'Cross The Breeze

Da Vinci’s codices reunite after 500 years

January 31, 2007 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

In the UK the British Library launched Turning the Pages™ 2.0 at the Windows Vista launch event. Bill Gates took the stage with Lynne Brindley, Chief Executive of the British Library, to compare his Leonardo Codex Leicester to the British Library’s Codex Arundel – the codices reunited for the first time in almost 500 years.

“Turning the Pages™ 2.0 is a toolkit that allows libraries and museums to put entire collections of books online in a compelling 3D environment, with a suite of useful tools to aid learning. Developed with the British Library, it is available as a service for institutions and private collectors around the world. It’s a true next-generation web application, taking advantage of the latest web technologies.”

I tried it and opened up ‘The Golf Book’ (Flemish masters in miniature) and was definitely impressed with the experience. There’s some magic to paging such an antique book, fully with audio comments if you want.

For the moment the ‘library’ holds 16 works of art including books like Mercator atlas of Europe, Mozart’s musical diary, Andreas Vesalius’ De Humani Corporis Fabrica, William Blake’s notebook, … I’m also very proud to see that next to the The Golf Book, we have 2 other Flemish present with Mercator and Vesalius.

Technorati tags: vesalius, mercator, da vinci, mozart, gates, vista, microsoft, british library, turn the page

books, internet, microsoft, news, software

Keep on dreaming …

January 31, 2007 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

Remember this one? It’s clear that Duval Guillaume Antwerp and Ché still “Keep on dreaming of a better world”… and so do I :-)

[Via Pietel]

Technorati tags: ché, duval guillaume antwerp, advertising

advertising, fun

Dynamics of viral marketing

January 30, 2007 by Kris Hoet 2 Comments

Emergence marketing points out to an interesting research on viral marketing today. Read the full report (PDF) here. It gives an interesting view on the (limited) role of influentials in viral marketing and exposes some of the potential long term effects related to word of mouth.

Technorati tags: wom, marketing, research, viral marketing, report, hp

internet, marketing

For sale: Ecto-1

January 29, 2007 by Kris Hoet 4 Comments

Since I started this with the DeLorean a couple of months ago, from the sell-old-tv-and-movie-related-cars-department, it is now the turn for the Ghostbusters Ecto-1. For a mere $150.000 this can be yours. It seems like Hollywood don’t want them anymore. Which one will be next? KITT? The General Lee?

For sale: DeLorean
For sale: Batmobile

Technorati tags: batmobile, delorean, kitt, general lee, ecto-1, ghostbusters, sales

fun, gadgets

Wii are from Sony

January 28, 2007 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

Gizmodo has some news about the Wii, but in this case it was actually the image in the post that draw my attention. This is what a brand managers nightmare must look like!

You have been trying to build the brand around your next gen gaming console, did buzz marketing, mainstream advertising, … and then this picture of some Sony promo boys playing the Wii travels the world. How about that?! Anybody have an idea about the negative impact things like these have? These promo boys surely won’t…

Technorati tags: brands, sony, wii, advertising, promotion, games, gaming

advertising, electronics, games, internet, media

Sphere of influence

January 25, 2007 by Kris Hoet 3 Comments

Still thinking about what I wrote yesterday on influence, I wanted to add something David Armano wrote recently. In an interesting post about influencing influencers, it’s the diagram that I found most interesting.

Ripples2_1

If there’s one thing I always missed during the demos of Buzzlogic, Attentio and the lot, than it’s situated around this concept. All these services track brand buzz, with a lot of options and graphs, and they do a good job at it. Buzzlogic even does some mapping, but it will always be related to the brand you’re tracking and the content.

This diagram on top just shows what I’ve actually been looking for, the mapping of ‘spheres of influence’. And that for the brands I want to track. Anybody?

Technorati tags: tracking, brands, brandtracking, buzzlogic, attentio, influencers

blogging, influence, internet, marketing

How influential are you?

January 24, 2007 by Kris Hoet 3 Comments

This is a question that intrigues me a lot lately. And no, not so much about my own influence (if that even exists), but more about finding out how big other people’s influence can be when talking about brands. Especially in the blogosphere. Is this something that you can define using the tools out there, or does it all come down to reading the blogs yourself to get a clear picture? I’ve had some interesting conversations around this with a few people like Ine, BVLG, Simon & Ashley to name a few but the question still stands. More recently we also had a good discussion about this in MarketingProf’s Book Club as well.

There are many ways to list blog valuations out there. In Belgium for instance, Bruno (BVLG) has been busy listing Belgian blogs according to their value, using a wide range of tools: Blogshares, Technorati, Bloginfluence, Blogrolling, Alexa, the blog value calculator found at the Business Opportunities weblog and more. But what does that really say about these blogs’ influence for your brand?

I also see numerous tools being released that start doing more than just ‘some basic’ buzztracking but try to get some more analytics applied to all this. Think about Buzzlogic, Attentio, … where you can get an idea of favorability of the buzz and things like that.

To my own experience though it’s really tough to find out about interests & influence unless you read the blogs yourself. Personally I don’t care doing so honestly, I enjoy reading most of them. I reckon that this asks for a lot of work, and that this might not be the solution for all marketers. Still it’s the best advice I could give you: read, read, read… if you don’t bother to read the bloggers you want to engage with, don’t even start. I think the tools mentioned before are very good to find out about the buzz around your brand, and they might give additional data on influence once you’ve defined who you want to engage with. But the reading comes first.

Technorati tags: influencers, influential, bloggers, tracking, analytics, brands, blogosphere, influence, tools

blogging, influence, internet, marketing, media

Zunely in Belgium

January 23, 2007 by Kris Hoet 0 Comments

Together with my new PC, I’m finally on the Vista RTM and not on RC1 anymore. This meant that I could install my Zune after it had been lying here for almost a month apart from the occasional FM radio usage. Now I got all my music (ripped CD’s), images and movies on there and I quite like it. One thing is a petty, and that won’t change that soon here in Belgium, that is that there’s not too much music sharing going on… or as Gizmodo called it: I’m so Zunely.

Technorati tags: zune, mp3, vista, music, zunely

electronics, gadgets, microsoft, movies, music, software

Kylie alive and kicking!

January 23, 2007 by Kris Hoet 1 Comment

The next live concert you can watch for free on MSN (within the recent partnership with Control Room) is the Showgirl Homecoming Tour from Kylie Minogue. Get ready for super sexy Kylie on January 24th!

Technorati tags: kylie minogue, showgirl, live, concert, msn, control room

msn, music

Who do they think they are?!

January 22, 2007 by Kris Hoet 5 Comments

A couple of days ago I participated in 2 contests. Both were offered by my son, who just knew it involved something with daddy’s PC by the look of “www” sticker on the package.

First the Cars DVD action: you could win a trip to Disneyland in Los Angeles. Just enter the code on the pack on the website which we did. Message on the site was that we would receive an email very soon letting us know if we were amongst the winners or not.

Second contest: the Lays/Doritos ‘win 5 Apple Macbooks per day’. Also here he had a code, which he found in his pack of Doritos. And also here we would receive an email to let us know if we had won (within 24 hours it even said).

We didn’t win with either contest, well I suppose so because we never ever received an email from either one of them. What kind of promotion is that? You took the bait, you accepted the incentive, bought the product, spent the money… so why still care? I don’t know who built these 2 contests but you better take a look at them again as they don’t work.

Technorati tags: lays, doritos, disney, cars, contest

advertising, games, internet, marketing