Creative Commons - explained

FABULOUS piece of work from Mohawk Media for Creative Commons explaining how to use their licencing.

Creative Commons Kiwi from CreativeCommons AotearoaNZ on Vimeo.


I think Creative Commons is awesome and wish NZer's knew and understood what the licencing can mean for them, better.


I guess for many people they don't understand how it really effects them. The way I see CC working for those in the advertising world is that it actually gives advertisers a leg to stand on with sites like You Tube should someone decide to 'remix' an ad. You Tube recognises CC licences and will pull down offending videos which break these licences. (Not sure if any of you have ever tried to get YT to pull down a video before, but it can be a HARD uphill battle and can take weeks). Also, it makes it really clear to users what you are happy for them to do (or not do) with your content. Maybe you want people to remix it?


Anyway - Creative Commons is great and that video makes it really clear how it all works. Check it out and perhaps consider using the licences?


While I'm attributing things, I saw this first on Lance Wiggs blog.

Be Sociable if You're Being Social

I got an email on Friday from Deadly Ponies:

Obviously I am a fan of Deadly Ponies as I have signed up for to receive emails from them. I love a good email that tells me I can win product, so I thought, tell me more...

Click on through to their Facebook Page.

Here is where I have an issue.

What they are asking for, in order to possibly win up to $1,000 worth of product is:

CHANCE TO WIN $1000 WORTH OF DEADLY PONIES!!
Simply post a comment below this picture and then get people to like your post . The person with the most likes wins! Winner receives a voucher to spend on the DP online store to the dollar value of the likes they receive. e.g. Receive 820 likes = receive a $820.00 voucher
Cut-off is 12 noon, 1 August 2011, so get liking.
Voucher Limit $1000.00

Here is where we find my first issue "post a comment below this picture".

As per most well behaved Facebook 'likers', their fans have taken to this well and started commenting. As of writing this post, the top number of 'likes' any one comment has had is 98. Not sure how many of you have purchased Deadly Ponies product before, but $98 doesn't buy much. 

Now, as someone who works with Facebook and products on Facebook a lot, I saw some flaws in the way that they are running this 'competition'. Not one to leave something like this be and honestly wanting to help, I wrote a status update for Deadly Ponies:

It reads:
Hi Deadly Ponies.
While I understand what you're trying to do with your promotion to win $1,000 worth of your fabulous bags, I feel as though your method is flawed. Unfortunately by asking people to comment on your status, you actually won't attract any new facebook likes 'organically' which you could have by having people post their love of your product in their own status. If I comment on your status, only the 2 friends of mine who also 'like' you, will see it. By doing it this way, in my own status, I share this with my 350+ friends, who might also think - gosh, I love Deadly Ponies also.
Just something to think about.
xx


I thought it was pretty nice overall. Nothing too mean. Simply a suggestion.


My own friends have responded quite well to my comment. Deadly Ponies it would seem, have not.


I understand Facebook and when I @ reply a company page as I did in this instance, it posts to their wall. I'm not sure how they have set the page up, my post however, seems noticeably absent. It makes me wonder if they deleted it themselves?


I am all for companies embracing social media and using it to build their following, but the point of social media, is to be sociable. So let your audience be sociable with you!


My second issue, is that the competition itself is actually against Facebook's T&C's. You're not actually allowed to run a competition straight from a status update. You have to do this through a third party app. What concerns me for Deadly Ponies is that they have built quite a nice fan base (I'm assuming) without doing any Facebook advertising. With the introduction of this campaign their 'organic' growth in fans could easily tip FB off that they are running this competition and FB are totally within their rights to shut the page down completely.


I really like Deadly Ponies and love their bags especially, but sometimes you need to ask questions, read conditions and listen to others.   

Pedigree Doggelganger

I'm not entirely sure why I had to first see this on AdFreak, but how amazing is the site for the Pedigree Adoption Drive called Doggelganger?

Created by Colenso BBDO apparently, I have not seen or heard anything about this site/the adoption drive, anything.

Now, I realise that it is totally possible to miss entire campaigns if you are not within the target market, but this really is something that lights my fire. I ADORE dogs. I get very squee and loud when there is a puppy around. I would love nothing more than to adopt a dog, but unfortunetly my current living situation doesn't really mean it is possible. But, if I was in a position to do so - I could adpot my doggelganger!

First you upload a front on photo of yourself:

And then it matches your features to give you your doggelganer:

Mine is a Male Husky called Tiki. Isn't he beautiful? AND he's at Auckland SPCA! So close, just not possible (if I used emoticons, this is where I would put a sad face).

Check out the site, check out your doggelganger and if you have the means, why not adopt one of these gorgeous creatures.

Social Searching

This is lovely.

I went to a presentation at MSN the other day and learnt about all the cool social search things they are rolling out in the States at the moment. One of these things is in conjunction with Facebook and even here in NZ we will soon have Facebook referrals from our friends when we search for things on Bing.

When I heard this, my concern was the amount of education required for the general public to understand that they could benefit from social searching and (basically) friend referrals IF they are logged into Facebook. Trying to explain to your average Joe Blow why their friends profiles turn up on Facebook plug-ins as per below:

For some reason they think it's magic that their faces are staring back at them. Seriously. I have had more than one conversation about this.

Either way, I think it is great and smart and a fantastic thing for Bing to implement. Being the underdog to Google, Bing has to do something to differentiate themselves and this seems like a clever way to do it.

Having so recently seen the Bing example, imagine my surprise when I was on a friends computer the other night, searching for The Chosen One and this pops up:

Social searching on Google! Due to the Microsoft/Facebook exclusive relationship (they're totally going steady), Bing has the advantage because Facebook is a BEAST, but at least Google is trying to make some headway in this area. Obviously Twitter isn't quite as big in New Zealand, but luckily for me, I embrace the Tweets, so I am hoping that this will bode well in my searching going forward.

Really interested in what other people might think about this? If you were searching for 'new cars' and the search returns a result which details that one of your friends like a certain brand, would you be more inclined to investigate further? I think it will be really handy for restaurant recommendations, but further than that, I'm not so sure.

Coupons! Deals! Discounts! Oh MY!

Is everyone else as sick as I am with the constant bombardment of Daily Deal sites? With some of these sites you have to supply them with an email address before you can even check out the deals. Not so cool in my books.

Now, I am one for a good deal, but I am over all the spam in my inbox. Seriously done with it.

But Monica (I hear you ask) How will you know when you can get cheap OPI nailpolish - one of your favourite things in the WHOLE WIDE WORLD?

Ah ha my friend! I have found a way.

Readers... Meet Chelsey.

I found out about Chelsey today. She's a pretty classy site which is aimed pretty much bang on my demographic. Must admit, I was always a little jealous that the boys have Get Frank and we get nothing. Well, no more.

I'm getting off topic. Sorry.

Chelsey has aggregated all of the coupon/deal/t'shirt and even booze offers on one page:

Sweetbix right? I'm setting this page as one of my open on startup tabs right next to Gmail, FB, grabaseat and Reader.

This is especially good as there is no need to supply your email address just to check out the deal.

Brilliance. Thanks Chelsey.

Oh, guys. Haven't forgotten about you. Get Frank also do a deal aggregator.

BNZ - Find Your Start

What a delightful treat to stumble upon Friday evening.

There in Aotea Square was a tasty projection for BNZ and a short story competition thingee (Literacy Awards) that they are running called findyourstart.co.nz.

Unfortunately it wasn't a perfect evening for such a fantastic ambient piece, but I still thought it was rad.

Projected on the wall was this:

and if you continued to watch, you got the start of a short story already written for you (also, there were people coasting around the square handing out cards and story starters on them).

The BEST part of all of this? The story starters which were projected onto the wall were being written off the cuff by a couple of creatives in a van:

Who, from what I can tell, were writing from about 6.30pm to 11pm. That's a lot of off-the-cuff writing.

In case you all missed it and want to check it out, I even took a video. You're going to have to excuse my laugh half way though. It seems as though the guys in the van were drawing inspiration from people who were walking past, which was awesome when it was the people obviously coming out of an evening at the Civic, but when they were talking about the crew I was with... even more hilarious.

So nice work BNZ. What a wonderful promotion (people don't know how to use their words anymore, it's great to be encouraging it) and fabulously executed. I love interesting and different ambient ideas. Totally my favourites.

The Awesome Reaction Opportunities of Online Advertising

Jeepers, what a news day! Hows about that Obama unscheduled announcement at 3-something this afternoon? That was a ripper.

News started coming through Twitter about 2.30 this afternoon about the unscheduled announcement from Obama and then very quickly the rumour mill went into overdrive in that it was to announce that Osama Bin Laden had been killed and the US had the body.

This kind of news of course spreads like wildfire on the internet. The announcement was to be streamed live on The White House website, which of course was delayed for almost an hour. During which time, everyone was hungry for information, which meant publishers had to turn information around SUPER QUICK.

As @tweetdaniel pointed out, TV3 didn't manage to get it quite right:

I would recommend clicking on the link above so you can check it out in full, but basically, it reads:

"We are currently experiencing extremely high traffic due to the announcement that Barack Obama is dead. Please bear with us we will be back up soon."

Whoops.

Not sure that was right.

Now, if you've read my blog before, you will probably know that I don't have a lot of nice things to say about TVNZ. I still don't, because when I tried to watch a live stream on tvnz.co.nz this afternoon it wanted me to report the error in loading, which I tried to do a number of times. Le sigh.

However, they did manage to do something right today (shock horror I know).

There I was, reading Mashable.com on what was to be announced and what do I see, but a One News banner run through the Google Content Network:

I do not tell a lie, this was up within half an hour of me first reading about the rumour that Obama was going to announce the death of Bin Laden. Now, it's not the prettiest of banners, but it's bang on. All the information you need. Up to date. Relevant.

I think it is awesome and just shows how online is the best medium for this kind of immediate response. Press also gives the opportunity for quick reaction turnaround, but for that, we're talking the next day, not within the hour. This is just too good. Brilliant work.

This doesn't change anything though TVNZ. This is clever, but all is not forgiven...