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Entries in App (3)

Tuesday
Apr062010

Park and Chide

or , How Not To Use Social Media.

I was amazed over the weekend by the blunderbuss use of social media from what looks like a seasoned business / service tweeter - namely @aapresident (Edmund King).

To be clear - this post isn't a rant about The AA or Edmund King as such - in fact looking at his twitter stream, @aapresident personally answers his membership/customer queries and complaints directly. Which is a laudable approach for an obviously busy guy and is great for the brand.

The reason I'm blogging this is that I know the 'David' in this David and Goliath story, they are lovely folk and they've created a great App. Although it stands on its own as a cautionary tale despite my 'connection' to it.

E.g its a lesson in thinking before you (business) tweet.. of which there are a few documented now but this was close to home as it were.

The background to this:

Between the breaks in chocolate egg eating over the Easter break, I watched the developing row between a small App development company and a big national organisation, moving into the same App space.
The two businesses in question are startdotstar, who have developed the UK's first , comprehensive parking app (noseyparker) and the Automobile Association (AA).

I spotted the issue early on as Gareth (one of the owner directors of stardotstar) is a business friend and I follow him on Twitter.
I also follow the app (@noseyparkerapp) for updates etc.

The app is a great car park location finder and I've used it about 4 times since I got it. very handy is is too. And I am not biased, having paid for it - I'm commenting as a punter.

 

Gareth had spotted that the AA's new App (which came out after his) had hijacked their name in its keywords on the App store. Naughty.

 

 

He politely asked for this to be rectified. The response was a curt, un-presidential, 'get a life'.

It was at that point that lots of people jumped on this and started to re-tweet. Most with a sense of aggrieved incredulity.

See the open letter to the AA here:

How-Do have also run a feature on this, as it generated a lot of interest.. and a fair degree of outrage.

Things look to have calmed down (because the keyword misappropriation has been rectified, I am guessing) but the affair is a reminder for Brands to think before tweeting.





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Wednesday
Jan202010

Fabric or Fad?

I was at the first meeting of the Augmented Reality Mancheter Group last night and it was an interesting meet.
A mix of design , tech and client services folk interested in the growing-technology and applications of augmented reality.

I've only got one app on the iphone at the moment (Sun Seeker) but that itself demonstrates how useful the technology can be.
How it can boost a Brands reputation or increase sales for a client is of course another matter. But the technology itself looks really interesting and its role in marcomms / campaign strategies will no doubt take off very soon.
I'll add in some examples like the GE Energy App that is shown a lot, soon.
The ideal would be for us to start prototyping Apps  for clients as part of a wider campaign response.

But commercial / ROI usefulness of any new platform or technology is the acid test : Which is why this post is called fabric or fad, in that unlike (say) 2nd Life and virtual world technology - I think AR could be part of the fabric of Marketing communications , whilst virtual worlds (in that context - not for other instances e.g in closed-group education) is / was a fad.

What do you think?

 

 

 

Sunday
Nov222009

Bad Memory, Good Technology

I just got an iphone (yes it is great and already changed my web habits, another post for that though ... ) and it seemed a good time to upgrade to the pro / paid for account for Remember The Milk.

I've always been a list writer, at home and work - not because I am overly efficient but because my memory can be unreliable when I have a lot on. RTM has been really useful as the iGoogle App but now I have it on the iphone I'm looking forward to getting more done.

 I know, we can over-burden ourselves with possibly pointless tasks just for the satisfaction of completing them but I really will find it useful to jot down when I need to plant what (for the Garden), Who I need to chase up further (for my Genealogy studies) etc.

 And I may well use it for work tasks also but I kind of have that covered with a paper note book. Its interesting that I am using RTM only for home stuff.. not sure if that's the norm or not?

If you use RTM drop me a comment with your thoughts about it.

Anyway - IMO, a great piece of Useful Technology, try it out.