Brand Butlers

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10 Crucial Consumer Trends for 2010

http://trendwatching.com/briefing/

Judging the top 10 Internet moments of the decade

Webby Awards rundown of the decade in chronological order:

* Craigslist moving outside San Francisco in 2000 to revamp the whole notion of classified ads, striking fear in the hearts of newspapers everywhere.
* The launch of Google AdWords in 2000, opening up a new world of advertising for businesses both large and small.
* The start of Wikipedia in 2001 showing off the Internet's ability to let online strangers collaborate, leading to more than 14 million articles in 271 different languages.
* The takedown of Napster in 2001, triggering a revolution in the way we now grab our music and videos.
* Google's IPO in 2004, creating a massive, dominant, and far-reaching force on the Internet.
* The online video revolution in 2006 triggered by beefy bandwidth, cheap camcorders, and YouTube, flooding cyberspace with an array of professional and not-so-professional videos.
* The expansion of Facebook and the debut of Twitter in 2006, creating a fresh way for us to interact and communicate with friends and family.
* The launch of the iPhone in 2007, helping us hop onto the Internet anywhere, anytime through a cell phone.
* The U.S. presidential campaign in 2008 tapping into the Internet with videos like "Obama Girl," social networking use among voters, and online fundraising.
* The Iranian election protesters in 2009 using Twitter to spread their word, a movement that prompted the U.S. State Department to ask Twitter to keep the site up and running.

That's a pretty good list, but of course it immediately started us thinking about the influential Internet-related moments and developments from 2000 to 2009 that got short shrift or that got left off entirely.

Our list, in no particular order:

* The debut and growth of Firefox: The first browser to challenge the IE monopoly, Firefox now holds a 25 percent market share, paving the way for other players like Google Chrome.
* The arrival of blogging: Started as simple online diaries, blogs have grown to become a valid and valued source of news, opinion, and information. As a corollary, there's the rise of RSS, which lets the latest information come to us instead of our having to go out and find it.
* The surge in broadband: The availability of DSL, cable, satellite, and now Fios put a nail in the coffin for dial-up access, letting us download files in seconds, watch each other on webcams, and stream high-res videos.
* The allure of torrents: Whether used for legal or illegal file sharing, technologies like BitTorrent let us share and download all types of content across the Web from movies and TV shows to software. And speaking of movies and TV--the popularity of sites like Hulu and Netflix demonstrated that you no longer need a costly cable TV subscription to indulge your viewing inclinations.
* The reinvention of the telephone. On the one hand, there were VoIP services such as Skype, which saved us from expensive long-distance bills. On the other was 3G technology and mobile broadband, which let us jump into cyberspace from our phones, Netbooks, and a host of other portable gadgets.
* The rise of home workers: Thanks to the Internet, you can now run a full-fledged business or work for your employer without having to leave the house. There's also online education--with many accredited schools now online, today you can attend college or graduate school and get a full degree from your own computer.
* The ascent of Salesforce and cloud computing: With the success of cloud-computing providers like Salesforce, companies can now run much of their business online without the hassle of maintaining their own internal resources.
* The looming menace of cyberwarfare: On the downside, the Internet showed signs of becoming a new virtual battleground between countries, as in the purported cyberattacks against Estonia and Georgia.
* The lessons of the dot-com crash: The decade was barely under way when that bubble burst hard; wildly inflated stocks were tanking and Wall Street was reeling, frenetically hyped Web companies were imploding, and our retirement plans took a beating. That seem so long ago now, what with the current miserable state of the economy, post-housing bubble crash.

Courtesy of Cnet.

Can you feel the Force? Adidas to Launch a Star Wars Collection

So are you a fan of the dark side? Or maybe you veer towards those goody-goody rebels? Well now you can let your feet show where you allegiances lie as Adidas Originals are launching a collection of Star Wars-themed trainers.

Planned for release in the 2010 Spring/Summer season - and in select stores from January - this collection should keep the uber-nerd/geek lord in your family very happy indeed.

The Adidas Star Wars collection fuses iconic Star Wars characters and scenes and includes themes based on Stormtroopers, Darth Vader, Luke Skywalker, Yoda and some totally retro sparkly silver lightsaber battle/Han Solo ones which we can't really figure out at all. There's even a clothing range too.

Smashing news

Engineers operating the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have smashed together proton beams in the machine for the very first time.

The collisions came after researchers circulated two beams simultaneously in the LHC's 27km-long tunnel earlier on Monday.

The LHC is smashing together beams of protons to shed light on the cosmos.

Operated by the European Organization for Nuclear Research (Cern), the LHC is the world's largest machine and will create similar conditions to those present moments after the Big Bang.

Scientists will search for signs of the Higgs boson, a sub-atomic particle that is crucial to our current understanding of physics.

Although it is predicted to exist, scientists have not yet detected it.

Housed in a tunnel 100m beneath the Franco-Swiss border, the LHC uses some 1,200 "superconducting" magnets to bend proton beams in opposite directions around the tunnel at close to the speed of light.

At allotted points around the "ring", the proton beams cross, smashing into one another with enormous energy.

Large "detector" machines located at these crossing points will scour the wreckage of the collisions for discoveries that could roll back the frontiers of knowledge.

Look forward to some resulting changes in the theories that have preceded us.

Objectified

Objectified is a feature-length documentary about our complex relationship with manufactured objects and, by extension, the people who design them. It’s a look at the creativity at work behind everything from toothbrushes to tech gadgets. It’s about the designers who re-examine, re-evaluate and re-invent our manufactured environment on a daily basis. It’s about personal expression, identity, consumerism, and sustainability.

Through vérité footage and in-depth conversations, the film documents the creative processes of some of the world’s most influential product designers, and looks at how the things they make impact our lives. What can we learn about who we are, and who we want to be, from the objects with which we surround ourselves?

objectifiedfilm.com

Cocojambo Rebranding Slush Puppie

See article: http://www.goldcoastbusinessnews.com.au/process/myviews/gcbn_article.html?articleId=1887

Sanctuary Cove

Our newest client Sanctuary Cove has engaged Cocojambo to produce a new creative direction to showcase the destination and reconnect with consumers.

Guvera Press Release - Nov 18

Universal Music Group (UMG) Partners With Guvera Limited for 2010 Launch of Guvera.com

Guvera Offers Advertisers Powerful Ways to Engage Consumers Via Branded Music Channels With Free and Legal Downloads

NEW YORK, Nov. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- Universal Music Group (UMG), the world's leading music company, and Guvera Limited, announced today an agreement which will allow www.guvera.com to offer consumers free, legal downloads from UMG's market-leading roster of chart-topping musical artists. Through this partnership, Guvera further solidifies its presence in the US in anticipation of its official consumer launch in February, 2010.

Founded in Australia in 2008, Guvera offers consumers 100% free music downloads paid for by brands. Guvera's technology also makes it possible for brands and advertisers to target broad or very specific consumer segments in a non intrusive way, showcasing particular aspects of a brand's personality with relevant music genres in their branded music channels.

Consumers currently can pre-register at Guvera.com where they will complete profiles with demographic and geographic information. Brands will fill out similar profiles and Guvera's patented algorithms will then match these consumer profiles and preferences with a brand's personality. Consumers can search for any song, artist or musical genre they desire and will be directed towards relevant brand channels providing these tracks or groupings of tracks. For example, a 25 year old female consumer who searches for pop music and mentions that surfing and wakeboarding are among her passions will be directed to music channels presented by brands with similar sensibilities. Brands will pay a fee when their targeted consumers download music, and companies such as Universal Music Group will, in turn, receive a percentage of that fee per download to distribute back to their artists and/or labels.

Claes Loberg, the inventor behind the Guvera model and CEO of Guvera Limited, commented, "One of our missions is to make music free for people worldwide, while still paying the artists and the labels that create and distribute it. With Guvera, every brand can offer engaging content to their target consumers without disrupting them with ads and can use their channel to represent music that relates to the brands' personality." He added, "I am excited to announce our content deal with Universal Music Group, which has been a pioneer in championing new digital business models, as well as a steadfast advocate for artists in seeking fair compensation for the use of their music online."

"We are delighted to partner with Guvera, whose service will only strengthen the connection between artists and fans," stated David Ring, Executive Vice President of Business Development & Business Affairs for eLabs, UMG's new media and technologies division. "Universal Music is committed to cultivating legitimate online entertainment by offering our consumers even more ways to enjoy the musical experience where they want, how they want and in the manner of their choosing."

About Universal Music Group

Universal Music Group is the world's leading music company with wholly owned record operations or licensees in 77 countries. Its businesses also include Universal Music Publishing Group, the industry's leading global music publishing operation.

Universal Music Group's record labels include A&M/Octone, Decca, Deutsche Grammophon, Disa, Emarcy, Fonovisa, Interscope Geffen A&M Records, Island Def Jam Music Group, Lost Highway Records, Machete Music, MCA Nashville, Mercury Nashville, Mercury Records, Polydor Records, Universal Motown Republic Group, Universal Music Latino, Universal Records South and Verve Music Group as well as a multitude of record labels owned or distributed by its record company subsidiaries around the world. The Universal Music Group owns the most extensive catalog of music in the industry, which includes the last 100 years of the world's most popular artists and their recordings. UMG's catalog is marketed through two distinct divisions, Universal Music Enterprises (in the U.S.) and Universal Strategic Marketing (outside the U.S.). Universal Music Group also includes eLabs, its new media and technologies division; Bravado, its merchandising company; Twenty-First Artists, its full service management division; and Helter Skelter, its live music agency.

Universal Music Group is a unit of Vivendi, a global media and communications company.

About Guvera Limited

Guvera Limited is a music and content download system designed in Australia, founded in 2008. Guvera provides a way for content owners such as artists and record labels to generate revenue from their music, making it readily available and 100% free and legal to consumers. Content is paid for by advertisers looking to target consumers in a revolutionary way with branded channels. The company's consumer facing website is www.guvera.com. Visit www.guveralimited.com for a presentation for advertisers and agencies.

SOURCE Universal Music Group

Guvera Office

Guvera's Robina office designed by Cocojambo

Coolest business card ever

Coolest business card ever

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Rickrolling iPhone

Well, this hacker has quite the sense of humor.

Reports started spreading this weekend that iPhone users in Australia had been falling victim to "ikee," a worm that replaces default wallpaper with a picture of Rick Astley, the British pop singer whose song "Never Gonna Give You Up" has gained eternal infamy thanks to the mainstreaming of the "Rickrolling" prank craze. The photo is accompanied by the message "ikee is never gonna give you up," and it's apparently quite difficult to remove. According to security firm Sophos, this is the first worm detected that targets the iPhone.

The vulnerability is pretty specific: the phones must be jailbroken in order to be affected, and it appears to spread by searching an infected phone's contacts to find other jailbroken-phone users who have installed the Unix software SSH (secure shell) but haven't yet changed their passwords from Apple's default root password, "alpine."

Sophos says that it has not heard of any occurrences of the worm outside Australia, and that while it doesn't appear to do anything worse than irritate and embarrass affected users, that it highlights the vulnerabilities that jailbroken phones face.

Man sells T-shirt ad space for $90K

A T-SHIRT a day has kept unemployment at bay for an American man who is making about US$83,000 ($90,000) a year by selling advertising space on his torso.

Jason Sadler, 26, a former marketing professional from Florida, founded his own company, www.iwearyourshirt.com, in 2008 with the idea to wear a T-shirt supplied by any company and then use social media tools to promote the firm.

For his human billboard service, Mr Sadler charges the "face value" of the day so January 1 costs $1, while December 31 costs $365.

Mr Sadler said this may not sound like a lot but it adds up to $66,795 a year if he sells out every day, which he did this year.

He also sells monthly sponsorships for $1500, adding another $18,000 to his income.

"I walk around, take photos, wear the shirt all day," he told Reuters.

"I blog about those photos, I put 'em up on Twitter, I change my Facebook profile ... and then I do a Youtube video.

"I made about $83,000 this year."

The average US wage is about $615 a week or about $32,000 a year, according to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Mr Sadler has already begun filling his 2010 calendar so, in true entrepreneurial fashion, he is expanding services by hiring another individual to wear a shirt a day on the west coast of the United States - and is doubling his price.

Xerox develops silver ink for wearable or throwaway electronics

Xerox researchers have invented a kind of ink that can conduct electricity and be used to put electronic circuits on top of plastics, film, and textiles. That means in the coming years we’ll be able to wear or bend our electronics. You could even print out your electronic gadget on plastic sheets, as if you were printing a document.

Silicon chips have long been too expensive or heavy to use in devices that are extremely lightweight. The Xerox team solved this fundamental problem with lighter materials, and it plans to sell the new materials to other businesses that could make wearable electronics.

With plastics, you can unroll a sheet and then deposit electronic circuitry on top of it, building it up layer after layer. It helps to have conductive ink. That is, you need something that contains metal but that you can print with or spray on. The Xerox team created what they call a “silver bullet.” It’s a silver ink that melts at 140 degrees celsius.

Normally, metals melt at 1,000 degrees or so. But plastic itself melts at 150 degrees. So an ink laid on top of plastic can’t melt at a higher temperature or it will melt the plastic, said Paul Smith, lab manager at Xerox Research Toronto, Canada.

“This opens a whole new world for electronics,” said Angele Boyd, an analyst at IDC. “With printable electronics, the future of electronics will include plastics and fabric. The Xerox technology opens up opportunities for lower cost applications in traditional electronics and for new applications around plastics and fabric.”

The applications include plastic circuits could be used to build plastic electronic book readers, such as one being built by Plastic Logic, that are flexible enough to bend and can withstand damage. They would also be very lightweight. The plastic circuits could be used to weave a computer into your clothing or make intelligent boxes for pills that could tell you whether they’ve been tampered with during shipping.

Scientists have dreamed of this for a long time, and Xerox has been researching it since 2001. Hewlett-Packard has also been working on plastic electronics for a decade. Xerox says it has now been able to fabricate cheap and lightweight components that are necessary to print circuits on plastic: a semiconductor, a conductor and a dielectric element.

The fabrication plants for these kinds of plastic chips will be cool. The circuits can be printed by printers, just like a document, without the need for an elaborate clean room as is used in current chip factories. Xerox has research samples available now and is in discussions with manufacturers who could use the plastic electronics.

Beyond the applications we’ve mentioned already, Xerox says the printed plastic circuits could be used in low-cost radio frequency identification (RFID) tags, light and flexible signs, sensors, solar cells and novelty fashions.

Microsoft Data Centre Unvielled

On the outside, Microsoft's massive new data center resembles the other buildings in the industrial area.

It's what's inside those trailers, though, that is the key to Microsoft's cloud-computing efforts. Each of the shipping containers in the Chicago data center houses anywhere from 1,800 to 2,500 servers, each of which can be serving up e-mail, managing instant messages, or running applications for Microsoft's soon-to-be-launched cloud-based operating system--Windows Azure.

"I think, I'm not 100 percent sure, but I think this could be the largest data center in the world," said Arne Josefsberg, general manager of infrastructure services for Microsoft's data center operations.

The center has 30 megawatts of capacity.

The software maker also won't say exactly which services are running in each facility, but the many Bing posters inside the upstairs server rooms in Chicago offer a pretty good indication of what is going on there.

Ferrari theme park opens

This remarkable six-pronged red building is Ferrari World, the maker's first theme park and a sight sure to have would-be owners giddy with supercar-based excitement.

Set to open in Abu Dhabi, Ferrari describes it as 'an intense multi-sensory experience and a must-visit for enthusiasts, fans and families'. Its design is apparently inspired by the side profile of the Ferrari GT body, but in case you're thinking this is just a puffed up Ferrari showroom, think again: Ferrari World will host some of the most thrilling rides this side of Disney World.

Appropriately, the site will boast the world's fastest rollercoaster when its doors open in early 2010, which will hit speeds in excess of 124mph. There's also a 'G-force experience' that goes through the roof and back down again, a journey 'into the heart of a Ferrari 599 engine', and a racing school for young drivers.

It will become the world's largest indoor theme park when it opens, with over one million square feet of floor space containing two restaurants and, of course, a massive Ferrari shop, claimed to be 'a retail experience that celebrates Ferrari's rich heritage in a way never seen before.'

Bondi flashmob stunt

While the idea – and indeed the execution – may not have been entirely original, video footage of a dancing flashmob on Bondi Beach on Friday afternoon is close to going viral.