The Future of Technology in Eduction is the kinda event I really enjoy going to – not social media for social media’s sake, but the application of what excites us all to a profoundly important topic.
I enjoyed the day and there were vibrant twitter backchannel conversations.
I’ve embedded below the slidecast (slides plus audio) as a nice lofi alternative to the videos, which are also good and enjoyable.
I’ve also included James Clay’s talk, which was the stand out talk of the day for me: hopeful, fun, inspiring.
(Also definitely worth checking out is Peter Robinson from Oxford University’s comprehensive account of setting up iTunesU, which was very interesting too.)
My thanks to Tim Bush and Frank Steiner from ULCC for inviting and looking after me on the day: they put on an event to be proud of.
Will McInnes wrote this on 12.10.09 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Events & conferences, Gaming, Interesting, Social media, Social networks, Virtual worlds, Web technology, Widgets box
I’m not sure why this suddenly popped into my head, but I was thinking about widgets today and I remembered an article in New Scientist from 1995 about a Japanese software project called Intelligent Pads. A bit of Googling turned up the article in the NS archive (unfortunately the screenshots weren’t preserved so you have to use your imagination,) but I can’t seem to find any other references to it online. I can only assume that the project died, perhaps because it was ahead of its time.
Read more…
Tom wrote this on 25.10.08 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Widgets box
We like making friends here at NixonMcInnes, especially with new clients that have cool projects we can get involved with.
Above all we like making friends who are doing remarkable things. That is why when we were approached by CIDSE we knew we wanted to get involved in their campaign. Read more…
Ruth wrote this on 01.10.08 – 1 comment
It's filed in the NixonMcInnes, Social media, Web technology, Widgets box
Oxfam have commissioned NixonMcInnes to create a series of widgets to accompany their offline campaigns and connect fellow activists in the fight to end poverty and suffering around the globe.
Read more…
Ruth wrote this on 19.09.08 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Marketing, NixonMcInnes, Social media, Widgets box
Over the last eighteen months or so I’ve been involved in defining strategies for, planning, designing, building and deploying widgets.
Widgets are one of those digital technologies that come along, all loosely defined, with the threat that if you want to succeed online you MUST divert your spend into them now. There’s a sense of panic-y ‘I need a widget, and I need it now’, in the same way that in the 90s some marketers needed a website – but couldn’t really say why or what it needed to do.
At the mashup event devoted to Widgets back in February there was a slightly aggressive undercurrent, with the audience (mostly made up of corporate marketers and VCs) demanding that the panelists ‘show me the money‘. I sensed that this atmosphere was largely due to a lack of understanding of what widgets actually are and how they might be used strategically as part of the marketing mix.
It doesn’t help that Google in its wisdom calls them Gadgets but for my purposes here I’m going to define a widget as a piece of content or functionality that can be sited and shared anywhere on the wider web. This is still pretty loose but we’re getting there – bear with me!
Broadly speaking we can then break it down further into ‘personal’ widgets and ‘public’ widgets. This refers to where the widget might be placed and for whose consumption it is.
Personal widgets would be placed on a private space, such as the desktop of your computer or a personal start page. As they tend to be of some utility they will typically have low reach – but more engagement and therefore longevity. For this reason they can provide an excellent branding mechanism.
Examples might include the weather widget I keep on my desktop (to save me the effort of looking out of the window to check if its raining) or the London Underground journey planner I have on my iGoogle start page.
STA (the student-focussed travel agent) have created a set of widgets that appeal to young travellers, including a trip countdown and a tool to check the weather at your destination.
So, a personal widget is a tool that provides ‘branded utility’ – a long and lasting connection with your customer that defines you as useful and helpful and keeps your brand front of mind in a very positive way.
A public widget is generally a very different thing. Ivan Pope, Brighton-based guru of all things widgetty, has called them the ‘bumper stickers of the web’ in that they are used as badges to proclaim belonging or afilliation. This might be easier to visualise if we think where a public widget might be placed – picture MySpace and it should all become clear. A successful public widget would typically see a very high take-up but with little longevity – making this type of widget better suited to campaign activity.
Bloggers also use widgets, generally to give a more rounded view of themselves and how they exist across the social web – so we can see what tracks Dan from Innocent’s been listening to via last.fm, who’s been reading Anthony’s blog via MyBlogLog, the photos the NM team has taken on flickr, Will’s minutiae via Twitter or even where Matt is visiting via Dopplr.
For these online properties share-ability is a key part of the strategy for success – last.fm and flickr are ubiquitously used amongst the blogging population not only because they are excellent services but because they are so portable – and each placement on an influential blog leads to more referrals for the service – a form of free stealth advertising.
As ever understanding the needs of your audience is key to deciding what kind of widget would best serve your business needs – but it’s fairly certain that if you do use online as a significant business channel (and who doesn’t?) then widgetisation is something you should be considering.
Why? Because it’s all about distribution – and we’re marketing to an increasingly distributed and fragmented world. It’s no longer enough to try and shout your message to as many people is as possible – money can’t buy as much influence as it used to, but participation and usefulness can more than supplement that
As a marketer it’s kind of obvious that I’m going to slip in a bit of soft sell alongside all this educational stuff – so of course I’m going to mention our expertise in the planning, design and delivery of wonderful widgets. So far, we’ve run educational workshops for clients (including one of the largest search agencies in the UK and a major clothing retailer), we built and deployed the Sugarscape widget for UK publishing giant Hachette Filipacchi (check out the case study) and delivered two campaign widgets for Oxfam. We know our onions and are more than happy to share them with you.
Thanks to Flickr user jyri for the pic
Jenni wrote this on 12.08.08 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Marketing, Strategy, Widgets box
The BBC have published a beta release of their newly redesigned homepage.
The new design has clearly been influenced by personal start pages like NetVibes, iGoogle and PageFlakes. You can select from a pre-defined list of BBC widgets to include on your homepage – the stuff you’d expect: News, Sport, Weather etc. Read more…
Tom wrote this on 16.12.07 – 5 comments
It's filed in the Design, Strategy, Widgets box
We attended, networked, listened and learnt… Brighton hosted the first ever European Widget Conference yesterday and what a show it was. We walked, talked and generally digested these new fangled things called Widgets and afterwards no one could be in any doubt about what they are, what they do and what they mean to us in this brave new online world. Read more…
Ruth wrote this on 07.12.07 – 3 comments
It's filed in the Events & conferences, Interesting, Widgets box
I was recently handed the monumental task of comparing the major players in the wonderful world of widget platforms. No mean feat, I can assure you, this turned into a mammoth undertaking of epic proportions (well, that may be stretching it a tad ;-). This is new and (relatively) unchartered territory and, although undoubtedly a new and exciting area of social media to be involved in, this meant it was tricky to nail down and collate the huge volumes of data and information into something palatable and useful that would enable us to deliver a whole host of wonderful widgets (be they destined for the web or desktop) using the right platform for the right client, and for the right price. Phew! Read more…
Steve wrote this on 22.11.07 – 17 comments
It's filed in the Development, Social media, Widgets box
Simple yet wonderfully effective – web widgets are a great tool to improve SEO, content distribution and viral campaign awareness. They add value for the user and help a site owner promote and distribute content easily and at minimal cost. Find out more by downloading “Essential Web Widgets” the 2nd chapter in our FREE e-book: “A Marketers Guide to Social Media”.
admin wrote this on 24.05.07 – what do you think?
It's filed in the Development, Internet, Marketing, Social media, Widgets box
