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TALK TO THE HAND: THE FUTURE OF MOBILE PUBLISHING - PART 2

2008-04-29T15:32:00.011+10:00

How are marketers and advertisers going to benefit?

Annual mobile ad spend to pass $1 billion in 2008!
HAMPSHIRE, UK: April 15th, 2008 - Mobile streamed and broadcast TV services will become the most lucrative delivery channels for mobile advertising by 2010, according to a new report by Juniper Research.
http://www.mobiadnews.com/?page_id=2134

The Shostek Group say the global mobile advertising market could reach $9.6 billion worldwide by 2010 - 20.4% of $47 billion online advertising spend.

The Australian mobile market is expected to reach $250 million by 2010 - 8.3% of projected $3 billion online advertising spend.

But people detest mobile advertising don't they? Just to dispel a few myths, according to Vodafone research performed on 1500 respondents last year (May 2007) were asked. Would they want to receive generic advertising on their phone = 68% said no, but then change the question to: 1a; Would you want to receive and ad that was linked and relevant to you = 71% said yes! It gets even better with: 2. If the ad involved an incentive would you be interested to receive it = 76% said yes.

So how do you get a piece of the pie?, There are a multitude of advertising and profile building opportunities for those smart enough to give the users what they want. Mobile ad banners are the most obvious form of advertising at the moment, text message advertising is the largest segment and mobile advertising is predicted to become huge. Viral is certain to have huge impact and what about premium content, its already a multi billion dollar industry.

What marketing technologies will be available to talk to mobile users?

How do we keep up when we haven't even got our heads around digital and web? How do we get our clients involved? What options are available? Where is the technology going? How does social media fit into all this? The facts that make mobile such a unique and attractive advertising medium are:

The enormous penetration - 99% of Australians have a mobile and 3G will happen fast
You can reach and interact with consumers anywhere, anytime.
Its immediate and personal

The technologies that are available now to make the most of these opportunities are:

Mobile internet

With the advent of better mobile devices will come better mobile web applications, the examples that I spoke about earlier are just a taste of what is to come. Apple has registered some 200,000 developers that are developing for the iPhone already. Phone applications that are linked to the internet will probably become more prevalent than the actual web browser that we are used to seeing. Internet enabled mobile applications will become available for specific tasks. The web will still exist but pages will be optimized for mobile devices and advertising associated will take a different form. Consumers want beneficial, non-intrusive and relevant advertising.

Mobile web banners

Many companies are developing systems to deliver banners to mobile web pages, Google and Yahoo both have these services and AdMob claim they have just delivered their 20 billionth mobile ad. Check these links out for more:

Google Now Offering Mobile Banner Ads
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/04/24/google-now-offering-mobile-banner-ads/

AdMob Serves 20 Billionth Mobile Ad
http://www.mobiadnews.com/?p=2077

Mobile video ads

In the Juniper Research we saw they estimate that mobile TV will be the most lucrative service in mobile advertising by 2010 ($2.5 billion in 2013). As mobile internet access speeds increase and the quality of the viewing experience gets better people will watch far more video content on their mobile phones. It is an obvious place for mini tv commercials to appear along with sponsored content and advertiser viral content.

Beam advertising

Beams are a new technology provided by BeamMe.Info, they allow a website publisher to put a button on their site that allows a user to send content from the site their mobile. As an advertiser there is an opportunity to sponsor these messages and place adverts which include links to mobile URL's within the messages. The ability to drive traffic directly from these ads to specific mobile destinations is a great way to promote mobile services.

Location based services (LBS)

LBS allow advertising relevant to a users location such as time based campaigns based on proximity to a location. The technology has reached a point where it is beginning to live up to its hyped promises over the past few years. There are two primary technologies at work here, GPS and network triangulation. GPS operates via satellite but is currently a bit dodgy due to the time it takes to locate you and also the fact that it is unreliable when you are indoors. Network triangulation finds you by figuring out where your signal is coming from within the mobile phone towers you are between. The more towers the more accurate the position. The drawback to this technology is that it can only locate you within a 1000 metres or so in an urban area and even further outside. Both these technologies combined have started to show some promise, just check out the My Location feature on the Google Maps mobile application.

http://www.google.com/mobile/gmm/mylocation/

LBS technologies are now starting to be found in dating services where people have their mobile linked to their profile. If somebody matching their profile is within the vicinity they are alerted. For advertising services local search on mobile will obviously take one step further.

Unique SIM identity

A mobile phone number gives a much more powerful identifier than an email address or user ID. One a users SIM is identified this can than be used to build a profile. Everything they have been doing online, purchases they have made, websites they have visited will all be carefully measured, input into an algorithm, weighed against the content of the information being published and then have a relevant advertisement attached the SMS alert and the mobile destination pages. These adverts will then wait for a click or visit from the user and send even further data back to the profile and the advertisers tracking system which will then trigger if a purchase is made, possibly again using the mobile device.

Viral marketing

People who receive interesting content on their phones love to share it. Sharing from a mobile however is a tricky business. Forwarding MMS messages is the most common form at the moment. Good quality sponsored viral mobile content is a powerful tool to get in touch quickly with a specific demographic.

Mobile search

Mobile search at this stage is limited to Google and Yellow Pages style searches which are based on their website counterparts, the mobile experience however will be driven by location based search as well. Whoever gets mobile search right will be a big winner. Check out the following article:

The Real Threat to Google
As more consumers browse the Web on their cell phones, the No. 1 search engine must cope with less space to place ads
http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/apr2008/tc20080427_580014.htm

Who is leading the way in mobile advertising and publishing?

All of the big players are making developments in the mobile space. They are all creating advertising and marketing opportunities that will become very sought after in the next 12 to 24 months.

These guys are developing what is called off deck media. On deck is un-metered content that exists on a carriers network. Eg Telstra Bigpond mobile sites, Vodafone Live etc. Off deck browsing is charged at the full data rate however the value of the new content developed is starting to out weigh the cost of accessing it in a consumers eyes. Everyone who is building mobile assets at the moment is under utilising them. The big players are pouring a lot of money into developing mobile assets yet there is little traffic and they are asking why. The problems lie in the infrastructure and user experience. As mentioned earlier the speed is too slow and the cost is too high and the sites are just replications of the web - the mobile Internet will evolve to become a different creature.

As the infrastructure problems get sorted out, these guys will pretty much have the content market figured out and sewn up. These guys haven't spent all this money and developed all this content for nothing, their research shows that soon they will have a huge market and millions of eyeballs. Those of us investing in understanding mobile advertising now will be the winners in the future.

"Online and off-deck media will become huge and change the way people behave and their relationship with marketing..." Matt McGrath - CEO, You and Rubicam Brands

Summary

As far as mobile advertising is concerned there are some key learnings that we must take away from this information in that mobile advertising must be:

Targeted - be relevant to the users activity
Entertaining - and suitable for the mobile medium
Non-intrusive - don't show a user something unless they want it
Beneficial - give them the information they want quickly
Complementary - to whatever the user is doing
Incentivised - give something in exchange for the right to advertise
Participatory - interactive and sharing

With the lowering of uncertainty surrounding mobile internet cost, usage doubling in the past 12 months and set to double again and the introduction of new and powerful devices the future looks bright. The people who can see the potential of mobile now as a communications and marketing tool will lead the way into the future.

ULTRA PORTABLE 2.0: WHAT THE MACBOOK AIR SHOULD HAVE BEEN

2008-04-12T16:01:00.011+10:00

I must say that I am a little confused by the release of the MacBook Air. As far as I am concerned the 15 inch MacBook Pro is the perfect laptop, maybe minus a bit of weight and heat, but for a laptop computer with enough power to do reasonably processor demanding tasks it is perfect. And the soon to be released MacBooks I am sure will be even more perfect.

The Air just seems to be a bit of a whimsy. Big enough that it still has to be lugged, yet with a feature set that makes it a little weak to be the only computer you own. I think the MacBook Air is the kind of computer I would buy if I already had an iMac at home.

When the hype and rumour of an ultra portable started to circulate I was expecting Apple to deliver something super unique, not just a smaller laptop. I did expect it to have touch screen like the iphone and I definitely expected it to come sans keyboard. So on the release of the Air my expectations have been a little mis-matched, such are they when I have so much faith in a company that develops the best technology in the world.

Steve, if I could just have your attention for a second I think this should be your next move. The Star Trek PADD style computer. You know we have been waiting for them since we first saw them on The Next Generation and knew that one day this is what a portable computer would look like.

This is the computer that I want. Something big enough that it reads like a book and fits neatly in my bag. But not something small enough that I have to take it with me everywhere and drop it on the ground every five minutes. I want a computer that I can take with me where I usually take the news paper first thing in the morning. A computer that I don't have to squint at for an hour on the bus on my way to work. I want a computer that I can touch and caress in order to see the things I want to see.

Jonathan, I know you can design this, Steve, I know you can make it happen...I believe in you. Apple...let there be Light!

TALK TO THE HAND: THE FUTURE OF MOBILE PUBLISHING - PART 1

2008-04-08T10:01:00.014+10:00

The mobile revolution is upon us and Gen Y is moving fast to adopt everything mobile as fast as it appears. Us poor old Gen Xers are desperately trying to understand this fascination with mobile but haven't really gotten beyond the understanding of why anyone would want to use such a slow, frustrating and fiddly technology like mobile internet. The advent of Blackberry push email has certainly opened a new mobile communication channel and SMS is as strong as ever but the whole shebang just seems to be so disconnected.

The carriers are trying to own all their respective bits of turf not allowing the other kids to play there, mobile internet needs to be logged onto which is tedious at best and nobody seems to have cracked a decent browsing interface yet. Browsing itself harks me back to the days of 56K dialup, then when I get my phone bill after surfing all those off-deck sites and suddenly paying $4 per message for love match SMS seems like a bargain.

So why the enthusiasm in mobile? The potential is incredible. The advent of the iphone and the innovation it has spurred with the likes of the Android mobile operating system by Google and the accelerated R&D path of the Blackberry has basically changed the path in which mobile computing and communication will evolve. Miniturisation is no longer the goal, getting the user experience right and making the device useful and fun is the trick. The iphone and its competitors have proven this, and once it is here the 3G mobile experience will be well on its way to being somewhere near useful.

We have all used SMS, some of you have probably even browsed pages on the mobile internet. You have migrated your news reading habits from press to web and are possibly just starting to get used to the idea of getting all of your news together in an RSS reader.

These technologies are just part of an exciting evolution in communications to the next level of mobile. As mobile internet goes 3G, data transmission gets faster, devices get easier to use, web applications become integrated with mobile and the overall cost of data gets lower, the natural progression will be that more and more you will consume your information on mobile devices.

There are many questions for the publishing and adverting world and I will try to answer a few of these questions for you in an informative way.

What does mobile publishing look like?

Mobile publishing in the future will mean that as soon as the story leaves the publishers fingertips the story will be consumed by users. I call this instantaneous publication a content absorption.

A new platform is evolving that will enable this kind of communication. The platform will exist as an instantaneous multi-directional publishing platform and I saw it first on Gossip Girl. In case you are wondering, Gossip Girl is my wife's favourite new US TV showing on Fox 8, it has a kind of 90210 meets Sex in the City vibe. The narrating character is called Gossip Girl who runs a gossip blog of the same name. In the latest episode the heroine is snapped by a sneaky passer by purchasing a pregnancy kit. The story instantly arrives on the blog site and alerts are then sent out to all of the subscribers by SMS and the gossip is spread.

The story is published instantly from the author to the reader who can then respond back with comments. This is publishing in real time and this level of interactivity can only work with mobile. This level of instantaneousness is currently experienced on twitter but its just one way and with just text. But the promise is there...

Users are getting more and more savvy to what their mobile devices are capable of. In a recent UK consumer study by Yell.com Mobile 49% of mobile users were interested in trying mobile search and 72% would choose to use mobile web for practical, information services.

Here are the top five functionality requests as extracted from the study

Maps/directions and local information
Email and instant messenger
Banking
Transport information
News and sports

From this we can see there is a high demand for information services on mobile devices especially by users likely to take up 3G services. Design and aesthetics are exchanged in favour of speed and usability.

People do not need tons of graphics and superfluous navigation on mobile, they need to be able to receive, share and interact with information that is relevant to them. The best way to do this is by initiating the distribution of the information from the web. People can find good quality and useful content quickly, and for nothing, and then send it to themselves or share it. People want information mobile for different reasons. It has to be useful when they need something, entertaining when they don't and give them something cool to show their friends when they are being social. If they can link quickly to the content they want and share it easily with people it makes the experience that much more useful..

I have many times tried to show a friend something on my web-enabled phone but it just takes so long the experience leaves me frustrated. Anyone who has tried to look up information on their phone while cheating at a trivia night will know the pain.

If I could just have a link directly to the information I want, it would make the process much less painful. All of these services are available now in some form in some part of the world however the take up of these services is slow to say the least.

What is slowing the development of this technology?

There are three main reasons that mobile services have been slow to take off.

Cost - browsing off-deck mobile sites incurs data charges from the carrier. These charges lay outside the normal cap plans and many people have been getting a shock after seeing their bills when they have started to play with mobile internet and email.
Speed - 3G is better than GPRS but is still slow.
Usability- Phone usability in general is terrible, accessing the internet requires logging on which is slow and typing in URL's with predictive texting is a nightmare.

These three impediments are about to be lifted with the introduction of cheaper and faster mobile broadband through 3G and the development of more user friendly mobile devices such as the iPhone. We believe that by the end of this year the acceleration by people using this technology will be extremely steep. With Google releasing the Android operating system which is basically iPhone for the rest. We will see an evolution in smart phones that will allow all of the technologies we have talked about to become reality.

There has been a lot of press in Australia recently about consumer usage of mobile internet based on studies done by Sony Erricson and the University of Adelaide. Check out the following link for more information.

Most Aussies don't use expensive mobile web
The survey, released by Sony Ericsson and 3 mobile, revealed that 91 per cent of respondents don't use their phone for accessing the internet, believing it costs too much or offers a poor user experience.
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,25642,23536956-5014109,00.html

Mobile web 'commonplace' within a year
RESEARCH tracking Australians' propensity to use their mobile phones to access the internet indicates use of the mobile internet will be commonplace within a year.
http://www.australianit.news.com.au/story/0,,23553152-15306,00.html

In part 2... How are marketers and advertisers going to benefit?

KNOWN LAUNCHES BURST SMS

2008-04-03T12:04:00.005+11:00

Today we are proud to announce the launch of our new web based bulk SMS application BurstSMS. Our new system sends SMS for 10c each across the board whether you send 1 message or 100,000. It also allows you to brand your own SMS service and on sell it to your clients at a margin you build in.

The application is totally web based, it is free to register and there are no ongoing costs.

We hope you enjoy using it. Try it now at BurstSMS.com

BLOG.KNOWN GOES MOBILE

2008-04-02T17:22:00.003+11:00

You can read blog.known on your mobile phone by visiting http://m.known.com.au in your phones web browser. Alternatively use the contact Beam on the right to send a text message with the address straight to your mobile.

MY FIRST WEB STARTUP

2008-04-02T16:59:00.007+11:00

For the past eight months, my colleagues and I have been working feverishly on our very first start-up, it has been a major undertaking for our small team; finding investment capital in a turbulent market, developers during a skills shortage and clients in a still immature digital marketing environment.

Nevertheless, we threw ourselves headlong into the process and have our first completed products. The ride was emotional and draining but we learned so much along the way, far more than we ever would working 9-5. We also had and are still having a lot of fun, every day is exciting. There are a lot of risks and the pay is terrible but overall its been a positive and rewarding experience.

The top 10 things I could impart after enduring the start-up process are:

1: Agree everything up front - even when you don't have a business all parties have expectations and the only way to meet them is through making agreements and sticking to them.

2: Hire good people - I know this is obvious and we were lucky with the great talent we managed to get hold of, but it is fundamental and when I mean good I don't just mean fast and efficient, you need people that use their initiative and offer up solutions.

3: Incubate your idea - get a prototype up and running quickly, tell people about the idea and get feedback. The key to knowing when you're on a winner is when everybody you show it to starts asking why this hasn't been done before.

4: Stay agile - Never lock yourself into a plan. Keep your business plan fluid so that if you get into a project and think of a better way to do something be flexible enough to do it.

5: Set deadlines - Without deadlines the business will never get off the ground. Remember things in development world always take twice as long as you think they will, so set realistic deadlines.

6: Don't expect Google Search to sell your business for you - Search results don't make deals happen. Get on the phone - Your startup is not going to sell itself. We were lucky enough to have one of our partners from a sales background and it has made a huge difference to our business.(Mind you, if your idea is good enough, you might well start expecting Google to buy your business!)

7: Don't release something half-finished - we have released our app in public beta and we are constantly making improvements, however the functionality and user experience are complete. I hear the advice a lot just to get something out fast, even if it doesn't quite work. I believe this is bad advice. Focus on the details, especially the user experience; without a good UI your app is going to struggle.

8: Don't be afraid to go to the top - forget talking to middle management. If you really want your business to succeed, you really need to speak to the people at the top. It takes some work but once you have those relationships working it makes life so much easier.

9: Give your business personality - people love dealing with businesses that they can interact and have fun with. Focus on a personality for your business and live it.

10: Have fun - we recommend foosball & wearing hats on Friday. If you get good drop us a note and we'll arrange a match.

Anyway, I am sure the suspense is killing you. Check out http://www.beamme.info to check it out. If you want to see a Beam in action visit http://www.bestrestaurants.com.au

BEAMME.INFO: ITS WHAT YOU'VE BEAM WAITING FOR

2008-01-31T18:41:00.004+11:00

What is BeamMe.Info?

BeamMe.Info allows website publishers to enhance their user experience with a 'Send to Mobile' button that sends any website content they specify to any mobile via SMS.

What is a Beam?

A Beam is essentially a relevant piece of website information that has our code installed so it can be sent to a mobile phone. The BeamMe.Info service takes care of all the backend work of making sure it gets to the right phone in the right format. All that you see on a website is a small blue button next to the relevant piece of content. When clicked a box appears allowing the user to enter their mobile number.

The primary focus of BeamMe.Info is to give Internet users the convenience of being able to send useful information from the web directly to their mobile phones. They want the process for users to be free and so simple that it will become part of their everyday workflows on the Internet.

Why put Beams on a Website?

By putting Beams on a website publishers are adding value to their content or service. Allowing visitors to mobilise their website content, saves them the hassle of printing things out or writing them down. This extends the interaction lifecycle long after the visitor has left the website. There are obvious environmental benefits as well.

SMS messages can also have live links to mobile websites so publishers can use BEams to drive traffic directly to mobile destinations to eliminate the need for fiddly browsing for the user..

BeamMe.Info is available in 180 countries, they have deals with all the major carriers that allows us to send information to just about any SMS enabled phone in the world.

The technology allows anybody to add this functionality to their website without the use of expensive applications or working out agreements with SMS aggregators. They just take the code and plug it into theri site. All of the billing and reporting takes place on the BeamMe.Info website.

Who is using Beams?

Current sites using Beams include Flight Centre, The Green Pages, Best Restaurants, Bar Finder and AussieWeb. Soon to be implementing are realestate.com.au, homehound.com.au, Time Out Sydney, Bunnings Warehouse, eatabilty.com.au, Hot Frog and City of Sydney

Try it out now...visit http://www.beamme.info

CAN WE GET OUR HEADS INTO THE CLOUD?

2007-11-30T13:04:00.000+11:00

On flights I always grab a couple of trade rags to take with me to catch up on the industry goss. I picked up a new one called Nett which caught my eye with an interesting article about Google v Microsoft v Yahoo!

http://nett.com.au/marketing/search/google-vs-microsoft-vs-yahoo-/129.html

The content of the article wasn't particularly what interested me but it was the answers given when asked about the future of the internet and what each player was doing. Where Microsoft and Yahoo! seemed to say things on improved ranking models and improved relevancy engines which is all well and good but when asked about innovation there just doesn't seem to be anything of note in their future.

Google on the other hand has continually intrigued me with the notion of Cloud Computing. This theory is that in the future all the computing work will be done on the other end of your internet connection. I was always quite skeptical of this theory as are most of the people I have discussed it with. However the longer I sat back on my flight and thought it through it is inevitable that this is where we will go.

Online storage and server side application hosting is already becoming commonplace on the Internet. Google Docs is the classic example of this. When I started using it it felt clunky, basic and slow. No match for the power and complexity of Microsoft Office. Now however it has infiltrated its way into becoming an integral part of my everyday workflow.

The benefits are I can share and even work simultaneously on the same document with a colleague. You even see the letter changing on screen! Also you never lose anything, files are listed in sequence like an inbox and can be elegantly organised. They can be styled and printed. It might not be as quick as doing things offline but eventually you don't notice.

It is this usage that started me with internal questions like why can't I have the same experience with programs like Illustrator, InDesign and Photoshop. The current answer is bandwidth. I am already used to accessing my work server at home using AFP, I can open a 40MB photoshop file in seconds and re-save it in a little longer so bandwidth is not necessarily the issue, it certainly is inconvenient but compared to when I first started using computers it is still lightening.

We are on the cusp of the point where the internet infrastructure will be powerful enough to cope with the real possibilities of powerful Cloud side applications and file transfer.

Maybe in the future files will be kept alongside applications so that transfer will not be necessary. I see a future where we do not need powerful processors on board our computers, computers in fact will become like the dumb terminals of old and will be marketed and sold for next to nothing based on their brand and aesthetics. I imagine a touch screen computing device as thick as the screen on my MacBook.

We will not purchase software like we do now, we will simply pay a monthly fee to access Photoshop or Ableton Live. I for one as a small business owner would welcome this. Software licenses are a big part of the outlay in our business and I would much rather pay a small monthly fee for the life of the business than the exorbitant licensing and registration fees we currently pay up front.

I had a fairly heated discussion with my father in law the other night on the subject. He is an accomplished computer engineer and we have always enjoyed discussions on computer philosophy. He however disagreed with me on this and believes that peoples egos will always want them to "own" the software and their fear will always lead them to store files locally.

I found this to be a fairly common opinion as I asked other people what they though of the concept. I think that it is all in the perception. Eventually convenience will outweigh the fear of the technology. The same way people hang onto the concept of ownership of digital media. Apple made their entire music philosophy based around this preconception but now after years it has shifted and their is discussion of them releasing a monthly payment option.

The future is inevitable, Cloud computing must be the way forward. With most of Gen X and none of Gen Y able to own anything, they are getting used to the idea that they don't need to to own anything. Life is just cash-flow, everything is leased, rented and borrowed to give individuals the maximum possible lifestyle enjoyment that their income allows. This is the same fact that will make Cloud computing a reality. You just buy the software time when you need it.

GOOGLE PER APS?

2007-10-18T10:31:00.000+10:00

I have to say I am loving and loathing Google Apps at the moment. I am loving some of the really useful stuff they are publishing for running your life and loathing the seemingly half finished permanent beta feel about all of it. I mean some of this stuff is just downright brilliant. Take Google Docs sharing for instance. You can have two people working on the same document and actually see them working in real time. Google Gears is a great new way to utilise the functionality of an online app offline. You can actually use Gmail offline, compose, save etc without an internet connection. Once you have an internet connection everything just syncs back up again.

Then there is the whole enterprise email thing. We have just set up on the Google Apps secure pop email server an entire business, its like its not even there except you have a massive mailbox that doesn't have to be emptied every five minutes. Add to this the whole analytics package, the upcoming Gphone platform and the Webmaster tools and you have everything you need to run a web business, for FREE!

This is all great but the thing I despise most is the lack of finish, you can tell its all been designed by developers, it all just lacks that intuitive polish that say Apple has. Now developer types will say "Oh but we don't need all that chrome", but I say you can have super streamlined design using basic HTML with barely a pixel in sight. Some of the workflows seem very confusing and without some developer assistance I was struggling to get these things up and running. I also love Google because they think about what makes our lives easier, not how to make a quick buck. They cut their losses when they need to and take bad acquisitions on the chin.

But again I loathe them because I can sense an emergent bloatedness that comes from a company this size. They seem to be losing their agility and ability to deliver finished products. Take Box.net for example. Here is a great technology area that Google should already have sewn up and probably will in the future, but Box have focussed on usability and visual pleasantness to give them an edge. Don't get me wrong there are still some things that Box could do to improve their service but hopefully they will maintain a nice growth curve and stay ahead of the big players.

Overall I am giving thumbs up for Google in 2007, they have come to market with a lot of new stuff and continue to develop their old stuff. We see ourselves migrating necessarily to their services which is a sign that they are doing the right thing. Rant Over.

FOOSBALL REPORT OCTOBER 2007

2007-10-18T09:58:00.000+10:00

Reported by Tim 'Tennis is my real game' Murray

Much has happened since my last report of this growing worldwide office sport. Firstly the competitive attitude among staff has led us to adopt the World Governing Body Foosball Tournament Rules. Yes they do exist and yes some people take this pretty seriously. They even have tournaments. Check out http://www.maniacworld.com/amazing-foosball-skills.html to get an idea of how seriously good some people are.

Last report had Brad Down heading the Foosball rankings with the remainder of us trailing in his wake. No longer is this the case. Alex Mac has held the number 1 ranking spot for a nearly 2 months now only to be pipped by yours truly a few days back. A feat I must admit lies solely in the fact that Terry the Terrier took down the number 1 to end his unbeaten run and create doubt in his mind which then saw him fall to the unlikely underdog Chris 'I won 10-9' Krizzle to dump the once unbeatable into 2nd place.

Brad 'I'm still the champ' Down must be feeling like an old dog trying to learn new tricks - the game has moved on and now longer does his power play have the same intimidating influence over a game as it used to have.

Games are now providing all sorts of unexpected results with Grant "I used to be so easy to beat' McNally knocking over more than his fair share of top ranked opponents. The unorthodox style of Nate Nate 360 has many opponents psyched and beaten before they reach the table - his 360 360 action is now under review by the games governing body.

MacMan not to be confused with his higher ranked peer still seems to be coming to grips with the speed at which the game is now played and may need to attend friday morning training sessions on a more regular basis,

All I have to say on the state of play is - 'Look at the scoreboard' Now I know how Roger Federer feels or should that be one of the lesser known number 1s - Carlos Moya and Marat Safin spring to mind.

We have developed a new and improved online foosball scoreboard and table. If you are interested in getting one for yourself. Let us know.

THE DISSING OF THE TERM

2007-07-31T20:41:00.002+10:00

WEB 2.0

I have been very interested to see some people in the web world begin to diss the term Web 2.0. It has been written off as such things as an "intangible, abstract concept" and "a term phrased just to make money out of conferences"

I think the term Web 2.0 is perfect for the Internet Renaissance that is taking place in the world right now. It represents thinking that has evolved from the mistakes of the past and has led to applications being developed to make our lives that little bit easier.

The Nay Sayers who live in fear of Web 2.0 have probably just found out how to make a decent looking web page. These people have now realised that that Internet technology and philosophy has accelerated out of their reach. No longer is web just about making a website look good, it has to perform, it has to do something that enhances life, that is the nature of Web 2.0

Web 2.0 is about eliminating bloated design where it is not required. Superfluous, bulky navigation systems are just purely silly, I laugh when I see some of them, and don't get me started on Flash. Don't get me wrong I love Flash where it enhances functionality and entertains but as a navigation system and architecture for a website I have seen very few if any examples that can out perform a solid XHTML/CSS/JAVASCRIPT site.

Web 2.0 is also about compliance, its about sticking it to those that would see the internet become a singly owned technology. It may be a bit raw and it maybe over populated with noise but if we stick to the standards laid out by the W3C the Internet will become a useful place.

Web 2.0 can be about art, the art of function and the art of simplicity. I challenge myself every day to make beautiful sites with minimum pixels. My ultimate goail is to create a website without a single pixel but looks and performs beautifully. I challenge all web designers to do the same.

Brad Down

FOOSBALL REPORT AUGUST 2007

2007-07-31T14:28:00.000+10:00

After a Garlando G5000 foosball table was installed in the Known offices a few friendly games among staff has now developed into a hotly contested competition with an ongoing ranking system. Brad held top spot for quite awhile having previously played while at the Daemon Group. But it wasn't long till the rest of the crowd started gunning for the No.1 with some memorable 10-9 defeats of the champ. I can still see the tears rolling down his cheek the day he lost twice. Nowadays the whole office has his measure.

Alex Mac and Tennis Murray regularly settle difference of opinions over a game or two and complete the top 3 in the Known rankings. Closely followed by Chris, Terry with a real battle for the wooden spoon being contested by the new boys Mac, Grant and Nathan. Hang in there guys, we were once as challenged as you to co-ordinate all those spinning men.

The Gauntlet has been thrown down for any of our clients, friends, competitors to bring over a team and take us on.

PS - A mighty mention must go to Andrew 'the dutch gun' who popped in one day and holds the honour of being the first man to take down the champ and show us all how the game can be played.

THE MAASAE PROJECT

2007-07-30T12:34:00.000+10:00

Known has been selected to design and develop a new website for an amazing project that has been ongoing in Tanzania by Leon Christianakis. The project is the building of a hospital which will provide first class medical services to some of the poorest people in the world. The development of this new facility with its extensive orthapedic outreach program will expand the service to the wider community which already sponsors six secondary schools, two hospitals, and twelve rural dispensaries in the region.

A wonderful example of the holistic work and relationships in this vision is the Maasai Girls Lutheran Secondary School. The young women of the Maasai community have traditionally been valued for their reproductive capacity and are frequently married at a young age. The MGLSS was established to recruit the brightest of the rural Maasai girls and provide them with a quality secondary school education. As the school has matured, Selian Lutheran Hospital has joined with the school to provide counseling and visits around future health careers.

Selian has assisted girls in obtaining medical, nursing, and administrative education. The first fruits of this relationship have started to return as we now have three young women back with us - two who are Clinical Officers and one as a Social Worker. We have another 14 in various training programs through which we will both provide careers for the women and obtain high quality staff for our hospitals. It now looks like we may succeed this year in getting the first two MGLSS graduates into Medical School! They in turn come back to MGLSS as new role models for the upcoming classes. The holistic integration runs throughout our programs.

WHICH WEB DESIGNS REALLY DESERVE THE AWARDS?

2007-06-01T11:43:00.001+10:00

Have most Australian digital agencies forgotten we live in a low bandwidth society?

I am not sure wether it is denial or just stupidity but as I flick through the latest trade rags looking at the award winners for the best designed websites and see all these amazing looking Flash enabled, interactive masterpieces I get the feeling that not just the 56K users are getting left behind but now the average broadband user is too.

I have the luxury of a having one of the fastest consumer internet connections advertised as 24Meg which theoretically should enable me to download at 2.4MB per second but in reality due to distance from exchange and line length gets an average download speed of around 600KB per second. This is still much faster than a 1.5Meg connection which gets a max download speed of 150KB per second. Even at this speed I am still waiting a long time to download a lot of the latest flash websites.

Going down to my Mum's place down in SW Vic is always a good experience. She is still on 56KB. I jump on there and try to use the same websites I use everyday. Things like AFR and AFL.com.au are unusable. She uses the internet everyday just like I do but when I watch her she has just a selection of the very slimmest websites that she uses. Some of these don't look awesome but have everything that she needs. It is these websites that deserve the accolades for best design. The websites that use few or no pixels at all.

The whole digital industry in Australia needs to get back to reality and start catering to the reality of bandwidth limitations in Australia. It is going to be this way for a while so we may as well get used to it. It is one thing to have amazing looking interactive websites but when only a small percentage actually have the patience and time to wait for it to download than it kind of defeats the purpose.

Known has been focussing on creating techniques and advising its clients to stay away from bandwidth intensive technologies until Australians have access to much higher average speeds. We prefer a simpler functional approach. We are currently working on some internal projects which actually use only XHTML and CSS and use no images at all and still look great.

Brad Down
Creative Director

KNOWN MARKETING BASICS

2007-04-13T18:17:00.000+10:00

At Known we employ a very simple approach to marketing. Define a single clear message that engages the consumer and request them to do something. This idea should be able to be executed through any communication channel and through any medium. The marketing message can be broken down into four parts.

1. The Benefit

To market a product or service effectively it is essential that we find a single defining quality that separates it from the competition. We call this the benefit. To find the benefit we must look hard at the product or service and distill through examination and research the primary motivator that will cause people to engage with the communication.

2. The Features

Like all business people though we like to talk about all the great things our product can do and we do not deny you this, we like to group these things into what we call 'features'. By including features we can give a potential customer evidence to convince them the product is what they want.

3. The Motivation

By separating the benefit from the features we allow the customer to focus on an emotive reason to purchase such as 'buying this is going to make me look great'. In fact looking great is the most powerful motivator to purchase. In the words of Steve Jobs 'its not how your product looks that matters but how it makes your customer look.'

There are seven powerful motivators that we use to get responses:

Scarcity - people must think it is hard to come by
Likeness - people buy from people they like and are similar to
Social proof - are other like me using it too?
Reciprocation - people will buy if they get something extra
Authority - be known as an expert, publish industry standards
Commitment - demonstration of consistent delivery (of brand too)
Consistency - people notice inconsistency and they do not trust it

4. The Action

All good marketing communications ask the viewer to take action immediately. If the communication has no action then the opportunity to engage the consumer will most probably be lost. Actions generally take the form of store visits, phone calls, emails, website visits and sms messages.

GETTING KNOWN IN A SECOND LIFE

2007-04-04T08:13:00.000+10:00

Known has begun to stake a claim in the Online world of Second Life. We are in the process of setting up a demo office on Silicon Island and will soon be making a land purchase where we hope to test some in world marketing ideas for our clients.

"Second Life is a wonderful exploration of the possibilities of the future of the online world", said Smith Mendicant, Knowns' in-world representative. "We have been discovering many innovative ways that online social and business groups have been organising themselves."

Here is a shot of Smith in front of the newly constructed Known Second Life Headquarters

If you are interested in getting involved in Second Life in a business context get in touch with us. We are more than happy to give you a demo and show you the possibilities.

KNOWN INTELLIGENT EMAIL MARKETING SYSTEM

2007-02-09T13:25:00.000+11:00

The Known Intelligent Email Marking System (KIEMS) is a powerful tool that can be used to enhance the communications of any company. It contains powerful features to help you analyse your user base and speak to them regularly for minimal cost.

Our system features:

> Hosted mailing list and mail server
> Ability to import and export existing data
> Well coded HTML emails that get through to people
> High quality intelligent design solutions
> Automated bounce handling and mailling list cleaning
> Forms for your site that add names directly to your mailing list with full opt-in anti-SPAM compliance

Download the full PDF brochure for more info

KNOWNS' TOP 5 ENVIRONMENTALLY FRIENDLY OFFICE TIPS

2007-02-09T13:09:00.000+11:00

1. Switch off non-essential computers at the end of the day.

2. Print on both sides of paper. Put your printouts into a tray marked recycle.

3. Only use essential lighting during the day.

4. Unplug your phone charger after your phone has finished charging.

5. Encourage recycling, not just of paper but all recyclables. Bottles, containers, toner cartridges etc.

WHO KNOWS YOU? GETTING PEOPLE TO FIND YOU ON THE WORLD WIDE WEB

2006-10-03T16:15:00.001+10:00

In a increasingly time poor society, finding the things we need for everyday life is becoming the job of the internet, and the primary way to find something on the internet is with a search engine. The most popular being Google and getting an ever increasing slice of the pie is Yahoo and the local search providers like Sensis and True Local. Search Engine Marketing or Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a technique where your website is optimised to give you the best possible chance of appearing at the top of the list for certain keywords that are relevant to your product or service. The following is a brief outline of how we go about it.

Maintaining a high ranking in search engines is a highly effective way of marketing your business. By maintaining consistently high ranking you create a greater awareness and a higher perceived brand value. By utilising an ongoing managed SEO campaign you will create awareness of your business and generate sales through increased traffic to the website.

Benefits of SEO

First point of research for potential customers
Engages active customers
Increases website traffic dramatically
Cost effective
Massive reach
Targeted approach
Results easily reported
High listings add to brand value

Optimising your website

There are certain areas of your website that can be optimised for higher search engine rankings. These include: design, layout, navigation, colors, background, fonts, images, link density, meta tags, web copy, html validation, browser and resolution compatibility.

Some sites won’t perform well if they are slow loading. Search Engines don’t like sites which take a lot of time to load. They sometimes ignore these sites and place them lower than fast loading sites in their index. Reasons for slow load times include html errors and bad image optimisation. Sometimes sites are coded badly which can be a big block for visiting search engine crawlers.

The creation of a site map page would enable search engine spiders better crawling of your site. It also helps visitors to quickly scan your whole site for relevant information. People view sites in different browsers and at different resolutions. We make sure your site can be viewed in all the major browsers and in the most common resolutions. Adjustments will be made to the site’s code where necessary.

All of the factors listed above have some influence in attracting search engine spiders and visitors to your site.

Areas for optimisation

Meta tag title and keyword refinement
Website HTML content
Keyword density
Site mapping
Design and layout
HTML validation
Browser compatibility
Navigation
Hyperlink density

Keyword research

One of the basic steps in search engine optimisation is keyword research. By developing accurately a list of the most commonly used terms in order to search for your site you will maximise the impact of search engine optimisation.

When your site ranks well, more relevant customers come to the site leading to an increase in conversions. The accurate identification and careful selection of these important keywords and key phrases can literally make or break any web site or online business.

Ways to identify keywords

Look at website stats to see what people are using
Look at what other sites in your industry are using
Ask site visitors what words they might use
Try different searches to see the results
Market research
Look at combinations of keywords eg. term and location
Results with multiple search terms

Refining of Meta information

Meta information is used to provide additional information about HTML documents so that the search engine crawlers are able to index the information more accurately. We recommend a thorough analysis and refining of Meta information for any website. There are 3 important types of Meta tags as far as search engine optimisation is concerned:

Title tag

The Title tag is not a Meta tag. However title tags play a vital role in your site’s rankings. It is these words or phrase that appear in the title of your page in the hyperlink listings on the search engine results. It should include the most relevant and specific keywords or key phrases in the title tag that best describe the contents of the page.

Meta description tag

This gives a short and concise summary of the content of your web page. The description appears in the search results just below the title tag. The meta description tag is brief but includes some of your top keywords. The words used must inspire the visitor to check your site out further. Each page must be customized so all your web pages will not have the same meta tag descriptions.

Meta keywords tag

Although not as relevant as the other tags mentioned above, the Meta keywords tag is still recognised by search engines. Include should be a number of meta keywords for you that are relevant to the content of your web pages.

Competitive analysis

This is for better search engine ranking performance. We will perform study of the sites of all your competitors who have high search engine rankings and find out the keywords for which they are ranked. We then analyse your current meta tags and recreate them based on the keywords that have been researched. We also analyse your recent web site stats. We can then see how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from and what keywords they are using.

What we look at when analysing a competitors site

Meta information
Content
Information structure
Titles
Ranking
Inbound linking
HTML code

SEO optimised copywriting

SEO copywriting is rewriting the text on your site in such a way that it becomes search engine friendly while remaining appealing to the surfer. Density of keywords within the HTML text of your site increase the ranking of your site.

Our copywriting services include modifying your site headings, HTML text and image tags. Some pages may only require a small amount of editing or none at all, whereas others may need a more extensive rewrite.

An example of optimised HTML copy

Original Our website is great because we sell <computers> that are great value and really modern. They come with a six month warranty and a free introductory course valued at $500.

Optimised <Computers Now> is an <online computer store> that sells <great value computers>. They come with a six month warranty and a <free computer course> valued at $500.

Building link density

Link Density refers to the number of links pointing to your site, from other sites on the web. The Search Engines consider your site important and rank it higher if other sites link to your site.

There are two types of links you can establish on the web. One type is Link Exchange or Reciprocal Links, where you give a link from the links Page on your site to the partner sites and vice versa. The second more influential method is to establish only ‘incoming links’ also called ‘one-way links’ or ‘non-reciprocal links’. With non-reciprocal links, you do not need to link back to them.

Reciprocal links are generated by sending requests to relevant non-competitive sites and asking for links. In the link exchange process, you trade links with prospective partner sites by offering a link to their site from your own site.

There are several ways of developing Inbound links. Some of the techniques we follow in one way link building are:

Submitting to Free Directories
Writing articles and submitting to various sites for publishing to increase the link popularity of your site.
Press releases

As part of our service we provide continual research and recommendations for reciprocal linking and directory registrations.

Potential linking partners

Industry organisations
Business directories
Relevant sites to specific activities
Friends and colleagues business and personal sites

Pay per click search advertising

A fast, targeted and effective way to maintain high search engine rankings is through pay-per-click online advertising campaigns. By paying the main advertising services a small fee per click through to your site, you stand a better chance to get higher rankings in sponsor site listings.

The way it works is that a company bids for certain keywords and the higher the bid the more chance of a higher listing. Using this type of campaign is effective because it is instant in that you don’t have to wait for the web crawlers to list your site which can take as long as 12 weeks. It is also effective as your site gets listed in other affiliate search engines at the same time.

The two services that cover the major search engines are:

Adwords (Google, About.com, Ask Jeeves)
Overture (Yahoo, NineMSN, Altavista)

We would maintain the bids and results on keywords as set by your monthly budget.

Reporting and analytics

At the end of each month we would supply a printed report of all the online activities. The report is essential in understanding which keywords are working and how much business is being generated by the campaign.

We can track the number of visitors to your site through website traffic analysis and we can see through a website enquiry form how many people are enquiring online.

We can also see the pay-per-click results through statistics generated by those providers.

Our reports include

Current ranking on all major search engines
Number of unique site visitors
Visits by search engine
Visits by search keyword
Latest Meta information and keywords used

GETTING YOUR HTML EMAIL DELIVERED

2006-09-11T11:01:00.002+10:00

Coding HTML for delivery is a very tricky business. Getting through unscathed to Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail is one thing but trying to get your message delivered to Hotmail, Google, Yahoo and the many other email clients can prove to be a nightmare.

Web email clients such as these strip out information such as links to style sheets and header information where styling information is usually stored. At Known we use the latest techniques that ensure when your email is coded it gets through to the highest percentage of email clients

The most important thing we do is use "inline" styling. This allows all of the information that specifies the look of the email to be contained within the message itself. This helps to stop webmail clients stripping out the information that destroys the beautiful graphics and layout that you have spent so much time and effort creating.

Another unfortunate side effect of our coding is that DIV's and Floats are also found out and ignored by the major email clients. If you are a stickler for standards (as we are) then you know that the use of tables for layouts is not the done thing these days. If however you want to do multi column layouts in HTML email and get it through tables are the necessary evil.

If you want to improve the deliverability of your HTML email get in touch with us.

LOGO DESIGN MADE EASY

2006-07-28T16:44:00.001+10:00

Designing a logo is one of the most difficult tasks a design company can face. A companys logo is seen to represent everything a company is tied up into a simple graphic device. This compounded with the personal preferences of people involved with the creative process creates a very challenging task.

At Known we simplify the process using a refinement technique to quickly get onto a direction that you will be happy with and then develop that direction until we achieve the desired result. We break the process into four distinct refinements.

1. Initial concepts

We start off with a group of six to twelve very different designs, the client will pick a the style and shape that appeals the most to them. It is common for the client to pick two or more different types which we then combine.

2. Concept development

We then produce another three concepts in line with that direction. Most of the time a client will choose a final design candidate from these three.

3. Typeface selection

An important part of an identity is the typefaces that are chosen either as the logo or as support to the main mark. This can be the name of the business or a strapline. We will show the client three refinements of the typeface. By this stage the design and typeface have been selected.

4. Colour selection

Finally and often most controversial is colour selection. It is necessary to choose colour that work in lot's of different scenarios. On white, on black, on backgrounds and in black and white. There are also cultural issues, reproduction quality and the ever important cost. We make you aware of all of the implications of colour while keeping within the parameters you find most appealing.

VIEW SOME EXAMPLES OF OUR LOGO DESIGN WORK