These are my links for April 15th through April 16th:

  • Election 2010: what the manifestos promise for media and creatives – Here's one to interrogate your election door-steppers with: what the three main parties will do for the UK's creative industries. There's some reasonable differentiators, particularly in Lib Dem/ Conservative pledge to (perhaps) diminish or cut the Regional Development Agencies. Some hopes still on the horizon for a (too little too late) games industry tax break.
  • Is ‘free’ finally falling out of favor? – Sad news today that Ning, the social network tool that lets anyone set up a niche social network in a few minutes, is adopting a pay or leave model. It's sad: I'm sure a lot of the networks I'm in will go (even a small cost is not always easy to achieve) and the critical mass Ning had with setting up one account to access multiple online communities, particularly in the non-profit space, will whither away. But it's also more symptomatic that this 'poster child' for web 2.0 free communities cannot survive endless free lunches: with Meetup.com steeling a march on real world communities by charging annual fees, we may now start to see the gradual 'pay or die' monetisation of many online services.
  • 5 Ways to Reduce Social Media Distractions and Be More Productive – Some help we all need right now! Productivity tools to avoid getting carried away with 'real time' data (from bank accounts to social networks) just because it's there.
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These are my links for March 23rd from 09:22 to 23:16:

  • Scrolling and Attention – Jacob Nielsen, usability legend, with some very interesting research on user experience tracking in relation to below-the-fold content: 80% of users ONLY read what's above the fold, but some layout that encourage scrolling can still command attention.
  • 5 days until Mediacamp, Nottingham’s first barcamp for creative media March 27 – If you're not following me on Twitter (please do, I'm @susioneill) I may have been remise to inform you that we're once again hosting another Mediacamp in Nottingham this Saturday. It's a day long energised discussion, presentation and exploration barcamp to discuss all aspects of how digital media is rocking our world. I'll be experimenting with social reporting, capturing highlights of the day for our website www.creativenottingham.com, and hosting a session to talk about the CreativeNottingham project and our plans. <br />
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    The event is currently sold out – if you *really* want to come email me (susi@digitalconsultant.co.uk) and I'll see if I can help, otherwise they'll be live streaming of the main hall and live reporting on CreativeNottingham.com.
  • How to build Augmented Reality into your digital strategy – Augmented reality – building in a layer of digital information and content into real world places – is the next real innovation from the future that's already hitting our world through services like Google Goggles and Layar. This article talks about how you can bring AR into your brand's digital strategy.
  • Project Canvas is open and standardised – and great for consumers – The CEO of video-on-demand service Blinkbox counteracts Sky's claims that Project Canvas, providing a standardised broadband to TV service, will be bad for business. He counteracts that producers are aggregators will be able to delivery pay-as-you-watch programming and in will generative innovative 'apps' like for the iphone to provided added value services through the open network. I can't wait – this could be yet another exciting platform for technologies and video producers.
  • Creative funding database – Although I'm sure this is probably the same data as the funding database on Business Link site, this creative funding/business support from the excellent Creative Choices skills website works very well, it's easy to use and seems to be pretty comprehensive.
  • Conservatives’ ‘Cash Gordon’ web campaign backfires – And in the blue corner, the Tories have made a pigs ear of their latest venture to discredit Brown. 'Cash Gordon' site had a rent-a-crowd vibe, and was based on a back-end system used by right-wing lobbying groups against healthcare reform in the US. Trolls quickly hacked the site and used the unmoderated hashtag's on the site's display to make a disparaging remark or two. Well done Tories for going web 2.0, poor show on making such a #hashtag of it. Lessons learnt: although an election is a fast and furious thing, it's essential to allow time for user-testing of a site launch, rather than a very public flop.
  • Brown outlines advanced UK digital strategy – As we're all on tenderhooks for the notice of the UK election date, the parties are lining up their policies. In the red corner, Brown the encumbent plans to introduce two new bodies to advance the digital economy, An Institute fo Web Science headed up by web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, and a digital public service unit led by Last Minute.com founder and digital inclusion champion Martha Lane-Fox (one has to have double-barrelled names to succeed nowadays in government). Whilst creating two new quangos, Brown dashes against the rest, replacing 'first gen' e-government with an integrated MyGov portal (cue expensive new makeover). It will be interesting to see how the development of this policy unfolds, particularly in line with the forthcoming digital economy bill and whether this does progress through parliament despite public uproar.
  • Direct Marketing 2.0 – You are what you click – Net Imperative article briefing on how user insight and split-run testing can help to build better return on investment as part of a digital strategy. Some important lessons here like 'rubbish in, rubbish out' data sources, and the idea of an A-Z rather than A-B, testing iteratively all aspects of a campaign or conversion web page as an ongoing beta.
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These are my links for November 5th from 18:07 to 18:18:

  • ‘Why the games industry needs the Tories’ – As title suggests: OMG!! But actually this speech by Ed Vaizey, Shadow Minister for Culture, is cutting it with games sector, suggesting fiscal breaks and better quality education can help grow the games sector rather than haemoraging it overseas. Disagree strongly with his view that the UK Film Council should take on games: bad idea. They don't even want to work with TV and the aesthetic and structures are all so contradictory.
  • There’s life outside London – Ruth Pitt, new director of Screen England, on the power of media production outside London – and how we need to shake off the shackles and connotation of "regional" as a euphism for 2nd class. You go girl!!
  • At the Base of the Pyramid – Erik Simanis writes an insightful article on reaching untapped markets of the very poorest people in developing nations, using unconventional tactics like selling the joys rather than the necessities, and involving communities as entrepreneurial sellers.
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