Foursquare Infographic 2011

Foursquare have posted this interesting infographic showing some very interesting topline figures from last year, most impressive perhaps is their staggering 3400% growth. It does make me wonder however how the geo-location service will try to maintain this in 2011, especially with the increasing popularity of Facebook Places and the new announcement of Facebook Stories of the back of this.



Pic - Foursquare Infographic 2011

Intel 'The Chase' Viral

Here is a quick Friday viral from Intel to build excitement around the 2nd Generation Intel® Core™ i5 processor showing the speed and potential of the product via an epic chase through the internet, including Flickr, YouTube, Facebook, and Google Maps.


Movie - Intel 'The Chase Film'


Enjoy!

Digital Advertising Predictions for 2011

Yesterday Chris Maples, Commercial Director at Microsoft Advertising posted his ‘Digital Dozen’ predictions for digital advertising in 2011 which have been listed below. This is a very interesting selection, all of which were clearly visible by the end of 2010 proving that in terms of advances in the consumer relationship between technology, social, and advertising comms looks to be a very interesting year.

1. Technology and creativity in advertising will evolve, hand in hand

2. Location-aware technology

3. Mobile will (finally) come into its own

4. Social media IS the internet

5. The individual as personal brand

6. The evolution of branded content

7. Privacy is all about the value exchange: What can advertisers offer consumers in exchange for their information?

8. Digital evolution vs revolution: Microtrends become nanotrends

9. Social and Search: A new breed of digital marketer is born

10. Social shopping and crowd sourcing will come out of infancy

11. Gaming will move onto the next level

12. The ‘death of the agency’ will be proven a myth, and advertising agencies will be more relevant than ever


Pic - XBOX Kinect proves to be the biggest shift in gaming in 2011

I think this is a very realistic list of predictions and from my point of view definitely hope that these are the significant growth areas of this year. In particular I am interested in how all of the above elements will come together, and how the convergence of these technologies will not only sit with the consumer but influence their purchasing and online browsing behaviours.

Ultimately from an agency point of view I will be very interested to see how the advertising elements of these media will evolve opening up opportunities which will hopefully lead to a richer and much more relevant experience. It is definitely worth having a read of Chris Maples post which goes into each of these in much more depth.

MINI Vending Machine - Mobile Shortcode Building Projection

Now this may not be particularly new or ground breaking, but is still an extremely cool execution from Canada. The passerby texts their chosen car from the projection shown which is then deposited in the tray beneath, with each MINI displaying its own unique exhibition (Shown in the video below).


Video - MINI Vending Machine

Facebook more popular than Google on Christmas Day

That's right for the first time Facebook received more UK Internet visits that Google UK on Christmas Day 2010. As the illustrated in the chart below compiled by Hitwise, on Christmas Day (December 25th) facebook.com accounted for 10.50% of all UK Internet visits, while the figure for google.co.uk was 9.77%. This was the first time that Facebook has ever been the most popular UK website. Facebook has been known previously for it's unusually high traffic volumes on Christmas Day, however I'm sure this was still a very nice Christmas present for them.



Pic - Facebook Vs Google Traffic Volumes December 2010


Via