Monthly Archives: March 2011

Mar 29 2011
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Content, Google, social media, social networking

Google Moderator

What

Google Moderator is a service launched in 2008 that uses crowdsourcing to rank comments and questions from users to allow high volume management. Anyone can participate, that’s the main rule of thumb.

Why

Knowing and understanding what your audience are thinking and what they want is critical. By opening up the communication with your site visitors you’ll get to know and understand your audience, plus everyone gets their say, so, you get a rounded opinion.

How

Create a Google account, enter your question or topic, decide whether you want to allow both text and video responses, and decide how long your poll will run for.

And if you want to get clever you can play around with embedding it on a Google sites page, an iFrame or use the API…

You can read more about that here if you like

Who

Barack Obama used it quite early on in a public series called ‘Open for Questions’ which attracted 1m votes during the election in 48 hours.

But the guys attracting a lot of attention at the moment are Victors and Spoils. Founded in 2010 on the premise of crowdsourcing the agency enlists a database of 5,200 freelancers from around the globe. Their most recent project (and the reason I decided to write this blog post) is Virgin America Toronto Provocateur, which was designed and written using Google Moderator to launch the new service to Toronto. You can read more here (you’ll need to scroll down).

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Mar 22 2011
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Charity, Fun Stuff, Interesting stuff

The Snaggletooth Splat; a book for brainstrust

This is the most exciting thing I’ve worked on in the last year, not only is it for a great cause but I got to work with some exceptionally talented people and friends. Winner all round.

It’s also my first published piece (eek) so I’m doubly proud to be working with brainstrust on it. brainstrust is a UK-based brain cancer charity, dedicated to improving clinical care for brain tumour sufferers and providing coordinated support in their search for treatment.

I remember the afternoon the idea first came to light, Will (Communications and Development person at brainstrust) and I were having a pint at our local and he was talking about the brainbox that they were launching, a tool-box shaped ‘brain box’ containing a number of essential things to help brain tumour patients and their carers such as: A brain book, A ‘Have You Lost Your Way?’ booklet, A copy of the ‘Living with a Brain Tumour’ book and A pill-box… all amazing stuff but we felt that was something more we could do for children.

It was at this point we thought it a great idea to write this book which would be designed to explain to children who have just been diagnosed with brain cancer, what a brain tumour is and how the doctors and their carers will fight it and provide brain tumour support.

And so the Snaggletooth Splat was born.

I got to collaborate with Jase, an amazing illustrator (check out his blog here), to whom I am so grateful for bringing the words to life, and also with Andy Lodge who helped get the final product through print and thanks also to Chris Leah for the shots (below). You can read more about it and learn more about brainstrust here.

It’s been a real pleasure and I look forward to working with these guys more.

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Mar 03 2011
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Mobile, Search, social commerce, social media, social networking, video

Passion verses Fame: The Vimeo v YouTube debate

It’s often perceived that Vimeo is for people with a passion and YouTube is for people who want fame and popularity (cough, cough Mr Bieber), but lately the conversation has come up time and again both from a business point a view, a personal preference and just use as a technical platform.

Vimeo for me personally has always been slicker, cleaner and more professional, but then I work in digital marketing so I also see the benefits to clients of the traffic YouTube receives.

Going back a little to the earlier days, I remember YouTube storming the ranks but never really succeeding in impressing. 2008 saw YouTube really start to make improvements to its offering but it seemed they were always that one step behind on quality. For example; when they launched the 1GB upload they had a few thumbs up but hard-core users were still after more in the way of HD support and optional download links, again resolutions that Vimeo already offered. When they randomised the thumbnail options (eventually not leaving us stuck with the 25/50/75 rule) Vimeo were already offering at least 15 thumbnail options and if you weren’t happy with those you could choose and upload your own.

But then in YouTube’s defence they did improve and they offered more for free than other platforms. You could have a Vimeo plus membership and not really get more than you would with a free YouTube account.

Now, when you research YouTube you learn that 35 hours of video are uploaded every minute, YouTube is localised in 25 countries across 43 languages with a broad demographic of 18-54 year olds and in 2010 YouTube reached over 700 billion playbacks. YouTube partners with Disney, Turner, Univision, Channel 4 and Channel 5, it monetises over 2 billion video views per week globally and the number of advertisers using display ads on YouTube increased 10 fold in the last year.

If we consider a more social angle with YouTube we’d mention things like: over 4 million people are connected and auto-sharing to at least one social network, YouTube mobile gets over 100 million views a day and across the channel more than 50% of videos on YouTube have been rated or include comments from the community. Sounds a bit like a corporate giant doesn’t it? Well I guess that’s because it is.

Vimeo on the other hand haven’t ever really lost their personal touch, which I like; by fans, for the fans. They introduce their team and their background and have nice rules to adhere to so you don’t upset people whilst you’re on there like; be nice, keep on topic, don’t Spam and respect the Staff… by doing this they become approachable yet still remain professional. It works for me.

So in summary I guess I’d personally continue to use Vimeo, it’s still cooler (sorry YouTube), but if a client wanted heaps of traffic, something that could be on brand and be managed by an office intern, I’d go with YouTube.

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