Talking Tree

EOS magazine have hooked a tree up to the internet so it can tell us how it feels across several online platforms including Twitter, Facebook, SoundCloud, YouTube and Flickr. This is to highlight their "Low Impact Month"


No, really.

It even has it's own feed.

More detail on the thinking behind this great idea here.

Introducing the dogosphere

Another day, another app. This one translates your dog’s barks into human language and tweets them to the world. All you have to do is get your dog to bark into the microphone on your iPhone and the app uses a special algorithim to analyse what your dog is trying to tell you and displays it on your screen e.g. “I’m thirsty”, “I want to play”. Press the bone-shaped button below your dog’s statement to post it to Twitter, along with a profile picture of your dog. You can also add a comment, a feature designed to encourage interaction among dog owners on Twitter.

We predict this app will be a massive hit among dogowners when it is released this summer; the original piece of technology on which it is based – Bowlingual – has already sold over 300,000 units in Japan. Watch this space for the inevitable launch of the Miaow-lingual app.

(As spotted on Adverblog)

N Building Tokyo: QR Code & Live Twitter Feed via Augmented Reality App

This building in the Tachikawa district of Tokyo has been transformed into a giant QR code which allows users to access dynamic information, such as Twitter feeds, store information, etc. live via an augmented reality app for the iPhone.

Qosmo Inc. CEO Nao Tokui who developed the application writes. "We envision a cityscape unhindered by ubiquitous signage and also an improvement to the quality and accuracy of the information itself,". "Our goal is to provide an incentive to visit the space and a virtual connection to space without necessarily being present."

The Power of Language

One of the basic rules for efficient online creative is the integration of a strong “call to action”, this being a key element to help generate response. But sometimes you don’t need a great offer to make people act; the power of language can be sufficient. To illustrate this idea, I recommend you read the work of Dustin Curtis, a specialist of user interfaces (and former neuroscience student). He undertook a study on his blog which generated interesting results. According to him, the use of a strong "personal command" combined with the word “here” is the most efficient call to action in terms of response. Have you noticed the same thing with your blog/web site/creative?

You should follow us on Twitter here

Source: Dustin Curtis – You should follow me on Twitter

Prepare For Fail Whale, Not Epic Win

It's been a day full of news about Twitter. Okay, EVERY day recently has as well, but today's been more relevant than usual.

Three things popped up today that caught our eye - first, that Pepsi Raw are claiming to be the first to put a Twitter address directly on their product to invite feedback. Alongside that, there's a report out from Datamonitor, which threatens extinction for brands without a social networking presence, as well as putting up examples of the right way to do it. And finally, there's Trent Reznor - driving force behind industrial-goth-metallers Nine Inch Nails and hitherto a serious afficionado of Web 2.0 who waded hip-deep into communicating directly with his fans - who's decided to dump the whole shebang and put the shutters back up.

Trent Reznor's retreat from Web 2.0 is the thing that stands out here. Reznor, after all, is a man completely in control of his own brand, using the options available to him online to reshape his relationship between his work and his fans, bypassing traditional structures (record labels, PRs, media) and interacting directly, giving significantly higher visibility into his personal life along the way. He's released music, announced tours, and interacted with fans on the extremely busy nin.com, through Twitter and all the other myriad pathways of communication now available, and done it on his own terms. He's got over 600,000 followers on Twitter, a decent number in anyone's books, but has now he's decided to chuck it all in, because he's decided that he's had enough of the lunatic fringe causing problems. In his own words, 'Idiots rule', and he wants no more part of it.

Reznor's approach has been exemplary by any standard, exactly how any brand should operate in a social space, and that - in his own opinion - it has been an ultimately unsuccessful experiment is significant. Since these tools are still so sparkly and new, there is almost no knowledge base of what happens when it goes wrong, with most brands still in early phases of use - just starting up, learning the effects or plunging in blindly and getting their fingers badly burned.

Which leads us to the Datamonitor report. As they say themselves, "when done properly, social network-based customer service interactions drive increased intimacy between company and customer". That's exactly what Reznor created, with the new-found intimacy getting him so miffed that he ended up giving his own fans advice on how better to kill themselves. Datamonitor assumes that greater intimacy with consumers is desirable, and that if 'done right', then consumers will be politely appreciative of your efforts and spend all their cash with you as a reward. The reality of course is that consumers are still people, and are just as capable of being as capricious, rude, spiteful, illogical, contrary and downright unpleasant as anyone else, and any advice on how to 'do the social stuff right' is based on limited experience.

Is the challenge then to plan for failure, not success? The opportunities presented to companies so far mainly revolve around the benefits of interaction, and how it will lead to all manner of marvellous successes. In turn, operationally, companies are geared to responding with greater levels of product, informative responses to polite enquiries and ultimately increased sales - rarely does there seem to be any plan in place for what happens when the audience turns nasty.

Extreme care needs to be taken in this volatile space (although Datamonitor's claim that non-participation could lead to obsolecence is, at best, spurious) but as always, it should start with solid insight into the audience you are trying to talk with. Not in the basic sense, of which channels they are most likely to use and so on, but in terms of how they're likely to react to being sold to in a space that consumers cosider 'theirs'.

Pepsi Raw's experiment therefore will be interesting to watch. The ability to talk with an audience directly is clearly a good idea - however, the audience that most uses and talks through these channels is also the one most likely to flame you, just for kicks, and for no other reason that you're there, waving a flag that says "here is my digital backside - please kick it".

Tweet sheet

trendcentral.com has just published this handy cheat sheet for late-to-the-party Twitter virgins.

"For those still unfamiliar with the real-time microblogging service, here's a look at some of the Twitter trends and terms you need to know:

Celebrity Twitter Streams: While Twitter is primarily used as a self-promotional tool, a large part of the service's appeal is the voyeurism it offers. Through Twitter, celebrities are taking PR initiatives into their own hands, using their tweets to directly reach out to their fans who love following their favorite public figures with such intimacy. Of course there is always the chance you're following a fake, but the blog Valebrity verifies the genuine high-profile users.

Twitter Branding: Want to check out how the competition is using Twitter? A new directory of tweeting brands, Twitter Tracker, compiles real-time updates from companies using the service, such as Whole Foods, JetBlue, and Starbucks.

TweetUps: A TweetUp is an impromptu gathering of fellow Twitter users, many of whom have previously never met in person. These events are usually publicized in the feed of a Twitter user who has an exceptionally large number of followers.

Twitter Slang: Much of the Twitter lexicon originates in gaming terms, like pwned (which we wrote about in New Slang, w00t (it's like a cheer - woot woot! But those "o"s are zeros!), and FTW (for the win), all of which users often use to punctuate their tweets (e.g., "@twitterfriend I just dominated that run. W00t!").

Hashtags: A commonly used character of the 140 permitted in each tweet is the number sign, or the "hashtag." A hashtag is placed before a word in a tweet so that it can be tracked as a trend - Twitter trends change almost daily. For example, when candy company Skittles recently incorporated Twitter users into its online marketing, under the Trend dropdown menu on the Twitter homepage, #skittles was listed. Noted fantasy author Neil Gaiman has a large Twitter following, and after he tweeted about his 33,333rd fan ushering in the "Armageddon," within hours, #Armageddon was one of the highest ranking trends. The power of Twitter!"

Now you've now excuse. Tweet or face defeat!