Month: April 2010

Nexus One UK release – don’t bother and wait for the 4G iPhone

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Marco Bertozzi 26.04.10
This Friday the Nexus One is available to the wider UK marketplace. I am not sure how big a deal this is to the wider market, feels like the world has moved on in some ways, the iPhone 4G has come along and I think it looks better and acts better from the very little I have seen and read.

I have had the Nexus One for a couple of months and I have to say, other than the fact its quick compared to a 3G (maybe not a 3Gs) it fails on so many other levels! If you are thinking of buying, consider these:

1. Everyone talked about the fact the casing of the phone was tougher and better than the iPhone – i have dropped mine and it has gouged out a corner of the metal casing, in many ways its more obvious than normal scratches and bangs

2. The keyboard is shit. No other way to put it. It’s less intuitive, it does not feel as tactile as the iPhone and it creates gibberish! As an example I could be walking across Sainsbury car park at 2am, worse for wear, pitch dark and I could be writing an email or text that I would probably regret the next day and the spelling would be perfect on the iPhone. It’s like the phone guessed what I wanted to say based on all the other rubbish I had typed before..Nexus One does not even have a guess at it – it will write nit over not for instance. The law of averages says not is a more likely word to go for over nit?!

3. The cardinal sin – the Apps are of a very low quality, they crash regularly, they are not as good and the range is very small, for me a complete fail.

4. This is just me, but having had an iPhone for so long, I have accessories all over the place and not to mention all the music and apps I have built up, none of it can be replicated, not peculiar to the Nexus but still irritates!

There are others but these are pretty fundamental. I just don’t think it is good enough, I have tried but I am back to 4G. Even the Microsoft series 7 phone looks better, so ebay here I come – anyone want mine?

Hearst to buy iCrossing. Good for Hearst, bad for icrossing (apart from managers)

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Marco Bertozzi 20.04.10
I understand why they would. What a great short cut to getting loads of digital knowledge into a business that has been slow to embrace digital, like all media companies they resisted moving from their traditional and core ad models until they could wait no longer. Magazines have been particularly bad at this in the main and have always been playing catch up to some extent.

Read the PR coverage here

Now as the agency world starts to move into Ad exchanges, putting the decision as to what is valuable inventory or not back in their hands and social media and search becomes more and more complicated Hearst has decided that they should buy a big digital independent agency, nice work. It’s a good move for them and it’s an even better move for those who have substantial shares in iCrossing but for the rest of the people there I am not sure what it means for them.

The history of media companies buying agencies is not great and rarely ends well for the people in the agencies, you become second class citizens to the brands you serve. How independent are you exactly? Will iCrossing start to be a digital department of the media group with regular schedule lines being Hearst properties? What about if you just become an internal department of the company, like an IT help desk to answer questions, solve ongoing problems the brands have in digitising. I am sure they will do a great SEO job on Hearst and perhaps provide a search strategy, Hearst still needs to create decent sites with decent content.

I am not sure I like the sound of it, I am possibly not seeing all the facts but if Hearst spends 375m on the agency, they are not going to let it live happily, bumbling along on its own, there will be some significant impact on the staff there.

The new Apple iPhone 4G video – a mistake or clever teaser?

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Have to say this is a sexy looking phone, I have just bought a Nexus One so cant justify it, yes I can, no I cant and on and on..I may well find a way – perhaps a 2 for 1 with an iPad? Anyway check out the video below and see what you think..has to get you thinking as to whether this guy really did leave it in a bar, seems implausible..maybe its a decoy, maybe it’s a teaser? Now thats what I call seeding..

Valencia Festival of Media – will the presenters re-write the rule book?

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5 Days away from the start of the Valencia Media Festival. It’s a big affair, I have not been for a couple of years, last time was the Venice Media Festival so I am interested to see the presentations. I blogged previously about how Twitter and social communications have changed the feel of presentations at these events and this should be the best example as the whole theme is around changing the rules.

Here is the challenge to the presenters:

a) Prepare something for the conference, not something you made earlier!
b) Make it interesting which means being brave on content and comment, stick your neck out
c) Tell us something new, please
d) Aim the content at knowledgeable people, not the lowest common denominator

If all that happens it will be a great conference as the line up and agenda looks fantastic, see it here www.festivalofmedia.com/agenda I am going to Twitter for the first time at a conference both the content and some of the goings on around the presentations and some of the evening events..although not in too much detail!

Follow me @bertie1972

This is the most exciting time in digital media since search

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Marco Bertozzi 13.04.2010

Today I had three meetings on the trot and each of them came from different fields – Media owner (portal), Media network / technology company and Search. Each of them had a different angle but the one thing they and indeed we had in common was that we all felt the world was changing and noone had the complete answer.

It’s exciting and anyone you talk to seems to be thinking the same, the display market does not know which way to turn, media network, DSP, Ad exchange, media agency, search company? It’s all up for grabs, so much so I think that specialist companies in the ad exchange market may have become too specific as they could invent themselves over and over and may need to.

All of this leads to an enormous amount of bullshit. Unbelievable amount of hot air, duplication of technical services, who does data best, its a minefield and unless you really get around a bit and ask a lot of questions you could be caught out by some dodgy companies and people. Spend time looking into those who approach you claiming to be experienced, specialists etc there is still more hot air than delivery in the market.

It is a great place to be right now but beware, while there is limited regulation and everyone proposing new and exciting business models you could get caught out..a lot of sensible advise and analysis can be found at www.exchangewire.com and www.adexchanger.com

Tiger Woods Ad is impressive..on the part of Nike

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Marco Bertozzi:8.04.10

I have to say I am mightily impressed with the Nike Tiger Woods Ad. It probably says so much more about Nike than Tiger, and they probably know that, but never the less its impressive.

How do these things normally play out? Celebrity messes up, brands drop said celebrity, world moves on for a bit, debate about whether brands should use celebrity endorsement, sponsors come back and re sponsor when the dust has settled and off we go again.

A refreshing change from Nike, who have lived the whole episode, taken the flak, ridden the highs and lows and even been willing to jointly work through the relationship to what I can guarantee will be one hell of a come back.

This Ad is both rare and somehow quite addictive, draws you in, cuts out the hype and makes you think..shit this guy is having to really put himself out there and in this case so is Nike.