Did you know that Facebook is now 600,000,000 people strong? That’s 30.5% of the internet population and almost half the size of China. The internet population stands at a whopping 1,967,000,000 (28.5% of the global population).

Facebook still has another 300,000,000 to acquire though before it can match Hinduism and a further 400,000,000 in addition to that, before matching Atheism. Read into that what you will.

Fascinating looking at the bigger picture; here’s the link if you want to check it out for yourself…

Traditional consoles have been around for a while and services such as Xbox Live have seen the interaction of users spiral. However, I can’t help but think that if gaming is to reach out to wider audiences (me for example), then developers need to focus on more flexible platforms for the future, a multi-touch tablet perhaps?

Beyond what the game is actually played on though, Content is still King and shall remain so. Games need to continue to be faster, better and more exciting. In addition, just to add a layer of complexity, they also need to be accessible.

The app store model is one of the most straightforward ways of acquiring games straight to the palm of your hand, perhaps this is something that the big players need to consider more.

Imagine that through shorter development periods you could build a gaming release model with phased iterations. Quick download and the ability to compete to get to the next phase openly would surely offer the longevity to consumer engagement those businesses desire. By doing this they would also understand more about the trends of consumers; win, win.

Next gen consoles are due out around 2013-2014 from market leaders Microsoft and Sony. I’m hoping they’ll include something that will finally push me over the edge to becoming a gamer.

I just wonder who will get there first, will I have a PlayStation tablet or an Xbox pad in a year or so’s time?

I would imagine that by now you’ve heard about the new EU e-privacy directive which enforces websites to seek consent from visitors before allowing cookies to tag a visit. (If you’re not sure what cookies are or what they do, I recommend you read this article from the iab which tells you everything you need to know. It’s aimed at consumers, but as a business you should understand what your visitors need to know anyway).

The short answer is that it’s not a quick fix, you can’t just turn a few things off and bung in a few extra bits of info.

As a website owner you’ll need to sit down and map out a structured step by step solution that does two things:

Firstly, you need to educate the consumer. Outlined in the directive is the initiative to develop a simple language that can be adopted across multiple sites that communicates to the user what cookies do.

Secondly you need to couple your mapped process with technical solutions that will enable your site to comply with the new rules. This should work without disrupting the user experience too much and without turning your site into a mess.

To do this you need to fully understand what the directive means to you as a company individually. This means a review of your current site architecture in line with an audit of the cookies you have in place at the moment.

Map this against how you should be communicating with users and make sure that at each point where you need to seek positive consent, as a business you clearly provide the relevant information they need to make an informed decision.

Cookies will help you understand a consumer’s online habits and preferences so it’s a key insight. Get this wrong and it could be of massive detriment to the way that the internet is understood in marketing and you will lose that insight.

So : Be clear. Be honest. Be quick – the deadline for implementation will be upon us soon.

This is not the kind of cookie you should be worried about

Across the world there are more than 2.4 billion mobile phone users with a thousand more hooking up every minute.**

The latest Tealeaf research alludes to the fact that after 15 years of e-commerce, when a consumer visits a website there is no tolerance for a bad experience. If it doesn’t work they will blame the brand or business.

A lot of the time a user’s first impression will be on the mobile web and being used to the level of experience that you gain from a desktop web journey, they expect that to be consistent cross-platform.

Users are spending more and more time on their phones especially with the vast uptake of smart phone devices over the last year.  Your phone is an extension to your body, lose your phone and it’s like losing a limb, it’s an intimate and trusted accessory.

If you provide a user a slick, easy navigable experience then you buy into that expectation they have from technology.

Is your brand or business meeting the mobile consumer expectation?

*Source: Yahoo, Appetite, 2011

**Source: Forrester Research, 2011

It’s an advertising tactic that’s steadily grown over the last few years and with consumer figures doubling across Europe in the last year to reach 19 million it’s a theory that’s proving to work.

But the really clever stuff is achieved when brands recognise how people really want to interact with them.

When multiscreen marketing is executed to coherently synchronise across screens simultaneously, you’re closer to achieving what the user wants.

Brands need to design content that actively shifts from one screen to another in line with user engagement. More and more people are interacting now with what is known as an ‘ecosystem of screens’. It’s no longer clever to design digital platforms that only offer the desired service on one, they need to connect, and so we need to design systems that service multiple devices, seamlessly.

Because consumers now increasingly engage with media at different touch points, in different places and on different platforms, multi-screen advertising provides brands with a solution that will allow you to reach your audience wherever they are.

With traditional broadcast being challenged and often neglected by consumers with the power of choice at their fingertips, it’s essential that brands realise this is a strategy for improving reach, frequency and effectiveness.

Go forth and multiply cross screen brands…

Firstly to understand what it is, it’s worth just remembering all the things you usually have to consider when developing a new service:  the OS you need to use, the network and how that will interact with the system, storage needs – scale, geography and so on…

Quite a lot really… so wouldn’t it be nice if you didn’t have to get through all that before you start bottoming out your idea? Well that’s what Windows Azure take care of – all those things you need to consider so you can concentrate on making your service great.

Azure is Microsoft’s cloud computing platform. It’s designed to be a place where you can run your service, at scale, on the internet.

Furthermore it takes a service centric view of cloud computing so it manages the entire cycle from design to deployment to ongoing monitoring and deployment of optimal versions of your service.

It consists of three layers:

1. The Fabric layer, an abstract set of computer resources in the data centre consisting of multiple computers, running virtual machines, running windows.
2. The Storage service, which is there to help manage the data coming in from your service in a reliable and scalable way.
3. And the Developer experience.  This packages up the Fabric and Storage layers with all the API’s integrated in visual studio and delivered through an SDK (Software Development Kit).This can then be downloaded for free so you can develop and test the service locally before you deploy to the cloud.

So not only does this remove the stress of the pre-mapping stage, make the development a whole lot easier but you can also manage confidential information in a private cloud whilst rich content can be run in the public cloud AND it also works on a scalable model.

Obviously when you launch a new service you hope the uptake will continue to grow and you’ll reach a peek at some point in the scale of the growth. With a lot of buying models now you need to estimate that peak and pay upfront. Windows Azure runs on a ‘Pay as you go’ model.

If you want to learn more about the using Azure then you can visit www.dev.windowsazure.com

We heart cloud computing…

Ask me to do something technical like ‘make a laptop work’ and that is another thing entirely. Ask just about anyone I work with, I am the closet blonde in the office, sensible on the outside and technically illiterate on the inside (says something in an office with over 500 people).

The proof was in my ‘faux pas’ this morning when I managed to change every single piece of software on my laptop to be operating from within Picture Viewer. That’s special isn’t it? It managed to evoke the following quip:

‘In the 12 years I’ve worked in IT I’ve never seen this done! That is quite an achievement.’

From my Knight in shining armour, Andy, who came to save the day (again).

I’m so proud of this achievement I just felt I had to share it with you.

I’ll be back soon with something more insightful…

More and more we hear about the influence fans of brands have on their friends but, increasingly so it’s more about friends of fans. These guys have for more influence as it’s perceived as unbiased, if, the message gets that far.

As it stands 90% of fan pages on Facebook have fewer than 100 fans. Mainly because the page isn’t backed by media so there’s nothing driving traffic (I’ve certainly had my share of clients who assume that just by sticking a brand page up, the world will ‘like’ them and share the love).

Shock, horror and revelation! This is not so.

Whilst the media buying and planning lot of you out there will know that’s old news, the exciting revelation is that bridging the gap between media spend v social currency seems to be closing, and it’s doing so in the guise of Polling Ads.

You still buy the initial space either on a CPC or CPM basis but the reach they can achieve improves the potential ROI several times over.

Facebook claim that current case studies have shown: 160% uplift in brand recall, 200% uplift in message awareness of the ad and a whopping 400% uplift in purchase intent.

That, coupled with the current predicted reach for potential customers falling in at around more than 500 million and as we all know, still being able to profile your audience by; location, age and interests really leads to a  no brainer.

I have a few clients trying this already and the rewards have been notable for them: extended reach, higher awareness, growing loyalty and a marked improvement of their brands resonating online.

My advice – get all over it!

Google Moderator is a service launched in 2008 that uses crowdsourcing to rank comments and questions from users to allow high volume management. Anyone can participate, that’s the main rule of thumb.

Why

Knowing and understanding what your audience are thinking and what they want is critical. By opening up the communication with your site visitors you’ll get to know and understand your audience, plus everyone gets their say, so, you get a rounded opinion.

How

Create a Google account, enter your question or topic, decide whether you want to allow both text and video responses, and decide how long your poll will run for.

And if you want to get clever you can play around with embedding it on a Google sites page, an iFrame or use the API…

You can read more about that here if you like

Who

Barack Obama used it quite early on in a public series called ‘Open for Questions’ which attracted 1m votes during the election in 48 hours.

But the guys attracting a lot of attention at the moment are Victors and Spoils. Founded in 2010 on the premise of crowdsourcing the agency enlists a database of 5,200 freelancers from around the globe. Their most recent project (and the reason I decided to write this blog post) is Virgin America Toronto Provocateur, which was designed and written using Google Moderator to launch the new service to Toronto. You can read more here (you’ll need to scroll down).

It’s also my first published piece (eek) so I’m doubly proud to be working with brainstrust on it. brainstrust is a UK-based brain cancer charity, dedicated to improving clinical care for brain tumour sufferers and providing coordinated support in their search for treatment.

I remember the afternoon the idea first came to light, Will (Communications and Development person at brainstrust) and I were having a pint at our local and he was talking about the brainbox that they were launching, a tool-box shaped ‘brain box’ containing a number of essential things to help brain tumour patients and their carers such as: A brain book, A ‘Have You Lost Your Way?’ booklet, A copy of the ‘Living with a Brain Tumour’ book and A pill-box… all amazing stuff but we felt that was something more we could do for children.

It was at this point we thought it a great idea to write this book which would be designed to explain to children who have just been diagnosed with brain cancer, what a brain tumour is and how the doctors and their carers will fight it and provide brain tumour support.

And so the Snaggletooth Splat was born.

I got to collaborate with Jase, an amazing illustrator (check out his blog here), to whom I am so grateful for bringing the words to life, and also with Andy Lodge who helped get the final product through print and thanks also to Chris Leah for the shots (below). You can read more about it and learn more about brainstrust here.

It’s been a real pleasure and I look forward to working with these guys more.