Using del.icio.us as a marketing channel
August 23rd, 2006 § 1 Comment
I’ve just spotted Adobe as a “user” on del.icio.us. It’s interesting to see that organisations like this are using del.icio.us as an online marketing channel to increase brand awareness, page rank and general online visibility.
I’m sure we’ll see many other organisations doing the same thing in the near future as people turn to bookmarking sites like del.icio.us as their first port of call for search – where “page rank” is effectively determined by the users themselves and you can be guaranteed better results. I can even see a niche emerging for optimisation services for these sites, just like SEO became a niche industry around Google page ranks.
Some thoughts about “convergence” and IPTV
August 22nd, 2006 Comments Off on Some thoughts about “convergence” and IPTV
I feel the need to air some thoughts after recent goings on in the “convergence” realm. It’s a term that has been bashed about for years now – with every new development being heralded as the harbinger of a new dawn of convergence in digital media and the like. And this last year has been no different. We have the other weekend’s Homechoice (aka Video Networks) and Tiscali merger. There’s that BSkyB and Easynet deal last October. There’s a peer to peer IPTV service about to surface. And finally, there’s something a sales guy said to me this afternoon. In fact, something that got me thinking about all this in the first place. Something about “convergence”, “entertainment hubs” and how we’ll all “obviously be browsing the internet on our TVs in the next couple of years”. Well, sorry, but I beg to differ. Will digital media delivery really converge on a single device as many people seem to think? Surely, as more electronic media devices become IP enabled, media delivery will start to diverge not converge? Okay – so I’m getting bogged down with semantics – I guess that the term “convergence” really refers to overlapping realms of different media with new technologies. But I’m not sure that this single device view is the right direction for IPTV. Particularly whe you consider the most successful interactive TV programmes I have worked on have been those that encourage interaction using a completely different device and media – such as mobile and SMS – rather than relying on a remote control or a keyboard.
The advent of broadband has made delivery of video and other digital media possible via the internet but viewing via your desktop or laptop computer screen is not always practical. Equally, browsing and searching the web from your sofa via the TV is not exactly an easy or sociable thing to do. Surely the best solution is one where you would search on your PC then sit back and view on your TV? I know this is exactly what many people are already doing but it often means situating the PC near the TV so that you can run a cable from the PC’s AV output into the TV. What I want to do, and I’m sure a solution must exist (please tell me if it does – otherwise I hereby patent this idea!), is utilise my Wi-Fi network to stream content to the TV. Maybe via a SCART device that doubles as a Wi-Fi antennae, receiving data streams via the local network? Surely such a simple single device must exist? It’s all I need – not some “media hub” or “home entertainment centre”. It seems to completely bridge that gap between the different tasks of searching/ interacting (i.e. “lean forward” tasks) and watching (i.e. “sit back” tasks). Please – somebody help!