On the tail of beating out Farmville for a Webby—we like saying that—our twin Senior Designers, John and Dan Bell, AKA the Bell Brothers, came home from South By SouthWest with some more iron for their incredible Record Tripping game: Interactive Award Winner in the Motion Graphics category, beating out the likes of A&E Networks, gamers Rokkan, and the National Film Board of Canada, among others. It was icing on the cake after a great week at SXSW, meeting, greeting, learning, and toasting Austin, a most welcoming town. Look for more SXSW blog posts coming up, once the four of us who were there get caught up! If you haven’t tried out www.recordtripping.com do so this minute!
Most companies have realized the shift, the shift that smartphones are here to stay. More and more people are using their smart phones to surf the web, download apps, play games, and check email. The smartphone is taking over what people used to do on a laptop to some extent.
Here is some information on the increase of smartphones and the projections of 2011.
“65 percent of people 18 to 29 years old use their smartphone to access the Internet. Just under 50 percent of people 30 to 39 do the same. Expect those numbers to grow.”
- from the Pew Internet and American Life Project reported in July
There are over 60 million US smart phone users.
2011 smartphones will surpass featured phones by Q3.
Now that companies realize that and finally want to go mobile where do they start? Do they need a mobile website? An App?
Build Apps
Building apps for each device might be time consuming considering as of right now there are iPhones, Andriods, Blackberries, and soon to be released Windows. So you would need to build an application for each device. Though for each device you could use the rich hardware feature of your phone like GPS, maps, and the camera.
Mobile WebSites
Building a mobile web site would be less programming but you would lose out on the hardware features of the phone. Also the display across all the phones might be off, since there are high end smartphones like the iPhone, Andriod, and Blackberry and the low end smartphones that don’t have the display as the high end phones. With the introduction to HTML5 a lot of the mobile sites can act like mobile Apps.
Conclusion
The first thing a company should ask themselves is what are the reason they want a smartphone app or website. From the chart below we can see the breakdown of Apple’s App Store compared to mobile sites
If you are going to use Mobile apps do research on people who are currently using your site, questions to ask – are they iPhone User or Blackberry Users?
My suggestion would be to build a Mobile website first and then if you are in need of an App, you will know which smartphone most of the users of the mobile website use.
We’re lucky enough to employ one the the two best flash designers in the Philadelphia Region. That would be John Bell. The other one happens to be John’s brother, Dan. And he doesn’t work here. Yet.
In addition to the flash artistry they provide to our clients, John and Dan have been working on a side project for 4 years – Record Tripping.
Record Tripping is a collection of five mini games that players have to complete in a specific order. The gaming experience begins with the scratch of a record. Using your mouse’s scroll wheel, you’ll be able to scratch your way through all five chapters. You can rank for a daily high score or try to grab a spot among the all-time high scores.
Go play the games because they are fun and you really don’t want to get that report done right now. Or. Just go admire the legit technical and graphical beauty of the experience. Record Tripping.
With all of the buzz around social media, companies are searching for best and most effective ways to dive in and connect with consumers. For most the question is how to utilize social media in a way that will engage users and elicit/maintain a meaningful dialog, and for others it is providing those doors for users to consume and digest content in one location or central hub. In the later, companies approach this with developmental integrations. Microsoft has opened yet another door to the largest gaming network and the 20+ million active users on the Xbox LIVE! Marketplace. For those who are not familiar, the Xbox LIVE marketplace, available through the Xbox 360 gaming console is an online gaming and digital media delivery service created and operated by Microsoft. Xbox LIVE is an evolving entertainment hub with seamless integration between gaming and media needs. Through LIVE users have access to online gaming, streaming HD movies through Netflix, video chat with friends, photo sharing, and early access to content and exclusive discounts.
Microsoft has now integrated Facebook, Twitter, Zune, and last.fm. Users with an Xbox LIVE subscription will now be able to connect with friends, tweet, listen to music, and stream more HD media.
Facebook
Share status updates and photos with friends in real-time, as well as gaming moments right from the Xbox dashboard to Facebook. This provides gamers another avenue to share their achievements and favorite gaming moments on Facebook, and keep up with friends right from their console and TV.
Twitter
Read, reply, and post Tweets to Twitter through Xbox LIVE. See what friends and family are up to, connect to celebrities, learn about news as it happens, and follow online trends.
Last.fm on Xbox 360
With Last.fm, members can select music preferences to explore personalized radio stations with a library of more than 3.5 million tracks. Skip, “ban,” or ‘love” tracks to tailor the radio station to your tastes. Share music with friends, manage customized radio stations, and create personal soundtracks. A social component allows users to discover new music based on what other friends are listening to.
HD Entertainment with Zune
Zune on Xbox LIVE gives users access to full HD video entertainment, with the ability to rent and buy the latest movies and TV shows. HD content is in 1080p and 5.1 surround sound. A Party mode allows users to watch movies and share the experience with up to 7 friends in an online ‘movie theatre’ setting. Any download will provide the option to download again and watch on your PC or Zune HD player as well.
What does this mean for users? To the 20 + million subscribers, this is all the more reason to remain in one outlet digesting various levels of gaming, entertainment, and social. Instead of streaming music from your computer or switching off your console to watch a movie in high definition, everything can be done right from your Xbox console. You can keep all of your friends updated on what you are listening to, watching or playing.
What does this mean for agencies and their clients? As LIVE grows the plethora of services offered, so does the amount of time users stay connected, and the number of reasons they stay on LIVE. This provides us even more opportunity to reach these elusive demographics by volume in a highly targeted environment. Among the various search and display opportunities being utilized through Microsoft, with LIVE provides the ability to tailor campaigns using standard ad placements, multimedia such as video, audio and animation, as well as custom sponsorships/contests. Developing branded theme packs for users to skin their dashboards is also an option to engage the audience, essentially creating a downloadable homepage takeover for their dashboard experience.
Microsoft has recently made its 1 vs 100 game available in beta form as of June 1st, 2009. This is a community based trivia game based on NBC’s television show that ended back in 2008. Microsoft built this game with some strong attributes in mind: Fun, Friendly, Challenging & Rewarding. Seems like a common sense approach, right? Not many developers can achieve this successful mixture, Microsoft managed to do it while integrating an effective advertising platform. Interspersed within the “Live” game show are a series of branded ads and video ads during breaks. Currently Sprint and Honda appear to be the largest advertisers involved with 1 vs 100. Both advertisers have reportedly paid approximately $1 million to be sponsors for Season One of 1 vs 100. So, how does this all work?
As part of a large Microsoft Xbox Live! update awhile back, users were able to create their own custom Avatars (similar to the Mii characters on Nintendo Wii). These user-generated Avatars become the visual representation of players in 1 vs 100. Your character waits in the game lobby for the “show” to begin at its scheduled time. This game lobby is one of the first opportunities for advertiser sponsorships using branded banners in the background. Once the game begins, “The One” is selected based on previous successes and they are pitted against “The Mob”. The goal of the Xbox Live game is to eliminate “The Mob” when you are “The One” in order to secure the best possible reward. If “The One” is defeated, the remaining members of “The Mob” split smaller prizes. The primary reward is Microsoft Points which can be used to purchase arcade games, game content, movies, music videos, or even full games. Additional contests and giveaways are also planned for 1 vs 100, incentivizing players to bring their A-game. Trivia questions come at players fast, timing plays a large part in obtaining better scores. Answering questions quickly, accurately and consecutively improves your overall score and gives users a better chance at becoming “The One” in future episodes. There are many specific rules and game types beyond this basic explanation.
As Microsoft continues to refine 1 vs 100, the audience will surely expand. The current member base on Xbox Live has recently surpassed 20 million active users. The large pool of engaged Xbox Live users combined with the popularity of 1 vs 100 provides advertisers with a strong platform. In 1 vs 100 you can’t fast forward through commercials, the static brand placements are subtle and contestants can’t pause the game to grab a slice of pizza. Contestants pay very close attention to win the valuable prizes which leads to fierce competition and the advertisements are certainly effective thanks to the attentive crowd. My personal experience with 1 vs 100 is that the ads were exclusively a branding tool, no interaction, no conversion events and not much to track outside of viewership and exposure levels. If Microsoft can refine this ad platform during Season Two so that users can interact with the ads, but not interrupt their game, it will take the promotional element to a whole new level. Behavioral data and user demographics are more than likely being recorded through Xbox Live. Adding an element of geo-targeting could really make these ads pop as well. Order a pizza from your couch in the middle of 1 vs 100, submit your contact information to a local car dealership for special pricing/test drive, request free product samples, early game demo access or even sneak previews of exclusive movie trailers all via in-game ads are just a handful of possibilities that Microsoft could leverage with this successful & innovative “gamevertising” platform.
On the tail of beating out Farmville for a Webby—we like saying that—our twin Senior Designers, John and Dan Bell, AKA the Bell Brothers, came home from South By SouthWest with some more iron for their incredible Record Tripping game: Interactive Award Winner in the Motion Graphics category, beating out the likes of A&E Networks, gamers Rokkan, and the National Film Board of Canada, among others. It was icing on the cake after a great week at SXSW, meeting, greeting, learning, and toasting Austin, a most welcoming town. Look for more SXSW blog posts coming up, once the four of us who were there get caught up! If you haven’t tried out www.recordtripping.com do so this minute!
