ZenithOptimedia

Google+ Search Your World is now live and means a significant change to Google search results.

Search Engine Land has a good review of those implications:
http://searchengineland.com/googles-results-get-more-personal-with-search-plus-your-world-107285

This move is a clear strategy to encourage advertisers and other publishers to get on board with Google+. Given the non participation of Twitter and Facebook, Google can be seen to be moving into the "closed" eco system typical of Apple but against their historical open philosophy.

Product integration appears to make business sense though: using the dominant position of Google in search to support their social network product that is struggling to take off could be a winning strategy. However this move could actually back lash and prove counter productive if it was to disappoint users expecting to find "neutral" results when running Google searches.

Recent work from Facebook & Twitter engineers tends to demonstrate that Google is actually skewing search results with Search Your World to improve the ranking of Google+ data:

This could threaten Google's core business, which is the trust of its users relying on its unbiased algorithm to access all their information online. It would give ground for alternative search engine solutions to gain in appeal.

From a more philosophical point of view, being more social in search results presents some benefits in terms of being more relevant to users but isn't there a risk to narrow people's view: it is comforting to get results more relevant to oneself but isn't it the point of search to broaden your perspectives above all? We already know about the natural laziness of not going beyond the first page for results but is this new development even more a risk for searchers to just focus on what relates to their "own world" as social results are shown first?

The Entrance and The Date are beautiful rich cinematic sequences with great soundtracks and alone they are great.  So last night I went on to YouTube and was happy to find the 90s version of the commercials.  Incidentally discovering that the story continues - within each of the main commercials we are introduced to a number of characters and each has a back / side story.  

Going onto facebook today I was pleased to see that these narratives are there to be found and explored.

This is a great example of transmedia - however the TVC content seems not to allude to the additional content.

The Entrance

And facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/heineken?sk=app_140779849328482

The Date

Has a making of clip on the facebook page
http://www.facebook.com/heineken?sk=app_137291299679912

This is - Great advertising!

I think managing client expectations surrounding "Viral" is important, this article points to the fact the agency designed the content for the audience not that content was designed around the brand and then shared with the audience - subtle differentiation, but a great one nonetheless.  Picking up on cultural cues that are relevant to the spaces and places where content is being shared is a short cut to finding some traction - and what is relevant now might not be tomorrow. What does that mean for brands? Well that they need to be flexible, patient and always attentive to online culture.

This video did not go viral
http://whatconsumesme.com/2012/posts-ive-written/this-video-did-not-go-viral/

Seemed like a sound strategy to get audiences to sample Ten's new programming before the other networks had their regular line ups in place. At least until Friday night when Tomic got through to the quarter finals of the tennis and booked a Federer show down right in the middle of Ten's Super Sunday.

No doubt the Tennis put a dent in Ten's numbers for the night. But the ratings reveal that as the night wore on there was a gradual switch from the Tennis to Ten's new line up. Ten even took the lead for a brief half hour during the first episode of Homeland,

So what were the final numbers for the night?

Based on primary channel overnight figures Seven won the night with a 48% share. Seven's share peaked between 1930-2030 at a huge 52%. Ten's share was a respectable 31% for the night given the competition and built to a high of 39% once the Federer / Tomic game was over. Nine was not really competitive with a share of 20% which got to as low as 16% between 1930-2130.

Programme by programme Seven's Tennis was the number one programme for the night with 1.6M, followed by the News with 1.47M. New Girl was the third most watched programme of the night with 1.28M. Homeland was fourth with 1.22M and Modern Family achieved 1.13M. Ten would be disappointed with the 1.05M it got for YTT but in the face of the competition on Seven the result is not a complete disaster. In Ten's favour the audience that did tune in stuck with it for the whole episode. And chat on twittter indicated that a lot of people are into the revitalised format. The real test will be next week to see if Ten can keep the audience week on week and hopefully build it as the competition part of the show gets under way.

So was Ten's Super Sunday gamble worthwhile? Overall the numbers were not spectacular but they were respectable under the circumstances. Audiences tended to stick with each of the new programmes and didn't switch off or over to other channels indicating they at least were enjoying what they were watching. I think YTT will build audience as the competition gets under way and people get to know the new young talent team.

What do you think? Did the gamble pay off for Ten?

Audience figures sourced from eTam based on overnight data in the 5 Cap Cities

You know you are really onto a potential awesome trend when the first few things you read on the commute to the office all talk on the same theme.

So I have been moderately obsessed with the idea of sensors now for a few weeks, you know you can buy little DIY kits at www.greengoose.com? These will essentially allow you to 'gamify' or track daily tasks and activities and certainly de-complicate complex electronics and human behavioural alteration and make it all feel like fun.

Then I flicked my attention over to Adverblog and saw these ads for this new NIKE device; the fuel band.  Sensor + App + tracking your activity --- errrr "quantifying" your awesomeness maybe.

But what I realised today though that I was missing the broader context for this - sure it makes sense that we are inspired and motivated by competition scoring points and so, on...but there is a bigger movement at play, and this Venture beat article sums it up perfectly; there is desire for users to quantify everything in our lives, a parallel land grab is also going on for that data - so what about this seemingly innocent capturing of your information? where does all this data go? who owns it? and how will it potentially be used?... http://venturebeat.com/2012/01/21/quantifying-our-lives-will-be-a-top-trend-of-2012/

Sensors people, and tracking, cool and scary in the same breath.

A great article and super interesting from CNN - worth a read..

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/01/16/tech/social-media/must-tweet-tv-cashmore/in...

It would seem that this virtual "water cooler" we have been banging on about for a while now is really well and truly working its magic. 

In Australia we only have to listen to the commentary of the ever cool Mr Jim Courier on 7's coverage of the Aus Open to hear the constant references to Fango and twitter, and its clear at least from twitters perspective there is a lot of chatter out there on the tennis.  That said its still the Tennis we are there to watch and the drama on twitter is never likely to that of a live sporting event.

What's different between Live Sport and a Telecast of the Golden Globes is, well the comedy.  Its pretty obvious that the producers enlisted the likes of Gervais because he will attract comment and PR for the show, but did they really plan for to make their TV show more appealing via the snarky (celeb bashing) back stream? Which in advertently brought them better ratings. In the case of the Golden Globes it's clear that the back channel has actually improved the popularity of the program and attracted a greater viewer-ship and ultimately more rad revenue.

Yahoo and Seven are trying to commercialise this opportunity via their Fango App, sure its got some ads in it, but the numbers are pretty low right now and the content needs major improvements to make it better than the alternatives, but its a good strategy and opportunity.

 I'm loving watching and now back channelling this space.

I know there have been a tonne of trends documents and reports flooding the airwaves this year already, so i thought I'd take the time to present the key ones on the ZO radar in a Prezi format.

Ive been using this as a bit os a test for the tool too, and besides the constant crashing and server connection issues I have experienced, I have found the experience pretty good.

I'd strongly recommend the following steps in creating a prezi though;

1. write the text based material first
2. save all the images and video links you are going to embed in a file before you start
3. plan out a concept or theme for your prezi before you begin adding slides
4. don't even touch the 'paths' button to create the prezi flow until you are all done

Link

It was exciting to read today that Paypal, eBay's online payment service, are progressing their journey towards the mobile wallet though a trial with Home Depot, one of America's biggest retailers. The trial allows consumers to pay for items by typing in their mobile number and ID number linked with their PayPal account into an in-store PayPal unit. Whilst a small trial (5 stores with a small number of PayPal staff) Wall Street analysts see huge potential:

"We believe a full Home Depot roll out would increase PayPal's addressable market by more than 35 percent overnight," Gil Luria, an analyst at Wedbush, wrote in a note to investors on Friday.  "Although penetration would start at zero, we believe that by adding value to consumers and merchants, PayPal may eventually approach penetration rates comparable to its online presence." (http://www.cnbc.com/id/45925365)

Google launched their mobile wallet in May 2011 which has been built into the Android 2.3 operating system on Nexus 4G phone on Sprint (a US Telco). It links with Mastercard and Citi cardless payment technology.

Obviously at this stage the mobile wallet is at infancy with security, consumer familiarity with NFC technology and  retail outlet compatibility providing challenges for the likes of Google and PayPal, but it's a great start.