Google Public Data just launched today, and it looks as if it is going to be an exceptionally useful for planners, strategists and anyone who needs data for building decks or audits. Google has rolled Public Data into their Labs, allowing users to look at all sorts of data by state or country. Key metrics like internet access per 100 people, STD rates by state/sex, CO2 emissions per capita can all be easily aggregated and charted. Have a look!

For us to win our own podium in the advertising world, here’s some Monday morning digest for you.

Once upon a time, we heard the doom’s day of online advertising was coming:

“Users rarely look at display advertisements on websites. Of the four design elements that do attract a few ad fixations, one is unethical and reduces the value of advertising networks.” - Jakob Nielsen’s Alertbox, August 20, 2007

So was online advertising near it’s end? Far from it! Years later, Internet advertising is a multi-billion business (according to IAB report, internet advertising generated $5.5 Billion in Q1 ’09 alone).

So what is saving online advertising from user’s “selective blindness”? And how can we do better?

Here are some quick tips to creating successful online advertising:

1) Avoid the BAD. Below are some worst online advertising crimes:

• Pops-up in front of your window
• Loads slowly
• Tries to trick you into clicking on it
• Does not have a “Close” button
• Covers what you are trying to see
• Doesn’t say what it is for
• Moves content around
• Occupies most of the page
• Blinks on and off
• Floats across the screen
• Automatically plays sound

2) Embrace the GOOD. Here are some tips for good advertising usability:

* indicate what will happen if people click on them,
* relate to what people are doing online,
* identify themselves as advertisements,
* present information about what they are advertising, and
* provide additional information without having to leave the page.

3) Make ads SMART! With the popularity of social media and folksonomy, we have have better tools to make ads more intelligent:

• Targeting User Goals
• Making ads more contextual and relevant
• Creating a consistent user experience across the site content to the ads (Google ads as a good example).

Conclusion:

Avoid the bad, embrace the good and make the ads more intelligent. Making ads relevant, playful and less intrusive.
Want ads to work? Accept that online advertising design is user experience design. Understand web usability. And, most importantly, understand the psychology of the viewer.

There’s been a bit of hysteria creeping into the office over some of the negative press connected to Foursquare. Take, for example, this recent article in The Globe and Mail about PleaseRobMe.com, which led one of our colleagues to delete the app from his phone immediately.

The gist is this: You tell Foursquare when you’re away from home, PleaseRobMe.com publishes that info, some punk breaks in and helps himself to your Xbox and tiny spoon collection.

Sounds scary, right?

Well, it really isn’t. Foursquare is a closed network like Facebook. This means that in order to become friends with someone, you both have to agree. If I’m not your friend, I can’t see your activity or whereabouts. If your account is connected to Twitter, your location becomes public. If not, it doesn’t.

So for everyone that hasn’t hit the delete button yet, here’s how to avoid getting robbed. It’s quite simple, really. Don’t connect your Foursquare account to your Twitter account, and don’t accept friend requests from strangers.

Privacy is a major concern for social media companies, but that doesn’t absolve you, the user, from taking on some  responsibility of your own and understanding what the services you use do with your information.

Here’s what Foursquare had to say about it.

A little bit of controversy aside, location-based services are going to be a big deal in the next couple of years. Why? Everyone has a mobile and increasingly those are smartphones with GPS capabilities.

In November, Google bought AdMob and in January, Apple bought Quattro – both mobile advertising companies. Shortly thereafter Apple banned developers from running location-based advertising in apps.

Read into that what you will, but to me it indicates that location-based services are going to create new opportunities for our clients once Apple and Google make them mainstream.

Here’s a quick Molson Canadian user experience case study.

In light of our recent great success on Molson Canadian’s “Gear Up For Gold” social media experience design (kudos to the team), here are some of the key steps why we were successful and how we can continue this momentum in future social experience:

Step 1 – What’s your social object? Make sure there is a “there” there. Give users a reason to rally. Why would someone come to your site?

Common objective: support Canadian team, support Canada.

Step 2 – Give people a way to identify themselves and to be identified.

Common Identity: Canadian

Step 3 – Give people something to do.

Common Task: Don the Jersey

Step 4 – Enable a bridge to real life (groups, mobile, meetings, face-to-face).

Common Link: Hockey fan base, groups and personal branding

Step 5 – Gently Moderate. Let the community elevate people and content they value.

Common Ground: Canadian hockey fan community

And one golden rule - what’s exciting for the user is almost always also best for the business!

Wired just released a demo they did with Adobe of how their magazine will live on the iPad (and other tablet devices I’m sure.)

With the magazine experience completely changing, the ad industry needs to start thinking about how the advertising in them will change to. Print ads are no longer just print ads, they are some form of hybrid print/video/banner/app. In the very near future, the definitions of the ads we create will no longer apply. We will have to create ideas that can live anywhere, no matter what the medium.

(via Bob Lefsetz)

This week as part of his “Lefsetz Letter”, Bob Lefsetz highlighted this really interesting portion of Canadian writer Douglas Coupland’s interview in Sunday’s New York Times Magazine.

Famous for coining the term “Generation X” (an honour he refers to as “my Cambell’s Soup can”) he is asked to “define the current cultural moment.”

DC: I’m starting to wonder if pop culture is in its dying days, because everyone is able to customize their own lives with the images they want to see and the words they want to read and the music they listen to. You don’t have the broader trends like you used to.”

NYT: Sure you do. What about Harry Potter and Taylor Swift and “Avatar,” to name a few random phenomena?

DC: They’re not great cultural megatrends like disco, which involved absolutely everyone in the culture. Now, everyone basically is their own microculture, their own nanoculture, their own generation.

So my question is, if agencies are still using models that attempt to build brand affinity through cultural relevance or disruptions, what are the implications as culture fragments further and further?

Well those days are dead. Supplying information is now social.

2010 Super Bowl spots are on a Youtube featured channel by Ad Blitz. They have asked all the advertisers to join and the winning commercial will be selected based on votes (thumbs up or thumbs down) on Feb 15. So you can watch all the ads, share any on Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, etc. and embed them on your blog or site.

And, as @TheRobHayes points out, the commercials were posted on here within seconds after they aired. So if you got the message that the Olympics were coming to Canada and they’re going to be on CTV, somewhere mid-first quarter you could have started followed along with the US commercials.

Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/adblitz.

Can you see the squares marked A and B are the same shade of gray?

This proves we are contextual beings and our experience is dependent on perception of the surroundings…this is a key design principle on User Experience – contrast and context.

You can see the proof here:
http://web.mit.edu/persci/people/adelson/checkershadow_proof.html

The lobby of the Elysian.

Over the past few years, zig has been working with the Elysian, a 60-story hotel and residence that aims to redefine the Chicago hospitality experience with a unique operating model built around delivering remarkable moments. The agency worked closely with Elysian to build a brand that could bring that promise to life. Now that the doors are open and guests are raving, we can share the fruits of our labor. And share we did, with the New York Times.

You can read all about the Chicago’s newest Gold Coast addition, and our role in building the Elysian brand, here.

And you can browse some of our work in the gallery below. Enjoy!

[View with PicLens]

12►

As some of you may have noticed via my recent tweets (@jj_sullivan), I attended the annual Deloitte TMT Predictions this week.

Every year Deloitte recruits their 6000-strong global TMT practice to look at industry-leading research, information and insights to formulate hundreds of predictions for the coming year in Technology, Media, and Telecommuncations.  They present an overall shortlist as well as category-specific lists at events around the world this time of year.

There was also a great discussion panel with Chris Wormold from RIM, Charley Lax (huge VC investor in Canadian businesses), Paul Kedrosky @pKedrosky (big Canadian VC investor who’s moved south of the border) and Duncan Stewart, Director of Deloitte Canada Research.  You can recap some of the conversation on the twitter feed #TMTPred2010, just search for #TMTPred2010 on Twitter.

Info on each category and global predictions available here.

Another great bit is their report card on past predictions, at the above URL as well, as some of these predictions take longer to gestate than a year.  Last year they were 67% correct. Worth a quick read and scan of the link if you’ve got 10-15 minutes.

Some quotes:

“Good enough becomes better than perfect.”

“…it’s all about the mobile internet.”

“…[advertising buys] likely to experience the greatest growth are search, click, social network and cost–per-action. … most vulnerable to losing share to online are magazines and newspapers; radio and outdoor are in the middle, and broadcast and specialty TV/cable seem to be most resilient.”