A Source Of Inspiration

Poynter Online just published their 2007 study of reader behavior .

Watch the video below:

Some interesting facts:

• People read a high volume of story text in both print and online.
• People read two ways: methodically or scanning.
• Alternative story forms – like Q&As, timelines, short sidebars and lists – help readers understand.
• Bigger heads and photos attract print readers; but directional elements draw online readers.
• Photos get a lot of attention in print.

Youtube Link:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrAHBk4ZAeQ

Advertiser/brand: Nestlé/Kit Kat
Agency: JWT, Netherlands

Source: AdRants

The newspapers were already under a terminal disease, but now the undertaker has just arrived and began digging.

Advertising spending online overtook national newspapers’ share of the pie for the first time in 2006 as companies continued to chase a growing web audience.According to data from the Internet Advertising Bureau out today, online spending smashed through the £2bn barrier in 2006 while television revenues fell and press barely budged.

A 41% leap put 2006 UK online spending at £2.016bn, representing 11.4% of total advertising revenues. IAB said that helped offset declines in traditional media and meant the overall advertising industry was able to clock up modest growth of 1.1% over the year.

Source: The Guardian, IAB U.k.

Gaping Void is beating the hell out of traditional advertising agencies:

1. There will always be a market for somebody who can sell your stuff better than you can. Advertising 2.0 does not exist. Marketing 2.0 does not exist. Whatever new tech and media comes along, this simple truth remains.

Full Text: advertising 2.0 does not exist

I have a different opinion on it’s post title: marketing and advertising have a body of knowledge with more than 50 years, so it’s quite silly to dump all that just because we have some new tools. If Advertising 2.0 doesn’t exist, then it should be invented, formulated, whatever fits these wonderful times.
If Hugh bothers to read David Armano, Martina or AdverLab, he’ll notice there’s some brilliant people out there working to bring this new kind of advertising forward. But i suppose he’s never worked at an advertising agency, so it’s easy for him to make such assumptions.
You just can’t see the forest for the trees, so it’s better not to label all advertising a “has-been”.

I had to mention this today, since some of the authors are fellow bloggers.

Tubarao Esquilo went live today, being one of the most serious attempts as a federated content network of portuguese blogs. Nothing too pretentious at the beginning, but from an ad agency perspective i’m curious to see how this goes.

Not that i’m expecting anything too serious such as The Deck, Federated Media or 9 rules (although technically 9 rules is more of an aggregator). And while the mainstream portuguese marketing is still more comfortable with online display ads or AdWords, it’s a matter of time until some brands start innovating with micro-targeting in more specialized niche content.

Good luck, folks!

P.S.
- thumbs down to no only one women on the initial authors list
- i still don’t get the name (translated as Squirrel Shark). A really poor branding choice.

Re-searcher.com is the child project of Paula Balreira, Carlos Quitério and Graça Santos, that showcases some fine illustration from Portuguese and foreign artists.

It served initially as a representation for the affiliated artists but later extended their mission, developing several cultural activities in Portugal.

Besides the Gallery with all the portfolios, on the front page you’ll have a rich cultural agenda and great links from the illustration world. There’s also a online store, that will surely have more titles available as soon as the site gets some visibility. Go feast your eyes then, on some quality illustration.

Finally, “the book” is available for order. It’s a bit expensive, but considering that the Casey Reas and Ben Fry are the fathers of Processing language it surely is worth all the cents.

If you don’t have a clue what i’m talking about, go to Processing.org and check some amazing interactive/netart/visual experiments  of the century (it has been around since 2001).

The software package has just launched, with several editions available, and thanks to some early leaks we had a sneak peak on pricing and packaging details:

Source: MacRumors

Source: Apple Insider

The editions scheme seems a bit confusing, as if Adobe is borrowing ideas from Vista. But be warned: if you want to be a designer these days, it will cost you at least of $999 USD.

Update: this morning (GMT 0) , there was a product special on Adobe homepage, and there will be a webcast of the launch event.

My favorite features (as a flash developer):

• Flash integration with Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator and After Effects
• Flash IDE now supports Actionscript 3, with improved debugger
• 3D compositing in Photoshop
• Improved vanishiog points in Photoshop, exportable to After Efffects

The big winner in CS3 seems to be Flash, although Photoshop has some impressive features on specialized areas.