Category Archives: Innovation

YouTube: the global TV channel

Posted on January 31, 2012 at 7:22 am UK

I caught a few minutes of President Obama’s Google+ Hangout last night as it was streamed on YouTube.

If you’ve done a Google+ Hangout video chat before, you’ll be familiar with the format and this was no different. Except, of course, it was the President of the United States plus five lucky citizens chosen by +The White House to hang out live with the Pres in a carefully-controlled setting. Plus the millions of people worldwide who tuned in, as it were, to YouTube to watch and add text comments. Plus those doing the same on Google+, Facebook, Twitter… wherever they were online.

‘Tuned in’ is an apt descriptor as the immediate thought I had when I did just that on Google+ was “This is TV.”

If last year’s Royal Wedding that was broadcast live on YouTube was a demo of YouTube as a TV channel – a global one at that – that captures imaginations with a compelling event (content, in a word), then yesterday’s presidential Hangout is surely a clear sign that the channel just changed.

Why watch TV on a TV any more when you can immerse yourself, interact on the net, share your experiences and the recorded content itself, via any capable device that connects online?

Talk about disruption! No wonder the US entertainment industry – and that includes mainstream media like TV – likes things like #SOPA and #PIPA, to which +Clay Shirky‘s call to “pick up the pitchforks” is so compelling.

Reshared post from +The White House

Missed the Hangout with President Obama? Check out the full video here and let us know what you thought.

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FIR Interview: Walgreens Social Media Director Adam Kmiec

Posted on January 22, 2012 at 9:07 am UK

FIR co-hosts Neville Hobson and Shel Holtz interview Adam Kmiec, director of social media for Walgreens, the largest drug store chain in the US and a Fortune 50 company.

itsmyWalgreens has engaged in the last 10 days or so in a social media-focused effort to build awareness among customers of alternatives to Express Scripts, the prescription benefit manager through which hundreds of thousands of people in the US pay for their prescription medications. Unable to reach an agreement to renew their contract, Walgreens no longer accepts Express Scripts but using mechanisms like Prescription Savings Club membership to retain customers.

The campaign to build awareness and retain customer loyalty has been largely focused on social media, including paid tactics like promoted Twitter trends and sponsored blog posts. In this wide-ranging interview, Kmiec outlines the challenges of the campaign, discusses the importance of statistical insights to drive decision-making, and the use of paid social media, as well as outcomes of the effort to date.

(The Walgreens campaign was covered by Advertising Age and was the subject of a story covered on FIR #634 on January 16. That FIR report was covered by the Best O Pop blog.)

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About our Conversation Partner

adamkmiecFor more than 14 years, Walgreens Social Media Director Adam Kmiec has worked for some of the most forward thinking organizations in the world, while helping some of the most dynamic brands find success in the interactive and social space. His career spans both the client and agency sides of the marketing and advertising industry, covering stops at renowned organizations that include Fallon, Leo Burnett, and ConAgra Foods. His focus has always been on solving business problems by leveraging consumer driven insights to fuel creative ideation.

He is a frequent speaker and news contributor. He is currently working on a book titled Yes, It’s Hypocritical due for completion next summer.

Connect with Adam on Twitter @adamkmiec or via other social networks.

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Share your comments or questions about this podcast, or suggestions for future interviews, in the FIR FriendFeed Room. You can also email us at fircomments@gmail.com; call the Comment Line at +1 206 222 2803 (North America), +44 20 3239 9082 (Europe), or Skype: fircomments; comment at Twitter: twitter.com/FIR. You can email your comments, questions and suggestions as MP3 file attachments, if you wish (max. 3 minutes / 5Mb attachment, please!). We’ll be happy to see how we can include your audio contribution in a show.

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This FIR Interview is brought to you with Lawrence Ragan Communications, serving communicators worldwide for 35 years. Information: www.ragan.com.

Podsafe music – On A Podcast Instrumental Mix (MP3, 5Mb) by Cruisebox.

(Cross-posted from For Immediate Release, Shel’s and my podcast blog.)

Dell and the wow factor

Posted on January 11, 2012 at 8:25 am UK

Among the many announcements out of the Consumer Electronics Show this week is Dell’s new XPS 13 Ultrabook.

Dell joins other manufacturers in the embryonic ultrabook segment late to the party, some say. Even if true, does it matter if you have something really different like Smart Connect functionality? That looks pretty cool, according to PC Magazine:

[...] It periodically wakes during sleep and, if a known Wi-Fi network is available, updates your email, calendar, and other information so new content is waiting for you when you resume work. It’s also location-aware, so gadgets such as weather and restaurant listings are updated if you change cities.

Or maybe it’s on a more emotional level as I suggested in an impromptu chat in Google+ with Dell’s +Susan Beebe:

It helps in the differentiation from competitors when such differentiation is focused on emotional elements like form factor, aesthetic appeal and usability. Which all blends into a wow! factor :)

Agree?

Reshared post from +Susan Beebe

Embedded Link

Dell Ultrabook Features Backlit Keyboard, Smart Connect
Dell joins the 13.3-inch ultrabook category with an aluminum and carbon-fiber flyweight starting at $999.

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Touching the BBC

Posted on November 24, 2011 at 7:57 am UK

I was taking a look through the beta version of the BBC’s new website when it occurred to me that what I was interacting with was a web presence that’s geared to touch and feel more than to point and click.

bbcbetawebsite

The overall layout that extends left and right off the visible screen area, prominent navigation arrows left and right, big visual and touchable content areas… all elements you currently see on touch-screen tablets like the iPad when accessing some types of content.

However this is the first commercial website I’ve seen that seems to be under construction with an eye on the future of user interfaces.

Clearly the BBC beta site isn’t wholly polished or finished as a touch-enabled web presence – you can load it in your tablet and see that for yourself (address: http://beta.bbc.co.uk). But I wanted to get a sense of what this may be like on a normal, standard desktop computer screen that’s touch enabled, the type of device that will be found in millions of offices, shops and indeed homes for years to come, no matter how many people also use mobile devices like 10-inch tablets.

Some PC brands are coming to market now with touch screens; luckily, my wife already has a touch screen desktop computer, an Acer Aspire Z5610 with a 23-inch HD touch screen. It’s gorgeous, and I’ve always thought it ahead of its time when so few standard software applications are touch enabled. But, assuming the machine’s specs are up to scratch, she’ll be well placed when Windows 8 comes out next year – designed for touchscreen input in addition to mouse and keyboard. (And just take a look at the new Microsoft Surface technology and think of the potential with that.)

Anyway, I tried a little touching and swiping on the BBC beta site. It’s very easy to imagine this way of interacting as natural and preferable, once the site is fully enabled for that use and the computer hardware and software fully support such use. Currently the site mostly behaves like a normal website, eg, drop down menus, etc, that aren’t really good for touch interaction, more suited to point and click.

Still, it’s a good pointer (pun not intended) to what we can expect to find on the web when touch and feel comes to the desktop.

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Future vision enabled

Posted on November 2, 2011 at 8:43 pm UK

Watch how future technology will help people make better use of their time, focus their attention, and strengthen relationships while getting things done at work, home, and on the go, says Microsoft Office in this stylish 6-minute video.

(If you don’t see the video embedded above, watch it on YouTube.)

It’s certainly an imaginative picture, a credible and believable view of what a near tech-enhanced future could look like (but where’s the sex? asks David Philips).

There’s a lot of glass featured, bringing to my mind the vision of a future that Corning sees. Some parallel thinking here as hardware (Corning) enables software (Microsoft).

Posted last week, Microsoft’s video has over 1.6 million views so far and counting.

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