A Source Of Inspiration

Perhaps this has been around for longer, but it’s a first for me. Alexa, an Amazon company, now lists the top 100 Portuguese sites. A few patterns emerge:

• Hi5 ranks nr 1

  Besides user base, i simply don’t get it why it got so popular around here, specially when it’s way behind Facebook or MySpace in terms of features. Well, at least they announced their support for OpenSocial, by the end of this month. Curious how Orkut is ahead of MySpace (Brazilian emigration might not be the only reason).

• Google domains

  Google.pt + google.com + YouTube + Blogger = all your base belongs to us.

• Travian is #10?!?!

  I always made fun of Travian as being WoW for dummies. In several trips to my hometown in the countryside, it amazed me the dozens of teenagers gathering around in the local cofee shop to play this online strategy game. Now i fully respect it, though i still haven’t figured out the whole etnography. Another contender is Hattrick, a football manager that’s killing productivity in Portuguese offices. (Hey boss, if you’re reading this, keep in mind I play neither of them).

• The ISP / media conglomerate pack

  Sapo, IOL, AEIOU do their best to take advantage of being a default start page. With agressive content agreements and new service launches they try to hold on to a good slice of the market.

• Sports

  Football, mostly. With 3 daily sports newspaper (odd, isn’t it?), no wonder the online versions of Record, A Bola and O Jogo rank in the top 30.

• Leechers

  Oh boy, where should i start? Emule, private servers, Usenet … As if it wasn’t enough illegal downloads, Portuguese leechers are coming to the web to use services like MegaUpload, RapidShare, BtNext or Mininova. You think that’s funny? You should try to get a Cable connection to work decently on peak traffic hours.

• Portuguese do it better

  Keeping this blog Safe-For-Work, you probably can figure out what is the subject in matter. Although it seems we have to see a lot of “instructional materials” to keep in shape, as 8 in 100 sites seem to point out.

• The birth of social media

  Besides Hi5 and Blogger, several user publishing plataforms are getting big enough to believe we’ll see a sustainable growth in social media tools in the near future. Wordpress.com, Flickr, Fotolog and Imeem (where’s last.fm ???) have some impressive figures, a promising sign for User Generated Content.

• Web 1.5

  My biggest disappointment was not founding a single decent “Web 2.0″ (there, i said it) portuguese service. From the great list at Bloguite, none is featured on Alexa’s top 100.

Alexa’s ranking system, while extremely biased by those who have their toolbar, is the best free choice we have until compete.com becomes less US centric.

But i guess it’s our own market’s fault, that keeps feeding a monopoly like the one that Marktest has with their closed metrics solution Netpanel. Ah, if only comScore was here ….

Last year, on the balance of the e-Mkt 2007 conference, there was hope in bringing forward our national digital marketing industry, perhaps by becoming part of of EIAA or creating local IAB offices. Maybe that was not a feasible solution, but the reality of having poor industry metrics is a huge problem that needs to be addressed.
Better yet, let’s all have a true conversation about it. Your turn.

Finally Common Craft published one of their most expected videos.

Now you can easily explain what’s Twitter all about. And follow me on Twitter, of course.

Youtube link to feed readers

I’ve said previously that convergence is becoming mainstream, and we often see new applications being brought from the web to our physical spaces, as connectivity becomes ordinary.

Wable is one of these projects, streaming the feeds from Plazo, Flickr, Last.fm and del.icio.us, visualizing

the changes of your web identity over time and create a physical link between your virtual and real identity (…) The interface consists of both a physical table and a web application. This direct feedback from your web identity is customizable and can be connected to any RSS feed”

.

The project was developed by Physical Interaction Lab, using Arduino, a ethernet connection and 4 small motors.

Source: information aesthetics

I’ve just twittered this one a few minutes ago, but it started to grow on me to deserve a full post.

With music being listened on MP3 portable devices and computers, much of the branding and packaging is lost. The chances to studios and artists to have a conversation with consumers are shifting from physical to digital (except for hard-core vinyl junkies). So what’s an artist to do?

Well, Mr extraordinary Lupe Fiasco did a “Cool” thing on his new album, using the last few seconds of “Fighters” to announce his blog at http://lupethefiasco.blogspot.com/. A excellent way to extend the album experience and stick a URL into a fan’s mind. As long it’s done with a selected track - preferably at the end -and not as a merchandising gimmick, people will notice.

For me, this was a first. Do you know of more artists promoting their URLs in innovative ways?
(That is, besides the Nine Inch Nails ARG campaign).

Blurring the digital lifestyle

The gap between offline and online has narrowed in 2007, blurring the difference between consumers and users. The so called web 2.0 has reached mainstream, with regular users adopting Rich Internet Applications like online word processors or flocking to virtual worlds. The convergent consumer created a online hub for work and entertainment that nurtured the growth of technologies that enabled the creation and distribuition of immersive experiences.

Online Platforms

The digital lifestyle was also adopted by other platforms, with the iPhone becoming one of the main icons of convergence in 2007, a landmark in technology and a mobile device sales champion. Also in mobile, Google took a major step away from the desktop, with the Android platform, converging the interest of companies, developers and consumers. Other technologies, such as multi-touch devices, with research from PerceptivePixel for Microsoft Surface or the hack on the Wii remote, envisioned the need to integrate offline experiences with online.

Will it blend?

Even one of the most famous online videos of 2007 had convergence in mind, reminding us that the power of word-of-mouth is still the most effective forms of marketing and that advertising should be seen as a conversation igniter about products and services, and not a trespasser on consumers’ lives.

More consumer power

As consumers felt empowered, the need for defining their digital self grew stronger, with a louder online voice. Consumers are now brand ambassadors or become part of online communities, with social networks creating major buzz in 2007, Facebook beeing the rising star.
With great power comes great responsibility, and new concerns arose regarding digital privacy, an important on the main online advertising deal of the year: Google buying DoubleClick.

Online moves

Other online advertising moves were made by companies like Hitwise, aQuantitative, Nielsen or Compete, with innovations on services and metrics provided, questioning even more the obsolete model of traditional media. Google, despite too many product launches (Street View, Knols), etc, etc) has strengthened their lead on search advertising, and also bought RSS advertising network Feedburner. But there’s life beyond Mountain View, with Yahoo, Live.com and Ask.com showing that they’re still around, with some refreshing competition from niche search by Wikia, Spock or Mahalo).

A small, small world

Media convergence creates an apparently smaller world, that set stage to new forms of publishing like microblogging (Twitter) or tumblelogs (Tumblr), and promote a more imediate and objective communication. With the dividing line between online and offline-online blurring, more creative campaigns are set to connect these two realities: the promos for The Simpsons movie or the Year Zero ARG campaign for Nine Inch Nails were amongst the most memorable marketing moments of 2007.

Something to remember

Finally, in Portugal, a promising year in tech and new media events, with e-Mkt 2007, TakeOff and Barcamp in Coimbra, and a big November with Sapo Codebits plus the news of OFFF 2008 in Lisbon. In blogs, the launch of blog networks Tubarão Esquilo and Prt.sc were a sign that Portuguese online media is shaping up, perhaps encouraged with the growing interest of brands on social media, as for instance with the Rexona blog. In fact, Rexona has also one of my favorite international campaigns at “Quien es Fermin“, joining “Good Things Should Never End” and “Get The Glass” at my top online marketing campaigns of 2007.

No 2008 predictions, please

I won’t do the usual 2008 predictions, despite my pretty good hints last year. Instead, I’ll ask you to reflect on this: more than blogeratti or geeks, it’s regular consumers that will set the trends, and they will keep visiting MySpace, wondering around on souvenir shops and eating Oreo pizzas. No matter how strange and un-convergent that seems to “us”.

This article will soon be available in Portuguese, at blog network Prt.sc

Google launches knols, a Wikipedia killer, and amongst other features an interesting one:

At the discretion of the author, a knol may include ads. If an author chooses to include ads, Google will provide the author with substantial revenue share from the proceeds of those ads.

Is this another setback to dead-trees media? If authors have a substantial revenue share on a knols page, they might even consider writing for the web.
One thing i’m sure: authors have earned their recognition as the most important source of knowledge, and if they choose to abandon the academic walled gardens, then Google will be one step closer to “organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful“.

This month i became a fan of two great brands: Miro and Mixx.
Miro is the free, open source internet tv player, formerly known as Democracy Player, and hell yeah, way better than Joost.

What’s most remarkable is that my average daily tv consumption dropped from 1 hour a day to practically nothing after having installed Miro. Now i’m addicted to internet tv channels such as Ze Frank show, Wired Science, Ted Talks or UbuWeb, besides my YouTube subscriptions.
If you already use Miro, let me know of you favorite channels.

With features like instant video search for major online video websites, lots of HD channels, access to independent media and support for BitTorrent, Miro has become the iTunes of video.

Mixx is Digg done right. With a beautiful web design, the whole service just feels nice. You have your own mixx, with selected tags appearing upfront, and best of all, a twitter-like feature so we can follow other users.
When you bookmark, you can set to multiple tags (unlike digg) and define a location. This way, anyone an subscribe to either topic or location, a great way to get niche updates.

The unique selling proposition for Mixx is the opportunity to filter those digg spammers and subscribe only to users or topics that actually deliver great content.

You can follow me at http://www.mixx.com/users/armandoalves.

It’s kind of peculiar to notice that these two brands make extensive use of the colors red and orange. Perhaps the next magenta and cyan for the web have just been found.

The web has just lost one of his most inspiring members: Pixelsurgeon.
The webzine and design publication, that was there for me in the beginning of my web days, has just closed after 7 years of fresh design content.

To editors, authors and collaborators, my sincere admiration and respect, with the best of luck to future projects.
Let’s hope that DesignIsKinky and Kaliber10000 manage to stay afloat, or else i’ll feel like i’m getting really old.