These are my links for July 16th from 04:07 to 13:16:

  • YouTube to Award $5 Million in Grants to Video Producers in Pseudo-Production Fund – Since the decline of Bebo as an online video investor, it seems YouTube will be the next big investors exchanging product investment with ad sales. It certainly makes more sense as they're more sustainably funded (by Google) and there's an interest to them to make sure the content will drive audiences.
  • Why Many Teens Are Moving on from Facebook – US led research suggests Facebook may be losing it's sheen with the teens – the crucial market to ensure long-term success. The question I wonder is where are they going? Back to Bebo or MySpace? It seems not. Perhaps we are shifting now away from the big destination networks to slightly more specialist spaces.
  • Social media in China: an introduction – Some useful stats on how China is adapting to the internet. Although internet adoption is low, this still represents over 400 million internet users, all hungry for engagement, content and e-commerce.
  • What Can Small Businesses Learn From Old Spice Viral Social Media Campaign – Bit late to party but Old Spice is causing a splash with their video and Twitter campaign to speak to the spice's new pin-up. This is a great approach – delighting audiences with personal responses and fun content, the perfect use of social media.
  • Augmented Reality Explained by Common Craft – Another lovely hand made papercut video about high technology: this time Common Craft tackle augmented reality – what it is and what you can do with it today.
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These are my links for June 25th from 08:03 to 19:25:

  • What Makes Up a Social Marketing Strategy? – Research on marketers use of social media strategy – a shocking 52% are operating "without a game plan" and only 45% have a social media comapny policy. Most believe planning and delivering on social media is the main responsibility of the marketing department. Whatever happened to joined-up thinking?
  • Legal considerations for people responsible for websites – Useful little primer and links for legal responsibilities for those running websites, explaining a bit about your responsibilities as moderators and for data protection.
  • Marketing week: Digital Strategy supplement – Marketing bible Marketing Week have a selection of useful articles on digital strategy including the important of data, search and social media in making marketing decisions.
  • Consumer health trends – Useful stats from Creation Healthcare on international health search trends in relation to digital engagement.
  • Manual for bands and brands – Brand sponsorship of bands is probably the biggest growth area for investment in music. This mini e-book (a sort of commercial tribute to the Bill Drummond 'How to Have a No 1' Manual) has some good food for thought on what as a band you need to consider to make the partnership work.
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These are my links for June 18th through June 23rd:

  • Social Media Playbook – A little 101, but some useful up-to-date stats on the latest hip and happening social media networks, and some tips as to how to use them well for business in this E-Book. I disagree with some of their frequency guidelines: this should depend on the quality of content you have and the level of engagement of your audience.
  • New training courses I’m delivering: Creating Online Video for Web and Personal Branding – I've recently started to develop and deliver e-marketing training courses for Derby's Creative Exchange, a professional media training centre at University of Derby. I'm really excited about these new courses which are really expanding the reach of e-marketing to new practical and strategy elements. The first two courses are on Creating Online Video for the Web (29 June) and Personal Branding (30 June). Both are free to Derby city residents, and cost £25 if you're not.
  • The future of social/E-Mail Integration – E-Marketer research on businesses linking their social media to email campaigns, and vice versa. Seems very few are doing it (which seems like a no brainer to me) but more are going to step up their integration. I always say to clients: don't throw baby out with the bathwater: email marketing is still the highest conversion, highest sharing of 'social' media and best way to build in a long term opt-in customer base.
  • Margaret Gould Stewart: How YouTube thinks about copyright – Video from the Iconic TED conference series on how YouTube's technology allow rights holders to register tracks and when matches in the system are detected (including music in the background and mashups) the rights holder can decide if they wish to allow their film & music work to be used in its new context, presenting a new twist on copyright in the digital age.
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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 March 14th from 12:13 to 17:21:

  • Fans, Friends & Followers: Building an Audience and a Creative Career in the Digital Age – Here's a great time-limited gift: download Scott Kirsner's free e-book 'Fans, Friends and Followers' (132 pages) but ONLY for the duration of the SXSW festival. It's a great idea for how independent creatives can begin to forge careers using online and social marketing tools. And a great example of creating scarcity in the (abundant) digital age – grab it while you can!
  • Strategy Basics: It’s Really all about having a Plan – The smart thinking people at Carsonified, the web design specialists, have a smart view about developing a strategy: "At the heart of it all “strategy” is just about having a plan for the thing you are working on."<br />
    They use the example of creating a useful iPhone content app to meet a client's sales goals.
  • Tories promise fast broadband – The election fight is heating up, and broadband is becoming another leverage of differentiation: Tories say the majority will have 100Mbs fast broadband by next parliament, Labour want universal access at lower levels (2Mb) by 2012 and superfast by 2017. Interesting split and not an unexpected divide: Labour want access for all quickly, Tories want quicker access for some giving industry in cities a competitive advantage globally. Whoever wins the election, we should see the speeding up of networks as a priority.
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