i-d media london

Here’s some more great examples of interactvie design processes in the form of paper prototypes. This time it’s for some of our favourite apps, Flickr, Vimeo et al.

http://deeplinking.net/paper-web/

One of the truly great things about the web is the ability for it to introduce you to a million new things in just one day. Just out of interest I followed the ‘via’ links from my last post on Paper Prototyping to see where they’d take me.

My starting point was Andy Polaine’s blog. I read his blog regularly. I started reading primarily due his connection to my education and early interactive work with ex Antirom folks Andy, Andy and Joe.

1 – http://www.polaine.com/playpen/

Then we go on a nice journey across a couple of blogs to del.icio.us.

2 – http://daringfireball.net

3 – http://waxy.org/

And finally to a del.icio.us account

http://del.icio.us

Short and sweet but it highlights how viral and addictive the web really is, I’m sure many many more stories have many many more interconnecting points. If I had the time to follow the path of some of those 860 people who’d also saved the link to their del.icio.us account I’m sure I’d end up in some really interesting places.

This was a point made by Brent Hoberman (co founder of lastminute.com) at a conference last week.

Some of the cynics amongst us would say he could afford to have this opinion, but he may have a point when you consider would Google have ever been developed if the principle of ROI had been the primary consideration? Probably not !! Damn innovation !!

Sometimes you just need to find a topic/idea you are passionate about and develop a particular need amongst the masses and then surely the money will flow in !! Sounds simple………

The other school of thought would support the idea that ROI presents challenges which create innovation in such sectors as retail but whichever side of the fence you sit this will always be a heated point of discussion and blows may even be exchanged.

According to new research from Jupiter Research, half of all branded social networking pages in Europe have less than 1,000 friends.

I came across this on another blog under the title. “Brands Not Winning Friends On Social Nets: Report”

The report goes on to say “Many advertisers build branded social networking pages that broadcast content rather than inviting users to interact.”

And they wonder why they’re short of social buddies!

This points to a pretty fundamental misunderstanding by brands as to what’s motivating users online. As brands adapt to a new customer and communication landscape there are some lessons to be learnt along the way and this is one of the big ones.

It’s by no way a new idea in branding but still brands are getting it wrong.

Give your customers a reward, excite them, get them to enjoy spending time with you and they will. Customers don’t flock to the loudest shouter anymore, they move towards the one who’s giving the most. So don’t expect a heap of ‘friends’ if your just trailing your new TV ad on Facebook. That’s hardly even 1.1 let alone 2.0.

Uwe, a good friend of mine’s been answering this particular question. I’d reccommend you take a look at his ideas because if you don’t someone else will.

| View | Upload your own