Tag Archives: Brand

iPhone 5 and Apple: the Long Game

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The iPhone 5 has been released, and has been the trend since the original iPhone unveiling, there’s been plenty of vocality about how it lacks the wow factor we’ve come to expect from Apple product announcements. People have mainly been unimpressed by the fact that the only major change seems to be a taller screen, or that it lacks some of the new technologies that people expect in a cutting-edge phone, such as NFC or wireless charging.

Here are a few thoughts that I think should be considered before leaping to these conclusions.

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Zynga and zCloud: Steam For The Web

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You’ve probably heard of Zynga, or at least one of their products. They are the proud creators of Farmville, once the 3rd most popular game on facebook, with over 200 million monthly active users of their freemium games. In December 2011 they went public, raising about $1bn.

It seems like a story of success, but a few things indicate that Zynga are in the process of diversifying both their products and their revenue streams.

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Social Media App of the week: Pinterest

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Quick background: I’ve been going a bit social-media crazy of late, in a bid to explore the latest trends in social media. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are all mature and so I’m interested to see what the next phase in social will be. In the UK, I think location-based apps like FourSquare and Qype are going to grow as companies make better use of location-based promotions and more users gradually join the services, but what else?

So, on my social media travels I thought I may post my discoveries. Some of the new apps I’ve tried include Pin Drop, Path, Thumb, Localmind and Soundtracking, all of which I may come back to, but today I’m here to talk about…

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Web anonymity to social transparency: the evolution of the personal brand

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Today marks a rather significant step in my blogging/social media journey – I have unified all of my main social media profiles under my real name. The old aliases are no longer active and I can now be found by my real name on LinkedIn, WordPress, Twitter, Foursquare and Facebook.

The social landscape on the internet has changed dramatically over the last few years, and I believe this requires a suitably updated approach to the management of one’s online identity. Not only is it becoming increasingly more challenging to maintain control over all your online profiles and their visibility, but the requirement to do so is also changing.

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Flipboard for iPhone announced (do I spot a trend in approach here?)

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Flipboard (www.flipboard.com), my absolute favourite social reading app when I had an iPad, have announced an iPhone version, finally!

Take note of the website. Spot any similarities with Path that I mentioned earlier? I’m highlighting this not to call foul play, but rather to show how simplicity and fluidity are becoming the staple diet of a modern brand, in order to stand out within a stereotypically feature/specification-heavy market.

Flipboard:

Path:

Path

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The day after I mention the wonderfully simple Little Printer, I have given in and registered for Path, a new social network available only on iOS and Android. It’s excellently designed and the user interface is fluid and enjoyable. Here is another company that is taking their brand experience seriously as a method of increasing publicity and user uptake.

For example, this is the email I received upon registering, unlike any other ‘welcome to our service’ email I’ve ever received:

Checking out their website too, with its live HTML5 phone demo animation, they are taking more than just a leaf out of Apple’s book.

It’s just a shame that I don’t know a single person on it, so I’ll probably never use it again!