Viral videos and games are all the rage, and Lexus has decided to put a new spin on things with their latest campaign. They’ve made a interactive video for the CT 200h that combines interactivity with high production values.
The video lets the player direct Tony, who is trying to keep the Lexus CT 200h out of criminal hands. It looks pretty slick, and is a great way to show off the features and the pleasing aesthetic of the luxury hatchback hybrid.
See it for yourself at www.lexusdarkride.com.
Smartphone sales rose to 54.3 million units in the first quarter of 2010. This marks an increase of 49 percent over the same period last year, the biggest sales jump for smartphones in four years.
Also, Google’s Android OS equipped phones outsold Microsoft’s Windows mobile phones for the first time, taking nearly 10 percent compared to 6.8 percent for Windows mobile. Android has also overtaken the iPhone in the U.S. market.
Nokia’s share for the Symbian fell from 48.8 percent to 44.3 percent. RIM’s Blackberry saw a slight drop, going from 20.6 to 19.6 percent.
Nokia and Microsoft have delayed the launch of their new smartphones until later this year, a move that might cost them precious market space.
Source: Financial Times
While Zynga looked like it was putting out feelers to move away from Facebook, the two partners have wedded themselves to each other. Zynga and Facebook released a joint statement announcing a five-year partnership which will see an increased use of Facebook Credits in Zynga s games.
Facebook was a pioneer in opening their platform in 2007 and in just three years tens of millions of Facebook users play our games every day, from FarmVille and Café World to Treasure Isle and Mafia Wars, said Mark Pincus, founder and CEO at Zynga. We are excited about Facebook’s long-term commitment to social gaming and Zynga, and look forward to working with them and other platform providers to bring the best social gaming experience to users worldwide.
We are pleased to enter into a new agreement with Zynga to enhance the experience for Facebook users who play Zynga games, said Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg. We look forward to continuing our work with Zynga and all of our developers to increase the opportunities on our platform.
This union will no doubt be better for both parties, since Facebook will reap the rewards of greater revenue and Zynga will continue to be a force for advertisers on the social network site.
The Wikimedia Foundation has been rolling out updates for Wikipedia that will be seen in the weeks to come. The new features come as a result of feedback from hundreds of thousands of beta testers over the past year.
It’s been one year since we began the usability initiative, and we’ve rolled out the new interface to Wikinews (English and Serbian), Wikimedia Commons, and now English Wikipedia, said Naoko Komura of the Wikimedia User Experience team. That means that hundreds of millions of people around the world will now experience an easier to use, and more importantly, easier to edit Wikipedia. Our most recent interface launch, on Wikimedia Commons, was a great success with continued adoption by over 91 percent of Commons contributors. Over the next few weeks, the new interface will cascade to all language Wikipedias.”
The new interface is called Vector and will replace MonoBook as the default. MonoBook will still be available for users who prefer the old layout. Changes include improved navigation, editing tools and search engine.
We kicked off this effort in April 2009, and immediately went to work to figure out how to make Wikipedia easier to use for everyone, wrote Komura. We started with usability testing among everyday readers with no editing experience, and we learned about the way people interact with Wikipedia and how we could make the experience better. Using this valuable information, we incrementally released new features to users who opted into our beta testing group. Over the next several months, we continued to improve the features based on feedback from both our beta testers and from usability studies we conducted. We’re thankful for the input of thousands of international users and volunteers who gave us feedback on our progress.
Source: Wikimedia blog
F.E.A.R. 3 from Day 1 Studios and horror director John Carpenter is looking to bring co-operative action to the action horror FPS. Created by the Ayzenberg Group, this trailer is a mixture of live action and gameplay footage, narrated by the Point Man talking about Paxton Fettel, and it’s quite cool. Check it out:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZmJaF4Sy5zQ%26amp
GameTrailers got their hot little hands on some new gameplay footage of the new Spider-Man: Shattered Dimensions. Seeing as how Spider-Man is Marvel’s premiere franchise and Activision’s latest incarnations of the franchise haven’t fared very well, the success of this game might be important for both companies.
It can be a fine line between viral marketing and outright advertising, and some of the best don’t seem like ads at all. Take the video that’s been making the rounds about liquid mountaineering, which is a very subtle promotion for Hi-Tec Sports’ waterproof shoes.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=Oe3St1GgoHQ%26amp
Yahoo has acquired Associated Content for what is believed to be about $100 million. This deal should give the content portal a new angle and technology for low-cost media and crowd-sourced content.
Associated Content puts out freelancer-produced content that is optimized for searches. AOL had been seen as a potential buyer, but it went with its Seed service instead.
“Combining our world-class editorial team with Associated Content’s makes this a game-changer,” Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz said in a statement. “Together, we’ll create more content around what we know our users care about, and open up new and creative avenues for advertisers to engage with consumers across our network.”
Founded in 2004, Associated Content manages over 16 million unique users per month and an editorial staff that reviews more than 50,000 pieces of content per month, notes comScore. Associated Content claims 380,000 contributors writing on any number of topics.
Yahoo is changing its tack with this deal, looking towards low-cost production of content on Yahoo Sports and its entertainment site OMG rather than more expensive approaches.
Source: AdvertisingAge
Online video advertising is expected to eclipse $1.3 billion in 2010, according to Parks Associates. This growth is attributed to an increase in online video viewership along with the increased ability to use preferences and viewing history to better target specific viewers.
The filed report called Online Video Advertising: Strategies & Results ventures that many consumers are not highly opinionated about targeted advertising, especially not younger viewers. Examples of these advertisements include show overlays and pre-roll ads, based upon the user’s habits on TV, mobile and Internet.
50 percent of heads-of-household aged 18-34 have no solid opinion on targeted advertising. 42 percent aged 25-54 and 25 percent aged 55 also have no strong feelings on the matter.
Indifference indicates consumers can be won over by new advertising strategies, provided these messages are designed well, with truly relevant content, said Heather Way, research analyst, Parks Associates. Also, the younger age groups are more receptive to the concept of targeted advertising, and advertisers place a premium on the ability to reach these demographics.
Currently online video does not have the reach that television broadcasts do, but it grows every year and features new content offerings like TV Everywhere. Over half of heads-of-household 25-54 watch online video at least weekly, with 75 percent of those aged 18-34.
Source: Parks Associates
ESPN today announced a partnership with Playdom. The two will team up to create social sports games on ESPN.com, moving beyond their simplier Flash-based games on ESPN arcade.
Our deal with Playdom marks ESPN’s first major presence into the social gaming space, said Raphael Poplock, vice president, games and revenue strategy and development for ESPN Digital Media. The sports genre for this category of games has gone virtually untapped thus far, and through this agreement, we have an opportunity to be in front of a highly engaged audience and at the forefront of what is currently the fastest growing games category out there.
“While new brands have been created in the social gaming category, we, at Playdom, believe working with existing intellectual property will become increasingly important over time and are pleased to be incorporating ESPN’s brand and vast library of content into several new social games that are in development, said John Pleasants, CEO of Playdom.
The first two social games by Playdom are already in development and are expected to launch Fall 2010.
