Told you so...

I speculated on Facebooks future last September. Well it appears my predictions were pretty close to reality as Mark Zuukerberg announce their plans to make Facebook "the fabric of the web". A number of features will make integrating Facebook into websites even easier and more comprehensive than every before. Considering Facebook is coming close to 500 million hits a month, its got a huge user base to leverage. Will watch closely how this unfolds.

As to my previous bold statement on the election campaign...well that was slightly less accurate.

Aparently the revolution was televised...

So its good old TV, not social media and other exciting digital mediums, that have brought the election campaign to life and allowed the Lib Dems to engage swathes of younger voters.

Who'd have thought it after all the predictions of a digital election on par with Obama's US triumph.

Indeed these predictions have seemed far off the mark for a while now. As both Labour and the Tories bumbled around, stealing ideas from the Obama campaign and trying to fit them into their strategies, neither have done anything to change the game. The best work has come from outside the parties themselves, notably mydavidcameron.com which has rapidly risen to become the most visited UK politics site on the web. Labour did well to react and acknowledge this success with their own crowd sourcing competition but they still seem behind the curve and lacking in foresight.

The Tories? Well they paniced in the face of diving poll results by seemingly abandoning their digital aspirations and throwing all their weight behind M&C Saatchi's loud and confrontational poster campaign - old skool style.

More to come on this as it unfolds.

Passive vs Interactive Engagment

Interesting article over at Interactive Marketing Trends about the latest Heineken campaign and what it suggest about advertising engagment. Think its pretty spot on, after all movies are passive but totally engaging (well, most some of them). See Avatar depression for an extreame illustration of that!

Digital is still very much the new, exciting, shiney toy for many marketeers. But sometime this means it can blind you from more traditional channels that might better solve the communications problem.

http://interactivemarketingtrends.blogspot.com/2010/03/engaging-doesnt-mean-interactive.html

Great Coke viral

This is what its all about!

Augmented reality: The next big thing?

There has been pretty significant buzz in the press recently about the rise of augmented reality and it seems to have captured many peoples imaginations. Indeed a lot of people have been talking about AR as being one of the stars of 2010. Already a number of brands have jumped on the bandwangon although the UK seems to be lagging behind the US in terms of utilising AR as a marketing tool.

I haven't personally be so enthused, the experience always seems to feel slightly underwhelming. Examples such as the one below are going some way to help change my mind. Love the integration of a game - its something which could have endless possibilities. It does leave me wondering just how much this cost to implement however.

Its cold!

Great image from the BBC:

Social media: A commitment not a campaign

More truths from the sages mouth today:

"It's a process, not an event.

Dating is a process. So is losing weight, being a public company and building a brand.

On the other hand, putting up a trade show booth is an event. So are going public and having surgery.

Events are easier to manage, pay for and get excited about. Processes build results for the long haul."

To embellish, if your company isn't willing to commit long term resource to fostering relationships in social spaces they should rethink undertaking any social media activity.

The rules are different; if you keep thinking about social media activity in the old mindset of short term campaigns you risk alienating the people that are willing to engage with you.

Social media is for life, not just for Christmas.