versus the reality of Second Life. It really is a very interesting read, examining figures and coming to the conclusion that, although Second Life is incredibly exciting, it certainly isn’t growing as fast or has as large a member base as people think.

However, I am undeterred. As many people have commented, at the moment the real appeal is the novelty and the “cool” factor. A well thought out event in Second Life will not only have “avatars beating a path to your door”, but is a higly PR-able event in terms of Real Life marketing.

The idea of Second Life intrigued me right from the beginning, a virtual world with thousands of residents where literally anything is possible. I don’t know whether to call it a game, a sophisticated chat messenger or what, but whatever it is, it has the potential to be big business.

So when I was asked to do some research into new technologies I jumped at the chance to get involved with Second Life, although in actuality, it isn’t that new, apparently they celebrated their third birthday a few months ago!

Anyway, so first I had to pick a name and enter some personal details. Right away I could then log into the world, start customising my avatar (the 3D version of me) and start learning about all the elements of SL (as those in the know call it ; ). It’s free to join and begin interacting with the world, people are very helpful and will often give you useful free items, but it wasn’t long before I wanted to go a little further.

Second Life is packed with opportunities to spend money on your avatar, buying clothes, animations, cars, weapons, houses, pools, advice, sex, amusement” the choice is literally endless. So if I buy some SL currency (known as Lindens) with my own money, then spend it in SL, where does my money go? Interestingly, most of the content in Second Life is user generated. This means that users who are skilled in “building”? items and animations can make Lindens in the game, which can then be converted to real money.

However, I feel that one of the most promising uses for Second Life could ultimately be in promotions. From talking to the residents I have found out that companies such as Coca Cola, Ford, Levis, Walmart and the BBC already have a presence on SL and are currently looking into ways to exploit it. The BBC for example have already staged a Second Life event where a live feed from Radio 1’s One Big Weekend festival was streamed to a purpose built island in Second Life. SL users were given promotional party packs and encouraged to dance, socialise and watch the feed.

And this isn’t just about in game advertising. With Second Life’s seemingly endless possibilities (you can watch movies, go to see a band, look around an art gallery, basically anything you can think of will either already exist or can be implemented by a member) and the direct interaction between users and companies, it is possible to create an exciting event for your customers at very little cost, and to receive feedback straight from the horse’s mouth.

So far I have watched my avatar visiting events such as a swanky art show (where I was told by another user that apparently the US government have a private grid on Second Life where they carry out terrorist training simulations - eek!), a film theatre, a women’s rights rally, a Church of Elvis Sunday Service, countless nightclubs (where they have DJ’s who actually record their voices live and stream it through SL - you can ask for songs and get a “shout out”? within minutes). She has been tattooed with ink I can only dream of, she wears clothes I wish I could afford and she always looks good, even though she (like me) never seems to sleep.

Throughout my travels in Second Life I have spent a long time talking to other users and have found some people who really, honestly say they prefer their Second Life to their First Life. Although this is quite scary, I can’t help but think there could be something in it. Without any marketing SL has a membership growth rate of 12% per month, that’s 370,997 members to date, many of whom spend hours building new SL content for fun I doubt the progress in technology will slow down any time soon. I can only imagine what might be possible in the next few years, maybe we will never have to leave our homes again”!

I really enjoy that part of the job when I get to stand in front of a conference audience and go off on a future of digital marketing riff. Never one to build their presentations in PowerPoint, I work closely with my designer collaborator of 5 years Jason Hawksworth to produce impactful screens built in flash. If you’re going to talk about a bright new future you might as well build it in Technicolor and populate it with bold statements. In this regard I’m deeply indebted to that gurumeister Tom Peters, who never shy of a bold statement also showed me that the presentation should be as exciting as the words that support it.

Here’s a deck I produced for a recent BACD conference for your perusal.
BACD Presentation - 526KB