I’m going to be playing round with the alpha release of Measure Map over the next week or so, using it to take a look at visitor statistics. On my first look I like it, with a comfortable interface that just makes me wnat to click things. I need a lot more information on it beforeI can really test it out..so if you only read via RSS feed, pleae click through and look at the site so I can get some stats to test.
I attended a launch party last night for Public Relations Online, “a forum showcasing how brands can protect themselves and improve relationships with partners, customers and press by using new techniques such as web-monitoring, blogging, and search engine optimisation.” A lot of enthusiasm to embrace the different ways of working, with a frank acknowledgement (with a hint of worry) of the challenges of doing PR in a connected environment. However, I think there’s still some steps to take – putting up the formal press release as a blog post with no further comment is not necessarily the right first step! But, willingness to learn was evident so I’ll watch this with interest.
The event was held at the Adam Street Club. Looks like a fun place, as indicated by the signs on the back of the loo doors.
“Please do not throw…tights, knickers, shoes, i-pods, suited gentlemen, thick & ugly people (well maybe them!), or circus performers down the loo. If you do so, it will cause a terrible mess, which will be your fault entirely, and very embarassing all round. Frankly , you may never quite recover form it.”
Great to see the Ewan has been nominated for a BAFTA for his Edinburgh fringe podcasts, under Best Interactive Media. Great news for a new medium.
Meanwhile, Llloyd gives us a further installment of his male grooming product review. Although he may not be ready for a BAFTA yet, you do get G-room shampoo and partial nudity…
One of the other things announced yesterday by Microsoft was OfficeLive. This is still in development with it going into beta (to US residents only) in early 2006.
Looking at the domains, live.com was first registered in 1994. I wonder how much Microsoft paid for it?
I took some time off yesterday and ended up in Trafalgar Square during the broadcast of the memorial service for the victims of the July bombings. There were a lot of cameras there, both TV and press. Most people watched and contemplated, except for 2 I noticed. The first was a guy who wondered round striking up dramatic poses, arms outstretched, clapping his hands between poses to get the photographers’ attention. The second was far more unassuming, just wandered around clutching a large picture of Princess Diana for some reason, in a kind of tribute. He too was the subject of many photos.
I nipped into the National Gallery whilst there and had a quick scoot round. The Gallery is trying to do some customer research; every person looking at one of the new aquisitions, Madanna of the Pinks, was asked to fill out a card. Instead of asking questions there and then, which is what I expected, it askedfor demographic detials and then permission to contact you for further research – so I guess they are going to do focus groups instead of a straightforward questionnaire. My reaction – How much!!! At around £340000 per square inch it’s a very expensive aquisition, even if a nice painting.
The Budget Treasure Hunt enters it second week, with three winners announced. For a blog supporting a campaign it appears to be appears to be rather light on posts on the main page, even with the weekend getting in the way, but the Hunters’ Stories page, which is competitor driven, is busier .
Evelyn Rodriguez has a post about why, as a customer, she won’t be influenced by the campaign. I have an opposite reaction – I very rarely use hire cars, so something like this brings Budget first to mind if I’m searching. But it won’t be first choice if the costs aren’t comparable.
Kathy Sierra has suggested an number of alternate uses for marketing spend beyond the usual. As market becomes fragmented, as people look beyond the one way ads, there’s more opportunities to try different things. From utilising the web with its alternative communications strategies to sponsorship and other community activities the ways that agencies/brands can spread their word grows (or should that be the need to do things differently grows as people get bored with traditional methods!)
Microsoft are currently announcing some new services, one of which is live.com. errr….isn’t this start.com, with added email? I can sign in with my Passprt so it recognises me. Iit currently only works in IE (although Firefox appears to be coming soon) I can add feeds (no mention of RSS) and a few widgets, such as weather, a clock and horoscopes. (Nothing different to MyYahoo yet then.) It appers to offer UK focused feeds only by default for me, based on my recorded location. However, we are also going to get Windows Live and Office Live, which make it far more interesting. Via Dave Winer. Crunch Notes has great notes onthe talk
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The Government are starting a citizenship test from today, to test applicants knowledge of the culture, laws and lifestyle of the country they wish to be join. I took the BBC’s pretend version of the test. Unfortunately I only scored 66%, not the required 75%…right, I’ll get my coat then..