Category Archives: ...Media

Behind the Great Firewall of China

By Daniele Fiandaca | Published: 2009/10/12

Chinese Firewall

Our Chinese team often sit in front of a web browser reading an all too familiar sentence: “The connection has timed out”, or similarly, “The connection was reset”. Is this the Ghost In The Machine? A galloping Trojan Horse? No, it’s the ever-expanding Chinese Firewall!

In the run-up to China’s illustrious 60th anniversary of the People’s Republic, Chris Yew, complete with virtual ladder, scales the Great Fire Wall of China in an attempt to get on top of government web-blocking and its implications for digital marketing.

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Branded iPhone Apps

By Luke Farrell | Published: 2009/10/06

Art made on an iPhone

The ultimate potential of the revolutionary iPhone was not realised when admirers first lauded its aesthetic appeal. Nor was it appreciated when they praised the power of the hardware that was housed within this sleek exterior. Only now, when looking at the ever-expanding choice of iPhone apps available, enabling the smart phone to become a device that rotates around the user, taking on the function of what the user desires, as a truly customisable phone that can become anything you want it to be, can we appreciate its true capability.

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Social Media Film Review: Final Thoughts

By Luke Farrell | Published: 2009/10/05

Social Media

Having been in the process of writing a conclusive (And slightly overdue) piece to summarise the social media film review, I stumbled upon an article written by Andrew Hampp of AdAge that evaluates the phenomenon in a respectable fashion. The article takes a mature and well balanced stance on exploring the relationships and variables involved. Hampp also uses the studies that were featured earlier on The Hive Blog social media film review, adding to the relevance of the inclusion of this piece, so without further adieu, view the article after the break. All credit is due to the author and publisher.

Forget Ebert: How Twitter Makes or Breaks Movie Marketing Today

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Zero to 60: Ford’s Social Media Strategy

By Daniele Fiandaca | Published: 2009/09/28

Zero to 60: Social Media Strategy via Ford [Keynote - OMMA Global 2009]

View more presentations from Scott Monty.

Here is the keynote presentation from Scott Monty (Head of Social Media @Ford) at the 2009 OMMA Global conference in New York on September 21. It tells the story of Ford’s social media experience and highlights the key elements that make them one of the top companies using social media.

Ford’s Social Media Strategy is simple “To Humanize the company by connecting consumers with Ford employees and with each other when possible, providing value in the process” and when executed with creativity and passion like most of their campaigns so far, can deliver incredible results”. Via DigitalBuzzblog

It is interesting that there is very little in there about ROI or direct sales in this presentation but given that Ford continue to invest heavily in the space you can only assume that they feel the activity is having an influence in perception and ultimately sales. I think that this is the problem with looking for the holy grail of measurement in the social media space – you can only really measure it’s success over time if looking at the wider context of the marketing and trying to attribute it ultimately to sales – something that was so well covered by Oliver Blanchard’s basics of social media ROI.

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Facebook Finally “Connects”

By Luke Farrell | Published: 2009/09/25

The “Connect” tool, which can be seen as the first genuine attempt to allow access to Facebook user data outside of Facebook itself, is not new, having been used by developers since its introduction in the first quarter of 2008.

Although the intuitive application may not be in showroom condition, like most new technologies it does take a while for developers to become accustomed to the possibilities available, and so the practicality element tends to suffer with novelty fuelling much of the interest and following.

So, having been around the block, with both developer and user familiarising themselves with the new application, we are finally starting to see some interesting and practical uses being developed, with both parties (and client, of course) gaining substantial value from it.

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