Weather can change our mood!

It’s fact. Scientists did lots of research to prove that weather can change our mood. Basically, what they say is that cloudy cover and cold days are not good to do exercises and drive, because you have less reflexes and feel aches and pains.

Furthermore, unstable conditions cause loss of concentration, so, they won’t recommend complicated work.

On the other hand, sunny days are good… no, they are perfect! Sunny days can make you happy and energetic. I’m not talking about hot dry winds, because that can increase your proneness to violence!

We had amazing sunny days in Dublin that unfortunately is almost gone. You can buy the Sun and put on your desk if you want.

By the way, the office is covered with smiling faces. Smiles can leverage your good mood. Smile to the person who’s beside you now!

Probably people here create their own sunny environment. A sunny smile.

The “C” Generation? Not, but V!

Few years ago agencies started talking about the “C” Generation. For those who doesn’t remember, it means:
-    Contribute
-    Create
-    Communicate
-    Comment
-    Consume
-    Catalyzes
And so on…

But this Generation was also called “Digital Natives”. People who were born “Digital”.

They don’t know what a fax machine is and they never had to connect using a dial-up connection. Digital Natives are the new youth. But they grew up. And we are the Digital Natives. We are not kids anymore, and it doesn’t matter anymore, since Internet hasn’t age. (By the way, my mom uses MSN and follows my adventures on my Blog).

That’s why Gartner, in a recent research, reported the V Generation. V means Virtual. This Virtual Generation is not based on age, gender, social class or geography. Instead, it is based on achievement, accomplishments and an increasing preference for the use of digital media channels to discover information, build knowledge and share insights.

And inside the Generation V, Gartner defines four levels of engagement – creators (3%), contributors (3-10%), opportunists (10-20%), and lurkers (80%). Lurkers are spectators (they can still implicitly contribute and indirectly validate value from the rest of the community). And guess what? All users start out as lurkers.

“Companies should plan to segment all four levels in the community – each has significant business value,” said Adam Sarner, principal research analyst at Gartner.
“Differentiation exists between sectors and industries. Marketers with strong brands attract more creators. Certain industries, such as insurance, draw more lurkers.”

It makes much more sense for me, since digital is not new for everyone. And of course targeting still exists, but under the target umbrella (or under “V Generation” umbrella), we need to segment our strategy.

Source: http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=721008

Nokia and Microsoft getting together

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Everybody knows that Nokia is the leader in mobile devices, but they have a lack of know-how about Music devices.

Also, you know that Microsoft has a good know-how about Music and has some good connections with productions and recorders, but they have a lack of knowledge about musical devices (Zune).

So, what happens if both get together? That’s what’s happening. Nokia and Microsoft are working together to create a musical/mobile device (iPhone?).

I hope they don’t do the same mistake that Apple and Motorola did some time ago, when they launched Rokr with iTunes, when iTunes had only 100 licensed songs.

Sentinel AVE – Virtual Earth + Google Earth + Second Life + Streaming Videos + Public Camera Shots

Virtual Earth

A mix of Virtual Earth + Google Earth + Second Life + Streaming Videos + Public Camera Shots… scary

http://www.sentinelave.com/AVEVideoEarthHD.html

Google has continuously investing in integrated platforms, communities, data and has recently launched Lively.

Since Google keeps their open APIs, developers can modify and create new tools based on that. And that’s probably part of Sentinel AVE development.

They mixed lots of things, and got this scary and amazing video.

Why is it scary? Well, they have all your information, they know your behaviours, they know what you most like and what you don’t, and they can see your, wherever you are. Can be early to say that, but I will keep my window closed during the shower.

Brazilian e-commerce

Yesterday, emarketer reported about the ecommerce in Brazil. It’s impressive how it has been growing so fast. I actually don’t remember myself buying flight tickets on the airport. I do it online, all the time.

Same for show tickets, DVDs, specific books and electronics.

It’s amazing to see how brazilians are positioned compared to big and mature marketers.

online purchase graph

read the full article:
http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?id=1006422&src=article2_newsltr

[media] New Samsung instinct campaign

Samsung Instinct competes directly with iphone, and they even have a link “instinct Vs iphone”.. (I hate this kind of things.. sounds aggressive)

http://www.instinctthephone.com/

basically they are investing in lots of tutorial videos… but personally, I’d rather see the Steve Jobs presenting how to use the iphone instead of a bunch of videos with a narrator trying to present the “instinct”

[innovation] – radiohead launches videoclip without usage of cameras

Radiohead just released a new video for its song “House of Cards” from the album “In Rainbows”.

No cameras or lights were used. Instead two technologies were used to capture 3D images: Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR.

Watch the making-of video to learn about how the video was made and the various technologies that were used to capture and render 3D data:

http://code.google.com/creative/radiohead/

update:

the results… millions of views

Should we have more free space?

Seems that the industry continues to develop from both sides: web-based plataforms and storage.

When I saw an article on C-Net about the new-generation TeraByte Hard-drive I confess that I asked myself: “Why so much?” (I asked the same question 5 years ago when my friend bought a 250GB HD).

No, I’m not getting old, I’m asking again because 5 years ago we didn’t have Gmail, Flickr and neither YouTube.

Since 2006, I think I’ve downloaded about 10 or 15 albums. Not too much, and do  you know why? I just listen to the music on my mp3 player on my way to work, and here I listen everything online. Yes, 100% online.

Same for my pictures and videos. I just get the best of them and upload on YouTube and Flickr. If I want to watch something cool I can easily find there, or on Vimeo, Metacafe, DailyMotion.. whatever! After watching I get the link and send to all my friends. I don’t need to attach a 5MB file in my email. I also love to embed videos on my Blog. It’s dead easy and I don’t need to store that giga video.

We are digital immigrants and sometimes we may keep their files saved on our computers, some may keep some dvds and blu-ray disks on their shelves. That’s because our clients still don’t trust the internet, and because we are still not connected all the time (most of them, but not all).

Maybe I’m just a passionate geek that loves the internet, but it’s even more common to keep your files stored online. Even my mum’ sends me YouTube links! Everybody is sharing, publishing and commenting.

Yes, afterall we may need some space.

Microsoft adCenter – Innovations in Digital Advertising

“Microsoft adCenter Labs is an applied research group dedicated to researching and incubating new digital advertising technologies. Formed in 2006, Microsoft adCenter Labs combines the talents of more than 120 top researchers and engineers, all dedicated to developing cutting-edge ways for consumers and advertisers to connect. Our researchers work across a broad range of technology areas, including keyword and content technologies, audience intelligence, ad selection and relevance, social networking, and video and interactive media. The algorithms developed by our team operate in the engines of Microsoft adCenter products such as Paid Search, Content Ads, and Behavioral Targeting. We are also committed to investing in developing online advertising products that will shape the future of advertising through more relevant and meaningful ads across online video, television and mobile devices.“

Source: http://adlab.msn.com/

They also run a blog, called adCenter Community. Recently they posted about learning on Web Analytics

The post is very interesting because he mentions about metrics. Are CPCs, clicks, impressions and conversions the most important thing to look after? No!

Managing PPC campaigns requires lots of experience, since you are not dealing only with numbers, but people. So, as mentioned on the post, a quick summary of successful metrics would be:

Engagement

We don’t want only page views. We want loyalty, we want interaction. That’s engaging. People exchanging feelings with your Brand.

Hits

Are they looking are really going into it?

Bounce Rate

If the question is how to reduce bounce rate, the answer is targeting.

Segmentation

People are different, people are unique. And the same should be your Ads!

Nine inch nails and the web 2.0

The new record, The Slip, is available for free under the license of Creative Commons (” attribution noncommercial share-alike”). Does not seem much newness, since that the Radiohead made something similar before and gave certain, generating WOM and spontaneous media the point of much people of the market to have nightmares.

The difference, is that Nine Inch Nails has a set of ideas tied to their albums launch. Since YearZero, using an ARG, based on the album concept, then Ghosts I-IV using a strong strategy and with some great results.

Reznor (NIN vocalist) knows his fans and he is present in the same places as then. The first batch of Ghosts I-IV album was available for download using Torrent.

After that, NIN invited their fans to create videos for the album tracks. this competition was called Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts Film Festival…this video was create by Reznor, and he explains how it works by himself.

The new album, The Slip, has a differential: Reznor disposable not only the album for download. He also added different formats, from mp3 to WAV (with high quality, file size is almost 1GB)

More than that, he also authorized his fans to download the ready songs and remix it, and then share their mixes for free.

seems that it’s working… a quick look into their webpage reach:

http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details/nin.com