Innovation « Psychobserver

Archive for the ‘Innovation’ Category

7th
Dec
2007

Changing the advertising experience?

BusinessWeek published an article entitled “In Japan, bloggers get to pick their ads” on December 5th 2007 about a new ad network aimed at bloggers called AdButterfly (website in Japanese). Advertising arguably creates one of the worse experience not only for online users, but for people in general. However it is done, advertising is most of the time perceived as intrusive.

I guess we could categorize the reactions to that fact into two. The reaction that seems the most common around the World and especially here in China is to consider that a negative experience with advertising is a given and cannot be changed. If that cannot be impacted on, the important objective for advertisers is to be seen and hope that will create brand awareness (or unintended clicks that would result is a purchase maybe?). If the user is in some ways “forced” to see the ad, the advertiser (or should we blame this on media placement companies?) is happy. The growing focus on ad clicks only solves part of the problem. Indeed only some advertising campaigns can be measured in terms of clicks, while others are just supposed to raise awareness, or create brand associations. And because of the focus on clicks, the websites where the ad is displayed have an incentive to have flying ads all around, hoping users may click by mistake.

We can definitely put the new venture in Japan mentioned above in the second category. On AdButterfly, although I am not sure about the details, bloggers will be choosing which ad campaigns and brands to associate with. With bloggers endorsing the ad, it is thought that the experience created by the ad will be much more positive. It is very probably true. If I read a blog and I know the ads there have been selected by that person, I would certainly (even though maybe unconsciously) pay more attention to them.

What about the advertisers’ side of the story? Potentially companies with great brand equity can greatly benefit from such a platform. But companies with lower brand equity may be totally blocked from getting access to the network by users. A pretty scary thought for the advertiser who is so conscious about keeping the brand image under control. Scary yes, but maybe a good thing. If people’s experiences with ads can become more positive, everybody is bound to benefit from that. In any case, AdButterfly is a great experiment! I wish I could read Japanese and try the service…

9th
Oct
2007

Yahoo Pipes: Am I a geek if I like it?

I have just discovered Yahoo Pipes… and I quite like it!

I am in the “very beginner” stage regarding this type of applications and to be frank I feel a bit geeky getting into it. But it seems to be that this kind of mashup applications could be changing a lot of things on the Web and letting users customize even further their web experience.

Yahoo Pipes

For now, I kept it simple creating two “Pipes”:

A pipe that selects only Intermediate and Upper Intermediate lessons from my Mandarin Chinese online school instead of all lessons
A pipe that looks for keywords like Usability, Experience and Interaction in some blogs and feeds that I read regularly

But most more can be done with these things. Ideas can be found on the Yahoo Pipes website. For more information about Yahoo Pipes and other similar application, you can read the following article from NY Times about Mashup applications.

On Digg, one can find an older post about “What is Yahoo Pipes?“. Here are some of the answers before the service was available to all:

“perhaps its something music related. maybe one of those searches based on humming a few bars”

“Can’t Think Of What It Could Possibly Be”

Despite being not too clear at first maybe, I like the name of that service. It feels like we are now able to rewire… sorry, repipe the whole Internet according to what we want.

4th
Oct
2007

Interactive Billboards equipped with Bluetooth: Good or Bad?

Yesterday in the French newspaper Le Monde (sorry, article in French) there was an article about interactive billboards supposed to be installed in the Paris Metropolitan stations. These billboards will be equipped with Bluetooth and will be able to send information through SMS or other means to people passing by.

Interactive billboards of such kinds are not new, but it seems to me that something is different about this initiative. Browsing the web we can find quite a number of interesting brand-driven campaigns that use interactive billboards. Below are just three examples, that I think are pretty innovative and can be efficient:

The post “BBC North American Billboards Engage their Viewers” posted on Pronet Advertising describes how live polls can be handled through billboards.
On Engadget we can read about Ecko billboards, on which by-standers can draw graffitis using their mobile phones as a spray can.
A funny post on the future of interactive advertising on Curtis Morley’s blog. The post mentions an interesting opt-in campaign from Mini Cooper with references from the movie Minority Report.

What is different here is that the initiative is not brand-driven, it is media placement company-driven. This could mean that instead of being surprised by a funny and innovative interactive billboard somewhere in town, people could be overloaded with interactive stuff and potentially unwanted SMS all over town if that type of billboards spread.

I am also puzzled by the choice of location to kick-start the project. People in the Metro don’t strike me as having time to interact with some ads. They strike me as been tense (especially during rush hours) and potentially running late. It seems to me that an initiative like this would make much more sense in the waiting area of an airport where waiting cannot be avoided.

As quoted from the Le Monde article, right now, Métrobus (website in French), the company behind the project and which is owned by Publicis and JCDecaux is waiting for approval from the CNIL (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés/National Commission on Computing and Freedom) before the project can be launched. Other companies like CBS Outdoor or Clear Channel are waiting for the approval as well to potentially launch their own projects.

I personally would prefer the approval not to be given as it would change what is a very effective niche advertising channel into mainstream advertising that would just overwhelm people and could lead to serious privacy issues.

3rd
Oct
2007

Buy on Hong Kong Now Broadband TV: Short Review

I discovered yesterday that I could buy stuff on my broadband TV access. I had no idea and I am not sure when it was launched. Here is what PCCW – Now Broadband TV says about the new channel (that channel 501 for those using the service):

A new shopping concept has hit town!

A PCCW service: now shop (channel 501) offers you local and Hollywood hottest DVDs, top-selling books, console games, electronics , lifestyle products and other services including movie ticketing and the No.1 Shopping Gallery. The new Stock Market Express, the new pay service providing Real-time stock quotes , FX spot rates and Gold prices for you to grasp every investment opportunity.

I have been taking a few pictures of the interface (accessible on Flickr)and I prepared a small presentation where I put my thoughts about the service. I also reviewed some elements of the interface from a usability perspective.

I prepared all this pretty quickly and did not do research about similar services in other countries. It is quite rough, but I hope it can be interesting to some and a basis for discussion on the topic of buying through interactive TV.

[slideshare id=124500&doc=hong-kong-now-tv-shop4606&w=425]

Let me know your thoughts…

12th
Sep
2007

Cyberslacking… problem or not?!

An article in the South China Morning Post last Saturday, September 8th 2007, discussed cyberslacking, or how people waste time in the office by going online. Although the word cyberslacking has in itself a negative connotation, the article argues that not all kind of cyberslacking is armful to companies. For example, if people can perform online transactions or activities that would normally require them to extend their lunch hours to complete, then it could be good… yes, but at the same time, if they can do it online, they could do it from home as well, no?

Anyway, the author provides quite a number of examples of how employees can spend time online to explore new horizons or just “waste” their time. A 10-point list is provided:

Do some networking (e.g. Facebook)
Rant about work (e.g. Annoying Coworker, Customers Suck)
Go online shopping (e.g. eBay)
Judge beauty contests (e.g. Hot or Not, Rate My Puppy)
Catch up on celebrity gossip (e.g. the Superficial)
Write a personal blog (Blogger, Livejournal… and let me add Wordpress)
Read about the lives of others (e.g. a waiter, a coffee barista)
Play computer games (e.g. Yahoo! Games, MSN Games… and let me add my favorite Miniclip)
Run your own sports team (e.g. Fantasy Sports)
Slack off in secret (e.g. Don’s Boss Page)

Slacking is nothing new I guess. Before the Internet, people would be wasting their time in the office as well. In France we had the “ten coffee breaks a day” rule (I may exaggerate a bit here). It is impossible to ask an employee to be 100% of the time working in the office. Nobody can do that, and it is even harmful. Our brains just can’t handle non-stop working. I’d say that working 80% of the time is not bad already…

It seems to be that the most important part in the word cyberslacking, is “cyber”. Not that cyberslacking is hard to resist, as the whole world is opened up to you, like the SCMP article mentioned above argues, but “cyber”, as having no contact with real people! Slacking or coffee breaks before were opportunities to chat informally with other employees, thus getting to know co-workers, building a team spirit. However cyberslacking is one person with his or her computer screen well hidden from others.

In that respect, it seems to me that intranets or corporate social networking could be a solution to that. The corporate culture has to be right of course, but if the Internet can be used to make employees interact more among themselves, then cyberslacking could be a powerful tool. Could we call that “social cyberslacking”? But then there is the danger of falling into the Facebook trap, where it is so easy to waste entire hours with no purpose even though you come into contact with other people.

Once again the answer to better efficiency is like in all the business books we can read. You just have to hire great people, have a great corporate culture, assign challenging jobs, and do all that happily… That’s easy, no?

24th
Aug
2007

Helping Africa

Once again, I have been spending some time on TED.com watching couple of videos. Videos from TEDGlobal 2007 about “Africa: The next chapter” have been posted and I would like here to highlight two of them here, although I guess all of them are great. These two videos show the change that is happening in the world of charity today. A realization that conventional charity models have not been working and that change is needed.

These two videos focus on the same idea. The idea that the African continent instead of being carried towards the future should be prepared to face it by itself, with dignity. That’s why both speakers focus on educating, training and coaching people in Africa to help shape their own lives, shape their own businesses, and eventually help shape their own societies. Of course, the talks are much more powerful that anything I could write, so here they are:

Jacqueline Novogratz: Tackling poverty with “patient capital”

Patrick Awuah: Educating a new generation of African leaders

I encourage anybody interested to watch the rest of TED videos from this conference. On my side, I will right now go donate online to the Acumen Fund, the fund lead by Jacqueline Novogratz.

22nd
Aug
2007

Few Links: Social Networking

Social networking is the next big thing… or is it?

Below are few links that discuss the present and future of social networking on the Web. Is the future an umbrella network that allows you to connect to multiple sites? Is the future corporate networks? Is there no future at all? Or are we just reinventing “new” tools with the same ingredients? The links below won’t give you any answers… but still interesting to read:

Do You Want One Social Networking Profile to Rule Them All? – Web Worker Daily (August 20th 2007)
Corporate Social Networking Startups Attract VC Funding – Information Week (August 21st 2007)
The Internet’s new Dr. Spock? – CNET (August 17th 2007)
Facebook surfers cost their bosses billions - Reuters (August 20th 2007)

The answer may very well be that social networking is in its infancy and that we have no idea were it is going to go. In the end… it will all depends on who can generate real bucks. In the meantime, I will go back playing games on Facebook, or am I supposed to do networking there?!

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