netzkobold - Frederik Hermann » viral marketing

the living poster for fisch franke

frederik — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 00:54:14 +0000

what would you do to attract new business to your restaurant? kudos to another clever idea by publicis (for fisch franke restaurant). to create visibility and awareness of their use of fresh fish, the creative team decided to bring the fresh fish tank (usually inside the restaurant) out on the street. this bus shelter poster ad caused quite a stir on the streets of frankfurt, germany, exactly what they had hoped for. the talk of the town – at least for a few days.

(via bitrebels – andrea la valleur)

overworked and pasty? try computertan.com

frederik — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 19:35:00 +0000

do you feel tired, overworked and pasty? then you should try this revolutionary new way to keep you looking healthy, young and attractive in the office. computertan provides a free application that converts the electrical impulse of your computer into radiated factor-free uvc rays emitted through your monitor.

log on to computertan.com for your free online tanning session.

where creatives grow best

frederik — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 19:42:58 +0000

the south west regional development agency (swrda) has launched a viral campaign “the harvest” aimed at attracting new work and staff to the region by raising awareness of the south west’s creative industry credentials. the overall creative concept of the campaign is aimed at highlighting the strength of the creative industries in the south west of england.

“the harvest” has been planned, produced and seeded by bristol-based viral agency rubber republic www.rubberrepublic.com and you can find some more information about the campaign at www.creativejuices.org.uk

seven days out – please vote on november 4th

frederik — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 23:59:00 +0000

the upcoming election won’t be decided by tv ads, news cycles, or the polls – it will be decided by you! voting is absolutely crucial, important and every single vote counts! 537 people decided the 2000 election so yes, every vote counts! here is a great customizable viral video that you can send to your friends to make sure they’ll go and vote.

and if you still have the feeling you don’t know enough about barack obama, here is a great 3 dimensional timeline about his life provided by kronomy, with news clips, pictures and a lot of background information. you can share this timeline via www.fight4obama.com

“we’re coming around the turn. america recognizes that at this time in history, with so much at stake, with the economy nose-diving, with two wars and the threat of terrorism, the threat of climate change, we need to do something fundamentally different. and all of you are the shock troops.” – barack obama

only seven days out – so please vote on november 4th!

(via guy kawasaki)

more material: 5 friends, matt damon about palin and the official www.barackobama.com

the economist – oh fuck!

frederik — Wed, 01 Oct 2008 01:09:00 +0000

hats off to the uber-intelligent folks at ‘the economist‘ who have, in just two words, so eloquently captured how we are all feeling about the current state of the financial markets.

(via the economist)

watch for cars when wearing headphones

frederik — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:52:00 +0000

the new south wales police force and ddb sydney have released a print campaign to raise awareness of the fact that teenagers get injured or die as a result of listening to music whilst they cross the road.

(via werbeblogger and advertising/design goodness)

google. who’s looking at you?

frederik — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 02:01:00 +0000

i referred to google’s influence on the information age landscape earlier and stumbled over john arlidge’s article in the times online this weekend in my feedreader – good writing and absolutely worth reading.

“in the blissed-out california sunshine, the glistening glass-and- steel curves of the googleplex seem to sweep you up off the pavement with the promise of a glimpse into the future

toom baumarkt commercial – selbstbauidee

frederik — Tue, 16 Oct 2007 10:03:00 +0000

german toom hardware store just released a new commercial starring a suburb do-it-yourselfer promoting toom’s raffle about do-it-yourself ideas you can send in. the homeowner got annoyed by speeding cars in front of his driveway and built his very own speed bumps …

more information regarding this promotion and the spot here

(thanks to ingo for the hint)

[tags: toom, baumarkt, toom baumarkt, commercial, bumper, selbstbauidee]

sony bravia play-doh ad – rabbits in stop-motion

frederik — Wed, 10 Oct 2007 23:05:00 +0000

following my most favorite ad – the sony bravia bouncy balls – and their paint ad, here comes the third sony bravia spot – rabbit stop-motion in play-doh.

“the third commercial for bravia is the most ambitious piece of stop-motion animation ever undertaken. devised by fallon and shot over three weeks in new york, the commercial employed over 40 animators from passion and used 2.5 tonnes of plasticine”

worth watching and a great piece of art but i’m still more into the bouncy balls.

(via frederik at advertising/design goodness)

[tags: sony, bravia, commercial, ad, fallon, play-doh, rabbits, stop-motion]

free burma!

frederik — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 06:14:38 +0000

“international bloggers are preparing an action to support the peaceful revolution in burma. we want to set a sign for freedom and show our sympathy for these people who are fighting their cruel regime without weapons.”

find some more information on www.free-burma.org

(via philipp götzinger, initiated by robert basic and others)

[tags: free burma, burma, petition, peaceful revolution, robert basic]

jajah pushing the button

frederik — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 14:05:00 +0000

i’ve been with jajah for quite a while now and very happy to be part of this amazing international team. i rarely blog about our own services but we are launching jajah buttons these days and i have to share this with you.

jajah buttons finally realize free and seamless voice communication in online communities and email, it is one-click calling out of e-mails, websites, blogs or any social network profile – the first personal, truly global toll-free click-to-call service.

my friends and family can now call me by simply typing in their phone number into my button at absolutely no cost, i can add the button to my blog or email signature making it easy to stay in touch.

initiating a call through a jajah button is as easy as entering your very own phone number and clicking ‘call’. the buttons are completely customizable (size, color, style) and you can you set the time when you are free to accept phone calls, they are available as a flash widget (see below), click-to-call buttons (see my sidebar) or a simple plain text link like http://www.jajah.com/netzkobold.

as a business it is the quickest, cheapest way to a very own toll-free number and the easiest way for their customers to call them at absolutely no cost to them. this is adding the voice layer on any existing web property out there while protecting your privacy, your phone number will not be revealed.

more information visit www.jajahbuttons.com

[tags: jajah, jajah buttons, flash, widget, web 2.0, voice 2.0, telephony]

cubic telecom eliminates roaming charges

frederik — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 09:27:00 +0000

today my friends pat phelan and sean o’mahony presented their recent brainchild at the techcrunch40 conference – the maxroam sim card.

“we are an innovative global communications company focused on introducing simple, high quality and high value telecommunications services. our core target market is aggrieved customers across the globe who don’t understand why they can’t get value for money when making international calls and roaming.”

the maxroam sim card virtually eliminating outrageous roaming charges.

“maxroam is our brand new mobile roaming product. if you put a maxroam sim in any standard gsm mobile phone, it will allow you to reduce your mobile phone bill by as much as 80% when you are traveling. our customers can use their mobile phones exactly as they do now. nothing to download, nothing to install, no internet connection required. if you talk to anyone anywhere who has ever traveled with their mobile phone, every single one of them will tell you that the most frustrating thing is to get home and receive an outrageous bill from their mobile operator the next month. if you want to get cheaper rates from your mobile operator, you have to jump through all sorts of hoops. if you are from north america, some of you cannot roam with your mobile phone even if you want to. maxroam is the world’s first truly borderless sim.”

it’s late now and i will give you some more insights on this wicked cool product later on, for now please check out the cubic telecom and maxroam site for further details and pls take a second to vote for my friends.

i put up some pictures on flickr, if you want to meet me there, give me a call.

[tags: cubic telecom, maxroam, roaming, sim, pat phelan, sean o'mahony]

flash version 0.0.0 installed

frederik — Sat, 15 Sep 2007 03:39:00 +0000

while checking my facebook messages on the apple iphone i clicked on this link from roland over at the werbeblogger.

“the current version of the flash plugin is too old. you currently have version 0.0.0 but you need at least 9.0.0 to view this plugin. we suggest that you upgrade flash to the latest version. to upgrade please click here“

ha, flash version 0.0.0 installed!? whatever … have a great weekend.

[tags: apple, iphone, adobe, flash, version, flash 0.0.0, plugin, werbeblogger]

apple iphone launch in germany november 12th

frederik — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:53:00 +0000

don sent me the link to this article at electronista stating the apple iphone launch in germany for november 12th 2007 and revealing some more details.

“apple may launch its iphone campaign in europe with a 3g-capable iphone with enhanced storage, according to what appears to be a leaked ad from t-mobile germany. the ad promises a version of the handset with support for 3g-level cellular internet [...] it also suggests that the device will carry 16gb of memory, representing the first storage upgrade to the device since its us launch in june 2007. visual voicemail and the 2-megapixel camera would remain the same as for the us version [...] t-mobile itself hasn’t officially confirmed its selection as germany’s exclusive carrier but has already been caught preparing support materials for the iphone, in one case hosting images for the product on its own website.”

“t-mobile’s reported ad would also be the first to commit to a definitive release date for the iphone outside of the us, slating the handset for a release with the carrier on november 12th 2007. apple has already promised a fourth-quarter release for the iphone in europe but has yet to formally announce a timetable for the launch. the california firm is expected to accompany the german introduction with an o2 version in the uk and an orange version for france.

i still think this might be a hoax, but you never know …

(via macbidouille and electronista)

[tags: apple, iphone, t-mobile, germany, europe, launch, november 12th]

spotting key players in online communities

frederik — Mon, 10 Sep 2007 00:28:00 +0000

the new scientist tech reports that researchers at cornell university, new york, and microsoft research in washington state have developed a software that identifies the most informative people in an online community, based on their posting patterns.

“the researchers worked out how to spot key players within discussions by analysing the connections between thousands of messages on several topics. the work could help website designers automatically reward, or highlight, the most valuable members of a community, or improve methods for searching through a conversation for the most relevant information [...] “you have a socially recognised role of some people as experts in some way in a community,” says howard welser, a sociologist at cornell university, who led the work. “that role was what we were trying to measure. the indicators we found had to do with the structure of their interaction with others.” [...] scott golder, at the information dynamics lab at hp labs in palo alto, california, says the work shows how people take on roles in an online environment, and how those roles influence the nature of the community they take part in.”

journal reference: journal of social structure

(via kurt kleiner at new scientist tech)

[tags: social networks, social network analysis, social software, key players]

plaxo launching online identity consolidator

frederik — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 08:22:06 +0000

plaxo, known for keeping all your address books in sync and up-to-date, recently relaunching their whole service and adding plaxo pulse now releases an online identity consolidator based on microformats, aggregating all your social network info in one place.

robert scoble interviewed chief platform architect joseph smarr yesterday.

find all the details on opensocialgraph.plaxo.com

(via scobleizer and joseph smarr)

[tags: plaxo, online identity consolidator, open social graph, scoble, smarr]

smirnoff tea partay – west coast sequel

frederik — Thu, 30 Aug 2007 01:18:00 +0000

a year ago i blogged about the first smirnoff tea partay clip, some dorky east coast guys doing a skit on rap videos. now smirnoff launched the official sequel from the west coast.

doubting the success of such clips last year here are the stats from 8/29/2007:

smirnoff tea partay east coast – published august 02, 2006 – 3,504,506 views

smirnoff tea partay west coast – published august 02, 2007 – 3,214,484 views

impressive numbers, especially as the second clip is online for 27 days only and has already surpassed the 3,2 million mark. both clips are promoting the smirnoff raw tea line and i gotta say that i liked watching both of them.

(via buzz-people)

[tags: smirnoff, tea partay, west coast, raw tea, viral marketing, word-of-mouth]

facebook’s ceo mark zuckerberg

frederik — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:27:00 +0000

after opening up facebook for third party applications, facebook is riding the next hype wave. here is the onion’s point of view:

the smug little shit behind the latest internet phenomenon.

check out facebook for the apple iphone too, nicely done.

(via the onion magazine)

[tags: facebook, mark zuckerberg, onion, the onion, weekender, satire]

may the virus be with you

frederik — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 19:00:18 +0000

really funny star wars / viral marketing spoof (in german dialect – swabian).

just hilarious, thanks patrick!

(via jvm > off the record > werbeblogger)

[tags: star wars, viral marketing, swabian, death star, darth vader, schwäbisch]

apple iphone activation without contract

frederik — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 08:31:00 +0000

the apple iphone is a beautiful device, revolutionizing the space of mobile phones but there is one major downside, apple/at&t is forcing you into a pretty expensive two year contract to even activate the iphone. when bought you can not use the iphone until you activate it via itunes by choosing one of there three two year contract plans ($60, $80 or $100 per month plus tax).

this is how to activate/unlock the apple iphone using a gophone® pay as you go (prepaid) plan without being stuck in a two year contract. the simple trick is failing the credit check, only when you fail the credit check at&t offers you the pay as you go plans. anybody can do this in some easy steps and it doesn’t require any hacking/command line skills.

the difference: $51 pay as you go instead of $2400 in a two year contract.

1. connect the iphone via the data cable to your computer (pc or mac).

2. click on “activate one iphone now.” in your recent version of itunes.

3. click ‘continue’ if you don’t want to transfer an existing number.

4. select any plan (it doesn’t have any effect).

5. create an apple id.

6. the most important step: fill in the form with some fake data, it really doesn’t matter what you fill in here, when enrolling the pay as you go plan you will be asked for your real data again. use 141-11-1111 or 999-99-9999 as your social security number. use any existing address. you have to use a valid credit card otherwise you don’t get further but based on the data and wrong ssn you will fail the credit check anyways. no worries.

7. accept apple’s terms and conditions.

8. accept at&t’s service agreement. you will not be charged and you won’t be stuck in a two year contract but you have to accept the terms on this screen (you can cancel the agreement within 30 days but that won’t be necessary).

9. review your information and submit it.

10. yeah, you failed the credit check, on the next screen at&t will provide you the ability to choose a gophone® pay as you go (prepaid) plan.

11. after choosing a pay as you go (prepaid) plan you will be redirected to the at&t webpage and asked to type in your real data and address. you have to make an initial fund into your prepaid account. after going through this process you will be redirected back to itunes where it shows your new number and pin.

12. enjoy your apple iphone with a prepay plan without being stuck in a contract.

(call at&t at 611 to make sure that there are no automated monthly payments set)

these activation steps are necessary to even make any use of the apple iphone, but this is probably the easiest and cheapest way to do it right now. in the us you can use it like any other phone and just fund your account whenever needed. travellers can take the iphone anywhere they want and use it as a wifi internet device and ipod anywhere in the world until it is hacked for using any sim card. i did this with three iphones taking them to europe and it worked fine every time.

view the whole flow as a slideshow on flickr.

(inspired by eric sadun)

update – march 19. 2008: forget about all of this and check out ziphone, a simple tool to unlock and activate your iphone in 3 minutes.

[tags: apple, iphone, att, activation, gophone, pay as you go, prepaid, plan]

the internet crash of 2007

frederik — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 12:47:00 +0000

as you may know, the entire internet has crashed …

all data has been lost, no backup of the internet, blogosphere desperate.

(thanks markus, via lifehacker)

[tags: internet, crash, 2007, fatal error, blogosphere, onion, lifehacker]

carlsberg and mentos

frederik — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 01:58:00 +0000

i guess everybody knows by now what happens when putting together mentos and diet coke/pepsi. this is a new carlsberg viral ad adaption of it …

“you don’t put sweets in carlsberg”

and the duracell bunny is having more fun now.

(via buzz-people)

let’s come together

frederik — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 17:22:00 +0000

i don’t find the time these days to keep up to speed with what’s going in the viral, buzz and word of mouth marketing sphere. i discovered some nice blogable content during my recent trip to latvia and germany but that’s gotta follow post by post. talking about the european union – i recently found out about the eu youtube profile.

“welcome to the youtube space of the european commission. find out more about a europe of action and results.

the profile contains all sorts of educational clips in and around the european commission/union. a couple of them deal with european films and one of the category “sex sells” is recently creating some buzz and traffic.

“millions of cinema lovers enjoy european films … every year“

fortunately the werbeblogger (now in a new layout) always keeps me up-to-date writing about the amnesty international spots with the message “your petitions are more powerful than you think” and the award winner “your signature is more powerful than you think“.

the wieden & kennedy making of clip of the coke happiness factory spot and an egyptian mcdonalds commercial copying an earlier dr pepper commercial. and i found a report on a rather innovative approach to avoid speeding – the speed control bikini bandits in denmark.

there are also two new entries in my blogroll, buzz-people and frau b. surft.

shave everywhere – philips bodygroom

frederik — Fri, 01 Jun 2007 02:18:03 +0000

bernd just pointed me to a viral microsite philips recently launched, it’s called www.shaveeverywhere.com encouraging men that it is ok “to shave everywhere”.

“the philips norelco bodygroom is the all-in-one grooming solution, exclusively for men, that safely trims and shaves all body zones. with the bodygroom, men can trim and shave hair from their chest & abs, underarms, groin area, legs, back and shoulders.”

i guess this is usually some kind of hushed up topic now brought to the table in a more funny viral microsite, a guy describing the enormous benefits of the philips bodygroom. don’t miss to click on the main menu in the lower left corner, to watch the “optical inch”, the “testimonials” and the “test drive”.

go to www.shaveeverywhere.com or www.rasierdichwoduwillst.de (in german).

update – june 1. 2007: the campaign even comes with a bodygroom music video.

in 2005 philips also launched quintippio – the new 15 blade mega shave.

plus a quick round-up of stuff i would otherwise miss out to mention, absolut protest – in an absolut world, elave – nothing to hide, burger king ad in new zealand, nike momentum, axe essence beach showercam, axe bom chicka wah wah and even more axe ads and microsites at the axe ads blog.

(round-up via werbeblogger)

[tags: philips, norelco, bodygroom, shave, quintippio, viral marketing]

sputtr – my new home page

frederik — Sun, 27 May 2007 00:36:00 +0000

i recently came across sputtr and just made it my new home page in all my browsers – the page i start all my searches from now on. sputtr is a neat new universal search engine, a collection of all your favorite search engines and social sites that are out there, just type in what you are searching for and then click the icon where to look.

“sputtr is a refreshingly clean way to search the things that matter the most. now you can save valuable time by having all the right searches on just one page! it’s simple – real simple. it’s fast – faster than most others out there. it’s a collection of all your favorite search engines – all on just one page! it’s pretty.”

the different language versions even contain different search engines, the german sputtr page for instance includes the master of all bookmarks mister wong and you can always suggest more.

make it your home page – www.sputtr.com

(via orli yakuel at go2web2)

[tags: sputtr, sputtr.com, homepage, home page, search engine, go2web2]

call gilles – brandbase brand activation

frederik — Thu, 24 May 2007 03:01:00 +0000

etienne from brandbase netherlands recently dropped me a note pointing me to www.bellenmetgilles.nl which more or less means “call the guy called gilles”. you don’t have to speak dutch to get this fun viral microsite where gilles is pretty bored waiting for you to call – just dial the number shown on the website and wait what happens (if you are calling internationally just dial +31-208-801026).

brandbase also features a website collecting viral marketing cases, articles, links and explaining their approach of brand activation at www.brandactivation.nl

thanks etienne for the email and link tip.

[tags: brandbase, brand activation, bellen met gilles, viral, viral marketing]

jpg magazine – made by you

frederik — Fri, 18 May 2007 03:07:00 +0000

in april this year i met heather powazek champ at web2open, she mainly takes care of the flickr user community and while visiting her website i found out about the jpg magazine.

“jpg magazine is made by you! jpg magazine is for people who love imagemaking without attitude. it’s about the kind of photography you get when you love the moment more than the camera. it’s for photographers who, like us, have found themselves online, sharing their work, and would like to see that work in print.

jpg is a magazine. it’s published 6 times a year and distributed nationally. everything in the magazine comes from you!

jpg is a website. here any photographer can join and upload photos and stories to their member page. you can also submit your work for consideration in the magazine.

jpg is a community. jpg exists because of, and exclusively for, photographers like you. without you, we’re nothing.”

this is how it works – you submit your photos at www.jpgmag.com, the community votes on each photo and story, editors create the issue with the best of the best and the final result is the bi-monthly beautiful print jpg magazine packed with consumer generated amazing photography and stories.

i just love the idea, it’s a great concept with a beautiful result every two months with contributions from all over the world.

find out more and how it works, join the community and i happily subscribed for the jpg print magazine. i received my first issue yesterday and it’s amazing! i’m a fan now and wanted to tell you about it.

[tags: jpg, jpgmag, jpg magazine, phography, photos, art, heather champ]

joost beta – invites available

frederik — Thu, 03 May 2007 19:27:00 +0000

with big thanks to kosmar i’m part of the joost beta testing phase right now.

“joost is a new way of watching tv on the internet. with joost, you get all the things you love about tv, including a high-quality full-screen picture, hundreds of full-length shows and easy channel-flipping. you get great internet features too, such as search, chat and instant messaging, built right into the program – so you find shows quickly and talk to your friends while you watch. and with no schedules to worry about, you can watch whatever you want, whenever you like – as often as you want. joost is completely free, and works with most modern pcs and intel mac-based computers with a broadband connection. get joost today!”

i was playing around with it for a little while and i have to say that i am impressed, it’s fullscreen free television on your computer, great quality and a wide range of channels and programs to choose from (screenshots on flickr).

joost is in beta right now and you need an invitation to try it out. i still have a couple of invites left, so if you want to participate, just drop me an email at ‘netzkobold [at] gmail [dot] com’ with the subject ‘joost invite’.

more information at www.joost.com, wikipedia, commercial, screenshots.

update – may 23. 2007: dear readers, the feedback to this post/joost is overwhelming, i sent out 243 invites based on your requests. yesterday i found a maybe more immediate source to get a joost beta invitation, gigaom provides joost invites via a simple web form, thanks om! if this doesn’t work out you can of course still drop me note via comment or email.

[tags: joost, tv, television, peer-to-peer, p2p, joost beta, invite, zennström]

maxthon – the browser that rocks

frederik — Wed, 02 May 2007 01:36:00 +0000

i spend more than 90% of my time at work using a web browser, means that i really care about what browser fulfills all my needs of tabbed browsing, restoring sessions, mouse gestures, saving data, blocking ads, bookmarking, providing certain information on websites and so on. i switched between netscape, internet explorer, firefox, flock, opera, mozilla and recently came across a nice article about maxthon on techcrunch by ouriel ohayon.

“the big difference with other browsers is that maxthon is based on internet explorer code which makes the software very familiar from the beginning but with a few twists. unlike ie, it is very fast, safe and very stable and brings a unique browsing experience as it enables you to customize nearly any part of the software. like firefox, maxthon brings tabbed browsing, embedded RSS and podcast reader, search bar … but without necessity to add any extension. the key strength of maxthon is that it enables you to totally customize your browsing experience with extreme simplicity.”

after stumbling over maxthon on linkedin i met maxthon partner and svp netanel jacobsson in palo alto last week. net is a great guy with passion, a vision and an amazing team of engineers to make a meaning in the world of web browsers. thanks net, it was great meeting you!

so start your new browsing experience and give maxthon a try, you’ll love it!

[tags: maxthon, browser, tabbed browser, internet explorer, ie, firefox, flock]

bmw p.a.c.e – pursuit across europe

frederik — Tue, 01 May 2007 23:38:00 +0000

bbdo germany and bmw recently launched an online game called “bmw p.a.c.e“.

“bmw starts a race. p.a.c.e, the ‘pursuit across europe’ is an exciting mixture of action and adventure, where users can explore new bmw technology like brake energy regeneration or electric power steering. the race takes place between lisbon and prague. highlights are the hightech flash engine and the fascinating look, realized in cooperation with interone worldwide hamburg.”

the viral microsite has a beautiful look and feel and is supposed to support some of bmw new technologies in a fun environment to create brand awareness and image building among a younger crowd.

congratulations to the team, especially the illustration by dirk hoffmann and the 3d realisation by electric umbrella. you’ll find the game at www.bmw-pace.com.

[tags: bmw, bbdo, p.a.c.e, pursuit across europe, game, viral marketing]

wir sind kurz ausgeflogen!

frederik — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 20:17:00 +0000

guerilla marketing campaign for charter flight airline condor, it’s german and it’s a play on words so it doesn’t translate very well, something like “we love flies”.

flickr pics and more at www.wirliebenfliegen.com

(thanks for the hint philipp)

[tags: condor, wirliebenfliegen.com, fliegenpreise, ad, guerilla marketing]

plazes – adding physical presence to the web

frederik — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 00:33:00 +0000

i joined plazes exactly 679 days ago and recently met plazes co-founder felix petersen and new managing director stephanie staar in mountain view, california. a great team and they have big plans for the future.

“plazes adds physical presence to the web. the plazes website automatically detects your location and connects you to people and places nearby. see people in your area, discover other locations and follow the whereabouts of your friends. locations within plazes are not just global coordinates they carry significance to you and your friends. you can name locations like “home” or “my office”. represent your locations by how you relate to them and discover other significant locations. relate to other locations by adding pictures, comments, and reviews. plazes can also be told to remember the locations you visit so you can review your travels.”

the team recently launched plazes sms which let’s you sign-up, invite friends, check-in at a plaze or find plazes and friends nearby via your cell phone – it’s a no-frills full-blown mobile access channel to plazes.

to sign up via your cell phone simply send “join” followed by your desired “username” and “password” as a text message to +17184079566 (in the united states) or +4917688811133 (in germany), more countries are going to follow.

know where your friends are, discover new wifi hotspots or just cool plazes nearby and make new friends, add your physical presence to the web and join plazes. find out more in the faq section, watch the screencast, visit the flickr profile or stay tuned at the plazes blog.

[tags: plazes, plazes sms, felix petersen, stephanie staar, physical presence]

mabber wanted

frederik — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 01:36:00 +0000

nico lumma from mabber lost 15 mabber in the blogosphere, help him find the little guys and win a sony ericsson k310i cell phone.

mabber is a web and mobile based all-in-one instant messaging system. the little 5×5 pixel characters with its orange antennas are hiding in 15 different blogs, find and report them here. clicking the “wanted” poster above might be a good start and maybe you can find one over here as well …

(via mabber blog)

[tags: mabber, nico lumma, instant messaging, sony ericsson, meebo, trillian]

web2open, web2expo and webmonday

frederik — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 20:01:00 +0000

i’m attending some neat web 2.0 events in the city these days (that’s how they call san francisco in the bay area). first and foremost the web2open.

“the web 2.open was conceived with foocamp/barcamp in mind. this open event blends some pre-scheduled content with an open grid where the attendees fill in the sessions they either want to discuss or present themselves. it is the perfect space to provide the community at large with a place to connect with other attendees, learn more about elements of web 2.0, and share one’s knowledge and experiences.”

i uploaded some photos from yesterdays web2open community roundtable, met great people and i’m really looking forward to the next couple of days. i don’t find the time to write much more right now but there is definitely more to come.

join us at web2open and check out web 2.0 expo and web monday.

[tags: web2open, web2expo, web 2.0, webmontag, community roundtable]

candy – the girl power shopping issue

frederik — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 00:02:34 +0000

if you are interested in culture, design, arts, photography, lifestyle, artists and their works then check out the recent issue of candy* – a bi-monthly, independently produced digital magazine made in ireland.

the most arty and beautiful digital magazine out there. you can subscribe for it at www.candyculture.net and check out the past issues, it’s worth the download.

(via werbewunderland)

[tags: candy, candyculture, digital magazine, culture, photography, art, design]

brother – colours that stay longer

frederik — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 02:54:00 +0000

duval guillaume antwerp have created another nice piece of creative for brother’s inobella printing technology – colors that stay longer.

(via adarena)

[tags: brother, inobella, colours that stay longer, clip, commercial, adarena]

rent a wife

frederik — Mon, 09 Apr 2007 23:59:00 +0000

still not sure about getting serious and making this “forever” decision? just rent a wife! here is how it works: create your wishlist, choose from different plans and receive her within 24h by mail, keep her as long as you want and exchange her when you are up for a new one – that’s rent a wife.

does this sound familiar? maybe that’s why, viral marketing campaign for belgian dvdpost.be. btw, rent a wife is available in french and dutch only.

don’t miss out on the corresponding clip on youtube.

(via loic le meur or actually twitter)

[tags: rent a wife, dvdpost, netflix, blockbuster, loic le meur, viral marketing]

my first viral clip – birdie nam nam

frederik — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 03:40:00 +0000

i recently thought about my first “viral clip”, made a quick google search and actually found it – very exciting! it was back in 1988 or so when a clip called “birdie nam nam” spread through our little amiga community, nothing special actually, three chicks rapping, not longer than 30 seconds, but at that time it was cool, sticky, funny and we loved it. does anybody remember this one?

and speaking of nostalgia, i told my new friends in the states about my favorite television series when i was a kid/teenager, unfortunately they didn’t know that many of them, maybe because they just made it a little later to germany or i’m just too old, stuff like riptide (ein trio mit vier fäusten), simon & simon, remington steele, the bill cosby show, the fall guy (ein colt für alle fälle), knight rider, airwolf, hulk, the gummi bears, the a-team, alf, 21 jump street, the tijuana toads (sancho & pancho), the wonder years (wunderbare jahre) and my all time favorite lucky luke (but i’m more into the comics, got all of them), plus a couple of german ones.

anyhow, good times … have a great easter weekend and tell me what did you watch when you were young?

[tags: birdie nam nam, budbrain, birdie, amiga, television series, 70s, 80s]

calvin klein goes bullshit marketing

frederik — Sat, 07 Apr 2007 00:17:00 +0000

german pr agency dkd goes bullshit marketing for calvin klein and pisses off the german blogosphere – client coty prestige lancaster group.

five fake bloggers tried to infiltrate the german blogosphere with comments in popular weblogs, linking to their fake blogs and myspace profiles. the intention was to promote a new perfume by calvin klein. it fired back and the blogosphere is pissed, feels misused for dishonest marketing purposes. and to say it in the words of thomas zorbach, vm-people – this is bullshit marketing:

“the term bullshit marketing summarizes methods where customers are not treated as empowered, smart and connected individuals, but as a dumb mass of idiots.”

sorry dkd/coty, what were you thinking? here comes the bill.

(via spiegel online, netzwelt, basic thinking and all the details at wortfeld)

[tags: dkd, calvin klein, coty, technosexual, in2u, bullshit marketing]

google voice local search

frederik — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 22:03:16 +0000

speaking of which google launches another free service called “google voice local search“. to try this service, just dial 1-800-goog-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone (in the us).

“it is an experiment on google labs that offers free 411-like service. with google voice local search, you get fully-automated, fast access to same local-business information you would find on google.com. but you can access it from any phone, anywhere, at anytime.”

by calling the above number you can search for a local business by name or category (you can say “giovanni’s pizzeria” or just “pizza”), get connected to the business, free of charge or get the details by sms if you’re using a mobile phone (just say “text message”).

google voice local search / faq

(via twitter/steve rubel, mashable and gigaom)

[tags: google, google voice local search, google voice, local search, 411]

who’s afraid of google?

frederik — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 19:40:00 +0000

i wrote about epic and the autocrat google before and it’s businessweek’s cover story this week asking “is google too powerful?“.

“here it is only 2007, and already epic 2014′s picture of an online landscape dominated by one ravenous, all-knowing corporation looks to many people like — well, a lot like google. all by itself. that simple little search box we all use every day? as the place nearly 400 million people each month start on the internet, it’s the no. 1 gateway to the net’s vast commercial potential. with more data on what people are searching for, google can serve up the most targeted and relevant advertisements alongside the results, drawing more clicks, more cash, more users — you get the idea.”

“let’s face it, there’s a certain hysteria about google, a presumption of unlimited power.”

rob’s story examines the deeper meaning behind complaints about google’s power and influence online. worth reading.

businessweek cover story “is google too powerful?” by robert d. hof

watch the slideshow “the many faces of google” illustrated by sam weber / flickr

(via tomatic and rob hof)

[tags: google, epic, artificial intelligence, businessweek, rob hof, sam weber]

adidas loves competition

frederik — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 23:29:00 +0000

a great print campaign by adidas – straight forward, authentic, simple and self-confident. it clearly draws attention to the fact that consumers are a lot smarter than when it comes to decide a company.

credits: adidas love competition, school – willem de kooning academie, art director – yona h

youtube 2006 video awards

frederik — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 22:03:00 +0000

youtube launched the “youtube 2006 video awards” yesterday – a late attempt to honor the best-user generated videos of 2006.

“2006 was a pioneering year for online video, user-created content and the youtube community. you let us into your bedrooms, created new forms of entertainment, and radicalized popular culture. now it’s time to reflect on what a tremendous year it was and recognize the best of the best during the first youtube video awards.

you are able to vote in seven different categories: most creative, most inspirational, best series, best comedy video, best music video, best commentary and most adorable video. voting will take place from monday to friday. the winners will be announced on march 25th 2007, and trophies will be awarded.

maybe i’m not enough youtube addicted but i found only one of my favorites in there yet, it’s “where the hell is matt?“, have a look and give your votes …

(via the hubbub* and mashable)

[tags: youtube, video, awards, youtube video awards, clips, hubbub, mashable]

superman’s elevator pitch

frederik — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 00:55:00 +0000

jwt brazil recently launched a new ambient media/guerrilla marketing campaign for superman returns in são paulo – i would call it an “elevator pitch“.

credits: agency – jwt brazil, creative director – ricardo chester and roberto fernandes, art director – silvio medeiros, copywriter – thiago carvalho

[tags: superman, elevator pitch, ambient media, jwt brazil, silvio medeiros]

wtm – world trend monitor

frederik — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 18:46:00 +0000

webguerillas recently launched a new service called “world trend monitor“. the wtm is supposed to filter relevant trends for you – a radar for current trends all over the world if you don’t find the time to dig through numerous resources by yourself.

“the world trend monitor (wtm) is a information service that bundles the worldwide most important trends in the categories marketing, fashion and shopping in a monthly trend monitor. trend scouts are spread all over the world to feed the wtm by screening thousands of exclusive sources – offline and online. the trends are found where they first appear at the very front of the news chain. a subscription model of the world trend monitor varies in the categories fashion, marketing and shopping and is available as print versions, pdf documents or as online trend-archive.”

an english version of the site isn’t available yet, but will be available soon. i tried the free marketing trend monitor (see pdf download in the abo section) and i like this news source for new trends, visit www.worldtrendmonitor.com for more information.

more trend sources: trnd, springwise, trendhunter and trendwatching.

(via brainwash)

[tags: worldtrendmonitor, world trend monitor, wtm, trend, trends, webguerillas]

how to sell soap

frederik — Tue, 13 Mar 2007 10:12:00 +0000

a couple of weeks ago i posted the clip about the viral learning center on how to create viral videos. here is an entertaining and simple way how to explain viral and word of mouth marketing – or better “how to sell soap”.

great work amos, love it!

(via vm-people)

[tags: viral marketing, vm-people, thomas zorbach, wom, word-of-mouth]

praschls geheimblog

frederik — Fri, 09 Mar 2007 21:22:57 +0000

bloggers like to play games and the blogosphere is a perfect playground including a worldwide audience. there are blog memes and alternate reality games for instance. a couple of minutes ago i stumbled over “praschls geheimblog” at treehuggin’ pussy and don’t even know what this is and if it’s just a single joke or something bigger taking off … the openebiz blog is the only other hit at google’s blogsearch.

a google search for “praschls geheimblog” is also not that successful – we will see where it goes, i’ll keep an eye on it within the next couple of days …

(via malte at treehuggin’ pussy)

update: felix schwenzel von wirres.net kicks in (thanks robert)

[tags: praschl, geheimblog, praschls geheimblog, alternate reality game]

blush dessous – light my fire

frederik — Fri, 02 Mar 2007 02:48:17 +0000

bbdo keeps on releasing nice campaigns for blush dessous berlin.

“the latest thing from bbdo berlin for blush: matches with a striking strip right on the panty. it just feels great to light your fire.”

see also the getting undressed and blechschaden ads for blush.

(via adverbox)

[tags: blush, dessous, berlin, advertising, bbdo, streichholz, matches]

hello – first apple iphone commercial

frederik — Thu, 01 Mar 2007 23:11:57 +0000

the first apple iphone commercial aired on the oscars last week.

a sweet ad showing 28 scenes from cult movie actors saying “hello” on the phone followed by the image of the device, finishing with the text “coming in june”. they don’t even have to name the product because everybody just knows, apple-like, simple, ingenious.

watch the first apple iphone commercial “hello” on youtube or the apple website.

(via the r.c. shortcast)

[tags: apple, iphone, phone, commercial, ipod, itunes, mac, telephony]

google adsense – isn’t it ironic

frederik — Wed, 14 Feb 2007 10:38:37 +0000

today i found this google adsense ad on my own blog (see on the right) … isn’t it ironic, don’t you think.

pretty much one and a half years ago i decided to add some google adsense ads to my blog to test if this is generating any money. result: it doesn’t – see my january earnings below.

i took part in robert basic’s survey and it seems that some bloggers are actually making money with their blog, but most of them, especially when the ads aren’t placed all around every blogpost, they do not. i don’t really care, i was just testing it, but the above ad in my own blog was just – ironic.

[tags: google, adsense, adwords, google adsense, advertising, targeted, ads]

cws commercial – say no to dirt

frederik — Thu, 08 Feb 2007 15:30:00 +0000

at vm-people we were discussing if you can do viral marketing for nearly every product, even for more “boring” products or services which don’t come with a sticky viral message or adjective by itself – being extremely innovative, exciting, enormous, beautiful or extraordinary like the apple iphone for instance.

the bottom line – yes you can, given the fact that it is still a “good” product or service, bringing a benefit/making a meaning to the world and not something completely wasting your time. it’s surely harder though compared to an exciting product by itself but truly possible.

vm-people did a great job setting up the fischer fixing blog providing background information and insights working with professional bonded anchors like the fhb II and connecting opinion leaders in this area of expertise.

another great example of creating buzz about a rather white-bread product like a self-cleaning toilet is the new cws commercial “say no to dirt“.

complete washroom solutions launched a nice viral spot starring milla jovovich, giving cws a fresher and younger image and definitely rising awareness.

(via werbeblogger, song: benny benassi “satisfaction”)

[tags: cws, complete washroom solutions, say no to dirt, viral marketing]

eddie izzard – just hilarious

frederik — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 23:25:40 +0000

i’m sorry and this may offend some fans but i never heard of this guy before my fiancée told me about him some days ago. i’m talking about eddie izzard a british cross-dressing stand-up comedian and actor who describes himself as an “executive transvestite” (see wikipedia entry).

i love his kind of humor, he is just f… hilarious, gotta watch him!

you’ll find some of his skits on youtube and google video.

more info: wikipedia entry, official website, a fan site

[tags: eddie izzard, eddie, izzard, british, cross-dressing, stand-up, comedian]

1&1 email server down

frederik — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 15:43:00 +0000

after gmail has lost tons of user emails german service provider 1&1 seems to have serious problems now.

i was quite a fan of 1&1, having 23 domains and tons of emails hosted there, but since noon (january 17. 2007, pst) my imap account started to make problems and went completely down afterwards – my main imap inbox (more than 8000 emails) is gone now and their webmail is down as well.

while searching for help i found out that they shut down the email support completely and when calling their helpline (fortunately 24 hour support) a women’s voice said that they are aware of a problem regarding emails and they are working on it.

hope it will be fixed soon, i’m/they are screwed when all these mails are lost. seems that we all have to go back to pop3 to keep several local backups.

update – january 17. 2007, 19:07: email is back up again and i’m very happy about it!
and obviously i missed to read the werbeblogger within the last two days …

update – january 18. 2007, 14:03: i can access my mails via imap again but the server times out all the time, so it’s still pretty crappy and isn’t fun to work with. they gotta improve that or i have to switch to a new provider.

[tags: 1&1, 1und1, 1and1, bug, email, webmail, downtime, server down]

snap preview anywhere

frederik — Fri, 12 Jan 2007 23:16:48 +0000

you might have noticed that many blogs, including mine, got these nice mouse-over previews when hovering your mouse over any link – it’s a service called snap.

“snap preview anywhere enables anyone visiting your site or blog to get a glimpse of what other sites you’re linking to, without having to leave your site. by rolling over any link, the user gets a visual preview of the site without having to go there, thus eliminating wasted “trips” to linked sites.”

the california based snap started about two months ago launching snap preview anywhere. in just 8 weeks, over 30,000 sites worldwide have already integrated snap into their sites and over 70,000,000 previews have been generated. they also just nailed a deal with wordpress literally putting their preview tool to 600,000 blogs and surely more to follow.

the integration is a no-brainer, generate a tiny code snippet, put it on your blog or website and enjoy the little website previews, it is very helpful in deciding if you want to click through or not. it takes no longer than three minutes to set up and you can even customize it later on if you want to – turning on previews on internal links, turning off previews on specific links or setting the hover delay time for showing the preview.

> get the snippet and link previews for your site here

also check out: visual snap web search and the snap image search

[tags: snap, snap preview, snap preview anywhere, spa, preview, wordpress]

revver pays off

frederik — Wed, 10 Jan 2007 20:09:08 +0000

some time ago i wrote about the video sharing portal revver. revver tracks and monetizes videos as they spread across the web. it connects video makers and sharers with sponsors in a free and open marketplace. at the end of each video there is an ad displayed, revver splits the ad revenue with you 50/50.

“if you like to create or share video, revver was made for you. every time someone watches a video that you’ve uploaded or shared, you could earn money.”

in the meanwhile they changed the logo, made great improvements on the user interface, look&feel and added more functionalities.

but the best thing is, the concept pays off for the user/artist/uploader, directly transferred to your paypal account.

so, start uploading your videos on revver and make some money out of it.

[tags: revver, revverizing, video, sharing, video sharing, portal, viral, youtube]

gmail bug – user emails lost

frederik — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 16:38:00 +0000

first i have to say that i’m a fan of google and their services. due to my google account profile i’m currently using 21 different google services. one of them is of course google’s popular webmail service gmail – fortunately not as my primary mail service.

om malik reported today that due to a bug some gmail users lost all their emails and found a blank gmail account when logging in.

furthermore sahim pointed out in one of the comments that google’s social networking platform orkut is completely down today as well, saying “orkut is under construction, please check back soon”.

at google groups there is a discussion about this topic including an answer from the gmail support team:

“our engineering team has been working to resolve the issue with your account that we detected in our system. we appreciate your patience with us. everyone at google realizes how important email communications can be so it is with a heavy heart and tremendous disappointment that we must let you know that an isolated problem caused the loss of all the data in your account before december 18th. our engineers worked long nights to try to locate any recoverable information, but after doing everything they could think of, asking the help of other engineers at google and spending nights pounding their keyboards, they have finally had to accept that for your account we could not recover the data.”

in times where we handle so much conversation via email this is a disaster for every affected gmail user. but no system is perfect and we have to deal with tons of beta’s in web 2.0 times.

common tipp: still backup your email locally via pop3 and an email client like mozilla thunderbird or outlook.

(via gigaom and techcrunch)

update – december 28. 2006 at 19:07: a google spokeswoman sent om malik an email explaining the situation – doing the pr limitation of damage:

“regretfully, a small number of our users

adults being a role model for the children

frederik — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 23:50:00 +0000

i recently found this thought provoking spot at the bold blog.

released by child friendly australia. and yes, we all should be aware of being a role model for the children – our future – and making our influence positive.

(via the great bold blog from chile)

[tags: child friendly australia, childfriendly.org.au, role model, influence]

dove spoof and eva delivers otto catalog

frederik — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 22:21:19 +0000

we all know about retouching of pictures nowadays or the “photoshop diet” how andreas used to call it. in october reginald pike launched a spot showing the behind-the-scenes make-up and retouche job for a spot called dove evolution by yael staav promoting the dove self-esteem fund against our distorted perception of beauty. now there is a spoof of this spot out there.

watch dove evolution on youtube / high-res and the spoof on youtube / high-res

would you open the door for eva padberg delivering the new otto catalog …

(via datenvandalismus, werbeblogger and frederik)

[tags: dove, evolution, photoshop, retouche, spoof, otto, eva padberg]

def mini records

frederik — Mon, 18 Dec 2006 10:04:00 +0000

ingeborg trampe, director corporate communications from bbdo düsseldorf, is sending out emails promoting the new def mini records “viral” microsite with the words:

“Liebe Kolleginnen und Kollegen,

heute Nacht ist eine fantastische Kampagne gestartet, die jeden Musik-Liebhaber begeistern wird.

Die Kollegen von Interone und .start haben gemeinsam für den Kunden MINI ein eigenes Plattenlabel gegründet: Def MINI Records.
Künstler aus den unterschiedlichsten Musikrichtungen performen Songs über die Zuverlässigkeit des neuen MINI Cooper. MC Massive rappt ‘Solid as a rock’, R’n'B kommt von ASC&T mit ‘Stop driftin around’ und ‘The Brakes’ rocken ihren neuen Hit ‘Save me’. Beworben wird die Kampagne in verschiedenen Kanälen wie Online, Print, Outdoor und am PoS. Ein tolles Projekt, das zeigt, dass BBDO Germany mit TotalWork ganz neue Wege der Vermarktung geht.

Da virale Kampagnen wie diese von der Partizipation der User leben: Unterstützt die Kollegen der Interone, hört euch die tollen Songs an und schickt den Link an Freunde und Bekannte!

http://www.defmini.com/

Beste Grüße,

Ingeborg Trampe”

i’m sorry, i’ve seen funny, sexy and smart viral campaigns and microsites but i’m not getting this one. looks more like – client (in this case bmw mini) to the agency (interone and .start) “could you do something viral for us … for the youth?” and the agency later on just put together what they may have heard of viral marketing “let’s do a microsite, something with music, and videos and … yeah, let’s just put this together, they’ll like it”. – maybe i was judging to early, read on.

the new bmw mini is such a great product, they totally got how to move their brand from a boring little car to a cool brand and remodeled car. they had great viral campaigns like the “humanlike robots” which spread like a wildfire (unfortunately the microsite is not active anymore). the microsite provided videos, stories and instructions where colin mayhew from oxford was building robots with parts of the mini.

but back to def mini records, the site welcomes you with screaming teenagers pushing you to watch the n’cap video which is so bad that it reminds me to “wo bist du mein sonnenlicht“, but not as funny. i just clicked a little further and found the “about” videos like runflat, n’cap or the disc brakes, which are quit ironic.

i have to give em that, they were putting a lot of effort and money into this project and i wish it all the best, but i’m not sure if this is going to spread virally. who is the target group? teenagers around 14 which might buy a car in about 4 years? it’s definitely not me.

but take a look by yourself – www.defminirecords.com

[tags: def mini records, defmini, bmw, mini, viral marketing, interone, .start]

vlc – the viral learning center

frederik — Fri, 08 Dec 2006 02:51:54 +0000

finally we can get all the answers we were searching for …

watch the viral learning center promo video on youtube.

(via bj

joinr – a myspace killer?

frederik — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 21:43:00 +0000

robert was writing about joinr today, which could be the new and better myspace made in germany. the project shall be launched in about two weeks in alpha mode, but their blog is up describing the progress of getting ready.

even if there are a bunch of social networking platforms already out there, i’m still missing the one. i really like xing (formerly known as openbc) as business platform, youtube as a video and flickr as a photo sharing service. myspace is trying to throw together all sorts of media content and might be big in the us, but their look and feel and programming is totally out-dated and not going to be successful in europe, it just looks awful and cheesy. studivz is out anyways. so there is still a chance for joinr making it right, bringing the best together from existing standalone services, adding some smart features and wrapping it up in a sweet looking up-to-date technology social networking platform.

i hope they bring up something smart which attracts lots of people everywhere in the world. sign up for the alpha, check out their blog and they are open to all kinds of ideas and feedback (support [at] joinr.de) to make the best out of it. i’ll keep my fingers crossed and they have my support.

(via basicthinking and ny times)

[tags: joinr, joinr.de, myspace, xing, youtube, flickr, studivz, social network]

avoid the loony zune

frederik — Mon, 27 Nov 2006 19:43:33 +0000

don sent me the link to this article avoiding the microsoft zune media player.

“yes, microsoft’s new zune digital music player is just plain dreadful. i’ve spent a week setting this thing up and using it, and the overall experience is about as pleasant as having an airbag deploy in your face. ‘avoid,’ is my general message. the zune is a square wheel, a product that’s so absurd and so obviously immune to success that it evokes something akin to a sense of pity. the setup process stands among the very worst experiences i’ve ever had with digital music players [...] the zune is a complete, humiliating failure [...] result: the zune will be dead and gone within six months. good riddance.”

as i was holding the microsoft zune music player in my hands last week but finally decided for the new ipod shuffle i’m even more happy about my decision now – having avoided the loony zune.

(via andy ihnatko at chicago sun-times)

[tags: apple, ipod, shuffle, ipod shuffle, microsoft, zune, humiliating failure]

moixa usb cell – rechargable batteries

frederik — Thu, 23 Nov 2006 01:43:00 +0000

another product which i’m really excited about and got to know at demofall06 is the moixa rechargable battery. the clou – batteries that you can recharge at any usb port without the need of any further equipment, means no need for a separate charger or cables when travelling, it’s a built in intelligent usb charger.

“introducing our revolutionary new rechargeable battery – the usbcell. this nimh aa cell can be used in normal battery applications and can be recharged simply by plugging into a usb port.”

thanks to michael lehrter for giving me two usb cells at the end of the demo conference and he didn’t “buy” this blog post with that gift, i loved the product before already and i think it’s a great invention and i loved getting rid of my big separate charger which i had to carry around before.

find more usb cells and information at www.usbcell.com.

[tags: moixa, usb cell, usb, battery, rechargable batteries, charger]

flurry – mobile email for everyone

frederik — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 17:34:00 +0000

i was joining demofall06 in san diego this september because we were launching jajah mobile and met karl harris from flurry there. since that time i wanted to blog about their sweet product which i’m using everyday since the day we met.

“flurry brings all your email and news to your mobile phone”

flurry is providing a little java application which turns your current mobile phone into a mobile email and rss client. they are currently supporting more than 200 cell phones and the installation is a no-brainer, takes not even 3 minutes (i installed it during their stage presentation) and it is completely free.

as the blackberry push email service is already integrated into my nokia 9300i i’m using the flurry rss reader on my cell phone primarily and it works great.

so, easily add email and rss reader support to your oldschool cell phone, find some more information about flurry or directly sign up here.

[tags: flurry, karl harris, email, mobile, mobile email, rss reader, blackberry]

new ipod shuffle

frederik — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 15:40:00 +0000

i was never really into walkmans, discmans or mp3 players, because it seals you off from the world around you (wow, that sounds pretty german). but as i don’t find the time to read all the nice blogs around anymore i got more into podcasts – first and foremost the werbeblogger podcast – and as live 105 (my favorite radio station over here) is promoting the new zune mediaplayer so much, i went to best buy and had a look at the recent mp3-players yesterday evening. after checking out the zune mediaplayer and the ipod video i realized that i don’t need another heavy item for watching photos and videos (my cell phone can do that) and finally decided for the new super mini ipod shuffle – the perfect tiny solution for listening to podcasts – weight: 15 gram.

i was using itunes before so i can just drag and drop some podcasts to my ipod like the recent interview with martin oetting at the werbeblogger now.

“ipod shuffle – put some music on”

here you find the new ipod shuffle tech specs and tv ad and if you have some interesting podcast tipps, pls drop me a comment or email, thanks!

[tags: apple, ipod, shuffle, ipod shuffle, zune, mp3 player, podcast]

campari red passion

frederik — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 13:21:00 +0000

campari recently launched a viral campaign for something called “red passion”, it seems to introduce a new product which will be released on the 23rd of november 2006. part of the campaign – becoming the basic viral seeding channels – are a myspace profile, a flickr page, a youtube video, the hotel campari microsite and a second smaller microsite providing three more clips.

“what i adore … strong and skillful people, tolerance and freedom, the ambiguous side of life, testing … in every sense, excitement and thrill, sharing, seeing and being seen. what i hate … strictness, simple-minded people, stupidity and foolishness, fear and shame, prejudice, meanness … in every sense and, more than everything, the lack of imagination. this is me, female, from a place you’ll never know. explore my world …”

the photos are very professional and artistic and the hotel campari microsite provides some flash interaction. holding back the actual information about the advertised product makes people curious to find out what’s behind that campaign and it seems to work …

(via mypurechaos at digg.com)

[tags: campari, red passion, red, passion, viral, campaign, viral marketing]

go2web20.net – the complete web 2.0 directory

frederik — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 00:47:00 +0000

go2web20.net is a nice and clearly arranged ajax/flash web 2.0 directory where you can easily browse through the future of the internet. clicking on a logo provides further information and backlinks for each company.

the site is designed and developed by eyal shahar in co-operation and based on the vision of my colleague orli yakuel.

“creating something like this is a ton of work. the site is nothing but a reflection of orli and eyal’s passion for what’s happening on the web right now … the same passion that is driving the success of this and other blogs dedicated to chronicling this period of web history.”

check out go2web20.net and orli’s other nice web 2.0 finds at the corresponding blog go2web2.blogspot.com. picks like musicovery – an online radio engine with new attempts on visually discovering new music close to what you like, somehow similar to pandora or liveplasma – or pixer.us, an online photo editing tool and many more …

(via orli yakuel and michael arrington)

[tags: go2web20, go2web20.net, web 2.0, directory, orli yakuel, eyal shahar]

myspace viral growth numbers

frederik — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:06:00 +0000

viral growth is often referred to the tipping point popularised and applied to daily life by malcolm gladwell. the tipping point refers to that dramatic moment when something unique becomes common, the process in which beyond a certain point, the rate at which the process proceeds increases dramatically. joe suh was looking into the viral growth numbers of the popular social networking platform myspace.com and made some interesting research.

“as everyone from academics to engineers to tech reporters to web 2.0 bloggers try to apply formulas like metcalfe’s law and reed’s Law to social networking, i could not find a good timeline of actual myspace growth statistics.”

joe was taking data from various sources like press releases, news articles, and blog entries to plot this graph.

“the curve-fit in light blue is what i’m calling the declining percentage model. if you take the top chart and calculate monthly percentage growth, you’ll see that average growth was roughly 20% in the first 12-month period, 15% the next year, and 10% in the following year.

the declining % represents “true” viral growth – the kind of organic growth that happens after a marketing campaign where planned (and unplanned) distribution channels were already exhausted. i base this claim on 3 reports that documented myspace’s initial launch campaign. all reports agree that myspace ended its aggressive marketing campaign to seed the network with its first couple million users in ~q2 of 2004.

these numbers don’t disprove or prove metcalfe’s law. metcalfe’s law is conceptual in nature and is expressed in the value domain as opposed to the time domain.”

the bottom line is that even the most succesful network can not grow exponentially over a long period of time even after hitting the tipping point, the declining percentage represents the more realistic “true” viral growth.

(via joe suh at mychurch.org)

update – november 21. 2006 at 11:03: as joe’s post was on the front page of digg.com for some time other users indicated that a logistic function like the verhulst equation should be used to model the growth.

“we now get a slightly more conservative projection and curve-fit. qualitatively, a logistic function reflects how the initial stage of growth is approximately exponential, then slows down asymptotically as competition arises or the product matures. the verhulst formula, in particular, is often used to model population growth that takes into account the size of the population and the amount of available resources.”

[tags: myspace, myspace.com, viral, growth, viral growth, gladwell, metcalfe]

star wars mikado

frederik — Sun, 12 Nov 2006 10:59:00 +0000

indeed, very nice little spot for lu’s mikado chocolate sticks.

also worth watching, the logitech webcam and the telenor mobil commercial.

(via brand evangelist)

[tags: lu, mikado, star wars, logitech, webcam, telenor, mobil, commercial]

carlton draught – flashbeer

frederik — Fri, 10 Nov 2006 00:45:00 +0000

after carlton draught’s amazing big ad here is another nice one called flashbeer – a parody to the famous movie flashdance.

also check out the ad feed, which collects content from some popular advertising blogs and the new peugeot 206 hdi – the sheep spot.

(via reklamfeber, advertising/design goodness and i believe in adv)

[tags: carlton, draught, beer, flashbeer, flashdance, commercial, adfeed]

samsung ml-1410 laser printer driver

frederik — Thu, 09 Nov 2006 19:26:00 +0000

as i tried to use a friend’s samsung ml-1410 laser printer today windows couldn’t find the printer driver by itself – no plug&play this time. so i had to search for the driver at the samsung support site but couldn’t find the printer i was searching for. after 30 minutes of unsuccessful google search i finally called their hotline and just wanted to share the information they provided with everybody who is searching for this driver like me.

“the samsung ml-1410 is identical in construction with the ml-1510, the ml-1410 was just a special edition for media markt, so you can use the ml-1519 driver“

download the samsung ml-1410 = ml-1510 driver here.

[tags: samsung, ml-1410, ml-1510, 1410, 1510, printer, driver, treiber]

hubbub pr launched

frederik — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 03:21:52 +0000

this is a little tribute to my much valued colleague giovanni who recently launched his new pr agency hubbub pr.

“we aim to become the first community-based pr agency, deliberately designed for the globally networked economy. what does that mean? it means that we are building a global, online community for communications professionals (a facebook for communications pros, so to speak), and that we will tap that community to select design teams depending on the client need. who can participate? pr pros, marketing consultants, social-media mavens, writers, designers… in short, anyone who participates in world of communications.

though hubbub will build and sponsor this community

youtubers

frederik — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 23:00:00 +0000

don recently pointed me to this interesting and at the same time sad video called youtubers. collected snippets of youtuber vlog’s edited by mick bianchi.

“we all take ourselves too seriously [...] all i do is watching youtube [...] don’t worry you are not alone [...] it’s really hard to sit through them, it’s so fucking boring [...] this is my first video blog – and i really have nothing to say [...] youtube follows a similar pattern of addiction to drug abuse [...] fuck me, fuck you [...] this is the most pointless video [...] i’m trying to hide my feelings [...] i’m fake too, why else would i act like this moron-type character [...] i want to be acknowledged and recognized [...] the whole thing is a hoax”

this video clip shows the personal video blogging aspect of youtube as emerging social phenomenon of the next generation internet (don’t like the term 2.0 that much). personal video blogging is a even more extroverted further step in exposing yourself to a wide public like personal diary weblogs or podcasts have shown it before – real or fake, funny or sad, smart or just dumb, pointless, pathetic or arty – it shows the whole wide range of what is going, a mirror of our society nowadays? it somewhat reminded me of this video …

(btw: youtube got acquired by google recently for $1.65 billion in stock)

[tags: youtube, youtubers, google, vlog, video, weblog, mick bianchi]

masculinity

frederik — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 20:18:00 +0000

leaving the question open if sex really sells, a naked women seems to work as a trigger anyways … a spot for jbs mens underwear.

also pointing to the cosmos hitech fetish, the pretty offensive sha

t-mobile getting it now

frederik — Mon, 30 Oct 2006 15:44:00 +0000

i have to admit i was affirmatively surprised when a t-mobile agent called me this morning to tell me that they reduced my monthly fee of my out-dated “company basic” tariff down to 7.50

ambient media advertising – guerrilla marketing

frederik — Tue, 24 Oct 2006 15:15:00 +0000

i actually really like good ambient media or so called guerrilla marketing. these are usually creative more unconventional advertising or marketing campaigns rolled out in our direct living environment, often not even recognizable as ads at first sight. writing about kellogg’s and yamaha, the anti smoking ceiling, visual kidnapping, the blush dessous, dogvertising or sandvertising for instance, today i found a new sweet ad blog source called i believe in adv.

“need a new barbecue? call vijay sales”

“every winter, hundreds of homeless die on the sidewalks. react.”

“one out of ten traffic victims is a pedestrian”

(via i believe in adv and adverblog)

[tags: ambient media, guerrilla marketing, viral marketing, advertising]

dreaming of a better world

frederik — Mon, 23 Oct 2006 09:40:00 +0000

altogether it seems to me that car manufacturers are doing the most impressive commercials – not saying that there aren’t amazing non-car commercials out there – but maybe because it’s such a crowded and competitive global market and they just have the money to do that.

i loved the “un-pimp your ride” volkswagen commercials and even if they are not brand new anymore, the two citro

revver – smart twist in video sharing

frederik — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 16:48:00 +0000

while browsing my number one blogosphere news ressource werbeblogger these days (i just don’t find the time to surf through more blogs right now), revver caught my attention. no, it’s not just another uninspired video portal like clipfish, revver added a smart twist in the video sharing idea – paying the uploader/author.

“revver is the first viral video network that pays. we believe in your talent and your right to share it with the world on your terms. set your video free. when you upload your video to revver, we attach an unobtrusive advertisement to the end of it. we call this ‘revverizing’. whenever anyone clicks on that ad, you get paid. we host your video for free, give you the tools to share it with the world and split the ad revenue with you 50/50. it’s that simple. you can keep track of how much money you’re making every step of the way.”

so why uploading your video to youtube when you can earn money for uploading it at revver. smart idea and we’ll see how much traction they are going to gain in the near future. i like it!

(via werbeblogger and visualblog)

update – october 19. 2006 at 10:03: i reported a slight problem with my blog and the embedded code via their bug report tool yesterday. short time afterwards i received a personal email from revver community manager alex asking me what blogging platform i’m using and solved the problem minutes later. that’s great customer care and that’s how you can engage users in sending in valuable feedback, having a conversation and turning them into evangelists. my videos are going to be up on revver from now on, that’s for sure …

[tags: revver, revverizing, video, sharing, portal, viral, youtube, clipfish]

sony bravia paint ad

frederik — Wed, 18 Oct 2006 13:14:00 +0000

after the huge success of the previous award winning bouncy balls bravia commercial – one of my favorite commercials ever – the new sony bravia spot called “paint” is finally out now. at www.bravia-advert.com you were able to follow the preparations of the shooting, which created lots of buzz even before the spot got launched.

but sorry jonathan, i’m a little disappointed, this is nothing to the elegance and transported emotion by the bouncy balls ad of nicolai fuglsig and the music of jos

42 below

frederik — Thu, 28 Sep 2006 16:08:00 +0000

sean just showed me the funny viral 42 below ads. i never really heard of this kiwiana company before, but bacardi is going to buy them for 91 million us dollars to achieve a new brand with a young and fresh image.

but please have a look by yourself and check out all the videos, especially the numa numa dance spoof called call centre.

update – october 3. 2006 at 15:03: clipart storytelling reinvented by saatchi & saatchi new york for 42below, found at datenvandalismus.

[tags: 42 below, vodka, liquor, new zealand, bacardi, numa numa, ads]

demo – premier launchpad for new technologies

frederik — Tue, 26 Sep 2006 09:35:00 +0000

as i was concentrating on more objective reports on what’s going on in the viral and online marketing scene in my blog, this will be my first blog post reporting live from the demofall 2006 audience in san diego.

“demo is the premier launch venue for new products, technologies and companies. demo has established a reputation for identifying and presenting to an elite audience the products most likely to have a significant impact on the marketplace and market trends in the coming year.”

many of the companies presenting here are coming out of stealth mode right now, launching and presenting their product to the world for the first time ever. this is the next generation of the internet right in front of me and you can really feel the startup, entrepreneur and passion spirit in here.

as the first presenters at demo weren’t as attractive or helpful to me, mojopac really caught my attention. mojopac turns your usb device or ipod into your own personal game cartridge like device with your whole personal system on it. with mojopac you can carry the contents of an entire computer (operating system, settings, applications and content) on any portable storage device and connect to any pc worldwide to access and work with your contents and applications. i saw the demonstration and this is wicked cool!

as i want to keep my attention on what’s happening on stage i can not write about everything in detail right now, but keep an eye on the austrian company systemone – a platform that merges enterprise collaboration and search behind a radically simple interface and thinkfree – a fast, light-weight tool for accessing, creating and editing office documents in an online environment.

but most interesting for my actual job and many of my readers might be buzzlogic – a very powerful social media screening tool.

“the buzzlogic service is built around an intuitive, easy-to-use dashboard that quickly guides users to the conversations, influencers and content they need. easy-to-set up alerts notify practitioners (via email) when the volume around a conversation suddenly increases or other variances are exceeded, or even when a specific blogger joins a conversation [...] buzzlogic applies the science of influence to social media such as blogs, wikis and forums. buzzlogic identifies the key influencers shaping and driving issues and conversations online, and enables marketing and communications practitioners to monitor, map, measure and engage with social media”

that will be the first booth at the pavilion to check out in detail. more to come …

[tags: demo, demo conference, mojopac, systemone, thinkfree, buzzlogic]

the ultimate blog post

frederik — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 01:53:19 +0000

“creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you’re about as likely to find someone else interested in it.”

(via wired columns)

[tags: wired, magazine, lore sj

smoking kills

frederik — Wed, 20 Sep 2006 09:13:00 +0000

one of my friends sent me these anti-smoking ads from the “cancer patients aid association” (cpaa) this morning. it shows the catchy ceiling of a smokers room.

you’ll find some more information at the cpaa projects page.

[tags: cpaa, cancer patients aid association, smoking, ad, advertisement]

ketchup with a side of french fries

frederik — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:03:39 +0000

nice heinz tomato ketchup ad gets straight to the point.

(via communication for you)

[tags: heinz, ketchup, tomato ketchup, ad, advertisement, advert]

stromberg spreading virally

frederik — Tue, 19 Sep 2006 04:40:51 +0000

bernd stromberg is back. starting their new season premiere pro7 launched a very professional trailer where stromberg is starring in famous hollywood blockbusters.

the trailer hit 21825 views on youtube already and is spreading virally through the german blogosphere. i love his humour and i’m happy that he’s back, even if i can’t watch it right now and i recently found out that it is a 1:1 format copy of “the office” (uk/us). stromberg rules!

(via site9 and basic thinking)

[tags: stromberg, christoph maria herbst, pro7, staffel, season, hollywood]

google calendar goes international

frederik — Mon, 18 Sep 2006 18:45:00 +0000

a couple of weeks ago i started using google calendar beneath my outlook synchronized plaxo calendar to share meeting dates with my colleagues. as before you could use us cell phone numbers for sms reminders only, now google calendar went international so i can receive text message reminders with my german cell phone as well (more than 70 countries available now).

“simplify. organize. and relax. organizing your schedule shouldn’t be a burden. that’s why we’ve created google calendar

customer evangelism – firefox crop circle

frederik — Wed, 16 Aug 2006 21:45:00 +0000

i’m a firefox browser evangelist since their early days and the open source marketing website project www.spreadfirefox.com was stroke of genius and a milestone in word-of-mouth marketing or better customer evangelism. the spreadfirefox.com platform provides open conversation with their customers, information about what’s going on at mozilla and providing all kinds of material to help firefox users to spread the word.

this screenshot was taken on september, 16th 2004 when firefox hit 502,659 downloads (my blogpost).

“you are our marketing department, a diverse community of people tired of swatting popups [...] we’ll provide the tools, but you will drive campaigns that will be rolled out here over the coming months [...] the community is spreading the word about firefox. millions of people are already using firefox and helping us chip away at internet explorer’s marketshare.”

said the website at this date. today firefox hit 206,168,203 downloads – which is an more than amazing success! due to recent statistics firefox is gaining nearly 50% of microsoft internet explorer’s market share right now.

furthermore many firefox users turned into firefox evangelists and just made a 45,000+ square foot firefox crop circle – wow!

more information about this project and more photos …

and while waiting for firefox 2.0 try out my favorite firefox extension.

(via the fox tales)

[tags: mozilla, firefox, customer evangelism, word-of-mouth, crop circle]

web monday silicon valley

frederik — Mon, 14 Aug 2006 23:49:00 +0000

with thanks to tim bonnemann i made it to the most recent web monday silicon valley tonight, taking place at the socialtext headquarters – thanks for the host! more and more web 2.0 interested people showed up for networking, exchange of ideas and some nice presentations.

“web monday is an informal gathering aimed at bringing together developers, designers, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, researchers, web pioneers, inventors, bloggers, podcasters, end users and other folks interested in web 2.0. the goal is to better connect the german web 2.0 scene as well as improve transatlantic idea exchange between germany and the us”.

mnemomap

“mnemomap is a new way to search the internet. it combines technologies of social networking, search engines and other data sources to help you formulate search queries and find really relevant information [...] in an interactive way mnemomap helps the user to refine search queries by providing alternative or additional search parameters on-the-fly. by providing tags, translations and many other data sources to find words mnemomap helps formulating a search query that delivers better results. and finally: mnemomap shows live search results.”

the presentation was hold by simon from germany via a jajah call (thanks for getting up at 4 am in the morning). mnemo is still in alpha but absolutely worth a try, that’s where search technology should go.

gernot poetsch

gernot was presenting his diploma thesis about “concept and prototypical implementation of an xml-aggregator for multimedia content” focusing on subscribable content in order to handle our growing information overload via powerful rss/xml technology and a tool called james.

hyperscope

eugene was presenting douglas engelbart’s latest effort to bring advanced navigation and linking capabilities to the web nowadays named hyperscope.

“the hyperscope is a high-performance thought processor that enables you to navigate, view, and link to documents in sophisticated ways. it’s the brainchild of doug engelbart, the inventor of hypertext and the mouse, and is the first step towards his larger vision for an open hyperdocument system.”

hyperscope uses opml as its base file format and allows us to granularly access and link to and within documents (you should really work on this page). btw, their release party is coming up in the beginning of september, so the product is still alpha and they need some help.

plazes

mark told us about “location awareness through plazes, but without the network” – which actually means via rfid and caused a nice discussion if barcodes wouldn’t do it as well with less technological effort.

i had a good time, met nice people and will be at the next web monday as well. check out peter’s instant notes on the event, the web monday wiki for more detailed information about the web monday and where it takes place close to you if you wanna participate the next time.

[tags: web montag, web monday, mnemomap, hyperscope, plazes, web 2.0]

visual kidnapping

frederik — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 05:18:00 +0000

yesterday i stumbled over a billboard by cingular at advergirl which reminded me to the more unintentional visual kidnappings in berlin.

“vandalism, street-art or guerilla marketing?”

while the recognizable cingular billboard* is volitional like it is, the “cut-outs” in berlin are called visual kidnapping as part of street-art – or was it volitional by these companies as well while fighting for consumer attention?

(via advergirl and werbeblogger)

*cingular’s campaigns in the us are based on lines like “no more dropped calls” and “raising the bar” (cell phone reception) which is pretty funny for europeans, because dropped calls just doesn’t exist and these lines wouldn’t work in europe.

hint: i don’t find the time to write about it more detailed right now, but pls don’t miss the “alternate reality game” which is going on in “klein-bloggersdorf” right now (check technorati). find more information at these blogs: probable source philipp retingshof, bernd, patrick, martin and spreeblick.

[tags: visual kidnapping, alternate reality game, arg, philipp retingshof]

roddick vs pong

frederik — Thu, 10 Aug 2006 16:32:00 +0000

nice american express ad by ogilvy starring andy roddick.

(via advergirl and frederik)

[tags: american express, ogilvy, andy roddick, pong, ad, commercial]

web2dna graphic representation

frederik — Tue, 08 Aug 2006 18:18:00 +0000

similar to the websites as graphs web2dna will take your website, analyze it, crunch it to little bits and spit it out as a graphic representation of a human dna.

“basically a semantically rich site will appear brighter than one with messy old-style code. you can also determine the richness of text on a site. a site the focuses on (text) content is one where the dna patterns is large (filling many containers), but contains a lot of empty spaces between the lines (empty space is the individual words).

nice, but i would be way more interested in a kind of graphical social network analysis tool based on links from and to your blog. pls drop me a comment if you know something like this, thx.

(via spreeblick and problematik.net)

[tags: web2dna, websitesasgraphs, graph, visualization, representation, sna]

smirnoff tea partay

frederik — Sun, 06 Aug 2006 22:41:00 +0000

smirnoff is seeding its recent viral clip via youtube – a skit on rap videos starring some dorky white trash with cash, directed by little x (aka julien christian lutz), promoting the new smirnoff raw tea line.

“this will be a nice test of youtube to see how effective it can be in generating awareness into sales. if smirnoff is happy to piss away money through a video that isnt really branding or establishing a clear sale, then it could fail eventually only being known as the tea party video. i myself don’t think there is enough brand mention or graphic treatment in establishing a new brand to create a lasting impression on the general consumer. also it’s not clear that its an ad, barring only a website mention. that spells obscurity to me.” via lifefilter

ross is right that this is a nice test for smirnoff to check the effectiveness of a single youtube seeding spot and i think that the product mention and professionalism of the clip fits the irony what it makes a viral spot. like i wrote here, i still think:

“viral marketing campaigns or microsites often don’t boost the distribution of a product or service in a couple of days but rather support the brand in a more long-term perspective because of gaining attention – the most valuable commodity in advertising.

it shows smirnoff’s kind of humour and that they are open for new ways in marketing – not a bad effort in my point of view, even if the viral microsite follow-up www.tea-partay.com is still missing.

(via advertising/design goodness and werbeblogger)

[tags: smirnoff, tea partay, raw tea, viral marketing, word-of-mouth]

the one number you need to grow

frederik — Wed, 02 Aug 2006 21:55:00 +0000

i read this article a couple of years ago and just stumbled over it again while searching for something else with my indispensable google desktop search. so it’s not brandnew but still newsworthy and i wanted to share it with you.

frederick reichheld wrote this article about customer loyalty called “the one number you need to grow” in the year 2003. after years of research for his book “the loyalty effect” he discovered that one question as the strongest indicator of revenue growth.

“how likely is it that you would recommend our company to a friend or colleague?”

when customers were asked to rate this question on a scale of zero to 10, reichheld discovered that those offering a nine or 10 ranking, known as “promoters,” showed the strongest correlation of repurchase and referral rates, while those with a ranking of six or below

free online version of business 2.0

frederik — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 20:08:56 +0000

business 2.0 is offering a complete online version of its monthly magazine at digital.business2.com with a special online media reader provided by olive software.

some of the articles were provided as online version and pdf download before but now you can run over the pages of the whole magazine online easily.

(via basic thinking and werbeblogger)

[tags: business, business 2.0, magazine, startups, online media]

general motors tried open source marketing

frederik — Tue, 01 Aug 2006 03:50:00 +0000

a couple of weeks ago don told me about general motors’ steps towards open source marketing and now i stumbled over this detailed post by klaus eck.

in march 2006 general motors launched a website (now offline) inviting their customers to send in their own 30-second commercials promoting the new chevrolet tahoe suv in the hope these clips are going to spread virally through the internet.

the impact wasn’t bad – 4 million page hits, 400,000 users (according to general motors) – but unfortunately a high percentage of the commercials sent in were critically dealing with the less fuel efficiency of these suv’s and the topic of global warming (see example).

these “negative” commercials were spreading much faster than any of the “positive” ones because they were not like they were supposed to be – the campaign idea fired back with a 40% decrease of sales of the chevy tahoe (not an approved correlation).

general motors deleted these “negative” ads from their microsite and shut down the website in the end.

open source and viral marketing provide so many opportunities if done in the right way, but it is all about honest conversation during a loss of controllability – like a pinball game:

“you have limited controllability after a viral marketing campaign has been launched, but you always have the chance to give the campaign the right impulses to navigate it in the wanted direction.”

general motors was on the right way by talking to it’s customers but instead of shutting down the website and deleting all “negative” content, they should have used this platform staying in contact with its customers at eye level, talking about propable and known concerns.

we will see who will do it right in the near future, like mozilla firefox has demonstrated it impressively with www.spreadfirefox.com …

(via pr blogger)

[tags: general motors, chevrolet, suv, global warming, open source marketing]

viral marketing at nano

frederik — Fri, 14 Jul 2006 09:30:55 +0000

german viral marketing tv feature at nano (3sat) starring vm-people berlin.

good summarizing report but awkward conclusion by the nano presenter.

have a look by yourself …

(via vm-people blog)

[tags: viral marketing, vm-people, thomas zorbach, 3sat, nano, word of mouth]

spread the word

frederik — Fri, 07 Jul 2006 01:14:04 +0000

how fast the word can spread nowadays …

nice commercials by solo mobile (first / second) directed by brian lee hughes.

(via glossy > werbeblogger > robert basic)

[tags: solo mobile, spread the word, cell phone, walkie talkie, brian lee hughes]

setup blackberry on a nokia 9300i smartphone

frederik — Sun, 02 Jul 2006 07:40:12 +0000

because i had some trouble to get my blackberry set up on my nokia 9300i smartphone and didn’t found any comprehensive installation guide on the net, i will write it down here for any other blackberry newbie who tries to get this push email service on the run. and to state this clear, i’m not talking about the enterprise solution with any company server whatever integration, i mean a simple setup to receive your emails via blackberry with your new nokia 9300i. the bottom line is … it’s pretty easy.

1. get your nokia 9300i started (loading, sim-card active, network …)

2. install the

[tags: social networks, social network analysis, sna, social software]

chances and ventures of social networks

frederik — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 18:29:00 +0000

social networking platforms take their place in the development of the enhancing web nowadays.

“a social network is a social structure made of nodes which are generally individuals or organizations.”

everybody has a network of relatives, friends, colleagues and more loose contacts – small or big, densely knit or ramified. social networking platforms provide the opportunity mapping a part of your social network virtually.

well known examples are openbc, linkedin, orkut , facebook or myspace.

all these social networking platforms have their pro’s and con’s and map personal connections in different ways. they provide the chance to stay in contact with existing connections and afford an opportunity to establish valuable new ones. they can show how people in your extended network are related to each other but with a lack of information – the quality of the connection.

tristan louis recently posted some continuative thoughts how social networks can fail or succeed.

an very interesting topic and i’m still anxious to see what is going to follow …

(via a friend’s email and guy kawasaki)

update: some interesting papers on social networking by danah boyd.

[tags: social networks, social network analysis, sna, social software]

free landline and mobile calls with jajah

frederik — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 05:21:30 +0000

first – what is jajah? jajah is a simple website where you type in your own phone number (landline or mobile) and the number you want to call (landline or mobile) – your phone will ring, pick it up and you will be connected to the desired destination for free. your computer is not needed anymore after you have initiated the call and you are using your own regular phone.

second – what is free? jajah now provides free telehone calls between landline and mobile phones. the jajah free global calling plan applies to landline and mobile calls to and within the united states, canada, china, hong kong, singapore and taiwan and the plan also applies to landline calls to and within australia, the united kingdom, germany, france, italy, spain and nearly all other european countries. it applies when both call participants are registered jajah users.

“jajah’s free global calling plan is the further realization of jajah