I typed it on my mobile phone

Friday 7th December 2007
Hello, and welcome to the newsletter.

This week we have more on eCommerce, the economics of being an online video star, prices paid for mobile domain names, Russia’s $1bn internet site, plus iProspect’s expansion into Asia, and a great new game fro Reebok, playable either through the PC or the Wii.

Enjoy!


eCommerce

US online Christmas Shopping stats
“The fastest-growing retail sites since Cyber Monday compared with the corresponding days last year (within the top 20 most frequently visited retail sites) were Yahoo Shopping, Target, Apple, Circuit City and Toys "R" Us.
Some traditionally popular product categories for holiday gifts had strong growth in dollar sales versus last year: video games, consoles and accessories (+170 percent), toys (+36 percent), computer hardware (+21 percent), sports and fitness (+19 percent).”

Wii was the most searched for product in the UK in November
“The Nintendo Wii was the most searched for product by UK Internet shoppers during November. There were thirteen times as many UK Internet searches for ‘nintendo wii’ sending traffic to the Hitwise Shopping and Classifieds category as there were for ‘apple ipod’, and over twice as many searches for ‘wii’ as for both ‘ipod’ and ‘iphone’. Despite shortages of the popular console in the UK, the volume of searches for ‘nintendo wii’ has increased 158% since November 2006, while searches for ‘wii’ have increased by 278%.”

Study shows that online reviews affect offline sales
"The study examined the offline sales impact of online reviews for restaurants, hotels, travel, legal, medical, automotive and home services. Nearly one out of every four Internet users (24 percent) reported using online reviews prior to paying for a service delivered offline. Of those who consulted an online review, 41 percent of restaurant reviewers subsequently visited a restaurant, while 40 percent of hotel reviewers subsequently stayed at a hotel."


Online video

The economics of being an online video star
“Near the top of the pile sit Kent Nichols and Douglas Sarine, who have parlayed their "Ask a Ninja" Web program into about $100,000 a month in ad revenue and income from merchandising and licensing.
Mr. Plesser said he is pulling in about $15,000 a month with his Beet.TV blog, which includes video interviews with top technology executives.
And iJustine, whose video sendup of her gargantuan iPhone bill drew about 8 million views, by comparison pulls in about $1,000 a month, she said.
The winners are testing a variety of Web-video business models, and they’re learning that they need to lure one hell of a lot of eyeballs before they quit their day jobs. Creators usually need at least 50,000 to 100,000 views per month before advertisers will take them seriously, said Dina Kaplan, chief operating officer and co-founder at video-sharing site Blip.tv.”

Sarah Fay’s article on online video
“If you want to tap into the vast majority of online video watching, you should be developing video creative that is meant to be viewer-initiated. For this kind of creative to be successful, it needs to be as interesting to the viewer as the content he/she would otherwise be watching.
Imagine your brand’s creative lined up with pure unbranded content: Your video message needs to compete with that to be chosen by the viewer. It has to be THAT interesting, THAT entertaining, THAT relevant or THAT useful to the viewer. If we can deliver this kind of positive experience, we may actually condition consumers to like advertising!
Because this means brands are moving from producing advertising to producing content, there are a plethora of branded content-production houses emerging.”


Mobile

The prices paid at auction for 3 .mobi mobile domain names
“Results in from the latest domain auction at Sedo:
1. music.mobi - $616,000
2. games.mobi - $401,500
3. sports.mobi - $101,000
Very exciting. This proves that there’s significant economic heat building up in the mobile web. A medium starting grow up.”

In Japan half of the top 10 most popular books are written for mobile phones
“I typed it all on my mobile phone," Rin explains matter-of-factly over the same device. "I started writing novels on my mobile when I was in junior high school and I got really quick with my thumbs, so after a while it didn't take so long. I never planned to be a novelist, if that's what you'd call me, so I'm still quite shocked at how successful it's turned out."
Remarkably, half of Japan's top-10 selling works of fiction in the first six months of the year were composed the same way - on the tiny handset of a mobile phone. They sold an average of 400,000 copies. By August, the president of Goma Books, Masayoshi Yoshino, was declaring in a manifesto that he was determined "to establish this not simply as a fad, but as a new kind of culture".”
Thanks to Oliver Hughes for the link!

Case Study – Landrover ad for iPhone
“For high net worth customers, Land Rover partnered with AdMob.
Its resulting campaign targeted smartphone users and took advantage of AdMob's new ad unit, exclusive to the iPhone (see video), which has a store-locator in the banner itself.
Of those who clicked on the Land Rover mobile ad, 23 percent of customers responded to at least one call-to-action on the landing page: 88 percent watched the video, 9 percent entered zip codes, and 3 percent used the click-2-call action.”


Search

Google experimental search – rate your search results
“This experiment lets you influence your search experience by adding, moving, and removing search results. When you search for the same keywords again, you'll continue to see those changes. If you later want to revert your changes, you can undo any modifications you've made. Note that this is an experimental feature and may be available for only a few weeks.”
Thanks to Sebastien Larre for the link!


Eastern Europe

Mail.ru (Portal, not just an email site) is Russia’s first $1bn internet company
“The latest financial results released by Naspers, a South Africa-headquartered media and Internet group, reveal that it has acquired a further 2.6% stake in Mail.ru for $26 million, thus valuing the company at $1,000 million.
Naspers first bought a 30% stake in Mail.ru for $165 million from private equity investors Digital Sky Technologies and Tiger Global Management in January 2007.
Mail.ru says its monthly audience was 35.3 million in September 2007, up 20% from March 2007 . Mail.ru operates the largest free web mail service in Russia as well as blog, photo, video, dating, and other online portal services. The Mail.ru service was first released in 1998.”


Isobar Companies

iProspect launches in Asia
“iProspect, the Original® Search Engine Marketing Firm, today announced the launch of iProspect Hong Kong, iProspect Malaysia, and iProspect Singapore. The new offices are part of iProspect's continued worldwide expansion designed to offer marketers a seamless global search engine marketing solution.
With its worldwide expansion that began in 2005, iProspect continues to bring its experience and expertise to major international markets. The launch of offices in Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Singapore — along with the recently launched iProspect Australia — positions the firm to dominate the Asia-Pacific region as the premiere search engine marketing (SEM) offering.”
Thanks to Colleen Reed for the link!


The New, New Thing

Virtual shopping interface
Thanks to Stefan Moritz for the link!

E-Ink – how E-ink could revolutionise outdoor advertising
Thanks to Sasha Grujicic for the link!

JustStolen.net
“Juststolen.net was created by police officers to provide the best possible asset tracking and property recovery services in the world.
JustStolen.net is an innovative tool designed to easily register assets in order to facilitate their recovery if they are lost or stolen.”


Christmas Shopping

Star Wars USB cards
Use the memory card, Luke…

Napkin Notebook
Perfect for creative types

The Internet – in a handy book form
Might be funny…

(Fake) French USB wine tap


Creatives
More at my blog:
http://digital-examples.blogspot.com

Reebok El Duelo
El clásico (English: The Classic) is the name given to football matches between Real Madrid and FC Barcelona. The rivalry comes about as Madrid and Barcelona are the two largest cities in Spain, as well as the two most successful and influential football clubs in the country. Featured in the game are two of Reebok’s key football assets, Thierry Henry, the lead striker for FC Barcelona, and Iker Cassillas, the starting goal keeper for Real Madrid. To celebrate the rivalry Isobar Global has created a bespoke shootout game for Reebok featuring the two assets where entrants into the game have the opportunity to participate in a live event taking place a week prior to the shootout.
You can have a play on your PC or Nintendo Wii on www.rbkelduelo.com.
Thanks to Sasha Grujicic for the information!

Cadbury Magic Elves

German interactive urinal game
"The P***-Screen (the site's dead) is a pressure-sensitive inlay for urinals. The game is displayed on a screen above the urinal. We designed a driving game in the style of Need for Speed." The game would end with a crash and display a message to the effect that the player should take a cab home.”


& finally

Here Comes Another Bubble
Brilliant, topical music video. See how many of the references you get.



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dan.calladine@isobar.net & I promise that I do look at them.

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DISCLAIMER: The ideas and views contained herein are my own and not the views of Isobar Global. You are free to agree or disagree, all feedback is welcome.