A handful of lucky – although that depends on your point of view – subscribers to Wired magazine recently received their latest issue, but with a difference…..the front cover was hyper personalised. This personalisation took the form of a letter, the contents of which consisted of all the data the Wired team were able to find (from publicly available sources) about the individual.
The majority of info came from sources like the edited electoral register, Companies House, the Land Registry and of course good old social networks. When these data sources are cross referenced with each other it can quickly build a pretty detailed profile, from mobile number, home address, location, annual earnings through to your kids’ school reports and the videos they post online. It’s all out there and readily available to anyone willing to do a bit of digging.
Now sadly this is not the first step for Wired in actually providing tailored content per reader but more a demonstration of how much information there is and how relatively easy it is to get your hands on it. Our data is out there now. Forever. Whether we like it or not. After all, posting information online is akin to getting it tattooed on your forehead…visible to all, permanently, so we might as well embrace it, sit back and enjoy the hyper targeted, personalised ad campaigns that data sufficiency will bring….never having to watch another ‘We Buy Any Car’ advert? I could live with that.

So, the Consumer Electronics show has been and gone again for another year, setting a host of records in the process. Held in Las Vegas every January its location is glamorous enough to attract the cream of the technology crop from around the world whilst being close enough to the valley to ensure the hottest start-ups are only a short hop away. And let’s face it, what better way to blow away those January blues than a three day trip to the ultimate grown ups’ playground on your company’s dollar?
This year saw 140,000 delegates passed through the doors of the Las Vegas Convention Centre with over 30,000 coming from abroad and there were a hefty 22 CEO’s participating in Key Note speeches. Add to this 2,700 tech companies and CES (now in its 44th year) has never been bigger.
The key themes that emerged were 3D (again), tablets, connected TV and 4G/LTE. I wrote about the need for all parties to continue their investment and development of 3D in a post last year and the industry’s appetite for it certainly hasn’t abated. HP’s 3D Envy laptop is quite a bit of kit and the screen technology aiming to serve up an immersive 3D experience without glasses is progressing rapidly. Toshiba are pretty far down the line.
In terms of tablets, well there where over 80 launched at the Show proving that once Apple open the door and show the industry where to go, the rest are never far behind. Samsung’s TX100 tablet with slide out keyboard looks particularly cool. It runs Windows 7; we like this because it shows Samsung are choosing their OS’s to fit the product, rather than a product to fit the OS.
We know connected, or ‘over the top’ TV has been gathering pace in the States for some time now and it definitely appears to be on the cusp of a significant break through as the major TV manufacturers, including LG and Panasonic, jump on board, as well the likes of Yahoo making a renewed push and even Cisco getting in on the act.

However LTE (the Long Term Evolution of 3G) which will in turn lead to proper  4G, is probably the most exciting technology of them all. Why? Because it’s the technology that is going to enable consistent use of properly smart applications on handsets and bring actual scale to smart phone marketing. It’s going to (hopefully) solve the data capacity issues that are currently strangling operators and in turn our ability to be genuinely ‘always connected’ on our hand held devices, regardless of where we are or what our data plans can offer.  Granted role out will take some time but to give it some perspective there is currently a 4G network available to a handful of testers in Slough and its data capacity is higher than the entire UK 3G network.  Roughly translated that means 4 seconds to download a song and 6 seconds to upload a photo. Verizon is already rolling out what it calls 4G LTE in major cities in the States.
So all of these technologies have serious implications from a media perspective, the immersive experience of 3D advertising, the targeting potential of connected TV and the increased data capacity of mobile networks…. All are set to make our jobs pretty exciting in the near future.

Smart car buyers are nothing if not involved with the brand and this festive period smart have decided to offer their facebook fans an opportunity to design and build their ideal smart car….albeit in mini origami form. Naturally team Mercedes had to have a go, not only did we build the car in Maxus colours and put ‘Maxus’ on the number plate but we also went a little off piste and included a spot of snow.
Can you do better?! ‘Like’ this page to have a go…

Merry Christmas

Last week Microsoft has finally unveiled Windows Phone 7, their most anticipated announcement in mobile since, well, Windows Mobile 6.5 a couple of years ago. 6.5, like all previous iterations, was pretty much an unmitigated disaster, one last final attempt to cram a PC operating system into a handset. It barely made a ripple in the consumer consciousness.
But will Windows Phone 7 put Microsoft firmly back into the mobile game?
Some would argue no, recently TechCrunch commented that “it’s an iOS, Android and Blackberry world now and there isn’t room for anyone else” but this seems to be a pretty narrow minded and extremely U.S. centric view. Nokia’s smart phones (much maligned in recent years) still out strip all of the above in terms of market share so I reckon we’re some way off an Apple, Google and RIM dominated market place, especially when you consider their are 5 billion active mobile users globally!
WP7 has a couple of tricks up its sleeve that could prove extremely useful. The obvious being the Windows recognition factor.  Whilst the Windows brand may have taken something of a hammering at the hands of Apple their success does not depend on converting Apple or Android for that matter, fanboys. There are millions of people currently using ‘dumb phones’ who are looking to upgrade and this is where the familiarity of Microsoft and Windows will play a significant role in drawing people towards WP7.
Its other major strength is that Microsoft has imposed significant quality control on its hardware partners. Essentially they all have to conform to the same guidelines and the great thing about this is that it ensures the WP7 experience is almost identical on all handsets, weather it’s an HTC, Samsung, Dell etc.  Without this quality control user experience can vary hugely from handset to handset, a problem Android is somewhat familiar with.
Developers like this too because it means they don’t have to worry about the varying performance of their apps depending on the handset. So if uptake is good developers won’t hesitate to take up WP7.
However, with iphone, Android and Blackberry taking up all the’ mind share’, Nokia releasing a raft of new handsets and doing 2.5 million downloads a day on Ovi store, Microsoft must get it right first time. There is very little room for error.
The mobile market is vast and smart phones are a continually growing part of that, there is plenty of room for WP7 and initial impressions are that it has every chance of succeeding. Competition is not only good but vital in this sector; it pulls innovation along at an ever increasing pace and drives greater smartphone reach into the consumer mobile segment. The greater the choice available, the quicker the sector grows and sooner we’re able to plan to genuinely mass reach mobile campaigns. Now all we need is the network providers to focus on improving their networks rather than on providing additional services nobody wants!

As Sky launches Europe’s first 3D channel today it seems like a good time to take a look at the format as a whole. There are a lot of ‘naysayers’ out there who simply dismiss it as just another fad, probably aided by underwhelming 3D cinema experiences and the thought of having to wear special glasses, or ‘face furniture’ as I’ve heard them called, when sitting down for an evening’s TV. However it certainly has the backing of the industry, as one tech blogger eloquently put it, you couldn’t “spit on the CES Convention floor without hitting a 3D HDTV”. 3D was most certainly ‘in’ at the Consumer Electronics Show back in January, a pretty sure fire indicator that the format is headed for wide spread commercial success.

I’m sure Sky will do an excellent job with their channel, although the suggestion in Stephen Fry’s promo video that the glasses should become fashion accessories is probably a step too far! All the major television manufacturers have 3D ready sets on the market and we’ve already seen cinemas and pubs showing sporting events in the format. However 3D is still in its infancy and there are number of factors that have to be taken into account and issues resolved before it becomes a wide spread consumer and commercial success.

The two biggest hurdles are the expense and the actual need for glasses. Until these are resolved it is likely to remain a niche product with limited, all be it creative, advertising routes. Firstly the expense, it takes two cameras for everyone to shoot in 3D (one for each eye) meaning significant investment is needed from the broadcasters themselves. The lenses in the active 3D glasses decode the image to create the 3D effect and as such are not cheap, circ £70-100 each (the passive glasses are far cheaper but don’t provide such an immersive experience). The sets themselves are also prohibitively expensive for your average consumer. However aside from the cost, the need for glasses also presents a number of real world problems. Losing them, breaking them, ease of replacement, scratched lenses and so on.

The industry is working hard to resolve these issues, filming and production will inevitably become more efficient and costs will reduce, 3D HDTV sets will, just like HD ready, tumble in price as take up increases, but the real key to success lies in screen technology, manufacturers and technology companies are in a race to produce viable 3D screens that can be used without any glasses. Intel demoed their technology at CES and whilst there are serious limitations, namely where you can stand/sit in relation to the screen, when stood in the right place the experience is reportedly excellent.

Sky 3D should have a good take up, the fact that all Sky HD boxes are 3D ready will certainly help and those in the market for a high end plasma telly will find it hard not to justify paying a little extra for 3D given the now ubiquitous nature of their HD ready predecessors. In fact it’s essential that Sky 3D has good take-up, people need to rave about it, people need to talk about the vast difference in quality between programming made in 3D and programming converted to 3D because it’s this that will give broadcasters the confidence they need to continue to invest in proper 3D programming which will in turn start to create genuine momentum across the industry as a whole. Increased content should drive the market.

Nevertheless 3D as a format will struggle to break through in the same way as HD until the need for glasses can be removed. Once this happens, and given that a large number of the key TV manufacturers also make mobile phones, laptops and general tech gadgetry, the possibilities are huge. How long before we see the first properly integrated, cross-platform 3D advertising campaign? It may very well depend on the take up and success of Sky 3D…no pressure then!

It’s often said that by the time a technology gains mass relevance it’s no longer cool or interesting, let’s hope then that 3D losses its ‘cool’ factor sooner rather than later because it’s the natural next step in mass visual entertainment.