Although it now feels like a distant memory, the 2010 World Cup captivated the nation – for a short time at least – with an abundance of stories and debates. It was the first time an African nation has hosted the cup and in some ways, it was the coming of age for South Africa.

As it is a game of two halves between two sides the Trend Team have approached the review in the same way looking at the key battles…. Official sponsors vs. Unofficial brands, Global brands vs. local brands the legacies of 2010 vs. 2006, …. you get the drift.

So without further ado, we hope you enjoy the Vizeum Trend team’s World Cup Trend Report.

Click here to view The Vizeum World Cup Trend Report

So the iPhone 4’s new film for their new product “Face time” is at number two in the Viral Chart at the moment.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure that video calling was a technology that consumers thought they liked the idea of about 7 years ago when 3G networks were first coming out and every phone had a camera on the front, but then everyone realised that it just wasn’t something that they wanted to actually do. Most people like the fact that you can’t see them when they are on the phone. I mean what would everyone on the train talk about if loudly shouting “I’m on the train to Nuneaton” was rendered superfluous? Also a morning call to your boss to call in sick would require you to actually look ill as well as sounding it and “I’m just leaving the office now” whilst visibly sitting in the pub would probably cause problems with the wife.

This technology has been available for many people for a long while now, but the fact that mobile phone manufacturers stopped putting cameras on the front of their phones about 2 years ago shows that it just wasn’t taking off.

Now I can imagine a number of scenarios where you might want to be able to see the person you are talking to – a number of which are shown in the Apple ad – showing off a new born baby to distant family, signlanguage conversations, significant life events – but nearly all of those situations could be covered by using a webcam and a laptop (which consumers are already using.) Now you might say “Well what if you want to take the conversation outside? – you can’t do that with a laptop and a webcam” Well to those people I point you to the tiny small print at the end of the ad: “Facetime requires iPhone 4 and wifi FOR BOTH CALLER AND RECIPIENT”

Think about that

1) Both parties have to have an iPhone 4 – so both parties have to be so excited by the new technology that they have spent over £500 and queued up for the privilege. In the US that’s about 2 million people so far in the UK a few hundred thousand – about 0.75% of the population. So your pool of prospective facetime participators is going to be pretty small.

2) Both parties have to have wi-fi access at the time of the call – so that means most likely they have to be at home, at work, in a hotel room or in a coffee shop. That 0.75% of people you can call just got even smaller. (Also they are all places where you are quite likely to have a laptop with a webcam.)

I just don’t understand why Apple have spent a considerable amount of their marketing budget making a 2 minute video to promote a feature which few people want and even fewer people would actually be able to use. Is it possible that they are struggling to justify to existing consumers that it is worth spending £500 for what is essentially an evolutionary upgrade and so are focusing on the one tangible thing they can point to that is actually new – (even though all other phone manufacturers were adding it to their phones 5 years ago..)

With a circulation of barely over 100,000 the Independent is at an all time low. Lebedev was aware of the level of debt he was about to take on when pushing through the acquisition, although the financial health of the Independent newspapers remains uncertain. The question is, what is Lebedev going to do with the Independent and its sister Sunday title, affectionately known as the Sindy? In turning the Evening Standard in to the free sheet it is today he has surprised rival publishers by the high circulation and readership numbers it is now recording. Although the editorial integrity and quality of some of the journalists may have dropped, one can’t fault the strength in which Lebedev has faced the issue. So will the Independent titles now follow suit? Comment on the matter suggests it’s more than likely, some even hypothesising that other national dailies will suffer if this is the case (‘Why pay a pound for that when I can take the Indy gratis’?).

Distributing a free within a designated geographic area, a city or region, is very different to doing it on a national scale - heavy losses will no doubt ensue. Then there is the problem of the quantity and quality of the product itself. The Independent struggles against its rivals as it is, let alone as a free title with a very few staff. However, as shown with the London free sheets (R.I.P), the public do like something for nothing, so if the numbers can be increased for the Independent to see the Metro as its main competitor there may be light at the end of the tunnel.

These ifs and buts will remain until Lebedev is in power for long enough to make his intentions known. Until then, we wait with baited breath…

For more on this story see http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article7043912.ece

Alex Gibson

Source: http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10015078o-2000331777b,00.htm

Google has announced on Tuesday that it is immediately rolling out Google Buzz, a location-aware social networking tool highly integrated with its Gmail client, Google Maps and a new Android app.

Available as a new tab in the standard Gmail interface, the service will share links, Gmail status updates, YouTube videos and Picasa photos. Other users can leave comments on your shared data as you can to theirs: users to share Buzz can be automatically added from your contacts, suggested by Google through frequency of correspondence, or selected individually. Buzz updates can be sent to Twitter, but as yet there is no automatic importation of tweets.

The service includes a recommendation engine that will try to suggest Buzz content that you may find interesting, and will attempt to refine those recommendations over time by your responses. “Buzz also weeds out uninteresting posts from the people you follow — collapsing inactive posts and short status messages like “brb.” These early versions of ranking and recommendations are just a start; we’re working on improvements that will help you automatically sort through all the social data being produced to find the most relevant conversations that matter to you.”; the company said in a blog post.

Google Buzz’ location based features will use GPS and various algorithms to identify where you are by place name; once you have agreed with its choice, you can leave Buzz updates that will appear on a new layer of Google Maps to your friends, as well as being part of your general Buzz stream.

Google executives said that they intended Buzz to be open, that it will respect users’ privacy decisions, will not lock up data and will have an open API. An Enterprise Buzz, linked to Google Apps, will be made available later: meanwhile, Google Buzz is being rolled out to its first users now and will become available to alL Gmail users over the next week.

So I wanted to add my two penn’orth to the iPad debate that is currently raging. You’ve got the Apple fanboys on one side who think that the iPad represents the technological equivalent of the second coming of Christ and the Apple haters on the other who think that it is an oversized iPhone with  no practical application in people’s lives.

Since the actual launch, the Apple fanboys have actually had to temper their appreciation of their device and come up with “solutions” for how you could use the device – but this seems to me a little counter productive – technology should be about solving problems that exist – not creating new ones for our imagination to solve.

However, I’m not going to enter the debate on the technological merits of the iPad – better (and worse) people than I are thrashing it out online and they’ll never agree. (For some of the best of the debate try here – http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-10443604-37.html?tag=rtcol;pop )

Instead I want to approach the question of how successful it might be from a marketing angle.

One of the criticisms levelled at the anti-Apple brigade is that they are ignoring history – “look at the iPod” they say – “everyone said it would fail because it was only compatible with Apple devices/Wasn’t as good as existing MP3 players/Was too expensive etc etc and just look at it now. Then everyone said the same about the iPhone – how it didn’t have 3G or Flash or cut and paste or a decent camera – but look at it now”

And it is hard to argue with the history – Apple have had huge success in the mobile electronics market in the past 10 years and they seem to tap into the consumer desire of the moment every single time.

But there is one fundamental difference here that I think could be pivotal in the relative success or failure of this device.

It all comes down to how people will use the device – publicly or privately.

The thing about the iPod and the iPhone was that they were incredibly public devices. The iPod started it all with the white earphones that were worn like a badge of aspiration by iPod owners – subtly shouting at the world – “look I’m cool, I’ve got an iPod.”  The iPhone in turn is a device that is always on public display as people talk, type, watch and interact with it constantly. It is something that you can show off to your friends very easily and conveniently without it even feeling like you are showing off.

And here is where I feel the iPad could fall down. In a category such as this success breeds success. As people observe their friends using their new device, they in turn perceive it to be a must have item. When someone shows them the latest app they just downloaded and how it has improved their lives, they want to have that improvement to their lives as well.

The essence of the iPad however will not get it that sort of public exposure. Everything I have understood about this device is that its most likely application is on the couch AT HOME. And there’s the rub. Even if the early adopters are heading out in their droves to buy them, you will be unlikely to see one in action very often because consumers will be using them mostly at home or maybe for long distance travel.

They won’t be plonking them on the table in the pub along with their keys, they won’t be drinking iPints with them in front of their mates, they won’t be watching 20 minutes of Family Guy next to you on the tube, they won’t be navigating their way across town using the built in GPS – For all of those things they will be using their iPhone (or other Smart phone device).

So you are never going to observe them “improving” their lives with an iPad, you are never going to be envious and feel like you are missing out by not having an iPad and you’re unlikely to have the chance to get hands on one and fall in love with the tactile beautiful user interface which seems to be vital to making people want one.

So that’s my take on it – the iPad – in its current incarnation –  is unlikely to see the market domination experienced by iPod and iPhone because it will never achieve that perception of ubiquity that its predecessors did.

That doesn’t mean it won’t be successful in its own way – just as the Mac computers (Desktop and laptop) fill a consumer niche and are very successful in that space, I believe that the iPad will appeal to a group of loyalists who will buy everything they can to do with it, but I believe it will be just one (important) player in a market of personal entertainment/websurfing devices that could explode in the next few years.

I’ve been wrong before though.

Decided to go and see Avatar for the second time at the weekend…..the provincial cinema was still packed 7 weeks after its launch, the audience sat silently throughout the full 3 hours and clapped at the end. There were even a few whistles. There seemed to be more women than men in the audience proving that this film has transcended its genre. Historically Sci-fi/Action have never been big female draws at the cinema but this is definitely a film that can no longer be categorised…..and yes, it’s worth seeing again…..you see even more detail the second time round!