LBi Mumbai

In 2012…

Posted by LBi India January 5th, 2012

LBi delivers a message from the future, telling of the strange and wonderful world that awaits us in 2012.

Thanks to x-ray delta (James Vaughan)

In 2012… The internet is the 5th dimension

Everything is connected to everything, and people can interact with the internet easily and seamlessly.

The 5th dimension is the result of several trends combined: the rise of internet-enabled everyday objects, verbal and gestural interfaces, and contactless information transfer (i.e. NFC). These three trends came together to create a world in which smart functions live in the objects that surround you, rather than simply in apps on a mobile device, and interacting with them requires the wave of a hand and not the tapping of a finger (on a keyboard, a button or a touchscreen). NFC has helped to connect people to their smart objects, enabling smartphones to act as portable screens for everything else.

In 2012… We all work on the toilet

Cloud computing, the remote storage of information that can be accessed from any device with a working internet connection, has heralded a new era of productivity.

Our software and our documents, freed from their association with a single device, are seamlessly accessible as we move from place to place. This has allowed us to rid our lives of moments of uselessness, such as those spent in lifts, on public transport, or in lavatories. This trend, known sometimes as smart boredom, is not just about increased efficiencies in the workforce; it can potentially benefit anyone. The success of smartphone gaming has allowed people to fill their moments of forced inactivity with fun. The cloud expands these possibilities to include other useful tasks, be they for your home life or your work life.

In 2012… We live in a cloud-based commune

A side effect of the utility provided by cloud computing has been a shift in company business models from selling digital products, to leasing digital products.

With more and more physical possessions being replaced by digital counterparts, the impact of this change from owning to borrowing has been significant. The cloud has enabled companies to remove the burden of ownership from the masses. What was previously owned, the common man now receives as a service in exchange for micropayments.

In 2012… Everyone loves adverts

The use of personal activity data has made it possible to provide people with only the advertising and information that is relevant to their interests and contextual needs.

By collecting information from your activity in search, ecommerce and social media, and combining it with other contextual information, such as location, time of day and time of year, companies can now ensure that only the most interesting and useful information is presented to you. This has changed the dynamic of spam and advertising. Once seen as an irritant, adverts are now thought of as a service.

In 2012… We grow our own fridges

Companies collaborate with their customers to develop new ideas.

Instead of simply going out or online and buying a fridge, consumers now have the option to participate in the designing of their next fridge. This benefits both the company and the consumers, in that the products more closely reflect the desires of the consumers. Furthermore, the process of co-creation encourages people to become invested in the success of the product, which in turn can have a positive effect on brand advocacy. The very fact of being open to consumer participation and demonstrating that the company is interested in its customers’ opinions can help to increase public opinion.

In 2012… We play games without realising

Gamification has developed beyond the most obvious and colourful implementations to a more subtle use of the underlying psychology.

In 2011 most implementations of gamification (the process of using game design techniques to make other processes more engaging) have focussed on applying surface elements of games, such as badges and leaderboards. In 2012 gamification has moved on to applying psychological lessons from game design without the end product necessarily resembling a game. This has made it possible to gamify a broader range of processes, including ones that might not suit obvious game elements.

Tags: 2012, future, games, ideas, Social Media, thoughts

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In review: The best of the best of 2011

Posted by LBi India December 23rd, 2011

Yes, it’s that time of year again. The season of giving, sharing and presenting what has happened over the last calendar year in various amusing and strange ways. “What are you talking about?” I imagine you crying as you read this. Over the last few weeks my inbox and Twitter stream have been filled with “Top 10s” and “Best of 2011s”. Some are quite interesting, some thought provoking, some witty and some are down-right dull.

Here’s my pick – a best of the best ofs.

Google’s Zeitgeist

2011 was a big year for Google. Not only did the world’s number one search engine continue its domination of that market, it rolled out its new social platform, Google+ and +1, its social bookmarking/recommendation system. However, Google remains a search engine to most and Zeitgeist is a compilation of the fastest rising search terms for 2011. Apple has made a big impact with iPhone 5 (which turned out to become the mere iPhone 4S), iPad 2 and the late Steve Jobs all making the list. Late Jackass Star Ryan Dunn makes it to number three; Google+ pops in at number two, and number one? How could it be anything else.

YouTube’s Most Viewed Videos of 2011

YouTube’s Trend blog recently published its list of the most viewed videos of 2011. Amongst cute animals, Nyan Cat and talking babies, we see music being a key driver to video popularity, with four entries reaching the top ten. Most interestingly, there was only one brand created video. Volkswagen’s “The Force” video was already a major internet sensation before it hit the air during the Super Bowl half time show and generated over 1 million views in the first 24 hours. As for number one it’s a Black day for music.

The Guardian’s – 2011 In Lego

This pictorial look at the year’s event may well be a very cunning product advertorial, but it captures the imagination, recalling key moments of 2011 through the medium of Danish plastic. With creative types sourced from Flickr, News-In-Lego makes my list due to ingenuity and nostalgia. Lovely stuff.

Twitter- What’s the Trend 2011

In early December, What’s The Trend published its Top 10 trending topics on Twitter. The list is available through Mashable and highlights the top 10 hash tagged topics throughout 2011. Analysis of the terms suggests that like, YouTube, music was a key motivator, with Britney Spears, The Jonas Brothers and Lady Gaga all featuring alongside eventual winner Justin Bieber. The interesting revelation from this may well be that, political events that claimed to have been driven by social activity, such as the Arab Spring, do not make the overall top 10.

BBC Magazine- 2011: The Year where a lot happened

The BBC’s look back at the year is interesting and informative as it gives a good indication of the events which captured the attention of the site’s users. This is demonstrated by an infographic showing relative traffic levels to its news site during the calendar year. The events that most affected traffic to the site were the Japanese Earthquake, the royal Wedding and the London riots, the latter of which generated 15.9 million unique browsers.

So what?

One thing is certain, 2011 was a year of change. We can read what we want into these different best ofs/statistics and make judgements about the way people are using technology and their interests. Socially, politically and technologically we have all been a part of it through the way we have interacted online.

At LBi, we too are trying to change things a little, which is why we set up our GIF shop allowing the sharing of shiny home-made GIFs for a donation to one of our three selected charities (we’ll even match any donation up to £2000!). Please have a gander, choose the GIF of your liking and share away.

Hope you enjoyed our best of 2011. Stay tuned next week when we’ll bring you our own take on predictions for 2012.

Have a happy Christmas and a happy New Year!

@nickobeano

Tags: 2011, 2011 trends, best of, Google Zietgeist, Twitter, year in review, YouTube

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A year of Windows Phone

Posted by LBi India December 23rd, 2011

I have been using Windows Phone for well over a year now both for personal use and business use and have been impressed by what it has on offer from an ever-improving operating system, a very nice user experience to a maturing phone ecosystem. There has already been much said of Windows Phone and I would say that most of its been positive. Much to my surprise though, market share has dropped to 1.5% compared to 2.5% last year. Putting that stat to one side for now, 2011 has been quite significant for Windows Phone as it’s seen a major update to the software, thousands of apps being published, a variety of newer handsets, huge support for developers/designers and a considerable partnership with Nokia, all of which has put it in a good position to push on in 2012 and gain an increase in market share.

Here are some of my highlights of Windows Phone:

User Interface

I just love the new UI in Windows Phone! The Phone team at Microsoft introduced a completely redesigned UI called Metro. Metro has been given a big thumbs up by the creative and user experience community through its use of simple, clean, tiled interface that does a good job of presenting lots of dynamic real-time content consistently on mobile/tablet devices, desktop LCD’s or television screens.

Metro is now being used as the UI on Microsoft’s highly anticipated new operating system Windows 8 and is already on its way to xBox. The picture below from winrumors.com shows Metro UI on Windows 8, Windows Phone and xBox Live.

Let’s get Social

A major new functionality, introduced by the mango software update, is the social network integration. This bring in social integration capabilities with Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Windows Live and xBox Live.

I absolutely love this feature as my phone contacts list now has the likes of Charlie Sheen, Robin Van Persie, Richard Branson alongside my LBi colleagues and my mum

Apps and Marketplace

Let’s face it, a decent smartphone isn’t really decent unless it has the ability to discover, find and download applications…. and lots of them! There are now over 45,000 apps on the Windows Phone ‘app store’ otherwise known as Marketplace.

With the recent Mango update as mentioned earlier, the IE mobile browser got upgraded and now supports HTML5. That means Windows Phone now joins the other major phone players in the market for running websites that have been developed in HTML5.

Developers, Developers, Developers

The thousands of apps available to download across Apple App Store, Windows Phone Marketplace, Android Market, wouldn’t be possible without skilling up mobile application developers. Over the last 18 months Microsoft has made quite a large investment in the developer community by providing dev tools, learning kits, training and running developer courses and events globally.

Earlier this year, LBi was selected as the exclusive London digital agency partner to host the London Windows Phone Camps at our Truman Brewery offices. These dev camps have been very successful with the last camp reaching record numbers.

The Nokia partnership

2011 has seen a partnership between Microsoft and Nokia and the emergence of new Nokia smartphones running Windows Phone operating system. This was a very good move by both companies and exactly what they needed to compete with Google and Apple. The recent London launch of the Nokia Lumia phone shows just how serious Nokia are of the partnership and importance of gaining a market share in the smartphone race.

Well there you go, some of my highlights of Windows Phone in 2011. Windows Phone must be doing something right because just the other day I talked about some of the above with mates who are big time iPhone and Android fans and even they were impressed saying how Windows Phone had really caught up with the competition.

I think so too.

Thanks for reading and have an amazing 2012!

Riaz (@TheRealRiaz)

Follow me…..

Tags: Android, apple, Google, iPhone, Metro, Microsoft, mobile, Nokia, Technology, User Interface Design, Windows, Windows 8, Windows Phone, xbox

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by LBi India December 15th, 2011

#NewnewTwitter

The mainstream micro – blogging service Twitter has launched a complete redesign of the site (you may have noticed) for both desktop and mobile. Not only is there a redesign but Twitter has introduced some major new features too – there’s now more focus on rich media, real time discovery and the opportunity for brands and advertisers.

The new Twitter design features four main categories, ‘home’, ‘connect’, ‘discover’ and ‘me’. The ‘discover’ tab is the biggest new addition, this will help users to discover the latest trending stories, with more of an emphasis on the content that drives the trending topics.

Brand pages

After much speculation Twitter has improved its platform for marketers, giving brands and advertisers the chance to create more of a unique branded offering through ‘brand pages’. Available to a selected number of partnered brands at the moment, the new brand pages include the ability to create your own banner at the top of the page. You can also favourite a tweet to the top of your timeline, so that you can show off selected content to visitors.

The introduction of brand pages will help to position Twitter into direct competition with Facebook’s brand pages as it becomes more of a media rich hub for on-page engagement. This may result in a shift where we see users spending more of their time on Twitter.

Google Currents

Google has recently released Google Currents, an application that lets you explore online publications and other rich web content in one neat visual place. The search engine giant has partnered with over 150 publications including Forbes and The Huffington Post to offer users full-length articles optimised specifically for the app.

Users can add their own RSS, video and photo feeds and public Google+ streams that they’re following. The app will place all this content into a well-designed layout that you can then scroll through online and offline – so when you’re out and about you don’t need to rely on picking up a network connection.

Google Currents is also offering publishers, (of any shape or size) the opportunity to design and customise their own web content specifically for the app – this part of the app is called Google Currents Producer.

Google Currents has positioned itself as an app that works alongside Google+ which leaves open the possibility that there might be plans for further integration with Google’s overall search experience. Unlike its notable rival Flipboard (who have dominated mobile content aggregation on iOS), Google Currents is available on both iOS and Android. Keep an eye out for when the app becomes available in the UK.

Facebook trial brand page messaging

Facebook have begun trialling a private messaging system that lets brand pages and fans communicate, much like the messaging system in place for Facebook profile pages. The private messaging system for brands does have some key differences including:

• At the moment brand pages can only reply to messages that have been sent to them.
• Brand pages can reply privately to individual comments that a fan has made on the brands wall.
• Users messaging a brand do not have to be a fan of the page. This could have a few implications for brands:
  • The messaging system may well become another response channel to manage – presenting a potential resource issue.
  • Brands will have to think carefully about how to prioritise communication between fans and non-fans, if it’s part of its Facebook strategy.

Overall the new messaging system could be seen as a significant plus for brands, as it allows them to deal with customer service queries in a private setting that does not affect the public reputation of the brand – unless you’re brand still has an open wall policy that is. Keep an eye out for this introduction as Facebook are testing the product in quieter markets before hopefully rolling it out to the masses.

Tags: brand, Facebook, flipboard, Google, google currents, inbox, messaging, Twitter

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What’s Next: Introducing our new ‘Show Real’

Posted by LBi India December 14th, 2011

You may remember seeing, hearing or reading about a real, live unicorn on Brick Lane a few months ago.

Erm, that was us.

We literally stopped traffic early one September morning as our Chief Creative Officer Chris Clarke (somewhat bashfully, it should be added) led the mythical beast through the East London streets and into our office.

Contrary to popular belief this wasn’t just an average day in the life of a Shoreditch digital agency. We were filming the opening scene of our new showreel, which we’re pleased to be unveiling here today after a lot of hard work from all involved.

We hope you’ll agree that it’s no ordinary showreel.

Our aim was to create a film that showcased to the outside world some of the work we’re most proud of, as well as giving people a glimpse of the creative magic makes us tick here at LBi.

Rather than a showreel, we wanted to create a ‘Show Real’.

It was important to us to create something that reflected the breadth of our services in the most interesting and engaging way possible. We wanted to show off our talented people, our skills and the unique way we blend all our expertise together to build business value for clients like Puma, Sony Ericsson and Skype.

To do this we created a narrative around the unicorn. To us the unicorn symbolises the never-ending quest for digital mastery. It represents our ability to help companies of all shapes and sizes decide What’s Next … and then take them there.

We’ve tried to bring this theme to life in our Show Real. Like most agencies these days we work mostly in digital, but for this project we stepped away from our screens, went lo-tech, and tried to do as much as possible for real.

To that end we’ve built up, propped up and acted out a series of vignettes representing some of our best bits. From a machine made of brik-a-brak to a projection mapping installation and a live unicorn, this has been a project involving lots of LBi people, lots of work, and lots of fun.

It’s been an adventure, and we’re incredibly proud of what we’ve created.

We hope you enjoy watching it as much as we’ve enjoyed making it because – in the end – you’ll be the judge.

Credits

Lead LBi Creative Team

Thea Hamrén and Emil Rydberg

Director

Fredrik Forrest

D.O.P

Simon Rudholm

Sound Design

Kungen & Hertigen

Producers

Ashley Cohen and Debbie Lee

+ all lost boys & girls that’s helped build, act out and make this film happen.

Tags: blend, blending, branded content, chief creative officer, Chris Clarke, Digital Agency, digital mastery, lo-tech, media, puma, shoreditch, show real, showreel, Skype, Sony Ericsson, what's next

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by LBi India December 6th, 2011

Spotify Apps

Spotify have just announced at a news conference in New York that it will be opening up its platform so that customers can use various apps to enhance their listening experience. The Spotify Apps platform is open for developers and media partners to build apps that will run on Spotify’s desktop application.

The new apps will let you look up song lyrics, find out about gigs and share your musical experiences. At the moment you’ll find apps made by Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Last.fm, Songkick and TuneWiki.

For example the Guardian’s app is going to be all about bringing album reviews from the Guardian and the Observer into Spotify’s service. It will be exciting to see how these two companies’ will work together for a series of live gigs in London.

With Spotify’s launching in the United States this summer and its 2.5 million paying customers it can claim to be the most impressive new technology company to have come out of Europe in the last five years.

The apps will sit within Spotify’s desktop client, with possible extension to mobile in the future. The apps will be available to free and paying users of the service, although for now, developers will not be able to charge for them.

Just a bit of Spotify trivia for you, at the moment it has a catalogue of 15m songs, and roughly 20,000 new tracks are added per day. Which apps will you be using?

Take Google Maps Indoors

Where would we be without Google maps? We all know that Google has spent the better part of the last decade mapping the great outdoors so is it such a surprise that they are going to now conquer the indoor domain?

With the launch of Google Maps 6.0 on Tuesday, users of mobile devices running Android OS 2.1 and up will be able to use Google Maps not just to get directions to an IKEA, Macy’s or one of several airports, but to use the mapping functionality to figure out how to find housewares, ATMs, and your flight gate once you are inside.

Google’s inside mapping will work similarly to how its outside mapping works. A little blue dot will move along with you to show you where you are, and the technology is even able to know what floor you are on.

At the moment the functionality is currently only available for some buildings in America and Japan, and only works on Android mobile phones, Google has already mapped some indoor areas in the UK, for instance for its projects to take people inside art galleries via Google Earth. Keep posted for more indoor locations across the UK.

Burrito Record

On Wednesday 7 December Benito’s Hat is planning a stunt to create the UK’s biggest burrito, which its Facebook fans can then help eat in its restaurant free of charge.

Not only is this a tasty stunt, but it has a charity angle as well. The stunt will help raise money for homeless charities and is also aiming to increase the number of fans on Facebook and bring people into the restaurants.

Benito’s Hat ran a successful campaign last month on Twitter which resulted in a 25% sales boost. They are keen to harness the power of social to not only increase brand awareness, but to drive sales and it looks like it is bringing them results. Check out their Facebook page for details of the event.

Tags: Apps, burrito, charity, Facebook, Google, google maps, guardian, indoor, record, rollingstone, Spotify

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by LBi India November 28th, 2011

Holiday Travel Infographic

Foursquare has created an infographic showing holiday travel checkins in the US by plane, train, and car, covering a period from Halloween until just after Christmas in 2010. We would love to see how it compares to this year’s data!

Foursquare travel data

JCPenny Santa Tags

American retailer JCPenny’s is rolling out a holiday campaign that’s all about fun and bringing personalised gift tags to the next level with QR codes. The ‘Who’s Your Santa?’ campaign allows everyone who buys a Christmas gift to receive a unique QR code gift tag (or “Santa tag” as they are being called).

The QR code allows the person giving the gift to scan and record a personalised voice message for the recipient. Once recorded, the Santa gift tag can simply be attached to the present and the gift is ready to be delivered with a personal touch.

Stamped

If you like to make and receive recommendations from friends than this new app called Stamped is right up your street. The premise is that you give your stamp of approval on restaurants, books, movies, music and TV shows, and that you’re only recommending what you like best to people who care about your opinion.

Stamped integrates with Google Places and includes built-in functionality with OpenTable, Amazon, iTunes and Fandango. It works like most apps you’re already familiar with and the interface is intuitive with a stylish design.

There’s an impressive and interesting team behind this project and Stamped can also boast that it is the only NYC based consumer project funded by Google Ventures. The board of advisors includes Kevin Systrom, the CEO and founder of Instagram, and Mario Batali, renowned chef and founder of the Mario Batali Foundation.

At the moment Stamped is available on iPhone and iPod Touch. It will be released for other platforms later in the year.

Tags: app, foursquare, Google, JCPenney, QR code, santa tag, Social Media, stamped, thanksgiving, travel

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by LBi India November 17th, 2011

‘Girls who like boys who like boys’ premieres on Twitter

The Sundance Channel is showing the first episode of its new series of ‘Girls Who Like Boys Who Like Boys’, on Twitter. It’s the first time that Twitter has been used to broadcast a major television show before its release. The broadcast will be accessible to watch via a TwitVid embed on Sundance’s Twitter profile on Friday 18^th November.

Over the last year real time Twitter chatter during television viewing has increased dramatically. This broadcast placement will harness the combination of Twitter as a realtime conversation and media platform, and is a major step in helping to shape how we’ll behave while watching things, in the future.

Starbucks Cup Magic

Starbucks have created a free augmented reality app as part of its festive activities in the run up to Christmas. The app called Starbucks Cup Magic conjures up five Christmas characters that appear in animation on your phone when placed in front of a range of Starbucks products.

Users are also given information on the latest seasonal Starbucks offers through the app and can also create a personalised Christmas card which can then be shared with friends and family via Facebook. Users who activate all 5 characters will be entered into a draw to win Starbucks prizes too!

Foursquare experts, check-in here

The location-based social networking platform Foursquare is now giving users the chance to conquer a series of levels for each one of the core 25 expert badges on offer.

• You now hit Level 1 for checking in five times to a place in a category, or three unique places.
• Level 2 is for five unique places.
• And from there, every level up is five more unique places, so you get rewarded for exploration!

The added levels will help users to identify who the experts of the Foursquare community are and will also help to inform the decisions that users make in the real world – great stuff Foursquare.

Tags: augmented reality, Badges, Broadcast, Cup Magic, foursquare, Level-up, Starbucks, Sundance, Twitter

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Weekly Social Media Update

Posted by LBi India November 4th, 2011

Mentos Negative Tweet Eliminator

Mentos, the well-known mint, has created a Facebook application that eliminates negative tweets in real-time. The app is virtually managed by a positive zen guru called Dragee who uses the power of Mentos to eliminate negative tweets which include the words ‘fail’ or ‘hate’ among others.

The app is a great example of how to creatively bring together both Twitter and Facebook in one campaign, using the open nature of Twitter to supply real-time content to the Facebook page. Why not try sending out a tweet using the campaign keywords and look out for it on the Facebook page here.

Water Forward by Charity: Water

The non-profit organisation Charity: Water has begun a new initiative to help raise $10 billion for 1 billion people who don’t have access to clean water. The initiative is called ‘WaterForward’ and allows donators to place a Facebook friend into the Water Forward charity book when they complete a $10 donation. The idea is that the Facebook friend who has been added to the book will then make a $10 donation and add one of their Facebook friends to the book and so on.

The only problem is that you can’t put yourself in the book so you’ll have to wait for one of your Facebook friends to add you. When the book is filled up it will be printed and bound to keep as a memento, so let’s hope the infectious spirit continues on.

The Ebay Inspiration Shop

Ebay has setup an offline inspiration store in the form of a shop window with the help of designer Jonathan Adler. Cleverly merging the offline with the online world, the Ebay Inspiration Shop in New York City contains a collection of over 20 items that have been selected by influential trendsetters such as model Coco Rocha. Each item is displayed next to an individual QR code which directs users to similar items of the same trend when scanned.

The Inspiration Shop may seem like an extensive way to make a transaction as opposed to walking into a normal store, but for passing shoppers and the usual window shoppers, the inspirational item in front of them could lead to increased purchase intent compared to a normal Ebay purchase. You get to see what your item could potentially look like in real life. Check out the Facebook Page here.

Tags: book, Charity:Water, donate, Ebay, Facebook, Mentos, Offline, qr, realtime, Shopping, Twitter, Water Forward

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