Cx3: Win a Google gold

Win your own gold medal with this great interactive Slalom Canoe Google Doodle game, continuing Google's ongoing celebration of the London 2012 Olympics.

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Cx3: Musical Google Doodle

Cx3: Musical Google Doodle

Again, Google create a great interactive musical Google Doodle to celebrate the birthday of electronic music pioneer Bob Moog. You can record and playback your musical efforts - wonder how many people's first choice will be to play Happy Birthday. Explore your musical talents at Bob Moog Google Doodle.

Cx3: Japan earthquake and tsunami

In the wake of the Japan earthquake and tsunami, the maturity of digital networks and social media is being demonstrated.

Less than an hour after the earthquake, Japan's phone system was knocked out and Twitter became the go-to place in the emergency - the number of tweets coming from Tokyo topped 1,200 per minute according to Tweet-o-Meter.

Google has set-up its Person Finder service so people can look for others, or post information saying they are safe - more than 4,000 records were posted in the first hour.

On YouTube the Japan tsunami channel hosts official news and user generated videos. The video below has already been viewed more than 3 million times.



Mashable has posted an article Japan earthquake and tsunami - seven simple ways to help in the aftermath of the disaster.

No-one can say that the devastation of Japan's earthquake, tsunami and nuclear power plant explosion isn't shocking, and the essential need of digital and social channels for connecting people and connecting the world with information is clear.

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Mashable: Japan earthquake and tsunami - seven simple ways to help
Cx3 blog entry: Iran's social media voice
Cx3 blog entry: Twitter flies Hudson plane around the world

Cx3: London calling

London's spectacular 2011 New Year firework fantasia demonstrated to the world the vibrance and confidence of a city commanding contemporary modernity, integrating seamlessly with its solid heritage foundation. A powerful and explosive message (excuse all the puns) against a backdrop of austerity, political coalition and global economic uncertainty...but a necessary one.

Digital communication turned a transitional corner in 2010. Economic escapism embraced 'Club Apple' and 'Club Google' feeding an uncontrollable behavioural craving enabling us to dance with the seductive iPhone, iPad, Android, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Foursquare brands...the hedonisitic 1980's revival relived for a new generation as they indulged - ordering another bottle of digital Veuve, posting their Facebook status, Tweeting when the Champagne was corked and uploading a brand reputation damaging video of complaint to the world on YouTube.

Joking aside, 2011 does have a more serious corporate tone - Relationships; Partnership; Performance; Delivery. 2010 was also a transitionary cornerstone for businesses as they too played with new ways of communicating through emerging digital channels, however, it's now time for the maturity of digital to be realised and strategic long-term commitment to enable the returns of nurtured stakeholder relationships and sustained growth to be fulfilled.

The complexities of corporate communications are such that traditional communication channels will not disappear from the mix, however, the focus of reaching and fulfilling stakeholder audience demands will be key. Maximising performance will result in appropriate targeting to reach 'the right' stakeholders using their preferred communication 'channel of choice' - even if that is now a 140 character dialogue on Twitter.

So the prospect for digital corporate communications in 2011 is positively coming of age. A solid strategic communication tradition is the foundation for confidently commanding new channels (including digital) to realise sustained performance and nurture ongoing stakeholder relationships and reputational brand loyalty.

London's New Year fireworks chimed positive sentiment for London to be sustained throughout 2011 as the world's eyes become focussed on the city as the stage (and worldwide tourist destination) for the marriage of Britain's future King and Queen, and on the upcoming London Olympics in 2012...oh my, I've embedded a YouTube video of the fireworks into my blog post - Let the digital games begin ;-)

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Cx3 blog entry: Connected devices from Nielsen

Cx3: 2008 - 2009 mobile trends

2008 was the year of the smartphone
The last 12 months has seen the launch of iconic devices such as the iPhone 3G, Google G1, Blackberry Storm and Nokia N97. 2008 also saw the emergence of the electronic ecosystems needed to get the most out of such handsets. However, the popularity of these devices has brought to light several problems that look set to become acute in 2009.

2008 mobile success factors
- Consumer social networking behaviour. Access to popular social networking sites such as Facebook, MySpace and Bebo.

- Applications. Applications introduced a new content category. Apple said more than 100 million applications had been downloaded from its App Store between July and September.

- Speed. 3G started to deliver on its promise and has been attributed to the use of a technology known as High Speed Packet Access (HSPA) - the original 3G service, but on steroids. The service speed is set to increase with the introduction of HSPA+ in 2009, which allows up to 42Mbps (the maximum at the moment is 7.2Mbps in the UK).

2009 mobile switch-off expected
Mobile analysts CCS Insight predict 2009 will see sales of handsets shrink. They say this slowdown could be blamed on the global economic downturn that will hit every part of the mobile industry.

Handset sales look set to dip in 2009 following years of growth. As a result it is essential mobile operators ensure that greater numbers of people pay for data traffic.

Read full article on BBC: Smartphones drive mobile markets

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Cx3 blog entry: Google G1 or Apple i-Phone...fight!
Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Google G1 or Apple iPhone...fight!

Google launched its long-awaited G1 mobile phone this week. There is no doubt that the Google G1 is credible competition for Apple's iPhone, therefore, expect flying baubles at the annual Christmas bun-fight this year.

So what's so special about the Google G1? Well, Google has taken the best bits of iPhone touch and added some of their own, integrated a slide-out Blackberry-style QWERTY keyboard, increased the camera picture quality, and boasts a faster connection speed to the internet - oh yeah, you can also make a phone call if you so desire. The Google G1 may not be the design classic as awarded to the iPhone (Apple will always have that sewn-up), but to a customer audience whose priority is functional integrated communications, the Google G1 is a winner.

Apps and widgets will be key to maximising the G1's success as an integrated mobile communications platform and Google's Android system aims to achieve this. The Google G1 is affiliated to the T-mobile network, who have been busying themselves in developing their own version of the very successful Apple App Store. Google has the opportunity to leverage its existing application empire via T-mobile.

Skepticism of Google entering the mobile handset marketplace in order to extend its advertising reach is rife, but so what? Currently, there is a troublesome lack of mobile channel advertising regulation, and if this is tightened by Google entering into the marketspace, then surely this can only be positive?

However, and a big "however", as much as the Google G1 may be a strong player, network loyalty to O2 and aggressive churn tactics may determine that the Apple iPhone remains in consumers' pockets. To benefit consumer choice and ultimately integrated communication reach, exclusive handset-network affiliation needs to change.

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Cx3 blog entry: Apple iPhone App Store success reported
Cx3 blog entry: iPhone driving growth in mobile internet usage behaviour

Cool Cuil and the Google iceberg

Anna Patterson's latest search engine venture since quitting Google in 2006, Cuil, had its PR launch this week and received a cold if not frozen reception.

To crack the mighty Google iceberg requires a biblical David and Goliath effort - the right stone catapulted on-target causing a giant to fall. Cuil's launch threw lots of little stones, but none of them directly targeted at Google. It demonstrated a search engine with lots of ideas, but also demonstrated a lot of flaws - currently, Cuil's user interface is not intuitive and too complex, the results returned are questionable and the matching of images against results is clearly buggy that could be detrimental to a corporate's brand positioning.

What Cuil successfully achieved was press coverage of a child stamping their foot whilst noisily munching on a 'Cuil' ice-lolly. One can only conclude that a flawed release was purposeful in order to generate awareness and help Cuil precisely select and throw the 'right' damaging stone in an attempt to directly down Google in the future...but, can the ice-lolly crack the iceberg, or, will both melt leaving behind just the iceberg and a stick with a joke written on it?