My Blog

Google Streetview takes to the slopes in Vancouver

One of the great things about major global sporting events is that we see technology, innovation and creativity pushed to new levels.

To help fans get closer to the action at the Winter Olympics those clever chaps at Google have attached their streetview camera onto a snowmobile and driven it around the Olympic Venues in Vancouver.

 

From Google's blog: 

You are indeed looking at a snowmobile equipped with our full Street View camera system. In typical scrappy Google fashion, we were able to put this together over the course of a few weekends using extra pieces for our Street View cars, some 2x4s, some duct tape, and a lot of extra hard drives (keeping them running properly in the freezing conditions was one of our major concerns). We got in touch with the folks at Whistler Blackcomb Mountains and Whistler Resort Municipality to discuss our slightly crazy idea, and fortunately they were just as enthusiastic. In fact, they even suggested we also photograph the roads and paths of Whistler Village and Whistler Creekside, so we piled the snowmobile and a trike into a trailer and made our way up to Whistler.

 

 

The results are pretty impressive and the closest that I've ever got to Whistler.

Naughty use of the Olympic Rings and Torch by Google

Today see's a cheeky homepage header from Google, as they celebrate the start of the 2010 Winter Olympic Games in Vancouver by creating a special Olympic homepage masthead.... incorporating the Olympic Rings and Olympic Torch.

But as far as I'm aware Google aren't an official sponsor or partner at any level (full listhere in yesterdays Vancouver Sun) and as such only Olympic partners are granted exclusive marketing rights by the IOC, which includes being allowed to communicate their association with the Olympic Movement through the use of Olympic marks and imagery.

 

Ambush Marketing

Only official sponsors, licensees and government partners of the Olympic Movement are allowed to suggest an affiliation with the Olympic Games. Creating an unauthorised association with the Games is known as ambush marketing.

In order to assess these unauthorised associations, VANOC and the IOC established an assessment model that considers such factors as the use of proprietary marks, messaging, the timing of the advertising or communication and the strategic placement.

First, VANOC and the IOC assess whether there has been an infringement of the brand or the creation of a misleading business association that is prohibited under applicable law. If VANOC and the IOC conclude that there has been either an infringement or the creation of a misleading business association, it will consider what appropriate action, if any, is required.

I guess Google can expect a wrist slap from the IOC or VANOC ... I wonder if Google will care? They didn't seem too bothered about Time Warner of even China.

Apple takeover Skysports.com on #WorldCup2018 day

On the day that England were subjected to another World Cup humiliation, I quite liked this smart media-buy from the chaps at Apple.

A cool takeover of the SkySports homepage, on what even by SkySports standards must have been a high traffic day.

 

Shame that people clicked through to read about massive disappointment - but if we'd won then the mediabuy would have have been a stroke of genius.

Made even better as it only works on Google Chrome and Firefox - leaving Internet Exporer in the cold (ha).

Nice creative, smart mediabuy, shame about the result.

And the Winner of the 2010 BBC Sports Personality of the Year (according to Google Insights) is...

Last year I wrote a post about whether "Google Insights for Search" could accurately predict the BBC's Sports Personality of The Year.

And guess what, it did!

@Worldhood even slapped a tenner on Ryan Giggs AT 2-1 making himself a tidy profit - as the bookies had lined up Jenson Button.

So could Google Insights predict the SPOTY winner for a second year in a row?

According to Google, Mark Cavendish (again), AP McCoy, Amy Williams, Phil "The Power" Taylor and Graeme McDowell – have all had great years but Google is saying ... "its not you".

The BBC announced the nominations on the 29th November; however this wasn't followed by an immediate spike for any athlete. However we can see two significant spikes over the past two weeks.

The first for David Haye and the second for Graeme Swann.

Graeme Swann's popularity can probably and safely be put down to the Ashes, just as last year Andy Murray's spike was down to the ATP finals.

David Haye's spike is also interesting - however this also coincides with his ringside presence at last weekend’s Amir Khan fight and subsequent interviews and rumours surrounding a potential fight with either of the Klitschko brothers.

Lee Westwood has also been in the news this week due to his battle with Tiger Woods to be World number one, and this may be behind his upturn after the 12^thDecember.

Rather annoyingly the bookmakers massively confuse the issue as their favourites are virtually the exact opposite to Google Search results.

So I guess this year’s conclusion is that it’s too difficult and confusing to call.

Pure data would suggest (and wrongly in my opinion) David Haye, but the most natural Google searches seem to be around the rather unlikely winner of Tom Daley.

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UPDATE @ 18.57pm on Sunday 19th December

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Ran the search again on Sunday evening before the start of the programme and the past 24 hours has seen a massive increase in the number of Google searches for Jessica Ennis. (see below)

Is this sudden burst in searches going to identify the winner??? Lets see.....

 

BBC SPOTY 2010 & Google Insights: A Wrap Up

Unfortunately Google Insights didn’t prove to be an accurate crystal ball for the 2010 BBC Sports personality of the year, unlike in 2009.

The award was won by AP McCoy with Phil Taylor second and Jess Ennis third. In fact Jess’ third place was the closest that Google Insights came to predicting the winner, with a late significant surge in the number of Ennis related searches on Friday and Saturday.

Google’s “interest” in David Haye, and Graeme Swann proved to be a pair of red herrings, and Google’s lack of interest in AP McCoy (and Tony McCoy) and Phil Taylor proved equally inaccurate.

Twitter fared somewhat better, on Sunday night (albeit during the show); Taylor, Haye and Ennis were "trending" in the UK – but nothing registering for AP McCoy.

After the programme @HonestFrank released the SPOTY voting figures..

1     AP McCoy                293,152  (41.98%) 
2     Phil Taylor             72,095     (10.33%) 
3     Jessica Ennis         62,953     (9.02%) 
4     Lee Westwood        58,640     (8.4%) 
5     Graeme McDowell    52,108    (7.46%)
6     Tom Daley              50,763    (7.27%)
7     Mark Cavendish       44,170     (6.33%) 
8     Amy Williams         43,056     (6.17%) 
9     Graeme Swann        13,767     (1.97%) 
10    David Haye             7,538     (1.08%)

A runaway winner it seems, which didn’t even flick Google’s needle.

On the other hand at Google Insights can be used to get something right. #uksnow

The latest Digital Connections newsletter, but on a blog

A belated Happy New Year everyone!

Once or twice a month, I send out a Digital Connections newsletter to a few subscribers. As a quick test I've posted the latest version as a blog post. Unsure whether I'll keep on doing this - but if you'd like it in your inbox then it would be great if you subscribed. The box should be somewhere on your right ---->

 

Digital Connections Newsletter #2

Apparently the brief for Rio's 2016 Olympic logo was to "Transmit Olympic values and attributes, to reflect the local culture, to project the city and country's image, to assure universal understanding as well as be current until the actual Games, along with many other considerations." In which case why should we be surprised that it's another wishy washy Olympic logo? More here 

An intriguing football supporter infographic map of London, pulled together by a graphic designer using data from footballderbies.com and a bit of guesswork. It first did the rounds on Twitter but was picked up by Wired Magazine.

 I love this concept -> Nike's designers are now designing kit to make American Footballers look faster.  The colorways are meant to bring your eyes to the fastest moving parts of the player's bodies -- the hands, and in particular the shins, which move twice as fast as the thighs do while running.I wonder how long this will take to cross over to mainstreams sports and teams?

This visualization did the rounds a couple of weeks ago - but its still awesome. Using data from 10million people (2% of Facebook users) of the connections between friends on Facebook, Paul Butler an (amazingly talented) intern at Facebook has created a remarkable map of the world tracking conversations.

Unless you've been hiding under a rock, you wont fail to have heard the story about Ryan Babel the Liverpool footballer who posted a picture of referee in a Manchester United Shirt. Plenty has been written but for me this "Twitter Ye Not" article by the BBC's John Sinnott was the pick of the bunch. And by the way Ryan Babel's photoshop skills aren't too shabby either!!

I'm really liking Google Realtime at the moment. It's a good tool to monitor breaking stories on Twitter. I've used it this week to keep an eye on the Spurs v West Ham "Olympic Stadium" conversations. Interesting to see when the story broke & see how conversation has changed over the days.

If the England Football Team were a car, they would be a ...
Vauxhall follow up their sponsorship of England with similar but smaller deals with the Welsh and Northern Irish football associations. Sports Pro article here

An attempt by Nike to get across Nike's CSR message - Not quite sure whether I believe any of it - but its a really nice example of an HTML 5 microsite. www.nikebetterworld.com 

Finally, an interesting article in the Guardian covering the Office of Fair Trading's investigation into Celebrities endorsing products on Twitter. One to keep an eye on as there will obviously be an impact on the sponsorship industry.

The DIKW Model

"Typically information is defined in terms of data, knowledge in terms of information, and wisdom in terms of knowledge" *

The DIKW model is a common way to position methods of extracting value from data. I've used it a lot. There seems to be a plethora of ways of defining the model so I've articulated my own, drawing on a few others that I found the most useful.

Raw data, observations, measurements at the bottom of the pyramid have little value until you are able to put some structure around the data, and turn it into information. Information is capable of answering simple who, what, where, when questions. Applying meaning, understanding relationships and connections, or using the information for action turns it into knowledge. Knowledge answers the "how” question. Wisdom is attained through the application or use of knowledge and answers the ‘why’.

User-centricity

A great view on really putting the user at the centre, from a Google engineer (via Paul Frampton).

This Week's Favourite Fraggl Links

                    Head of Man with Hat and Cigar / Leon Levinstein / 1960

Here's my favourites from this week, curated by Fraggl:

• “However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light”. Stanley Kubrick on why life is worth living
• An interesting talk from Tom Chatfield on the role of games in the workplace and the value of people at play
• I enjoyed this article on myths about Apple design, from an ex Apple designer. Pair that with this good read on design as intent (comparing Apple with competitive approaches)
• Burberry is one of my favourite examples of digital transformation. Here's a taster why.
• A worthwhile 20 minutes listening to Jonah Perreti talk about Buzzfeed's strategy
• Gosh. The Metropolitan Museum of Art releases 400,000 images (including the one above) online for non-commercial use

Beyond Snowfall

Craig Mod has another excellent essay on interactive storytelling at the New York Times which (post the innovation report) makes a great point about the role that Snowfall has played:

'When we explore new ground (or re-explore old ground, forgotten ground) in new mediums, we often find it necessary to swing the design and interaction pendulum to the baroque side of the scale. We do this to see what “too much” feels like in order to understand the edges of “enough.”'

In a theme common to his other great essay on Subcompact Publishing (which I've referred to a lot since it was published), Craig describes how easy it is to throw the technological kitchen sink into something and call it the future. Instead the real challenge comes in thinking about the story you want to tell, being dispassionate but selective about the media you use to tell that story, using new technologies (or combinations of new technologies) so well that you're signalling the future of the whole organisation. Worth reading the whole thing.

I've written before about how much I like the kind of multimedia, immersive digital features that Snowfall has become emblematic of. A big part of this is because it represents a tangible departure from the kind of shovelware that typically characterises initial approaches to new technologies by publishing incumbents. But it's also because it's real multimedia experimentation. Finding out if you can do stuff. How hard it is. Whether it works. And it's only through that that entrenched habits, behaviours and approaches might really change.