Way back in 1992 in the UK there was a hotspot based phone service called Rabbit, launched by Hutchison (now Hutchison Whampoa).  In essence a user bought a handset, resembling something between a mobile and a cordless phone that could be used to make phone calls within 100 meters of a hotspot.  My home town, Manchester, had more or less full coverage by late 1992.

According to wikipedia 12,000 base-stations were live and at the peak the service had 10,000 subscribers.  The service ceased in late 1993 due to price drops on the analog cellular networks and the ability for those networks to accept inbound calls.

The phone-less sibling of the iPhone, the iPod Touch, is now becoming the successor to the Rabbit.  Loaded with Skype (or equivalent VoIP service) and a headset with microphone the iPod Touch is now a nearly fully fledged phone.  With the new 3.0 iPhone / Touch operating system it will be a fully fledged outbound and inbound phone experience.  Of course, the only place you’ll be able to make or receive calls is within range of a subscribed wifi hot spot.

The irony is that the cellular networks superseded the Rabbit, but the iPod Touch and VoIP could supersede the cellular phone.

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Automotive Perfection

A new client in the automotive sector generously treated us to a VIP tour. This has an immediate consequence in that you arrive quite fancying a V8 Vantage ‘one day’ only to find that this was a school-boy error. You now need one very urgently and contemplate serious crime to have the keys to a DBS tomorrow.

It works like this. The seduction begins with the sheer architectural class of the buildings, the charm of the reception team and a selection of cars on which to gaze (including a cut away revealing a quite incredible attention to detail). Things move up a gear when you peruse the collection of historical cars, all immaculate. With the lineage as the appetiser and James Bond as your host the production line itself is almost too much. By the time you have seen gearbox-meet-driveshaft-meet-engine and the whole powertrain bonding with its body in the marriage station you are very excited indeed. Raybans are needed for the grand finale; inspection bays with zillions of lights to show up the slightest blemish. From my vantage point I couldn’t see any whatsoever; just a car parked in each that was automotive perfection, attended to by people who cared, and took pride.

It is one thing to see any sort of manufacturing going on in this country of ours; it is quite another to see a facility that is very likely without equal anywhere in the world. If you are considering a 911 do go and just make sure you don’t deserve something with a little more class. Quite wonderful.

Image used under a Creative Commons license, courtesy of char1iej on Flickr.

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iDrive, from BMW

Discussing the latest version of iDrive in a friend’s BMW made me think of the wide impact the name iPod has had. So far as I know it was the first to coin the ‘i’ and now we have everything from iDrive (BMW) to the iPlayer (BBC). Shows that a name being established in one market doesn’t mean you can’t leverage the idea in another. You only have to look at Apple, Orange and Blackberry to see that. Then again, using a vowel as a prefix is not a new concept… e-Type, o-Ring or even u-Boat. Can’t think of a name beginning with a- though. Might have to take a-look into that.

iDrive image used under a Creative Commons license, courtesy of Jon Large’s photostream on Flickr

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Open 24/7

I loved working in retail. The pace of it, the volume of goods, the customers, the camaraderie of the team. Using early Psion series 2 hand held computers to count stock while earning some student cash in the food department at Marks and Spencers in London’s King’s Road. Inspecting the shopping baskets of celebrities. But what I remember most clearly is the quality of display and service to which we aspired. For example:

• ensuring that the display ends were always full, so that when you entered the store it looked well stocked, even though it quite often wasn’t
• monitoring stock levels of the top 20 lines (smoked salmon, champagne, caviar, that sort of thing) to avoid customers’ dinner parties being ruined by the absence of the crucial ingredient
• placing new lines in optimum locations so they can be seen
• opening additional checkouts if queues started to form
• having staff always on hand to help customers find the foie gras
• a consistent layout, flowers and bread at the front, cold chain to the right, groceries to the left, freezers at the back, so you know where you are
• customer services provided in a prominent location

Why then, do I find online retail so universally uninspiring? Because very little, if any, of the above has been translated into the online space. Food retailers from upmarket Ocado to value-driven Asda have websites that ask you to wade through lists (optimistically labelled as aisles) and then to scroll through endless items with miniscule thumbnails. It doesn’t have to be like this. I see no reason why the general idea behind the iTunes store or the BBC iPlayer site cannot be applied to grocery shopping, presenting things in an intuitive and appealing way. And when it comes to delivery, extra vehicles should be allocated to continue availability at the most popular times.

That said, some retailers are trying. Same day delivery for the instant gratification generation in London and half a dozen American cities from Amazon is more like it. And aggregators like Kayak for travel and confused.com for car insurance show the benefit of innovation and making things quick and simple for customers.

But the sad bottom line is that for the shopping any household needs to do most often, for the food and the washing powder, the experience is depressing. We could fill a shopping basket with ideas to make things better.

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The very clever chaps and chapesses at Clearleft in the UK have developed a usability testing app for the Mac. No cameras, no ‘lab’ environment. Completely unobtrusive and invisible to the test subject. We’ve started using this and it’s brilliantly simple and dirt cheap. Also, 10% of sales go Gorilla charities.

This app makes it feasible to test even the lowest budget jobs ensuring a fantastic, seemless web experience for all our clients. Sweet.

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First it was the Newton (OK that didn’t work out so well) but now, it is film. I am talking 35mm. Three reasons:

1. The excellent Ian Farrell in Photography Monthly hits the nail on the head. “I like that I can’t instantly review what I’ve taken, in combination with the limited number of shots on a roll, this means I take more care framing up, and perhaps only take one or two frames. Or even none. When was the last time you framed up a shot with a DSLR and then decided it wasn’t worth taking?”. Exactly.

2. Quality. When you get married you ask your photographer to shoot film for a reason.

3. Ken Rockwell argues very coherently that the camera doesn’t matter (he has also sparked my interest in Ansel Adams) but you have to agree that these things are worth owning? Plenty on eBay for less than you can imagine.

I am off to Singapore and Thailand soon, and will take one with me. I’ll let you know how I get on.

Fuji Neopan 400 copyright Rage Wan 2009. Used under a Creative Commons license.

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Media vets launch eGuiders online video guide: USA Today covers the launch of eGuiders.com, a site that aims to be the TV Guide for online video. Founded by new media exec and filmmaker Marc Ostrick and Columbia University professor and producer Evangeline Morphous, the site serves up reviews of what its editorial team thinks are the best clips on the web; the idea is that viewers will use it as a jump-off point for finding quality content instead of having to comb through tons of sub-par clips. “We are trying to reach people who are maybe (ages) 24 to 49 who don’t have time to cut through that clutter and go through various websites to find that gem,” Ostrick told USAT.

Roll on á la carte viewing

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In conjunction with Canon USA and Dentsu America, we recently launched the My Story Facebook application.

The app allows you to quickly and easily prepare a graphical slideshow that tells a story about you, your friends and the great times you share.

You can import photos, either from your desktop or from your or your friends’ Facebook albums (yes you can really do that!), edit them and add text and graphics.  You can then add up to another 5 slides to tell your story, post to your Facebook wall and share your story with your friends.

Enjoy the app and don’t forget to become a fan.

Canon My Story Facebook Application .

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If only it was 1999 again!  They were the days for digital innovation and creativity!

Back in the early days of digital media you could describe the times something like this:

• It was a frontier time for digital
• Client and agency focus was on creating innovation and firsts
• Clients were growing in confidence, but more importantly felt brave
• All efforts were focussed on creating user experience and impact
• There were high levels of creativity and opportunity within the medium
• There was a wide variety seen across final websites, making brand activity distinctive and memorable
• Agency teams were very young, wild-eyed and full of unbridled enthusiasm
• Dot-com finance was in full flow, helping to build digital exposure and adoption

Given all of this, things must really be fantastic ten years on then right?

Well maybe they are and maybe they aren’t?

Taking each of the points above one by one and comparing them with things as we approach 2009 you might describe things like this:

• Digital media is an established and key part of the marketing mix
• The focus is now on effectiveness and workman-like delivery within projects
• Client belief and confidence is high, but many fear ‘breaking any moulds’
• Most efforts are now focussed on DDA compliance, Search Engine Optimisation and Content Management
• Subsequently there are limited levels of creativity and innovation
• There is now quite limited variation across sites making branding more about the logo than about functional innovation or distinctiveness
• Agency teams are now older and far less wide-eyed, particularly at management level
• Dot-com is now a dirty word as opposed to an investment opportunity

Perhaps these things are not just true within the digital arena? Perhaps the same could be said for TV advertising and other types of media? The proliferation of digital channels and global or pan-European advertising  campaigns certainly seems to have had an effect on the creativity and sensitivity used when making TV spots.

All this sounds very negative but the reality is that there is as much opportunity, creativity and enthusiasm as there ever was, if not more, as long as you know where to look for it!

There may be some limitations to the amount of creativity on offer in the business to consumer area but in the business to business arena creative opportunities have never been better. In addition, whilst advertising on TV may be being dummed-down they field of online advertising still offers great opportunities to experiment, innovate and differentiate.

Google Analytics and other web statistics packages have greatly increased client interest, understanding and enthusiasm for the details of any digital activity – the ‘black art’ has finally seem some light and the ‘new’ has eventually been taken away from new media. Even the huge focus now directed towards Search Engine Optimisation has its benefits. Online content used to be largely inappropriate having often been ’stolen’ from elsewhere in the marketing department, as opposed to being created from scratch, but the importance of SEO now means far more attention is paid to the creation of online content, particularly in the written word.

Although the huge sums of money invested, even ‘thrown at’, any dot-com idea ten years back, certainly helped to grow consumer awareness of digital media, the checks and balances in place today mean that the days of ‘www.buy-pet-food-online.com’ are thankfully gone.  Projects in new online-only industries today, such as social networking, are with serious, diligent, experienced and committed clients as opposed to the ‘three mates from college’ teams so often ‘in charge’ of things back in the late 1990s!

Even within the core area of website design itself, there is exciting news. Developments in technology like PaperVision3D are once again encouraging clients and agencies alike to create online experiences, as opposed to just online services. In addition, the open-source roots of PaperVision, and other browser extensions, is creating as vibrant and innovative a space ‘behind the scenes’ as it is on the ‘main stage’.

There is no doubt that times have changed over the last 10 years or so, but surely the reality is that they have changed for the better, when one considers the details? Sure the late 1990’s were exciting, gold-rush, frontier-land times, but the mine is now built and it is time to start getting some of that gold out onto the open market!

I have been ‘lucky’ enough to experience both of these ‘digital decades’, and on balance I prefer the one we are in now!

Am I right, or am I just getting old?

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I believe that one of the highest accolades must be for a creative agency or design company to ask us to conceive, design and produce their website. This is no more pronounced than in this instance. McCann Ericksons New York business has been a client/partner of ours over the last year or so and being asked to develop ideas for their portfolio web site left us speechless. The process was not straightforward though. The ideas we conceived with creative partner SuperFad were ambitious – at the time, were had no higher option in technology that Flash 8 and attempted to build a 3D site using the ActionScript 2 programming platform. The first version was good but wasn’t a 100% match for our capabilities or the quality of work produced by McCann New York. Without approval of any budgets, we decided to experiment with AS3 in conjunction with the PaperVision3D engine. During that time, Flash 9 / AS3 gained acceptable user penetration and when we presented our experiments – basically a fully redeveloped site – McCann were blown away. Budgets were quickly approved and with some final design direction from the Agency we were done.

Total development time was fraction of that in AS2 – further evidence that whilst AS3 and PaperVision3D demands a higher level of programming skill, it remains a more efficient development tool for spatial Flash projects, whilst providing vastly improved site performance and lower processor draw.

The site displays floating assets representing a selection of McCann NY’s creative output. Rolling over these thumbnails draws connections between related assets, Selecting one will bring that family into a new layout. A further selection will play/preview that piece. In the bottom left, you can select work by media or client and drill down to specific works. IN the top right, you can change the display configurations from random to a grid arrangement and also toggle to and from full screen mode.

Enjoy the site by clicking here: McCann NY

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