Facebook has been getting a lot of criticism for its lack of mobile revenue. A fact it tried to hide from its IPO. Much ink has been spilled, but is it really necessary for Facebook to worry? Here's a quick case study. Facebook has, in its infinite wisdom, decided that I would be interested in adverts for cancer. Or, perhaps, AXA have decided that 30 something males are a prime market. The …
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It's the height of self-indulgent wankery to blog about why one is flouncing away from a social network. So, here's my rant. There are many like it - but this one is mine. Let me start by saying something which I hope is obvious. Twitter belongs to Twitter. It's their game and they can take their ball home any time they like. Therefore, all whinging and whining by jilted developers ought to…
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No, I'm not talking about Masabi's innovative technology, but of this rather odd bit of advertising found on the back of a train ticket. There's no specific call to action - but there's not much space to play with. Let's give it a scan... sigh A non-mobile site. With an Adobe Flash plugin in the top right which won't work on any iPhones. Why on Earth do marketing companies insist on pointing…
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Wandering through London today, I noticed that Southbank London has put QR codes on its posters. I've mentioned before the dangers of using Bit.ly as a QR code generator - as it allows us to peek at the codes' performance statistics. Here are the codes on the posters - click for bigger. As all the codes use Bit.ly so we can see how well they've performed - click on each one for the latest…
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I recently overheard two advertising executives discussing their latest QR campaign. I jotted down what they were saying... Dave! Dave! I've got a brilliant idea! What is it, Fred? Let's make a QR code... right... but make it really hard to scan! Brilliant idea, Fred! How? We can stick it on a Taxi, so that you have to wait until it stops at a traffic light before you can scan it! Ok,…
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There was a lot of interest in my recent post about TfL's QR statistics. Today, I present to you three very different QR codes and their statistics. These are all taken from the Metro newspaper on Tuesday January 10th. Wowcher First up is "Wowcher", a big quarter page advert on page 28. Wowcher's statistics show a consistently good performance with QR codes. Between 30 - 80 scans per day,…
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(After Ben Metcalfe's post on the the vb.ly sage). As a mobile Internet consultant, companies often ask me which QR generator to use. There are many worth considering, but I always tell clients to avoid bit.ly. The security of Libya Internet organisations are probably not an immediate concern (you did know that's what .ly stands for, right?). What is worrying is how bit.ly exposes your QR…
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If you're attempting a QR Code campaign, WAIT! Call me and I can help you avoid making this sort of disastrous mistake. Southeastern Dotted all around Southeastern's train carriages are posters like these. A fairly small QR code, with a reasonable call to action. Not the best use of QR codes - but fairly inoffensive. But what happens when we scan it? An error page. To make matters worse, …
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I spend yesterday wandering around London and, as is my wont, spotted some QR codes which I think may interest readers of this blog. Tracey Emin The Hayward Gallery are having a Tracey Emin retrospective. At the start of the exhibition is this rather odd QR code. Why odd? Three main reasons. It leads directly to a 14MB MP3 file. The code is really quite small considering it's a…
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Nokia's marketing team are idiots. They've used URL over which they have no control on an advert for one of their premium handsets. This is the story of how I hijacked stole hacked recycled it and, in doing so, prevented Nokia from having a serious PR problem. E7 Poster This is advert for the new Nokia E7. It really emphasises the tweeting capabilities of the handset. Nokia's marketing…
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"Oi!" shouted Whatleydude, "Get Dabr to show images from foursquare checkins!" "Righty-ho sir!" I said. I started coding furiously. Of course, things are never quite as simple as I first thought.... So, how do we go from http://4sq.com/fgIWov to 1 Expand the URL Get your Bit.ly API Key. http://api.bitly.com/v3/expand ?shortUrl=http://4sq.com/fgIWov &login=YOUR_BIT_LY_USERNAME …
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