NeilCocker.com

Microsoft have recently been putting videos online to bring attention to the internet marketing research done by their Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (MDAS) team. There’s three installments of these videos. One shows a man trying to advertise a toaster in a fine art gallery and another shows someone encouraging partying at a funeral. The message? That “context matters”. In other words – advertise to the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

Well… no shit Sherlock!

Surely anyone with a most basic grasp of advertising or marketing should know this. However, one of the videos shows a group of kids dancing at a studio when the “advertisers” very literally waltz in.

Video: Microsoft – context matters

What’s clever about this is that the kids just move to another part of the room and carry on. I’ve no idea if Microsoft intended to convey this message, but the fact is that if users get overwhelmed with bad advertising on their chosen site they will just go somewhere else. It’s something that social networks (whose value is driven purely by the number of users they have) need to be very careful about in the drive to monetise their services.

Regardless of the videos, it’s definitely worth looking at the research booklet (PDF doc). They took 24 hour diaries with several thousand people across 6 countries to find out their online habits. And some of the findings are fascinating…

There’s been a 30 percent increase in social networking users in less than a year (something Facebook surely is largely responsible for). It shows how broadband users are online 20-40 times a day for a few minutes at a time, instead of the concentrated burst that they were as dialup customers. And this neatly echoes something I said just a few days ago when I was talking about why the dotcom bubble is back and stronger than before. As the document says: “broadband changes everything… What really happened is that broadband allowed the internet to be fully integrated into daily life”.

There’s some great info on what time of day people are more likely to read blogs, pay bills or check their emails etc. And I was reassured to find out the majority of people multi-task whilst using the net. I’m forever doing other stuff (whether it’s listening to an online radio show or watching TV) whilst emailing, blogging or browsing.

I’m only halfway through the document so far (I haven’t even got to the case study of the Norwegian male’s typical day online!) but it’s already proved itself as an absolutely invaluable tool for anyone involved in media planning, advertising etc etc.

Microsoft have recently been putting videos online to bring attention to the internet marketing research done by their Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions (MDAS) team. There’s three installments of these videos. One shows a man trying to advertise a toaster in a fine art gallery and another shows someone encouraging partying at a funeral. The message? That “context matters”. In other words – advertise to the right people, in the right place, at the right time.

Well… no shit Sherlock!

Surely anyone with a most basic grasp of advertising or marketing should know this. However, one of the videos shows a group of kids dancing at a studio when the “advertisers” very literally waltz in.

Video: Microsoft – context matters

What’s clever about this is that the kids just move to another part of the room and carry on. I’ve no idea if Microsoft intended to convey this message, but the fact is that if users get overwhelmed with bad advertising on their chosen site they will just go somewhere else. It’s something that social networks (whose value is driven purely by the number of users they have) need to be very careful about in the drive to monetise their services.

Regardless of the videos, it’s definitely worth looking at the research booklet (PDF doc). They took 24 hour diaries with several thousand people across 6 countries to find out their online habits. And some of the findings are fascinating…

There’s been a 30 percent increase in social networking users in less than a year (something Facebook surely is largely responsible for). It shows how broadband users are online 20-40 times a day for a few minutes at a time, instead of the concentrated burst that they were as dialup customers. And this neatly echoes something I said just a few days ago when I was talking about why the dotcom bubble is back and stronger than before. As the document says: “broadband changes everything… What really happened is that broadband allowed the internet to be fully integrated into daily life”.

There’s some great info on what time of day people are more likely to read blogs, pay bills or check their emails etc. And I was reassured to find out the majority of people multi-task whilst using the net. I’m forever doing other stuff (whether it’s listening to an online radio show or watching TV) whilst emailing, blogging or browsing.

I’m only halfway through the document so far (I haven’t even got to the case study of the Norwegian male’s typical day online!) but it’s already proved itself as an absolutely invaluable tool for anyone involved in media planning, advertising etc etc.

I took a look at my wardrobe a few months ago and realised the vast majority of the t-shirts I owned were freebies from clubs and events around the world where we’d played. As a result they were mainly black with white print and slightly on the baggy side (or very baggy if they’d come from American clubs!).

So I decided to clear them all out and get some groovy new t-shirts. But not being a particularly fashionable bloke I avoid “boutiques” like the plague. So I was relieved to have the utterly brilliant Threadless.com in my bookmarks. I’d discovered it a few years ago but never purchased anything. But now with the dollar so weak against the pound you can order a fantastic t-shirt and have it delivered to your door for a total of about 11 quid…

The site is run as a competition with designers submitting their images that are voted on by the site’s users. The winners each week get printed and awarded with bundles of cash and a place on the chest of thousands of grateful Threadless fans.

In the few months since I’ve been buying from them I’ve amassed ten, including the few pictured here*, and contributed to a brilliant business. It’s user-generated, user-moderated and (for those of us on the east of the Atlantic) incredibly cheap to get high-quality, designer t-shirts from. The only problem I’ve got now is convincing myself I don’t need another ten. With an email each week with a handful of ace new designs on it’s going to be very tricky…

*It must be noted that I’m not in any of the pictures. I’m nowhere near that wholesomely good-looking.

I took a look at my wardrobe a few months ago and realised the vast majority of the t-shirts I owned were freebies from clubs and events around the world where we’d played. As a result they were mainly black with white print and slightly on the baggy side (or very baggy if they’d come from American clubs!).

So I decided to clear them all out and get some groovy new t-shirts. But not being a particularly fashionable bloke I avoid “boutiques” like the plague. So I was relieved to have the utterly brilliant Threadless.com in my bookmarks. I’d discovered it a few years ago but never purchased anything. But now with the dollar so weak against the pound you can order a fantastic t-shirt and have it delivered to your door for a total of about 11 quid…

The site is run as a competition with designers submitting their images that are voted on by the site’s users. The winners each week get printed and awarded with bundles of cash and a place on the chest of thousands of grateful Threadless fans.

In the few months since I’ve been buying from them I’ve amassed ten, including the few pictured here*, and contributed to a brilliant business. It’s user-generated, user-moderated and (for those of us on the east of the Atlantic) incredibly cheap to get high-quality, designer t-shirts from. The only problem I’ve got now is convincing myself I don’t need another ten. With an email each week with a handful of ace new designs on it’s going to be very tricky…

*It must be noted that I’m not in any of the pictures. I’m nowhere near that wholesomely good-looking.

A complete list of 2007′s web/tech acquisitions has been published and it makes for encouraging reading for those of us that are working in that field. The good news is that people are definitely still spending big bucks on buying up brilliant ideas.

Two of the more well-known names in the list, Last.FM and Feedburner, were bought for a total of 280 million dollars. Even very niche sites such as Treehugger were commanding fees of $10 million.

So has global finance finally regained confidence in the internet following its overexuberance in the initial bubble that burst? I think that now that broadband connection speeds are widely used enough for most in the developed world to have constant, high-quality access to the net things are different – the ideas that people had 10 years ago are now a lot more feasible.

People are connected for longer, aren’t worried about minute-by-minute charges (as they were with dialup), have faster computers to deal with the flashier graphics and are generally more net-savvy. All this adds up to a “consumer” that’s spending more of their time online but also, and perhaps more importantly, committing more of their life onto the net. They are filling social networks with personal data, storing their diaries online and basically becoming perfect patrons of the online world. It’s like the equivalent of going to your local superstore and spending 9 hours in there, signing up for all the loyalty cards and trying all the tasters. Now obviously not everyone spends money on the internet, but the reality is that traffic is synonymous with cash for many websites. The more visitors a site has, the more its worth to potential investors.

No wonder Facebook has been valued as $15 billion. Yes. Billion.

The Cardiff Chamber of Commerce has recently seen some tough times, and is currently looking to restart after the liquidators were called in.

There are calls for the new chamber to focus on international trade, but I don’t hear anybody talking about a focus upon the rapidly growing creative sector. There is a massive opportunity for a fresh chamber to lend it’s support to the creative industries within Wales and truly represent the wide-ranging business community across the country.

A great article/interview with Thom Yorke of Radiohead and David Byrne (formerly of Talking Heads and all round world-music-dabbler extraordinaire).

I’ll let the article speak for itself. It’s fascinating reading from two guys I really, really admire for their innovative approaches to their business and their art.

A great article/interview with Thom Yorke of Radiohead and David Byrne (formerly of Talking Heads and all round world-music-dabbler extraordinaire).

I’ll let the article speak for itself. It’s fascinating reading from two guys I really, really admire for their innovative approaches to their business and their art.