Not All Flashmobs Are Good
January 29, 2010 at 8:30 am
Corporate America – please do not hijack our beloved flashmobs! Cringe-inducing performance on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange last Friday (22 Jan 2010). How not to do Flashmobs:
Blogger In ‘Size Queen’ Revelation Shocker
January 28, 2010 at 7:45 am
The time has come to give back the Toyota iQ.
What I’ve loved:
- The way the heating works. Heated seats, especially in recent weather conditions, have been a God send. Windows are all demisted, car is warm and toasty in minutes. A+ for this!
- Nippy parking and sneaking into tight spaces ability. If you’ve seen a black motor squeezing through spaces that you wouldn’t dare touch in your saloon, that’s me in the iQ.
- Paying no more than €30 to fill the tank at the petrol station. A ++ for this!
- Room for fiancé and dog in front seat. This is because there’s no big dashboard/glove compartment.
What I’ve not liked:
- The fact that there is no glove compartment means you’ve got to stick everything into a folder thing that falls apart if you try to put more than a packet of tissues in it.
- Sore botty when driving on roads with speed bumps. I’m told this is the case for all Japanese cars, not just the iQ.
- Having to change gear 3 times to make it up the gentle slope that is the N2. The iQ experience has shown me that I’m a bit of a size queen when it comes to cars. I like a big engine with lots of va va voom!
Overall, it’s been a really enjoyable driving experience. I would recommend a Toyota iQ for anyone who does city driving. It’s nippy enough to get around busy urban streets and you don’t need parking fairies when you’ve got an iQ.
Advice to Toyota
- Update following recent interaction on Twitter (29 Jan): if you’re going to get your agency to use Twitter on your behalf, make sure they do it right. Put in some basic guidelines for how they represent you because the odd misinformed tweet here and there is actually damaging to your brand. After this blog was posted, I got asked by @ToyotaIreland on Twitter if I was going to buy the car. A little direct I thought. But obviously not really Toyota because we’d already been through this (and I decided against buying the motor). When I tried to Direct Message Toyota to let them know about this, I discovered that ToyotaIreland wasn’t even following me! You’d think they’d follow at least their 4 bloggers to keep an ear on them! In fairness, the lovely people I’ve dealt with at Toyota don’t seem that Twitter savvy, but the agency who sold them on this whole blogger/Twitter outreach programme should do. (I’m not naming names, but really you know who you are and you should have a bit more cop on).
- If you’re running this experiment again choose the bloggers wisely, ie. make sure you choose bloggers who not only post frequently but ones who are out and about a lot. I found I did lots of ‘selling’ on the car when I was parking it in and around Dublin city centre. Invariably it drew comments from impressed onlookers as they saw me manoeuvre it into tight spaces! This would then spark a conversation about the car, I’d give them a look at the interior, there was many a soft selling opportunity. Actually … we should have a talk about my commission!
- When you’re giving training on the vehicle, it would be helpful to present it in terms of “top 3 points on why it’s green”, “top 3 points on why it’s energy efficient” etc. That is how we bloggers think – in lists – and it took me a little while to get my banter going on when people asked me those questions.
So Mossy the dog says goodbye to the Toyota iQ (and so do I). And thanks to Toyota for giving me free motoring for the last 6 months.
Tags: Toyota IQ
Flashmob Friday – Cirque du Soleil
January 22, 2010 at 3:33 pm
Tags: flashmob friday
Irish Facebook Developers
January 20, 2010 at 1:12 pm
I started a discussion on LinkedIn last week to ask the people about who they rate as good Irish Facebook developers. I haven’t checked out any of the people listed below, but here are a list of their names, which hopefully will be of help to you if you’re looking. Hopefully I’ll meet these folks over the course of my travels and will be able to update on them in later posts:
- BetaPond (Conor) – http://www.betapond.com/facebook.php
- Nightblue (Gareth McDaid) – http://www.nightbluefruit.com/
Others who were nominated but who do not fully fit the Irish criteria:
- Chris McCabe (seems to be based in UK?) - http://uk.linkedin.com/pub/chris-mccabe/16/85b/176
Tags: irish facebook developers
The Most Comprehensive Research On Twitter Use – Ever!
January 19, 2010 at 9:20 am
Sysomos, a US agency, analysed 11.5 million Twitter accounts and produced a report in June 2009, the findings of which just don’t resonate with me to be accurate or truly representative. I’m sceptical because nowhere does it mention how the 11.5 million accounts were sourced. The following stats just don’t ring true:
- 72.5% of all Twitter users joined during the first five months of 2009
- 85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
- 21% of users have never posted a Tweet= 2.4 million of the sample have blank twitter pages?
- 5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
- There are more women on Twitter (53%) than men (47%). – that’s not my experience of it, and it’s certainly not what’s showing in Ireland’s most influential (see below)
Apart from the 4 companies on there, they are all men! Source: WeFollow.com
They’ve Got The Average Age All Wrong
“Based on a sample set of users who disclosed their age, 65% of Twitter users are under the age of 25.”
But only 0.7% disclosed their age, it was optional. Would the correct statement on this be that, of the participants who completed the survey or allowed access to their Twitter page, only the 25 year olds were happy to say how old they were!
Many under 25 year olds are college students. I’ve been reading a lot about college students and their habits this year as they tend to be the most typical sample used in academic research. They are big on IM and texting, loving Facebook, but not so into LinkedIn or Twitter. It would be interesting to have run the research on this same sample about LinkedIn – there could be shocking headlines now “0.005% use LinkedIn more than once a month” – which is clearly not the case!
Consider the graphic below – look at the high proportion of 15-19 year olds – again I ask Where Did They Get Their Sample From? High school prom night?
5% Make The Most Noise
Sysmos discovered that 5% of users accounted for 75% of all Twitter activity.
A closer look reveals that nearly all of them are bots operated by hotels, news and weather services, financial aggregators, and tagging sites such as del.icio.us. You’d expect they’d have removed the bots from the sample and reported on the top 5% of non-bot users? But no they didn’t. Probably because it wouldn’t have generated such an interesting headline.
I’m not celeb-lover but I have been known to browse the mags while getting my hair done – and yet I have never heard of 3 out of the 5 top celebs. Have you heard of Tyrese (@tyrese4real), Alyssa Milano (@alyssa_milano), or Tila Tequila (@officialtila)?
There’s a whole lot more, but really it’s quite underwhelming. Read full research findings here.
And so the quest for realistic Twitter research continues…
Tags: Twitter research
Facebook New Competition Rules
January 14, 2010 at 4:28 pm
I meant to post on this a little while ago, but got side-tracked. Facebook changed their terms & conditions relating to how we run competitions effective immediately. Anyone wanting to run a competition, contest, or sweepstakes in which entry is based on becoming a fan, posting a message, updating status or making a comment must have prior written approval of Facebook. To get that approval, you need an account manager. You don’t get an account manager assigned to you unless you’re spending upwards of $10,000. If you do get that approval, you must run your contest through a third party app.
It’s not good news for the little guys like Simple Assembly Me Hole. And it doesn’t bode well for charities either.
In general, the word from the US is that this needed to happen. Without it, Facebook was wide open to being in breach of the US lottery law.
It’s also being seen as a way to tidy up people’s news streams.
But it’s not all bad. Here’s what you can do:
What You Can Do
Publicising vs. Administering
The big distinction that Facebook makes is between ‘publicising’ and ‘administering’ a promotion on Facebook.
- ‘Publicising’ a promotion means that you promote, advertise or reference a promotion in Facebook, but you do not collect entries or draw or notify winners in Facebook.
- ‘Administering‘ a promotion means you both publicise it, collect entries and draw/notify winners in Facebook.
Publicising a Promo DOES NOT REQUIRE Facebook Approval
All companies can ‘publicise’ promotions in Facebook without needing any special permission.
Administering a Promo REQUIRES Facebook Approval
If you wish to ‘publicise’ AND ‘adminster’ a promotion in Facebook, it is now necessary to get a Facebook sales rep and seek approval.
This is good news for app developers who will be kept even busier now. View list of Irish Facebook developers.
This is probably also good news for Ireland Inc. My guess is that many of the Facebook European Headquarters jobs might be account managers?
Tags: facebook app developers, facebook competition rules
Content is Still King
January 8, 2010 at 4:49 pm
That’s the first thing I learned when I started working on websites back in 1999. It was important then, and it’s equally as important now. It doesn’t matter how beautifully designed your website is, if it’s got nothing to say people won’t come back to it. Often businesses put up the blurb from their marketing brochures as the text on their website.
WRONG!
On the web, the big difference is that people can click away from your website and land on a competitor’s site in a couple of seconds.
When they’re reading your brochure, that’s not as likely to happen.
So – what can you do?
- Write 50% less than you would normally. This is because we know that people – even when they’re concentrating really hard – take in 25% less when reading it off a screen.
- Write your headlines like literature; body text like a tabloid journalist. ie. Be really clear what your text is about… but when you’re writing it, keep to short sentences, no multi-syllabic words, keep it simple.
- Stick to classic copywriting rules about sentence structure and length. Bulleted lists. Punctuation and more.
It’s not rocket science, but you do need someone to show you how to write for web just the once. After that, you’ll fly. If you write content that is published on websites, on a blog, on emails, or you just generally want to spruce up your business language style generally – you might be interested in attending a 1 day online copywriting course run by Brightspark.
Thursday 28 January, 10am-5pm, Dublin City Centre, €295: www.brightspark-consulting.com/write-for-web.htm
We’ve been teaching Irish people how to write for web since 2001 and get great results. Online copywriting is a core skill for business this century. Why not get 2010 off to a good start and skill up in this important area? All that – and we guarantee you’ll enjoy yourself. More info on online copywriting training.
Tags: online copywriting training, Write for Web Training
What’s Next in Web Design?
January 8, 2010 at 8:15 am
A good article about what’s next in web design with some decent soundbites (below) from iA the user experience people in Zurich whose blog is well worth watching.
Successful websites such as Google, Flickr, or World of Warcraft show that [the following] is true:
- Do one thing really well
- Simplify
- Don’t rely on random advertisements
Don’t pile up the features. Require less input.
Simplicity is about taking care of the details.
The best way to learn about speedy interfaces is to study everyday interfaces as doorknobs, drawers, shampoo bottles. Web designers need to learn more from traditional product designers.
This one is so important I’m going to give it an indent and a big inverted comma:
The concern about the visual style is the echo of the nineties; the nineties are over. It’s well documented that often top decision makers and silly corporate structures mess with the design process. Let me state this clearly: Just because you drive a car it doesn’t make you a car engineer. In other words – CEO’s shouldn’t get involved in web design, but in web business strategy.
While Flash and a number of new technologies allow the use of non-standard fonts, there is a healthy general tendency to just accept the fact that web sites are read in the few standard fonts that were created to display optimal way on the screen. [Hurray!]
Thanks to @iarfhlaith who brought this to my attention on Twitter.
Tags: web design ireland
Is 2010 the Year You Start Blogging?
January 7, 2010 at 2:14 pm
If it is, and you’re itching to put that new year’s resolution to good use, then put Wed 20 January in your diary.
That’s the day of the first Brightspark Blogging Training of 2010.
It’s not about blogging, and how great it is, and other tihings like that. I’m assuming that everyone who comes to the blogging training to be held in Dublin city centre already knows all that.
What we will be doing is setting you up with your own blog which you will be working on over the course of the day. By noon you’ll have written your first blog post. By the end of the day, you’ll be wondering why you didn’t do this years ago.
Other important and meaty topics we’ll be covering include:
- Blog etiquette – how to engage with other bloggers
- How to keep on top of things – using RSS to save time
- Promoting your blog
As always, any questions you may have will be answered knowledgeably and you won’t feel stupid for asking them. There’s great coffee and cakes from The Cake Cafe (no less!) available all day.
All this and it’s just €295. There are only 6 places left, so if you want in – book your place now.
Read more about blog training from Brightspark.
Tags: blog training dublin, Blog Training Ireland, blogging training, how to blog
Seth Godin on Tribes
January 2, 2010 at 5:26 pm
We are living in a moment which is changing how ideas are created, spread and implemented.
When I was in college, I learned that there were several different types of market power. It started out with the market power of capability – where money or power was where it was at. But that requires ever cheaper labour and faster machines. Then it moved to the market power of persuasion – which is all about the push mentality. Take an average idea and plenty of advertising. Back in the early 1990′s we were taught that the type of market power that would succeed was specific market power – power of trademarks and copyrights. But now I know that is wrong. Power today is all about ideas and leadership.
For we are living in the age of Tribes. Want to know how to succeed in the age of tribes?
- Find something worth changing
- Connect others who think the same
- Lead them and spread the idea.
Simple.
Hear more direct from Seth Godin himself on TedTalks:
Tags: Seth Godin Tribes
