How fast is your broadband?

Lack of available connectivity drives many of us nuts these days (even my parents now have a 3g Dongle so they can Skype from anywhere) but the quality of service delivered varies dramatically across not just individual location, rural v urban, but also internationally.

Check this graphic out:

The Big Buzz brand charts of 2009 & some thought starters for 2010

Vitrue publish a chart every year on the "noisiest" brands in social media, ie, the ones that get most blog posts, videos, images posted etc as opposed to the providers of the spaces (so Google/YouTube/Facebook etc not included).

It probably won't be a huge surprise that in the top 10 were:
iPhone, Disney, CNN, MTV, NBA, iTunes, Wii, Apple, Xbox and Nike.

Adidas was the big mover and shaker jumping from #85 in the 2008 charts to #14 in 2009.  (Incidentally I read yesterday about a new Adidas campaign / concept where via a QR code printed on the tongue of certain new trainers/a webcam you can create an augmented reality games console/experience)

Find out who else was making a song and dance in social media last year here...

Then, the ever-interesting Springwise sent me a mail this morning linking to some interesting thoughts on areas of new business opportunity we might see more of in 2010.  Well worth a peruse.

Hello There!

Hello there!  My name is Jerry Zamostny and I have been invited to contribute to the iPhoneiBlog!  Some of you may know me from Twitter as @mochaSync or @Zamostny or even @RomeApart, but more importantly, I hope you join Sam and I in discussing some killer iPhone apps, news, and other some-what related stuff.  Don't be shy, leave a comment and tell a friend about this site!  Help spread the word!

Interesting presentation trivia (stats)

I spent an awful lot of last year writing or presenting Powerpoint, decks adorned with as many pictures as possible, because lots of people remember images more easily than lots of words.  So as a subject frequently on my mind (rightly or wrongly!) I couldn't help but click when I  found the presentation below via one of my blogger buddies (thanks Helge).

Being still full of seasonal goodwill I thought I'd save you the click and embed it here too. It's an interesting deck on facts and stats on presentations uploaded to the fantastic resource that is Slideshare.

Slideshare (if you don't know about it already) is a fascinating realm of interesting presentations on all manner of topics, generously shared by all sorts of people. If you've never explored it, I'd urge you to do so, it's an amazing resource.



















SlideShare Zeitgeist 2009
View more documents from Rashmi Sinha.

It's pretty inevitable that I'll be writing presentations this year too, but I am planning on ringing some changes and having a play with the more dynamic format offered by Prezi.  I was intending to start playing with it over Christmas but somehow found other more diverting pursuits AFK (away from keyboard), exploring the techy heaven that is Silicon Valley.  I'll let you know how I get on.

Badging yourself with social media

Badges. Patches. Pins. Whatever you'd like to call them.

(Image courtesy of www.koolbadges.co.uk/)

Real or virtual they exist in many forms.

We all use them to make statements about ourselves, about things we like, things we dislike, things we like to associate with or be associated with: CND, Against Animal Testing, I [heart] NYC, bands, brands, causes, smiley faces. We use them to define status, prefect, sports captain, club ties, cufflinks etc.

As a teenager it was about badges on school bags or jackets, then there was that period which saw many of us wearing a rubber bangle, white for Make Poverty History or yellow for Lance Armstrong's LiveStrong campaign.

With most of us having at least one virtual identity these days in one or more digital spaces, be it Facebook, LinkedIn or Twitter, our badges are more and more likely to be digital ones, all saying different things about us to a given audience subject to the role of the space. (LinkedIn = primarily professional, Facebook = mostly personal connections/friends etc etc).  In fact, I  think the first digital badge I got (or in fact was awarded) several years ago now was a "1st million members" badge on LinkedIn.

We join groups in LinkedIn for multiple reasons, amongst them to add credibility to our professional profile; or, we choose to become fans of pages on Facebook or other social spaces for all manner of motivations. On Facebook in particular most of us do this to make a statement, serious, ironic or just downright silly, or to follow the crowd / our friends and virtually re-inforce our connections/feel part of the gang, just as we did in the playground at school.  Frequently, these actions are short term and a mere gesture, a click and a newsfeed item today, forgotten next week. Periodically I go back and do some housekeeping of the groups / pages I am a fan of: things I joined because they were relevant at a given time / context but no longer resonate get deleted.  Which is a fair analogy of where most brands sit in my life. Intermittent interactions based on need or context, some more frequent than others.

Yet most brands trying to get their heads around social media haven't figured that out yet. I am not obsessed by coffee/chocolate/shampoo/flight operators/gadgets or cars all day everyday.  Nor have brands (in the main) found the balance between being relevant and present in my digital life on a regular basis without all communication having to be product-feature based.  That's one of the reasons I like the Compare the Meerkat campaign so much. It entertains me regularly, subtly underpining the role of Compare the market in the insurance aggregator playing fields but without talking about premiums and excesses.

We can even makes statements via badging our Twitter icons via Twibbon, and as I posted about last year, the number of Twitter-ers sporting a poppy for remembrance day was an impressive 22k. I'm currently sporting an RNLI flag, as a cause dear to my heart.

People collect digital badges too - you often see them on blogs, re-assurance of credibility or belonging to a virtual community.  I just discovered an enormous collection of digital badges associated with my Twitter account via Osnapz.  Very pretty! In reality just another more attractive way of displaying data. But so often a picture tells a thousand words, much more interesting to see badges showing which countries I have followers in than for me to write a list....

So next time you go to join a group on LinkedIn or become a fan of something on Facebook think about what's motivating you to do it? Status? Tribalism?  Is it just click and run or do you intend to contribute and engage in a large or small way?  Then think about those answers when you are thinking about the role of social media for your brands.

Social media spaces are all about conversation and relationships. Deep and meaningful or one click stands. Your call.  Think about what you are seeking to achieve. Just numbers? XXX number of fans?  Lovely, if that's what helps you justify ROI, but is that really what you should be aiming for?  I'd rather have a meaningful, engaging ongoing relationship, even if at times when it's not relevant it's a relatively passive one. Sometimes less is more.

Top tracks of 2009 from Spotify

Those nice people at Spotify have kindly put together a playlist based on the most streamed tracks of 2009 across the 6 countries they are currently operating in. (Currently Sweden, Norway, Finland, the UK, France and Spain, although there might be a glimmer of hope for the US according to TechCrunch today).

Defer the what to listen to today decision by getting it here....

Starting the New Year with a meerkat movie

I've been mulling over all sorts of stuff over the Christmas break, particularly things of a mobile flavour, but for now I am going to content myself with starting 2010 with the latest from my favourite meerkat.

Yesterday, Aleksandr was teasing the launch of his new TV ad/film trailer and asking people to make an appointment to view it's debut on ITV.  Digital glue. Online driving eyeballs to offline. Nice.

The partnership with the London freesheet is still going strong, with this morning's paper featuring a prominent shout out for the trailer too....

The trailer is worth a watch - it's on the Compare the Meerkat site, just as if it was a studio release, and there's some great humorous touches in the way it's been put together, and encouraging people to sign up for news of the full release.  Smart. More people in the e-crm programme. Hints of more to come.

Go on, spare 60 seconds as you ease yourself back into work :-)