Thursday 19th August:
Relive history, day by day
Blogs are usually so now, now, now that it’s interesting to see the form being used to relive historical events. It’s the 70th anniversary of the Battle of Britain, which ran from July 10 to October 31 1940.
On July 10 this year, Tony Rudd and his team started posting the day-by-day happenings of the battle. You’ll be able to track what went on right through to October 31.
Via http://battleofbritainblog.com/about-this-blog/
Tagged with: Online, Publishing
Tuesday 30th March:
Banking joins the blogosphere
First direct has become the first UK bank to embrace social media with the launch of its new social media newsroom http://newsroom.firstdirect.com. This follows the successful launch of the company’s presence on twitter.
The newsroom borrows many of its functions from the likes of Flickr and YouTube to ‘serve’ content to the site, allowing users to share text, images and video across blogs and social networks.
As more and more people are experiencing brands online, first direct realised they had to go where their audience is. With the newsroom, the aim was to create one central hub for their communications online and to make those communications as portable and shareable as possible.
Friday 11th December:
Blooming lovely
Now that everyone’s switching on to sustainability, buying flowers from far-flung places seems like an indulgence. So if you’re looking to send a little something to a friend, why not check out Flowers by Clowance? Many of their flowers are grown at their very own nursery in Praze, right in the heart of the horticultural area of Cornwall. You can choose gorgeous bunches of anemones, alstroemeria, carnations and so on and they’ll pack them up prettily and pop them in the post. The business was established 63 years ago and is now run by James, the grandson of the original owner. (Tx Laura, who was the lucky recipient of a bunch of alstroemeria)
Ref http://www.flowersbyclowance.co.uk
Monday 26th October:
Goodbye, middle man?
Nobody buys laundry detergent, toilet paper and toothpaste online, do they? They might soon be about to. Especially as ‘Alice’, a new, US-based e-commerce site is offering free shipping, streamlined reordering and a platform for consumers and manufacturers to connect.
The site claims to offer more than 6,000 unique products from hundreds of differentmanufacturers at prices that are 20% – 30% lower than other online stores. You begin by creating a free account and then selecting a list of your favourite products, ordering only the items you need right then. Each shipment is bundled together in a single box and delivered to your door. Meanwhile, Alice organises all the products on your list, finds coupons and deals for them, and reminds you to reorder when you’re likely to be running low.
Although Wisconsin-based Alice works much like any other online retailer from the consumer’s perspective, behind the scenes it’s more like a marketplace, where manufacturers sell directly to consumers. Alice makes no retail margin, and instead allows manufacturers to control product assortment and pricing in its own direct sale to the end consumer. Because no retail middleman is involved, the consumer receives significant cost savings. In addition, Alice’s model allows brands to form a direct relationship with consumers, enabling personalised coupons, sampling and loyalty programmes.
Ref. http://www.springwise.com/retail/alice/
Monday 10th August:
Random acts of postal kindness
In this age of email, chat rooms and social networking, are we forgetting the pleasure of real post dropping through the letterbox? ‘Postcrossing’ helps you send and receive postcards to and from random people around the world.
Postcrossing was started by Paulo Magalhães from Portugal as a side project while he was a student. He has always loved to get post, the more random the better. He knew he wasn’t the only one so created an online platform to support this offline hobby. The goal: to connect people across the world through postcards, wherever they are, whoever they are and whatever they believe.
It’s working. Every day, people are cheered by the arrival of a postcard. As one postcrosser says, ‘it’s pure joy and excitement’. At the present count, there are 116,213 members from 198 countries. If you add up all the journeys the postcards have made, it comes to 14,944,417,720km.
Others are taking it further. One avid postcrosser celebrated her birthday by visiting all the people she’d had postcards from. Two others, Geoffrey from Australia and Kati from Finland, found one postcard led to another and eventually decided to tie the knot. (Thanks to Nathan Penlington, one of the readers at our latest poetry night, SoPo, for putting us on to this.)
Ref. http://www.postcrossing.com/
Tagged with: Collaboration, Online, Social networking
Tuesday 12th May:
2 How can you support money-saving social networks?
Think like Walmart. They’ve developed Elevenmoms, by reaching out to the writers who are already blogging about great money-saving ideas. http://instoresnow.walmart.com/Community.aspx?id=100
As the story goes, Walmart began by making contacts in Twitter, leveraging Facebook profiles, and viewing related YouTube videos, to see how they could participate. As well as posting their own messaging, they also made friends, communicated with critics and began interacting as both Walmart associates and as people. Then they began reaching out to bloggers to see if they‘d be interested in building a connected money-saving community. Finally they invited 11 ‘mom bloggers’ to join in. Hence the name ‘Elevenmoms’.
What makes Walmart’s efforts so interesting is their ability to ‘own’ the concept of value online. It launched free classifieds last year, and its site (thanks to its blogger outreach and message boards) is already crammed with content about saving money. This will grow as the Save Money Live Better portal grows. In fact, amid all the talk of how digital has allowed marketers to be their own creators and distributors of brand content – some people would call this a media company – perhaps no one has the potential to be as big as Walmart.
Ref http://adage.com/digitalalist09/article?article_id=135579
Wednesday 15th April:
How can you help people help your brand?
Think like Woolies, yes, Woolies. They’ve left the high street only to pop up in the blogosphere, and are looking to relaunch online this summer. The Woolies blog is here for people to share their views on anything Woolies-related and so help shape the brand’s new direction. They’re also encouraging people to discuss what they liked about the brand on their Twitter feed or Facebook page. (Thanks, Wadey).
http://www.woolworthsblog.co.uk/
Woolies have always been famous for Easter eggs, and they didn’t want Easter to go by without them, so they’ve created a fun-packed, online world where you can hunt for their magical Easter eggs for a chance to win a family home entertainment package.
Good on Woolies for bringing the brand back from the dead, and into the virtual world.
Wednesday 1st April:
How can you bridge the gap between bricks & mortar and online shopping, and create a next-generation retail experience?
Think like Artefact, which is developing an interesting concept design that aims to combine real-life retail experience with the flexibility of online shopping.
The concept is called ‘The Wall’. It’s a large, monolithic-looking display that interacts with the physical products in-store, and then aggregates associated online content about them. Plus points include helping you ‘crowd-source’ your decision about whether or not to buy something – ‘does this look good on me?’ The Wall can also find similar items you might like (or at a certain price point), and other available products online, or in-store.
Ref http://www.richardbanks.com/trends/?p=10723
Friday 20th March:
How can you turn the organ grinder into the monkey?
Think like new Dutch online facilitator, Spaarbod, who’ve created an auction website where banks bid for customers’ savings.
https://secure.spaarbod.nl/site/
Instead of spending time researching the highest interest rates, Dutch consumers can now put their money up for auction and get banks to bid for their custom.
After registering with Spaarbod, you state how much money you’d like to put aside, for how long and on which terms. The website automatically calculates the best rates currently available. At that point, you can sign up for that offer. Or you can wait and see which banks will bid at auction. Spaarbod sends your data – minus personal details – to participating banks, who make an offer in a sealed-bid auction. Within a day, you receive an email listing the five highest bidders, and you can pick the best offer. The service is free for consumers, and banks pay a commission for every bid that results in a savings deposit.
Ref http://springwise.com/financial_services/spaarbod/
Friday 13th March:
How can you make your customers your inspiration?
Think like the progressive UK bank first direct which has pushed its customer advocacy strategy by creating a ‘Little Black Book’. It’s a recommendations site for first direct customers to post tips and advice on restaurants, travel, shops, people, reliable builders, money-saving tips and so on.
As a third of first direct customers join via recommendations from existing customers, this makes perfect sense. As the site states: ‘As first direct customers, you’ll know by now that we’re not like other banks. We tend to do things a little differently. We know you appreciate that – and that’s precisely why we wanted to create the Little Black Book. Or rather, why we want you to create it. Because the Little Black Book isn’t just another review site. It’s more of a unique source of inspiration – a collection of interesting recommendations made by people like you for people like you that you’re unlikely to find anywhere else but here. And it’s exclusively for first direct customers.’
Ref http://blog.futurelab.net/2009/03/first_direct_creates_customer.html