The Digital Week

Narrative IndustriesThoughts

A highly subjective selection of things we found, were sent and generally liked on the web this week, ending 17th January 2014.

Nest Eggs

This week’s big news has been Google’s purchase of Nest for 3.2 Billion USD. It’s not often that so much money changes hands so it seems everyine has an opinion on whether it’s the proof of a bubble 2.0, the beginning of a new wave of cleantech investment or just another big Google deal. Nest sells itself as the manufacturer of next generation thermostats & fire alarms but it’s so much more; Nest uses data from your home, the internet and your mobile and uses it to improve energy efficiency and safety. It’s part of a movement known as home automation and is set to be the future of energy use. We do love a bit of cleantech.

Forbes were confused while New Scientist & CNN had a better grasp of the implications of the Nest deal, understanding that Google is not (as many think) a media company; Google is a data company that has just bought another way to get their hands on data from your home and will soon be able to use that data to provide intelligence about everything from advertising on your Smart TV to when energy suppliers need to prepare for extra demand, etc.

Facebook’s acquisition of link-sharing service “Branch” for a paultry $15million received much less press…

Scary Baby

There’s a developing trend for creating shocking viral videos for films recently. We had the haunted cafe for the remake of Carrie and the guy who spent a chunk of the marketing budget for The Secret Life of Walter Mitty on helping typhoon survivors (and filming it, of course). This week, this Devil Baby video has been everywhere as a promotion for a film called Devil’s Due.

Outdated Web Features

Straight from the “If I had a penny for everytime…” section of the web come this Mashable article about outdated features on websites. It struck such a chord amongst the web industry that it got 19,000 shares, presumably because clients aren’t always aware that some of the things they’d like will actively get in the way of a good user-experience and kill conversion rates. These include:

  • Autoplay Videos
  • Flash Intros
  • Automated Popups
  • Cheap Stock Photos
  • Large Hero Images
  • And more…

Read the full article at 12 Outdated Web Features

Peter “Chewbacca” Mayhew’s personal Star Wars photos.

The actor who played Chewbacca in the original Star Wars trilogy, Peter Mayhew, had a fun week posting behind the scene photos on Twitter. A wonderful, warm insight into life on set and includes shots of a young Warwick Davis. Various sites eagerly picked them up and showed their favourites but it’s worth going to the original TheWookieRoars feed on Twitter for an unedited rummage through.

2014 Digital Marketing & EcommerceTrends

Everyone and their dog does a trend prediction at this time of year. It’s internet tradition. Most are nonsense, some are just regurgitated padding but eConsultancy have consistently hit more than they miss in their annual round-up. If you read one Digital Trend Prediction, make it this one.

http://bit.ly/1fEQ3CM

We also liked:

Facebook Trends

Yes, we know Twitter & Google have had it for years, but Facebook has finally added trending topics. Woohoo!

Twitter lets brands target ads by email address

Twitter launched “tailored audiences” last year, enabling brands to target promoted tweets via cookies set by their ad partners (basically like re-marketing). This week they expanded their targeting of Promoted Tweets by offering the ability to match the email address in your CRM to a Twitter user. They also know where your kids go to school.

Margaret Thatcher Day

The campaign against naming a national holiday after Margaret Thatcher sprung up in reaction to the proposal from a group of backbench Conservative MPs who suggested renaming August Bank Holiday after her.

Computer Electronics Show

It would impossible to do justice to CES here, with its amazing technological anouncements covering everything from games & mobile to medical & automotive. Instead, here’s a link to a CES2014 Round-up we liked. If you’d like to know more, you know how to use Google, don;t you?

 

That’s it from us. Have a great weekend and see you next time.