Making a song and a dance this week...

Hurrah! Apple approved the Spotify iPhone app. To be available soon (date tbc) for Spotify Premium users but you'll be able to cache music / playlists to listen to when you are not online/connected. Scratch the new iPod from the Amazon wish list then.

Spotify have also started to create a PAYG retail model for Spotify Premium in Sweden so it's bound to be in a newsagent near you before too long.

On the subject of PAYG, T-Mobile announced the launch of the 1st PAYG Android phone, (to be called the Pulse) with release date set for October. A princely £180 of the Queen's finest pounds to you. Dear Father Christmas.....

YouTube and the PRS kissed and made up (although there was purportedly a cash lump sum involved too) so all your favourite music videos will be back online again soon.

YouTube also LovesFilm (or thinks it might): YouTube are trialling a full length film rental subscription service amongst 10, 000 Google employees after securing deals with a number of major studios.

Whilst we're on the subject of movies, here's a nice film showing the evolution of visual effects in film over time. Once you've worked in animation you can't but help like these things!



Web based catch-up tv services will no longer be confined to viewing on your laptop after Sony announced that you'll be able to connect your Sony Bravia TV, Blu-ray player or Home Cinema to your broadband, and did a deal with Channel 5 for their Bravia Internet Video Service, so you won't have to ever miss Neighbours or have to watch it hunched over a laptop.

But conversely the need to be connected but not weighed down by a huge laptop has seen Netbooks take 22% of worldwide portable computer sales in Q2 this year.

And finally.... There are now 104 Twitter-ers who have more than a million followers. Amazon celebrated recruiting their millionth follower by giving away a free mp3. E-Crm - it's all about value exchange.

Search stats update

In July 2009 there were 113 billion searches globally says Comscore

Google snaffled 76.7 billion of them (giving them a 67% share of the market)

32% of all searches originated in Europe, with searchers on average looking up 116 things in a month. APAC accounted for 31% and North America just 22%.

I've decided that Bing's changing photos every day is like an advent calendar (the proper ones before it was just an excuse for a daily dose of rubbish chocolate!). It's become a daily habit to just swing by in the morning and check. I've also noticed that I am more likely to use Bing for searches throughout the day if I particularly like the picture that day.

YEEEEES!!

Rockstar have announced it releasing Grand Theft Auto - Chinatown Wars is being released on the iPhone.

As the game play increases and increases with better games this will be Apples first kick at stomping on the Handheld gaming market. It wins in every other category. Why not here!

The app should be with us by the end of the year :D

Still Waiting.

Its been days since the Spotify app was approved for the iPhone, yet were still to see it released into the app store; much the anger of Spotify fans.

What started of as a very clever lets keep people waiting so the hype builds itself marketing ploy, it may be turning into the opposite as Spotify fans turn there backs.

Rumours are curculating that the Spotify app may be released at the Apple "It's not rock and roll, but we like it" music event. Although its doubtful as iTunes 9 is also ready to be released.

We keep holding on, but as spotify users cancel their premium subscriptions and start to turn their backs and look elsewhere for their music kicks. Spotify need to rethink what game their actually playing with its much loved consumers.

Surprised and delighted

I'm a glass half full kind of girl. I try to see the good in everything. I love spontaneity and surprises. I'd much rather have good things to say about a brand than not. I'm a maven, a connector and an influencer on a wide and varied array of subjects.

In an increasingly inter-connected world 6 degrees of separation are often more than ample. Touchgraph have an interesting app that shows the inter-connectivity clusters of your friends on Facebook. The results are really interesting when you then think about the potential of influential reach from a brand / word of mouth perspective.

I'm a coffee snob and not afraid to admit it. As my poison of choice, I'd rather have no coffee than bad coffee. I'm not the biggest fan of chain coffee shops, albeit I love the fact that they provide an alternative to sitting drinking in the pub.

I like what Starbucks are doing in the social media space but dislike their take on coffee. Maybe it's having lived in Italy but in my world a cappuccino is a game of thirds: a shot of espresso, made up with an equivalent amount of hot milk, and the same of foamy milk. Not a half litre of warm very loosely coffee flavoured milkshake.

But if I had to opt for a UK coffee chain of choice it would be Caffe Nero. I don't go very often but I will go the extra distance to visit one if take out coffee is in order. I have a loyalty card tucked in with my train pass. I pass a Caffe Nero at the end of the train station platform every morning and evening. So I'm already a convert and an advocate to some degree. Yesterday morning they were giving out little cards with coupons for a free coffee of your choice once a week for the next four weeks.

Wow! That's nice. What a surprise.

So this morning I stopped to take advantage of the offer and was hugely amused to find the 2 people in the queue in front of me pro-offering their vouchers in a somewhat sheep-ish this is too good to be true kind of way. So British.

But I bet they tell a few people. I'd also wager next time they are in the mood for take out coffee at the station they'll head for Caffe Nero, not one of the many other options. Goodwill, influential word of mouth and future sales all for the cost price of a free cup of coffee. Smart.

Surprising and delighting your existing or potential consumers doesn't have to be complicated or expensive.

Cyberstalking - an amusing how to for parents

I've spent many years of my life working in America or with Americans (bless them) who for the most part have had a very under-developed sense of humour, or grasp on irony and sarcasm. I have been to Bentonville. 'Nuff said.

Luckily I also have a LOT of super-smart and well travelled US friends and colleagues so I know that there are plenty of people that buck the trend. I will forever thank them for having introduced me many many many years ago to The Onion. The Onion is a US satirical publication which I've been reading online fairly frequently since 1998. How's that for loyalty? Moving with the times it is doing more and more video content that frequently has me in stitches.

So as it's back to school/college/university season, they've done a take on cyberstalking for parents AKA idiots guide to social networks for the digitally uninitiated. In its own way I think it makes an interesting point about the importance for parents to join the digital revolution so that they can help their kids realise the potential consequences of sharing too much information.

Personal brand management is more important than ever.

Enjoy.


Facebook, Twitter Revolutionizing How Parents Stalk Their College-Aged Kids

Dealing with Pesky Twitter Spam

I do like Twitter. It's a useful tool fulfilling several communications needs for me. However, I have found that the number of pesky spammers wanting to follow me and then requiring me to actively go and block them has grown in recent weeks. Grrr.

So applause and cheers for the people behind Tweet Blocker that are aiming to do something about it. Fair play to them for having blocked 73k spammers so far.

Smiles to Twitter themselves too for having a sense of humour. I clicked on an email alert link from someone I believed to be Tweetspam this morning in order to check whether it was or not, and found that the Twitter spam blockers had got there first (hurrah, one less click for me to have to make) and instead were displaying this nicely worded message:


I do like smart use of error messages. 404's should be banned. I recall Digg being down at one point and instead of a boring 404 error they'd smartly stuck up a page saying oops, problem, we're trying to fix it ASAP, but whilst we do, here's a handful of sites we'd recommend you look at instead. What a great example of turning around what could have been a moment of negativity and frustration into something more positive. I was looking for an image to share with you on that one but along the way found this link to an assortment of other interesting examples , so I'll share that instead. Enjoy.