February 2013 – whatleydude.com

The Nokia MD-310: a real-world NFC use-case

No, seriously.Â

Honest to God, I genuinely have found a piece of NFC kit that not only works really well, but also fixes a problem I didn’t know I had.

I was at Nokia’s fancy new London HQ recently and I spotted the above piece of tech hanging up on the wall in the lobby. ‘I want one of these!‘ I cried. And lo and behold, a couple of weeks later, one arrived in the post for me to review. Hurrah for the internets.

So what does it actually do?

The Nokia MD-310 is, in a nutshell, an NFC-enabled bluetooth receiver for your home stereo. How that translates into the real world is as follows:

That shiny circular thing in the photo plugs into my audio system and sits nicely in my front room. Whenever I get home from work, or from a run, and I want to carry on listening to the music on my handset, I just tap my device on the glowing circle and, two seconds later, my tunes switch from my headphones to my speakers.

Simple.

How is this a problem I didn’t know I had? Well I only really use my main music system for music these days. It’s a gorgeous Marantz surround sound set which only gets to stretch its legs when I watch a film or want to get super-immersed in an Xbox game.

It misses music, much.

Having the MD-310 (gotta do something about that name) to hand means that not only can I play music from my phone from a simple tap, but I can also share my music from my Mac via bluetooth too. This is nothing short of brilliant. And it’s this multi-platform compatibility that makes this an essential piece of kit for me.

It’s quite amazing to know that these things were launched over 18mths ago now but, with the prevalence of NFC increasing month on month, this accessory deserves the timely resurgence it seems to be having.

They’re just overÂ Â£40 on Amazon right now and, given some places have them up for nearly double that(!), I’d say the MD-310 is worth a look.

It’s useful, it’s kinda cool looking (I think I’d preferÂ a black one though) and my home stereo system has never been happier.

FUTURE: ENABLED.

Charles Olive

They design bow ties, so you don’t have to.

In short: Charles Olive is an accessories label specialising in bow ties. They love bow ties but apparently it’s often difficult to find one that excites.

This is why they set up their label.

Their tagline ‘Designed in Excel. Handmade in Britain.’ makes me smile every time I read it.

Need a high-class bow tie? Speak to Charles Olive.

If you’ve ever considered buying one, make it from this man.

Trimming in Public â€“ Part 6

Clearing out my RSS, 10 feeds at a time –

Background.

Let’s do this –

Creative Social Blog
It took me a good five minutes to work out how or why I was subscribed to this blog in the first place. I think it was back in Feb 2012 when I read about one of their events, ‘F*** that’s good‘. ‘This event looks ace!’ I thought, promptly buying two tickets for a friend and I. Mentioned as the very last item on this list, I really don’t think it’s good enough to stay.
Decision: Remove

Criterion Games
The blog of the developers behind one of the most epic run of racing games ever (read: the Burnout collection), Criterion Games don’t really update that much. Even less so since they were bought by EA and subsequently handed the keys to the Need for Speed franchise. However I really can’t bring myself to unsubscribe because a) they seem like an awesome bunch of guys and b) the Burnout Paradise 2 rumour mill has recently started churning and well, I’m staying tuned.
Decision: Keep

Dan’s Blog (2.0)
The blog of one Daniel K. Appelquist. Product Manager at BlueVia, founder of a whole ton of mobile-related good stuff, and generally one of the smartest mobile web-heads I know. My RSS has a fair sprinkling of big thinkers and Dan is one of them. This one is easy.
Decision: Keep

Darth Mojo
Man, this makes me sad. I looked up this link and thinking: ‘What’s this one?’ – arrived, saw that there’d been no updates since Nov ’11 and thought, ‘What the hell did I subscribe for?’. Then I clocked it: Mojo used to be the visual effects supervisor on Babylon 5, Star Trek: Voyager, and Battlestar Galactica – his blog is a GOLD MINE of awesome geeky stuff. But, as I said, alas he hasn’t posted since 2011 and well, that sucks.
Decision: Remove

Dear London Town
The blog of lovely american Kate Matlock. I like Kate so Kate’s blog can stay.
Decision: Keep

Design Idea
Interaction designer, ex-googler-now-at-Fjord-er, Rebecca Cottrell, has a unique way of looking at the world. You should see it some time.
Decision: Keep

design mind – business. technology. design.
I initially signed up to Frog’s blog purely to catch the occasional post from long-time industry hero of mine, Jan Chipchase. But now I just read it because it’s awesome. You should too.
Decision: Keep

(dot dot dot) Lies the Universal
The blog of the illustrator and writer Morgan Jeske. He’s not blogging here anymore, but hey! He’s on Twitter, so I guess that’s OK.
Decision: Remove

Eat Sleep Social – Mike Phillips
I like smart social people. Mike Phillips is a smart social plannery person. He gets to stay.
Hey Mike! Blog more, yeah?
Decision: Keep

Elise Pearce
I’m quite sad that Elise has stopped blogging (I haven’t seen her in AGES) but she’s an ACE photographer so go check her out on Flickr instead. I can’t remove it, just in case she makes a comeback. Maybe…
Decision: Keep

Part 7 coming soon (when I get ’round to it).

A day in the life

Of me, not this box – I just like the photo

Recently, on the way back to London after a client meeting, I had an urge to get home and make shoot some stop-motion video. I’ve done a few before and, well, I enjoy it.

Upon expressing this to a colleague, he replied: ‘That’s great! But, I have to ask something: where do you find the time? I love photography but never find the time do it…’

My response?

‘Discipline, time-compression, and a commitment to no wastage are all key. Make [and keep] promises to yourself. For example, I try to do keep Thursday lunchtimes free each week to work on a project of my own choosing. Try that, and then build from there’.

And then thought about it some more and figured that some more analysis might be useful. It’s been a while since I’ve written up my day like this (five years in fact), so this should be interesting (for me, at least).

So here goes: my diary/schedule for Thursday 7th February 2013 –

05:45 – Alarm goes off (on my phone, of course).

05:55 – Record Episode 035 of The Voicemail. We normally try and record on a Thursday night but Stefan is traveling at the moment and he’s being replaced by various guests from all across the globe. This week’s guest was based on the East Coast and it was easier for both of us to shoot at this time.

06:50 – 5k run (yup, up to 5k now – every other day too. I’ve come a long way in five weeks, I think a follow up post may be required)

07:40 – Home, shower, get ready for work.

08:00 – Leave for the office.

08:10 – Commute / reading time (current book:Â What the Plus! by Guy Kawasaki, a recommendation from Stephen Waddington).

08:50 – Pick up breakfast / coffee.

09:00 – Call with an industry peer and trusted friend to discuss a future project.

09:15 – Email, team meetings, catch up with yesterday’s actions / meetings.

10:30 – Social@Ogilvy training workshop (part one)

12:50 – Lunch. Eat. Check in with the team. Thursday project alarm goes off, so I call the venue for #NotatMWC and tell them we’re going to need more room.

13:30 – Social@Ogilvy training workshop (part two)

16:00 – Re-group with team, catch up on projects; share lessons from the workshop. Email.

Sidenote: I’ve got into the habit of screening email whenever possible and only sitting down to respond once or twice a day. It’s helping productivity incredibly. I understand that not everyone can do this, but when you get to the point of being able to – I highly recommend it.Â

18:05 – leave the office

18:10 – Commute. Manage to get a seat and start editing the morning’s Voicemail episode (much to my enjoyment – you can’t read audio waves over someone’s shoulder).

18:40 – Stop in town to pick up a cable for my mac, plus stop for a cup of tea with a friend.

19:45 – Time to head home.

20:15 – Get home: dinner, publish The Voicemail, hug the girl, watch a movie (Contagion – dark, yet dull).

23:55 – Time for bed.

Sprinkle the above with a few bits of social media usage (I count 36 tweets, including RTs etc, two Facebook updates, and one G+ update – mainly in the bits between doing anything, ie: walking between stations etc) and that’s just about it.

Alright that was all a bit full on and most days I don’t do workshops, nor do I get up before 6am to record international podcasts, but still – there’s hardly any ‘dead’ time in my day. Ever. But that’s not to say I don’t ever stop, I just didn’t happen to stop on Thursday.

Brazil is the Social Media Capital of The World

Surprised? No, I’m not either. But why?

Image via Ndecam

This needs some analysis. First off, the numbers are incredible –

65m Facebook users (second largest market for the platform)
Brazilians spent 41% more time on Twitter in 2012 vs 2011
Facebook dwell time grew 208% (while the rest of the world dropped by 2%)
129.3m online users
21 billion online searches
Second largest consumer of YouTube videos (the US is at number one)
Top five active user group for Twitter
Expected $81 billion of ad spend in 2013

And this is expected to grow even further. Especially as, come 2015, the country will be the recipient of a 100-gb-per-sec internet connection to carry all of that data.

Interestingly, Twitter has chosen SÃ£o Paulo as its Brazilian base and is in the process of hiring like crazy as I type. Why is this interesting?

Over the past few years SÃ£o Paulo (and the ad agencies therein) have been producing the stellar kind of creative work that anyone would be proud to put their name against. Everything from the $73,000 bar tab, through to getting your face printed on a Burger King Whopper; it’s actually really quite hard to get through one page of Brandflakes for Breakfast without stumbling upon something awesome from SÃ£o Paulo.

Innovative, smart, ground-breaking – all of it social, all of it awesome.

But whyÂ SÃ£o Paulo? Well, you could say that culturally Brazil is more open and friendly, and therefore more creative. You could also say that the way of life and perhaps the weather over there inspires creativity and innovation.

Personally, I think there’s something else. Ready?

How about this: outdoor advertising is banned* in SÃ£o Paulo.

Introducing the ‘Clean City Law‘ –

In 2006, Gilberto Kassab, mayor of SÃ£o Paulo, Brazil, passed the “Clean City Law.” Citing growing concerns about rampant pollution in his city, Kassab decided enough was enough. But this was no ordinary piece of pollution legislation. Rather than going after car emissions or litterbugs, Kassab went after the billboards. Kassab wanted to crack down on “visual pollution.”

That visual pollution? Outdoor ads. Amazing. And the city has never been happier! Hurrah!

As mentioned, this law came into being during 2006 – the year that some might argue that social media started its way down the long road to success. So now you have a whole bunch of brands with outdoor money to spend elsewhere. Where does it go? Into better creative and, of course, new channels – such as social media.

Today, Brazil is the social media capital of the world. They’re hosting the next Olympics and the next World Cup.Â SÃ£o Paulo is an ad-free zone and it drives creativity in all sorts of awesome and inspiring ways.

I might be talking rubbish, but I genuinely believe there’s a connection.

That’s all I got.

*this is not news, I know – but I only found this out this week and I still find it mental

Additional sources: WSJ, The Wall.

Twitter and the monetization of the second screen

Twitter’s been buying again…Â

According to sources, Twitter just bought US-based social TV analytics firm, Bluefin Labs. While the actual number is still an ‘undisclosed figure’, early reports state that this is Twitter’s ‘biggest acquisition to date’.

A few things:

1. This is REALLY interesting

Twitter and TV is clearly going to be HUGE. During the panel I was on at Social TV Conference London recently I remember saying something along the lines of -Â ‘Let’s just be honest: second screen engagement is basically Twitter, we shouldn’t kid ourselves about that.’

I was being deliberately forthright but, looking back on it now, I don’t think I could’ve been any more right.

2. Is this is Twitter buying *outside* of their ‘API quadrant’?

Last summer, much was made about Twitter’s changes to their API. However what made it ultimately clear to everyone on what (and what was not) fair game was this one simple chart –

At the time, Twitter made it very clear that they were encouraging developers to no longer create apps that existed in the upper-right quadrant. In fact, they went so far as to call out the guys they thought were doing a great job in the other areas – stand up Klout, Radian6, and Storify.

However, with this acquisition, Twitter are now parking their tanks on the lawns of many many TV analytics firms out there today, and who can blame them?

My point is: Twitter are moving the goal posts again. To wit:

‘You can develop on our API but as soon as there’s serious money to be made… we’ll have our ball back please.’

3. Monetizing the second screen is clearly the next big thing

This is hardly news but, after the massive success of Twitter at the Superbowl this past weekend (earning mentions in 50% of all advertising)… hang on, before we go any further, some fag packetÂ analysis:

Superbowl ads cost (for airtime alone) $3.8m per 30seconds
$3,800,000 / 30secs = $126,666.66 per second
26 of the (presumed) 52 ads featured during the Superbowl had hashtags appended to them
Let’s say, for argument’s sake, that those ads ran those hashtags for 2-3seconds (it’s probably more, so let’s shoot for the top end of that spectrum)
3secs x 26 ads = 78seconds
78 x $126,666.66 = $9,879,999.48

Which means that during Superbowl 2013, Twitter scored just shy of 9.9million dollars of FREE ADVERTISING.

Wow.

Sorry, where was I?

Oh yes, brands are on the Twitter train (for second screen activity) and the great ones are killing it. How long will it be until others catch on? 5, 4, 3…

4. Bluefin now, Second Sync next?Â

From what I can tell, Bluefin are US only. Which is great, and an obvious win for that team (second screening in the US is clearly the most advanced / widely accepted). However the immediate question is: what’s next for the rest of the world’s TV social analytics market?

The smart money would be on the UK’s Second Sync being next. At a recent London Twitter event, #PoweredByTweets, Second Sync data was present in nearly every presentation – and Twitter were happy to say so too. They clearly do the best job, they’ve clearly been anointed as the chosen ones in this particular region, so are they clearly next in line for aquisition? Place your bets now please…

5. Social TV + The Future

It now goes without saying that 2013 really will be the year of Social TV. There’ll be a lot of snake oil salesmen out there and separating the wheat from the chaff will certainly make for interesting viewing indeed.

Bring it on, creatives of 2013, let’s see what you’ve got.

Quarterly Co: #DSC03

‘Did you have fun doing this exercise?’

Yes. I really did. Different tools and bits and bobs make things fun to play with. I think the cardboard was the most fun. Reminded me of building robots when I was a kid and, oddly, I felt the most was possible with the material.

Least favourite material would be the toothpicks and the gum: a) the gum tasted TERRIBLE and b) SO STICKY! ARRGH. Couldn’t get it to finish and/or stick on time.

I think the cardboard best expresses the original chair that I drew: I was able to add cushions and shape and, as I said, I felt most comfortable with it.

— per instructions I’ve just checked out the other contributions to #DSC03 and they’re AWESOME.Â I especially like Claire’s and Danielle’s (I have no idea how claire got her chair to stand like that – maybe I should’ve started chewing earlier).

————————————

The above post was written in 5mins. Per the instruction ‘Reflect on it‘ that I received in the latest package from Quarterly Co (itself a birthday present from the rather awesome Robbie Dale). The challenge? Five chairs: design and build one chair; and then prototype it four/five times, per the instructions, only using the equipment provided – all under 30mins.

Ace.

I wonder if Robbie has done his yet…

Speaking: Social Success Mic Up

The quote:

“I’m learning to love my new Ã¤ppÃ¤rÃ¤t’s screen, the colorful pulsating mosaic of it, the fact that it knows ever last stinking detail about the world, whereas my books only know the minds of their authors.”
–

From the book Super Sad True Love Story, by Gary Shteyngart, are the words with whichÂ I started my five minute talk at the social success mic up last week.

[image via Salesforce Marketing Cloud]

The theme for the night? Social Media Predictions for 2013.

Five sets of speakers, five different angles, five minutes each – simple. My pitch?

“Things are moving in 2013, you should know what and you should know where: eyes are moving to second screens, money is moving overseas, social media penetration is moving up the corporate ladder.”

Social media jobs, once banished to the basement of the marketing dept (under Â digital lead, under a marketing lead, under a brand lead) are now seated in director postions and even sitting on the board. 2013 will only see this situation improve further.

If the noughties will be remembered for anything, it’ll be for service providers outsourcing customer care to the emerging (read: cheaper) markets. With social as a care channel becoming more and more commonplace, 2013 will see the out-sourcing of this work to those very same markets. After all, what is easier to script: an unknown call with someone who just wants to scream and shout, or a 140 character response?

Finally, eyes are moving in their droves to the second screen. This is not news. And I’ve said as much before. However, when advertisers and media planners realise that people aren’t watching their ads anymore the cry of ‘JUST MAKE BETTER CONTENT’ will soon grow tiresome, and those keen eyes will want to spend their ad money on those very screens that have stolen their eyeballs. Yes of course, that implies an increase in social media ad spend, but that also means a demand for better and more dynamic media opportunities across those platforms.

And that was me, in five minutes.

Other highlights were Bernie Mitchell reminded us all why Podcasting is utterly brilliant; and the really rather infectious Hera Hussain, who spoke quite brilliantly about how her thesis and analyses on the Egyptian revolution provided insights on what actually makes someone influential.

37mins of WIN: the Social Media Week in Review