Epic Win injects gaming into task lists

Think about it. A large amount of the activities we partake in online these days utilise principles from the gaming world. Take FourSquare as an example – you collect achievements (badges), compete against friends (who can become the mayor of Ye Olde Mitre first?), explore new locations, share tips and receive rewards (special offers).

It was only a matter of time then until someone made the link between the humble yet pracitcal to do list and these gaming principles, right? Well, maybe. It does seem a rather intruiging concept – earn rewards for washing your pants or paying the rent. Thing is, you’re still just washing your pants and paying the rent, no matter how it’s tarted up.

Note: If Epic Win becomes a huge success we reserve the right to retract this entire blog post by printing it out and eating it.

Social networks overtake search in UK

Way back in March we told you that in the US,  Facebook’s weekly traffic had overtaken Google’s for the first time. Well news has just come in that in the UK that  internet users now visit social networks (11.88% of visits) more than search engines (11.33%).  Facebook remains hugely dominant in the social network space with a huge 55% share compared to nearest rival YouTube with just 17%. The story is even bleaker for Bebo and MySpace who have yet again dropped further down in terms of share.

The question now though is what exactly are marketers going to do about it? Search and social perform very different functions on the web and in our opinion need to work hand in hand to drive the highest levels of effectiveness. This is however good news for those of us out there still trying to convince the more stubborn of clients that social media is a channel that can’t be ignored.

Recognizr: social facial recognition

A next logical step in the ensuing construction of the semantic web, Recognizer is a (currently) Android only app that , upon pointing your (android device of choice’s) camera at another persons face, informs you just exactly who they are.

Now here’s the cool part – as soon as this happens, a series of augmented reality spinning icons appear in midair around the subject’s face -  each one a link to a social networking service that they’ve signed up for – and simply pressing one of them immediately takes you to their profile page (security settings notwithstanding). As of right now, it’s only working with people who’ve signed up with the Recognizr application, but it’s easy to imagine a future where adding contacts to all your social media sites is as simple as pointing and clicking.

Recognizr hasn’t been released yet, but you can see videos of it in action here. Cheers was right – the future really is a bar where everyone knows your name…

Peugeot RCZ turns the campaign model on its head

We were recently tasked by Peugeot with generating buzz around the launch of their new sports coupé, the RCZ. The car itself is a highly significant launch for Peugeot and deserved a campaign equally as unique and exciting. Our idea was as follows:

Because the RCZ is so magentising, it reverses the relationship between driver and owner: You don’t choose it, it chooses you. We’ve turned the traditional ad model on its head and are asking consumers to advertise themselves to the RCZ (rather than vice versa) for a chance to win one. They can create a personalised banner ad with a few clicks using Facebook Connect. The best of the banners will actually be served as real ads in the second half of the campaign giving entrants their 15 minutes of fame.

Research tells us that peer recommendation via social media is becoming an increasingly important source of information in the car buying process. It’s certainly a strong peer recommendation to see one of your own friends advertise themselves to a product.

So pop over to the site, enter the competition* and browse through some of the brilliant entries we’ve had so far here.

And to keep up to date with the campaign, ‘like’ us on Facebook here.

*Only UK residents are eligible to win at the moment – sorry international readers!

Finally, a worthy use of augmented reality

There comes a time in the life of every piece of emerging technology when we get past all the hype, past all the frivolous early implementations, through the trough of disillusionment and rise up into the slope of enlightenment (thanks, Gartner Hype Cycle!). You’ll know when that time comes because you finally start seeing some useful implemenentations of that technology.

Take augmented reality for example. Over the past couple of years we’ve seen a whole host of rather pointless uses, mainly stemming from the fact that the 3D technology it uses to superimpose images on top of your webcam feed just isn’t quite there yet. Yes it may sound useful to see what a hat might look on your head before you buy it, but if that hat is the size of a watermelon, covers your entire face and jumps around like a cricket on steroids, the impression isn’t such a good one.

So it is with great pleasure that we present to you a campaign from the Netherlands that aims to reduce street attacks on public employees. By standing underneath a giant billboard you’ll be inserted into a live video feed of the street you’re on with a vicious street brawl superimposed over the top. We’re probably not doing it justice here so have a gander at the video above.

Geocitisizer takes us back to a more innocent time

Sometimes the series of tubes that make up the internets seem a strange and terrifying place, filled as they are, with bemused cats, low budget ninjas and other assorted memery. It’s tempting to think back to the halcyon days of your net youth, a safer time of terrible animated gifs, hideous colour schemes and the reassuring screech of midis made from stolen soundtracks.

Put away your time machines – Geocitisizer has come to the rescue, and with a single click your website of choice will be transported back to a more innocent time in’93, replete with music, animations and everything else to complete the experience. See what it’s done to our otherwise beautiful blog, above. At the very least, when not using it to persuade your colleagues the cheese they had for lunch has caused them to travel back in time, you could take it as an example of how not to design a web page

Today, Facebook takes over the internet

Earlier this week I wrote an article about the fact that Facebook has begun to take over peoples’ lives online. You can read it via Figaro Digital here.

Now far be it for me to suggest that i’m some kind of genius psychic but today has seen Facebook launch a roster of new features that extend their reach well beyond Facebook.com. You know that already on a lot of sites there’s a little Facebook icon that lets you post items into your newsfeed for your friends to view? And you know that you can ‘like’ your Facebook friends’ photos and comments? Well Facebook is supercharging that functionality to let you potentially ‘like’ almost any piece of content on the web (as long as the site chucks those little thumbs up buttons in there). When you click on the ‘like’ button you’ll also immediately be told which of your friends have also ‘liked’ it.

Furthermore, Facebook has launched what they’re calling an ‘Open Graph’. The idea of this is that the bits of content you interact with around the web (‘likes’, ratings, video views etc.) will be held in a central hub within Facebook that other participating sites will have access to. So let’s say for example you’ve ‘liked’ several artists on Last.fm – these artists would then appear in the ‘interests’ area of your Facebook profile. And if you were to head to Amazon at a later date they could potentially serve you recommendations based on those interactions on Last.fm. Clever stuff, eh?

So what does all this mean for advertisers and brands? It should arm us with more information about our users than ever before and therefore enable us to tailor content to those users’ needs, thereby increasing engagement. And of course the more engaged a user is, the more time they’ll spend with your site and the more likely they’ll be to recommend it to others. What’s not totally clear at the moment is whether advertisers can explicitly use Open Graph information to serve ads which if you think about it would be very similar to the oh-so controversial practice of behavioural targeting. However, that’s not to say content can’t reflect user interests – if someone headed to Peugeot.co.uk and we knew their Facebook interests included mountain biking and skiing, wouldn’t it be great to prioritise a spacious, practical car such as a 3008?

And for consumers? Well, that’s the slightly scary part. On the one hand, it could be thought of as a Digg lite – you indicate your interest in something and share it easily with your buddies. On the other hand though, Facebook will have effectively opted you in to sharing your data with other sites without your permission. This means that even without logging in to Facebook on another site, you could find that you’re served recommendations based around your Facebook info. Now before you get too worked up, Facebook assures us that this is easy to turn off. And if you look at it another way, it means that you’ll receive far more tailored content on the sites you’re visiting – imagine heading to Amazon.co.uk and seeing all the albums your friends have ‘liked’. Lets put it another way: Facebook is out to personalise the entire internet for you.

So, Facebook has taken another very significant stride towards internet domination. Google’s mass of user information used to make them the company people were worried about being exploited by. Now though, it seems clear that Facebook is on their way to challenging them for their crown. The big difference is that whereas Google consistently insists they’ll never abuse your user data,  Facebook are very clear about the fact that they’ll squeeze every last drop of usefulness out of it. Unless your change those controversial privacy settings of course.

Quake 2 now runs in a browser thanks to HTML5

We’ve seen a lot of fuss over the past few months about HTML5 but the best justification for its existence has just arrived on our screens courtesy of Google.

Using their spare time, those clever coders have found a way to get the venerable Quake 2 running directly within a browser and with online play to boot. Now of course we wouldn’t want to distract anybody from doing any work but do make sure you check it out.

As well as being great fun, this demo does in fact have serious implications and will no doubt add more fuel to the flames in the Flash Vs. HTML5 debate that’s raging on the internets. Which side of the fence do you sit on?

The iPad: The essential 10 point review from 4D UK

Head over to Marketing Magazine’s site to see what our very own Craig Walmsley, UK MD of 4D Digital has to say about Apple’s latest device.

Read

Chatroulette: it’s only a matter of time

By now you should have all heard of Chatroulette – the hip and happening new video chatting service that’s become a pretty huge sensation for those in the know over the past couple of months. Essentially it works much like a video chat on MSN Messenger or Skype, except you have the ability to flick through chats with total strangers. Getting bored of the 50 year old man showing off his stamp collection? Simply skip to the drunk 25 year old girls having a party in their flat. What’s particularly impressive about the site is that it was coded in 3 days by a 17 year-old and is already attracting over 1.5million daily unique visitors.

So could it ever become the new YouTube? Well, in its current incarnation at least the answer is a resounding no. Whereas YouTube was set up to allow public, widespread sharing of content, Chatroulette is very much one to one. That’s not to say it won’t see its own share of stars and memes though – ‘Chatroulette funny piano improv‘ and the Ben Folds tribute are probably the best known so far.

What we’re waiting for though is the first real use of advertising on the site. As with any popular emerging web platform it’s bound to happen sooner or later and some minor attemps have in fact already been made – indie/electro band Holy F*ck for example are debuting material from their new album via the service. The issue currently restricting Chatroulette’s usefulness to advertisers though is the inability to broadcast to more than one random stranger at once. There’s no means of setting up a unique URL for a channel to let let people find you and tune into your live stream. But don’t be disheartened: If people in our industry have proven anything, it’s that we’ll always find a means of cramming ads into a new channel. Watch this space.

Disclaimer: Euro RSCG is afraid they take no responsibility for the inevitable vast amount of obscene (but quite possibly hilarious) content you’ll see on the site.