DSA Online | New Media Updates

I have been very fortunate in the past few years with my phone choices (besides some mobile carrier headaches) and have been able to take part in the growing app revolution. The estimation that 2010 would be the year that mobile would become the primary browsing source for most North Americans was not so far fetched as more and more smart phones came to the market. No longer were Blackberries restricted to business professionals and the cost differences between a smart phone and a generic calls-only phone became irrelevant with 3-year contract deals. However, a few reports have stated that while Canadians are stepping up their technology purchases, the reality is that mobile use in Canada is still strongly skewed to primarily voice use.

While Comscore stated that 35% of Canadian mobile users (May 2009) are taking advantage of their phone’s features beyond voice (up from 30% in 2008), 65% of Canadians are still using their phone for voice and text only. More recently, a report from Delvinia Interactive called “Managing the Hype – The Reality of Mobile in Canada” stated that of total minutes of use – 89% of time spent was on voice calls and only 15% of time spent was browsing.

Then, to take the debate a little deeper, companies like Google (who have definitely learned their Netscape history lessons) predict that applications for the mobile are just a fad as web code catches up to allow easy mobile accessibility through browsers. Apps we’re currently depending on will be plugins in the future and will be contained within browsers (such as IE, Firefox, etc) on mobile. However, with all the proprietary fighting going on in mobile land, I don’t think that Google should hold their breaths – especially with their current decision in the land of net-neutrailty. And while the occasional hack gets through Apple’s restrictive browser offering, if you’re on an iPhone – you’re unlikely going to see much of that functionality built into Safari in the future.

These numbers made me a little wiggy as I am such a lite user of voice communication and an app addict. However, since I can rarely use my own habits to represent any demographic population, I decided to poll the DSA Network to ask them what their favourite app or phone use were in the past year. The answers back supported the research and while I am the first to proclaim that mobile is here to stay, it is no small wonder that Canadian advertisers are slow to pick up this emerging media. I’ll be posting the DSA poll results over the next 2 days.

Here are my favourite apps, what are yours?

Gowalla, Foursquare and Groupon for after,
Movies, Urban Spoon have the local answer,
Bump, I-Nigma Reader and Google Maps
These are a few of my favourite apps.

Games looks so groovy on the tiny screen,
Drop7, Sudoku, so good it’s obscene,
Secret of Monkey Island from my past.
Lightsaber Unleashed is a Jedi blast.

I prefer Twittie for my twitter addiction, Reddit‘s mobile app give  daily non-fiction,
Bump makes business cards all paper-waste traps, these are a few of my favourite apps.

When I don’t know, what the song is, I just launch Shazam.
But my all time favourite app is DropBox it’s a productivity grand-slam!

Let’s talk a moment about advertorial.

Usually one turns to advertorial when they have a story to tell. This story, while important to the advertiser, usually is “very corporate” and sometimes original but not unique. All of these things can make a good idea flat by the time it makes it to the consumer. I’m often asked by creative partners or clients what the formula is for a good viral/social campaign and I’m often left telling them that it differs from client to campaign to intended audience. However, if the advertisers is willing to give up a certain amount of ownership and stops looking so closely at the ROI, wonderful things can happen.

One of the major issues with advertorial is that it often looks fake. Even when the pub-set job is masterfully done, most people can still tell advertorial from editorial – especially when the content is technical or corporate. If you consider that the most successful online campaigns tend to be cool and/or informative first, branded second, there might be something that advertorial can learn, both online and offline.

Be Genuine. Be Useful.

I’ve probably said this a million times and if you’re working with me, you’re likely to hear it another few thousand. It’s a golden rule for a reason and your consumers can see right through a lie. So be honest and build trust with the online community. While you’re at it, why not provide your customers with something useful, not just fun or irreverent. You might get a few million clicks from being pass around the popular web, but a useful clip will be passed on to potential customers who could genuinely benefit from your knowledge and product. It’s a win win situation.

Here is a fantastically useful video that makes me want to go out and get new runners. Maybe I should head to Runner’s World and see what else they can teach me?

It’s not often that I learn something when I am sick. Usually, I try and recuperate as quickly as possible so I can get back on my feet again. Sometimes, that means depending on sleepy time meds, so it was while I was trying to temp my body to pass out that I noticed the QR code on the back of my NyQuil bottle.

QR codes, or Quick Response, are a multidimensional bar code which looks like a pixelated UPC and has layered data embedded that can be decoded via a program on your mobile. Usually, it’s as easy as taking a photo or scanning the code with a mobile app. Consider tallying your shopping items while you pick things up, only to have your order zapped to the cashier for quicker purchasing (or purchasing via a digital wallet). Scan a QR code in a movie poster and view the trailer on your mobile right away. For more on QR codes, read up on Wikipedia’s QR codes entry or Wired’s QR introduction from back in 2004.

Read more

EDIT (Nov 1): Global has since relaunched their channel online and I now can watch Dollhouse (and Bones). http://www.globaltv.com/ I wanted to make sure that I gave props to them for updating and getting the new shows up. Also, they have (since last year) started to edit the volume so that ads are the same volume as the shows, which is an appreciated fix. However, the ad annoyance factor has increased from last year. Now you watch an ad at the start and at the end which queues up between other shows. This means even if you don’t finish the first video, you still have to watch 2 30s (average) ads back to back before the next clip (even if the next clip is a 30s behind the scenes video).  I’m also still a little peeved that they stated that full seasons would remain online for missed episode viewing, and that is not the case. Still, having them up at all is a vast improvement.

I’m sitting at my laptop tonight, wanting to watch the season premier of Dollhouse and Global hasn’t put it up online. I’m frustrated to pieces as I watch people twitter & Facebook in the US about how great it was. Some of you may recall my post earlier this summer at the Global launch. Not only did they say that season one was then available, but they said that they were going to continue the product online based on it’s US success.  Tonight, when I left the Global TV site to search for a link to the program (maybe it was broken on the Globaltv site), I found an article from the Gazette (CanWest digital newspaper) stating that Dollhouse would NOT be available online this season. Further searching found no other local source to my coveted program.

Read more