Wolfram Alpha's been busy...

It's August. Silly season in the press. The one time of year you can get a seat on the train in the morning without a fight. But whilst some are enjoying hard earned breaks for others the work continues, and the development team at "computational knowledge engine" Wolfram Alpha have been busy busy according to a recent blog post from Stephen Wolfram. Well worth a read.

Wolfram Alpha might not yet have ironed out all the wrinkles but it definitely sounds like they are making process, and I do like the way it presents results if I'm looking for certain types of answers. Google won't teach me how to play chords.Nor play the audio file too so I know what they should sound like.

Sure, WA hasn't made the impact Bing has on the overall search market but it was always going to be slightly more niche because of it's scientfic skew, and it hasn't had the might of Microsoft and some big OEM deals behind it either.

It deserves to retain a place on the search radar.

Augmented & Alternate Reality

AR: It's a topic that freaks a lot of digital immigrants out but I am seeing more and more interesting applications of AR, and in particularly interesting ones in the field of mobile.

Here's the first AR Tubemap application for the iPhone 3 GS I've come across (there are heaps of other useful Tube / Transport related mobile apps). I think it makes a lot of sense as there are tons of people who walk miles underground when actually they could change lines at street level and walk half the distance if only they knew.



But the useful stuff apart, the notion that more and more of us will have an avatar based alter-ego / virtual world presence is what people really struggle to get their heads around. Not convinced? Read this post from Digital Stats. This video makes some interesting points (listen carefully to the lyrics) in a slick way. Well worth investing 3 minutes in. Clearly the opportunities are far wider than this suggests but I liked the way it told the story.

Move over bumper stickers here's Twibbon

Thanks to my squirrelling around the web (see last post), I just found Twibbon.

Twibbon effectively allows you to add a badge to your Twitter Photo icon, allowing all the people following you to see that you are happy to be associated with whatever your Twibbon says/shows. There are loads to choose from already, ranging from that pesky photo-crashing squirrel to all manner of charities and causes whether it's I love Firefox to Breast Cancer's pink ribbon.

It's easy to add to your profile, easy to remove, and not hard to create one either (you just need a gif / png file), as I learned playing around. I'm too short of time right now to go and create a new one just for me but to evidence the point here's one I just adopted.

I can think of so many ways this could be used by brands, even if you only choose to sport a particular twibbon for a short while. What a fantastic way of amplifying your message via your brand advocates. Better go and mention it to some clients!

Word of Mouth: What works and why

I could write reams on this topic as I am endlessly frustrated by brands coming to me and saying I want a "viral".

Let's be clear: Swine flu is a VIRUS.

Something can be transmitted VIRALLY (adverb).

There is NO SUCH THING in digital marketing as a VIRAL.

Viral transmission of content is SOMETHING THAT HAPPENS.

People will only VOLUNTARILY pass on things that they think are interesting, funny, useful and that will reflect well upon the sender in the eyes of the recipient.

Rant over.

To illustrate the point here's a snapshot of something someone sent me earlier today and I am now choosing to share with you because a) it made me laugh and b) it evidences the point I've just made.


The full version is here and well worth a click.

There's another point about time-sensitivity and WOM that needs to be made but I'll save that for another day. In the interim I'll make the point the short way by saying that yesterday someone flagged up to me the well-established-but-until-now-had-passed-me-by phenomenon of the photo-crashing squirrel, which had me in stitches yesterday, and then again this morning when having sent a friend the link to an "insert the squirrel into your picture" site they sent me back their attempt. Imagine harnessing the value of that level of consumer participation and positive sentiment to your brand by facilitating something similar.

I'm saddened that Reader's Digest (the original offline Twitter?) has filed for Chapter 11 this week, but as a tribute to a longstanding part of their publication I'll sign off, with "Laughter: The best medicine."

Twitter - are you sure it's not for you??

I meet lots of people who've heard of Twitter because of all the media exposure it's had, but still haven't figured out what they could use it for. Or they signed up, got confused and gave up. As I mentioned in a recent post it's uses are growing and changing all the time, as more and people explore and use it in more and more creative ways.

I have a very good friend who's a serious, serious tri/quadrathlete and he tweets (@xterramac) about his training schedule as it's easier for him to update via his phone when he's on the move than it is for him to blog (well worth a read if you think getting off your sofa to grab a beer from the fridge is hard work, or that a work out is legging it 10 metres down the platform to jump on the tube as the doors are closing).

I use Twitter as an information filter, frequently swapping links and things of interest with my fellow digerati buddies. There are people tweeting about all manner of things both general and niche, so with a little exploring you are guaranteed to find something that's of interest to your work or your hobbies.

If you need some inspiration check out the many many Top 10 Twitterers to follow lists that are posted here after Twittip.com laid down a challenge. You'll find everything from writers tojazz artists, wine lovers to Mummy bloggers, cigar lovers to designers, foodies to photographers. Proof of the power of the micro-community! You'll risk RSI from scrolling, because there are lots of contributions but it's fascinating stuff. I also discovered Twitter Grader today which gives a Twitter-rating pertaining to your sphere of influence.

Go explore.

Amusing Tweet..sign of the times

I just found this tweet conversation going on between a friend of mine and another friend of theirs:

Tweet #1: "Decided to say goodbye to myspace"

Tweet #2 (in response): "were you alone on it? who uses it? Bands? Kids?"

Insightful in many ways - people's perceptions are increasingly that MySpace is rather last year in social network terms. I'm not so sure, I think its use is just altering. Facebook does your personal connections, Twitter does a mixture of personal connections & short form RSS from news sources you define, and MySpace is becoming more about arts-based micro-communities, as it is increasingly primarily associated with music.

Nice thought: advertising=fireworks, social media = bonfires

A great Guy Fawkes party needs both!

Advertising Fireworks, Social Bonfires