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There’s so much noise at the moment about which circumstances social networks should be considered a relevant customer communication channel that it’s nice to come across really successful executions as examples. The IKEA Facebook campaign to promote their new Malmo store is one such example, developed by Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors. By encouraging user’s to share pictures from the profile page of the Malmo IKEA Store Manager, user’s are effectively personally endorsing the IKEA products to their network of friends.

With general opinion being that Apple [iPhone] has the mobile market wrapped up and that Google [Android] might, if they’re lucky, come in a distant second, it was with some interest that I attended the Nokia Ovi event on Tuesday night in Leeds. It’s widely recognised that Nokia are on the back foot at the moment, slipping [rapidly?] both in terms of market share and consumer appeal. However, from a developer perspective, four positive things things struck me about Ovi by Nokia:

1. Due to leveraging the web and Flash technologies that Nokia have been trying hard to integrate into all their handsets for some time, Ovi offers a speed of development for ‘low level’ apps that isn’t currently as easy on iPhone/Android. Whilst both those platforms also offer ‘packaged web applications’ as an alternative to full software development, neither is yet as feature rich as the Ovi options.
2. Ovi is available on Nokia Series 40 as well as Series 60 phones. What this means is that Nokia Ovi enables developers to reach the mass middle market phones rather than just the high-end smartphones. Naturally, this position will change quite rapidly, with cut-down iPhone/Android devices always being rumoured and with ‘mid-range’ users rapidly migrating upgrading to ‘high-end’ year on year anyway.
3. Nokia were keen to stress that they really really want to help us [to help them]. It would be too bold to suggest they were ‘desperate’ to help, but there did seem a genuine acknowledgement that to make Ovi anywhere near as successful as the Apple App Store, Nokia would have to leverage their massive existing developer community by making themselves genuinely available, so that things get moving before it’s too late.
4. And lastly, I was inspired to feel that they are still, after all, Nokia. It seems crazy to hear so frequently how Nokia are “down and out”, despite being a company that have understood and dominated mobile for so long. They certainly do have a battle on their hands, but being in the same space as the handful of guys representing Ovi certainly demonstrated that their absolute core business is mobile. Whether that’s enough, only time will tell.

Anyway, we’ll let you know how we get on but you can expect us to be visible on Ovi some time in the near future.

Those folks at Google continue to be pretty busy, although if you look closely it’s not hard to see much of their activity [Docs, Apps, Wave, OS, etc] coming together behind the common thread that is their web browser, Chrome. Chrome is a very fine browser already, despite it’s present shortcomings such as not being available [properly] for the Mac. However, one issue that Google face in their drive to offer everything the mass-market computer user needs through a humble browser is to educate people as to what exactly a browser is. Of course, we in web development [and to some extent our clients who run web and mobile sites] use multiple browsers and often understand the pros and cons of each, but to the average computer user a browser is at best a means of saving bookmarks and at worst is “The Internet”.

Google’s answer? Create a website that explains exactly what a browser is, how it’s role will increase in our day-to-day activity and, without too much disguise, why therefore you should choose Chrome for your browser.

I really enjoyed reading Carsonified’s recent article on 10 Vital Lessons for Web Start-Ups [received via Smashing Magazine]. It’s an excellent account from the guys behind the new[ish], lightweight Perch CMS regarding the challenges and learnings in launching their first full product outside of their web development day jobs. It’s undoubtedly something that many small agencies/developers also face, or hope to face [ourselves included]. If nothing else, the article itself demonstrates an excellent PR exercise as I remember looking at Perch when it was launched and feeling that, without a demo, it wasn’t something I could evaluate quickly and, typically, haven’t been back since. However, amongst other things, the article explains how quickly such short-comings were revised and overcome. Looks like I better head back there soon and check out the now available demo!

There’s been a fair bit of fuss recently about the launch of a new Facebook feature which by all accounts is a standard part of pretty much every other well known web service [Myspace, Flickr, Twitter, etc]. From tomorrow [June 12th] Facebook will be allowing users to create usernames, and hence a more friendly url to their page. For instance, where a facebook page used to be accessed at facebook.com/profile.php?id=xxxxx it will now be accessible at facebook.com/username. This is clearly of high value to the increasing number of businesses and marketeers using Facebook as a primary communication channel, and is also a much nicer method for those of us used to one identity online. Recognising the issues of squatting and trademarking by introducing such a feature after launch, Facebook have also taken steps to add trade mark protection, further acknowledging the growing value of Facebook as a commercial tool.

We’re very happy to announce that Common Agency won the Best Application of Mobile Technology award in last week’s Yorkshire Digital Awards 2009 for our work [with Blink] on the Five Trees Forest story/game. In a strong and diverse category which included a Bluetooth city guide and a mobile internet service, Five Trees Forest was lauded for it’s innovative and effective use of future mobile technology to create a compelling and immersive experience. This follows a successful installation in April of Five Trees Forest at the BBC’s innovation labs, where the service generated much enthusiasm in it’s demonstration of future mobile technology.

Having established ourselves as specialists in mobile design and development by delivering numerous projects for key mobile players such as Orange, HTC and other mobile companies - we’re particularly happy to also be gaining recognition from our peers for our mobile work. Furthermore this is at a time when mobile, perhaps ‘finally’ some might say, is becoming a more significant part of the digital landscape. With our current activity spanning applications for iPhone and Android, mobile internet service development and mobile user experience design, it’s a great time to be involved in creating and delivering mobile services.

OK, OK. So I’m 29 days late in noticing the Guardian’s announcement that it is switching it’s format from broadsheet to Twitter but it’s amusing nonetheless and, even though as soon as I click ‘Publish’ this post will be syndicated to Twitter, it’s a reminder that in comparison to 188 years of print some of the current “can’t do without” web services really are just little toddlers.

Looks like when Adobe offered to supply the $699 software package for free to developers who could prove they were currently unemployed they may not have expected to have to withdraw the offer so quickly. Cynics might suggest however that Adobe fully expected the deal to be snapped up and now they can sit back, happy to have rapidly expanded their Flex community by another 15,000 developers. Either way, it is often the case that innovation and creativity are increased during hard times so let’s hope this paves the way for yet more exciting new Flash developments. At least with Flex we’re unlikely to see 15,000 new ’skip intro’ sites!

Er yeah… in that it’s likely to give you Mr Spock ears. What the BBC are covering as a glimpse at ‘top-secret’ phone is raising cynical comment in some of the mobile forums, ranging from “a pat on the back for their PR company” to “a fairly basic way to generate interest just before floating”.

Thinking ahead is a beautiful thing, says Palm of it’s new ‘Pre’ handset. That’s all well and good but in today’s hyper-competitive touch screen smartphone market, thinking ahead would have been more effective had it resulted in Palm producing the iPhone.

Update: Effective marketing or not, looks like I’ll be eating my words as there are a number of reviews just out saying that the Pre is a damn fine device, measuring up well against the iPhone and G1.

Amusing viral from the Labour Party featuring the WebCabinet (Shadow version).

BT are currently using a bill insert that hopefully earned someone in the marketing team [or associated agency] a big pat on the back. It goes something like, “BT Vision: Satellite TV without the sky-high prices”. No doubt the legal team insisted on the letter-casing and hyphen but the message still works well.