Frontiering Talk

Having been a big Secondlife fan for nearly a year know, I have always been convinced that Secondlife can be a place for brands to interact with people in a more engaging way than is possible through a normal browser.

Here are 2 very good lists of Brands in Secondlife. The first which is more visual from Kzero, and the second from Wikipedia.

Perspective: Some of these entries offer an engaging and brand relevant experience, others are a mere presence, but at least they are learning.

Earlier this year, Doritos let consumers make commercials for the brand and then aired two, unedited, during Super Bowl XL in February. Here’s the winning Ad if you are interested.

Now they have followed this up with a flavour vote . .allowing consumers to decide which of 2 new flavours (Doritos Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ or Doritos Wild White Nacho) will survive as an ongoing flavour.

The contest will go until May 25 at SnackStrongProductions.com.

Perspective: The site is very flash, although quite slow to load. Not so good if you don’t live in America .. as you are forced to enter a US state when registering. Apart from that, the Superbowl Consumer Generated Ads are there on display as well as a few nice games that allow some interaction with the brand. I’d still like to see a “Consumer Generated Flavour” promotion .. or perhaps a name the new flavour contest rather than a simple 2 flavour vote. However .. it’s great to see a brand opening up some of it’s fate to consumers !

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You can see the Widget on my blog just below the Subscribe option.

Most major cities seem to offer tours in large often open topped double decker buses, in London you can even go on amphibion ducktours which can go in the river as well as on the road.

But Gocars SF have taken a different approach and offer funky 3 wheel moped cars with an automated GPS, complete with a voice tour. They have expanded to San Diego and also Miami . .and you can buy your own franchise for around USD 50K-100K.

Perspective: This is “Frontiering” use of technology to promise a new and different way to see a city, and because the experience is so different, consumers are in a sense advertising the service as they use it! In addition, it’s one experience that would be hard not to talk about, so Gocars SF will benefit from “Word of Mouth Marketing”.

via Springwise

Tags: WOM

AdMob has just announced $15 million in venture capital funding to help continue their expansion. They have served over 1 billion ads since they started 6 months ago.

The NY Times reports that Yahoo is also trying to gain a foothold in Mobile Search.

Perspective: As content and bandwidth for mobiles improve, finding ways to “monetise” mobile content is heating up. Ad dollars will flow to this medium at the expense of TV.

There has been a few tools that have emerged with the desire to help consumers create their own Video Blogs.

We reported last week about Justin.tv, where a group of guys are filming their life and inviting consumers to join in and both watch and chat with them. Now there is a service called Ustream.tv that allows you to create video blogs and share them very easily.

Here’s a sample I recorded in about 2 mins.

Perspective: I think this will not only catch on to the large social media sites such as Myspace and Facebook, but I believe this could be a useful tool to manage consumer feedback about a product or service. This has been done countless times using the Youtube vechile as a sharing tool, but I have a feeling Ustream will make it that much easier for us all to rant about something or provide a positive testimonials. One wonders if the brands are listening?

Here’s a pretty cool new product that allows you to create maps based on the Google Map’s API in about 2 mins.

For many of us, knowing what colours go with what can be a daunting task. But thanks to ColorBlender, even the most colour illiterate of us can make some sense of knowing which colours fit together.

Another site doing something simliar is Color Schemer.

Adobe have even established a social network around colour blends called Kuler.

And for those of you looking for examples of new styles for websites .. this post is a great visual read.

Tags: Social Network

Having purchased a suit that was tailor made for me several years ago in Hong Kong, I have often wondered about how you could take the personalisation model online.

Zafu .. sells designer jeans, and after answering a few basic questions .. they will recommend the right ones for your shape, with a description of why.

How this jean fits YOU
Waist Very good Fit. Sits just below the waist, the waistband has the flexibility to hold you without tightness or gaping.
Hip &
thigh Great fit. Regular fit through hip and a slim fit through thigh in a high stretch denim that keeps it sleek but not tight. Leg shape feels great with ease through the knee.
Seat Very good fit. There’s plenty of coverage, and the jean hugs your butt to highlight your curves giving you an instant lift.

Myshape with a focus on woman who spend more than $1000 / year on clothes uses a special tool called Shapematch to determine your shape .. and therefore filter the store accordingly. It seems there are 7 different body shapes .. one wonders if there are a similar number of male shapes out there?

We blogged a few years ago about d Blowfly.. the Australian company that allows customised beer and now wine and water labels.

Perspective: I think this trend is only just begining. Think of customised food based on dietary requirements, customised perfood specially made for my dog, customised car styling, latptops etc etc.

via Springwise

Retail chain Kohl has launched a video ad campaign on Microsoft’s video network that uses some frontiering technology allowing the viewer to click at certain points in the video and see the clothes from the video appear beside the video.

You then have an option to “click to buy” which takes you to the Kohl site.

Perspective: Selling from movies or long format ads is not a new idea, but the technology to deliver the click through is finally here. Watch for it to be included with movies soon, and potentially the whole movie economics could change .. and instead of paying to watch a movie, the movie could be funded by selling items that are shown in the movie. Click here for your own Aston Martin perhaps?

Guy Kawaski tells of The Worlds Best Presentation contest.

What interested me though was the Slideshare site itself. It’s basically a presentation sharing site. Slideshare has all the usual social media features such as tagging, view most viewed, share this presentation, embed the slideshow in a blog etc.

It contains some very unique presentations such as Strange Toilets, King’s Palace in Dubai, Sidewalk drawings.
But there are also more serious presentations on technology and future green energy sources.
Many conferences are now using Slideshare to share their conference presentations.

Perspective: Slideshare seems like a great place for learning and sharing, and the “presentation contest” that involves the community as well as some of the worlds most respected presenters is a nice touch.

In a world of Consumer Generated Content .. people are taking ever increasing steps to allow the world to see how they live. Big brother is a prime example.

But on the internet there have been some pretty crazy ideas of where people allowed the world to view them constantly. For example the Dotcomguy .. who confined himself to his house for 12 months .. while only using the internet to communicate with the “outside real world”.

Well now there is a new attempt at creating Internet Stardom by Justin Kan. Here’s how he describes it

I am broadcasting live video of my life 24/7 to the internet. I started Justin.tv because I thought it would awesome for people to see what it was like to be Justin.

I convinced three of my friends (Emmett, Michael, and Kyle) to join me out in San Francisco. Now, we’re starting a company to make broadcasting live video on the web easy.

Thanks for watching Justin.tv. Let me know what you like and don’t like about the show; I hope to hear from you soon!

The site is called Justin.tv and equiped with a live video feed, a diary of his movements .. it should create some buzz of a new type of internet diary.
One wonders where sponsors will feature in this broadcast .. but the site seems to work well and it will be interesting to see how it develops, and if Justin can keep the content current enough to encourage return visitation.