Nokia’s new Video Center offers RSS video feeds along with content directly from YouTube, no browser needed. Initially available on the N95, Nokia’s fattie media phone, it will be available for S60 phones including the N93i down the line. How is it integrated? Well, the Video Center looks sort of like Apple’s Front Row and offers YouTube video through one of the rotating selectors.
In addition to that the Nokia Nseries web site has been updated, got a bit of a makeover, added some social bookmarking features, including a blogroll…
It’s clear that both candidates have been advised that “social media” is going to be very important, with their various web based videos, their blogs. Even Hillary’s tagline “let the conversation begin” seems to have come from some breathless political strategists mind as they heard that “blogs were conversations”, but has obviously never written a blog before. Additionally Hillary’s blog has no entries in it, just an invitation to sign up and write a “blog post” for them, weird, i’m sure people want to hear what they think, surely they’ll get plenty of “man on the street” feedback from the comments.
Interestingly Barak Obama’s latest web based feature is my.barackobama.com which is essentially a social network for Barak Obama supporters. An interesting strategy, rather than using existing technologies like Howard Dean did, like friendster and meetup, Barak’s camp has decided to build their own (although no one knows who they hired at this point). It’s certainly not new to have constituents sign up to get access to tools for fundraising and organizing but this is the closest i’ve seen to a candidate branded social network.
As I was browsing both Hillary’s site and Obama’s I found an enormous contrast between the sign up screens that was worth noting. Obama’s sign up screen provides a really good overview of what your going to get once you sign up. Hillary’s on the other hand seems to be more about what you’re going to do for her. Another interesting contrast is Obama’s asks for a lot less information, he doesn’t need your mailing address, just your zip code, and by providing that your immediately presented groups and events in your area. Asking people for information in a sign up form is always a negotiation and in this case it seems Obama’s sign up screen is superior in communicating what your going to get and only asking for what they need. Hillary’s on the other hand is ambiguous about what your going to get and is really asking for information they want to help them market to you better, as opposed to what they need to serve you better.
In the end people are not going to switch loyalties based on sign up screens, but conversion rates matter. How many more of his supporters is Obama going to sign up and get engaged in the process? Political campaigns have always been a co-creative activity where they rely on the passion and activity of their supporters, but the internet, web2.0, and social media are amplifying the impact that those supporters can have, and the better the candidates “employ” those supporters the better.
All joking aside the new Yahoo “pipes” service looks pretty bad ass for creating your own useful mashups of information on the internet. It turns out that even Yahoo underestimated the power of getting BoingBoing’d
Pipes is a hosted service that lets you remix feeds and create new data mashups in a visual programming environment. The name of the service pays tribute to Unix pipes, which let programmers do astonishingly clever things by making it easy to chain simple utilities together on the command line.
Youtube succeeded because it was easy, easy to upload content, easy to share, easy to embed on your myspace profile. Bud.tv on the other hand makes it so hard to actually log in that even well worn internet users (like me), who are well over 18 (i’m 37) can’t log in because Bud.tv appears to be trying to match DOB information with a drivers license database. The funniest thing is that they obviously knew that the age verification thing is flaky because they actually offered and Interactive Voice Response phone number to help me through it, obviously Bud.tv doesn’t know that I would rather stick needles in my eyes than voluntarily call a IVR so I can log into a web site of unknown quality or interest.
It’s of course not an official commercial but what a great portfolio piece. It also reminds me of some sales advice I got from my Grandad (who was a great salesman), and that is tell the customer what’s wrong with something before they can tell you. He used to sell consumer electronics for Philips in Southampton and he had some particularly unattractively styled radios. When someone would ask what it was he’s say “Let me tell you, that ugly thing is probably one of the best radios i’ve ever heard”, sold.
I had been experimenting with the delicious daily post thing for a while and have decided to discontinue it. The primarily reason being because it would post anything I put in delicious which ended up making me use delicious less, because I knew every bookmark would end up on my blog. Instead i’ve created a new link roll feed in feedburner dedicated to articles worth reading that pulls all my bookmarks from delicious that are tagged “article-roll”, that way you only get links to relevant stuff, or at least stuff that I think is relevant and interesting. Feedback appreciated obviously, cheers.
Paidcontent.org reports that Diageo (the owner of Guiness) is launching a site on monday that will allow the public to create their own commercials for Guiness. It will certainly be interesting as Guiness in my mind has created some great commercials over the years, everything from the iconic “my goodness my Guiness” to the amazingly cinematic commercials (anyone remember the guy on the train?).
An amazing story where LED graffiti (placed by the Graffiti Research Lab) of Mooninite from ATHF placed around Boston essentially shut it down because the flashing LED’s were interprited as some kind of terrorist device. Damn Boston when did you become so uncool, two words, Adult Swim.
