Facebook - which apps rule?

As we approach the looming Facebook Profile Redesign, Inside Facebook has listed the top 50 Facebook applications by daily active user count.

Some interesting observations from the list are:

Professional network LinkedIn has the 4th biggest app on Facebook. (I wonder if that affected their recent $1 billion valuation? lol)
5 of the top 10 and 21 of the top 50 apps are games.
Social network MyYearbook has the most popular game on Facebook, Owned. It is a copy cat of Serious Business’s Friends For Sale, which is only slightly behind at #2.
3 of the 4 apps with over 1 million daily active users are quite similar (FunWall, Super Wall, Bumper Stickers).
Playfish is a rising star with 3 out of the top 10 games. Their engagement rate as a company is also at 13%, the highest of any large app developer on Facebook.
Zynga has 6 apps on this list, and is the 3rd largest developer overall in terms of DAU, behind Slide and RockYou.
Even though SGN has only 1 app in the top 50, it is the 7th largest developer overall in terms of DAU.

Hmm will be interesting to see what apps top the list over the next few months....

Laterz

Orange Balloonacy

So today the Orange Balloonacy project launched...

And being super excited about the launch i logged on at 12 lunch time exactly to find the site was still not ready...

Then once it was opened my Balloon did not work and i could not do anything with it!

After weeks of being excited about it this was a big let down and has put me off from engaging with the campaign for the rest of the week! I wonder how many other consumers have been put off?

I would have thought getting this right would have been a huge bobus for Orange esp in the digital space! Better luck next time Orange

In-game - Out-of-game

Brand engagement with Wii

It seems that every day we read about the declining effectiveness of advertising. How viewers skip through the adverts, can switch off to the marketing noise, no longer respond to our messages.

Thus i was highly interested when i read an article in e-consultancy about how brands should be using the Wii to interact with consumers. Brands are increasingly looking at more diverse ways to engage consumers in their products, and the Wii could be a great way to do this!

The Wii, for those who haven’t become addicted to this little white box, is a games console but one that is very different to what we have seen before.Instead of sitting fixated to screen with a confusing 76-buttoned controller, the Wii detects your body movement to control an on-screen character in a variety of scenarios.

The number of games that can be played on the Wii is now huge! And it has taken the country by storm! With such huge popularity and powerful technology, there is great potential for brands. Allowing the user to test products in a virtual world would certainly be a highly engaging experience.

You could do this with hundreds of brands -

Center Parcs could build a virtual experience of its holiday park. You could choose a room, take a dip in the pool, explore the restaurants and entertainment.
Diesel could showcase its new season range. The Wii could measure your dimensions and weight, building a virtual model of yourself onscreen.

Smirnoff could enable users to mix cocktails and play bartender cocktail style

The list could go on! And due to its link to the internet all of these applications could be downloadable! I wonder who will be the first to get their hands on this cool idea!??!

Heinz - pulls "gay" ad

Yesterday i blogged about Heinz new ad by BBDO. Due to an even larger quantity of complaints Heinz have decided to pull the ad 4 weeks short of its release time.

In my opinion the Ad itself did take the "gay" issue a tad far - the same message could have been conveyed without the kiss. Still the ad has got alot of PR - and all PR is good PR right? I defo will notice Heinz when i next walk into store...Will you??

The internet is addictive and its got its own disorder!

Obsessive internet use is a public health problem which is so serious it should be officially recognised as a clinical disorder, according to a leading psychiatrist.

British psychiatrists have previously reported that between five and 10 per cent of online users are internet addictsSufferers spend unhealthy amounts of time playing online games, viewing pornography or emailing.

They suffer four symptoms: They forget to eat and sleep; they need more advanced technology or more hours online as they develop 'resistance' to the pleasure given by their current system; if they are deprived of their computer, they experience genuine withdrawal symptoms; And in common with other addictions, the victims also begin to have more arguments, to suffer fatigue, to get lower marks in tests and to feel isolated from society.

Early research into the subject found highly educated, socially awkward men were the most likely sufferers but more recent work suggests it is now more of a problem for middle-aged women who are spending hours at home on their computers.

Psychiatrist Dr Jerald Block said some sufferers were so addicted to the internet that they required medication or even hospital treatment to curb the time they spent on the web.
He said: "The relationship is with the computer. It becomes a significant other to them. They exhaust emotions that they could experience in the real world on the computer through any number of mechanisms: emailing, gaming, porn."

He added: "It's much more acceptable for kids to talk about game use, whereas adults keep it a secret. Rather than having sex, or arguing with their wife or husband, or feeding their children, these adults are playing games."

Dr Block, of the Oregon Health and Science University in Portland, in the USA, first made the claims in an editorial for the American Journal of Psychiatry.
British psychiatrists have previously reported that between five and 10 per cent of online users are internet addicts.

Facebook - world useage overtakes Myspace

LONDON - Facebook has overtaken MySpace with its number of unique visitors reaching 123 million people worldwide during May.

During the same period, 114.6 million visitors used MySpace, according to figures from ComScore,The figures show rapid growth during the month for Facebook and is 162% above the figure for May last year. During the same period, traffic to MySpace was up by just 5%.

Gay Media -Heinz

Heinz Deli Mayo ad, featuring a kiss between two men, has drawn 179 complaints to the Advertising Standards Authority since it first aired last week.

The spot, created by Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO, opens on a family going about their morning routine, getting ready for their days ahead at school and the office.
"Mum" is making sandwiches for the kids' lunchboxes but "she" is in fact a male uniformed New York Deli sandwich maker.

As the husband is about to leave the house "Mum" reminds him that he hasn't given "her" a kiss goodbye saying "Hey, ain't you forgetting something?"
The two men kiss and the sandwich maker says: "Love you. Straight home from work sweetcheeks."

The idea behind the ad is that Heinz Deli Mayo is so authentic that it tastes as though anyone with a bottle has their own New York Deli man in the kitchen.
The advertising watchdog has received 179 complaints from viewers so far with some complainants saying that the ad is "offensive" and that it is "inappropriate to see two men kissing".

Other viewers have complained that the ad is "unsuitable to be seen" by children and that it raised the difficult problem of having to discuss the issue of same sex relations with younger viewers.

Hmm - must say i think that's alot of plop!