Written by Mihai Dragan on Friday, April 30th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: digital elections, intenet, politics
IAB UK publishes a fine report on the state of politics and elections in the Internet Era.
It’s interesting to see that the web brings power back to the mases and politicians down to ground level in the fight for power. What will the future bring? A total democracy? Rise of social power? Who knows…
What we do know is that the internet is changing all aspects of human interactions. Including structures of power and long lasting written and unwritten laws.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, April 29th, 2010 ( 5 responses )
Tags: adobe, apple, flash, thoughts on flash
You may have heard that Apple has made quite a vocal comment on Flash. They actually posted it on their front page. In case you haven’t read it – here it is: Thoughts on Flash.
In my opinion these views are clearly biased. Of course Flash runs badly on mobiles. Of course it’s not suited for the iPad. But that doesn’t mean it’s actually “bad”. It’s just useful for a particular set of things.
Is Flash perfect? Probably not. How about useful?
There is a whole industry built on top Flash technology. It does its job. Some things built in Flash are masterpieces of art and programming. For example – what would you call these things? They don’t use HTML 5, they are not open, they probably don’t support touch. But we like them. They are expressions of human creativity. And maybe, just maybe, Apple should not be so quick to label and dismiss a technology that proved itself useful so far. Not perfect, just useful.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Thursday, April 15th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: cfw, cluj fashion week, finlandia
Finlandia decided to endorse Cluj Fashion Week. We thought about the Pure Vision concept turning interactive. The Pure live stream is now the connection to the fashion week for all those at home.
Want more interactivity? Tweet using #CFW, Cluj Fashion Week, and #CFW2010 and we make sure your tweets are seen live on the interactive screens in the location. Here’s a preview. More like a visual type of guy / gal ? Add a Pure Photo on the Flickr Group and get your picture shown on the wall.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: experiment, facebook, myoritza, share, social media, twitter
My friends, today we made art. Mixed art. Transmedia art. Call it whatever but we took one of the oldest Romanian poems (Miorita – romanian for The Sheep – an allegory of life and death, crime and betrayal), mixed it with a little twitter API voodoo, added some cool and fresh design, social media sharing features and made it sparkle: I give you Myoritza 2.0.
The four characters in the Poem were given Twitter accounts and through a little programming magic we made sure they say their part just when they were supposed to.
It was really successful but stay tuned for this result. We had fun doing it, I know people had fun watching it.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: Agency Work, launch, music, Nokia, Roton, website
We’re all about the new media. Also old media turning new. Just before the big-bada-bum launch of KO Video we had launched MusicNonStop.ro, in Romania.
Music Non Stop was a partnership between one of the major Romanian record label (ROTON) and Nokia. The partnership included a 30 tracks voucher for Nokia buyers. All they have to do is just go here and register for their free tracks.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, March 8th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: Agency Work, audio video, kovideo, launch, lyrics
Today we’ve launched KOVideo, a new and innovative audio, video and lyrics platforms that makes use of newest technologies to make sure users get a seamless experience. Read about it here.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, January 18th, 2010 ( Start discussion )
Tags: infrastructures, Interactive Advertising, new media, social media
I have been studying the whole concept behind Zynga’s recent success (Farmville, Mafia Wars etc.) and I just can’t stop thinking about how interesting it is.
Basically all of the other online games used to draw users to a social infrastructure (user accounts, social networks etc.) build on their own. The great thing about Zynga is that it targets already built social infrastructures (like Facebook, the iPhone AppStore). It lowers costs and it increases exposure and potential revenue.
What if brands would use the social networks to market products just like Zynga markets their games?
Written by Mihai Dragan on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 ( 3 responses )
Tags: advertising, brands, interactive, interactive vs conventional, media, startups, website
The website as we know it, at least as a concept, is dying. It has been for the last 5-8 years and now its death is even closer. Let me explain.
A site on the web
If you think about the term it is composed of two words that explain what the concept represents pretty good. A place on the web. It was the perfect way to introduce the concept to the general public. People were already accustomed with the concept of “site”: be it a store, library, house – each of these were built upon a “site”. People would access this site using a address or, in the internet world, a URL.
As with physical address users would visit a certain (or more) sites, based upon their previous experience, friends recommendations and more. In the economic world brands got used to “kindly invite” (or not so kindly as some interactive advertising techniques show us) to the homepage and the user would browse around, consume content and hopefully come back.
The shift in user behavior
That was the case back in the day when the websites count reached numbers of, let’s say, tens or even hundreds of millions of pages. A lot you say. “A more recent study, which used Web searches in 75 different languages to sample the Web, determined that there were over 11.5 billion Web pages in the publicly indexable Web as of the end of January 2005″ states Wikipedia. And that, my friends, was 2005.
What is a user to do in such an environment. Browse? To hard. Visit the same websites? Extremely limiting.
The first big online brand to address this issue was Yahoo that started as a recommendation website founded by Jerry Yang and David Filo. For a short period they had a boom and people would relate to what Yahoo! as a helpful resource in the online jungle.
Things got bigger and bigger. The internet expanded and users needed even more. They needed answers, they needed something to guide them to what they were looking for. Thus Google started a long and successful journey that led to a multi-billion enterprise. Google helped by pinpointing exactly the website on was interested in. And people were thrilled.
Has the internet stopped there? Hell, no.
More and more information hit the interwebs. What was once a resource for mainly text and image documents had turned into the worlds biggest collection of data. Be it photos, documents, books, videos – the world started storing its information in the big reservoir that we call Internet.
So many options, so little time. What to choose?
Going back to basics
People relate to their closest human peers in times of doubt. Not even the mighty Google could replace a kind word or the warm advice a friend is able to offer.
But our friends were already there. People gathered in online social networks and interacted. They would recommend the things they liked asked for advice when needed.
It started with forums, continued with blogs, hit new heights in human interaction with social networks such as social networks and now we have Twitter, the global phenomenon that let people tell one another what are they doing (be it watching TV or fighting a dictatorial regime). Under 140 chars.
Follow the users
The fact is no one ever needed websites. They needed “stuff”. They were on the look for data, a nice gift to buy grandma on her 76th anniversary, a fun video to watch, the coolest hit to download. Never for a simple website.
Being focused on the industry of interactive advertising I will focus on brands and maybe offer good advice. Brands need to realize that their users and potential consumers don’t actually need another website. They need what they want. They want fast answers, they want brands to “follow” or “befriend” them, not the other way around. They have the options and they have the power to select.
Brands are not what they used to be. At this moment the vast majority of Brands are still the big Advertisers that still expect to spend money on big media advertisements and have consumers lining up to their store or website (notice I use the terms pretty close to one another. They are.).
This is not the way. Huge opportunities await those that will follow their users, build presence around their users and still maintain brand awareness and a coherent communication plan.
A short example and some advices
I reached Zynga Poker on Facebook. Played around a little bit on the Facebook app they’ve built. Downloaded the application on my iPhone and bought virtual upgrades with real money. Until today, I have never visited their website. Zynga is a startup that has revenues in the orders of tens of millions of dollars (and growing).
I will leave you with some advices I consider helpful:
- Think outside the website.
- Be present in the social media.
- Stop thinking advertising. Think relationships.
- Build mobile applications.
- Study your market. Close. Closer.
- Develop intelligent applications.
- Let people play with your brand.
- Cut the TV ad budget. Cut the radio and print ad budget. Move online.
- Let people find you on the search engines.
- Follow your consumers and let them follow you.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Friday, November 20th, 2009 ( One response )
Tags: future of television, predictions, television
While reading “Five predictions on the future of TV” I thought to myself – I have to disagree with this.
First of all I think always is a very long term 
. So long that we should take into account the possibility of television disappearing. Even video as a concept. Secondly I believe watching TV passively is not the peak of human civilization. We would at least socialize television viewing.
Therefore I have to disagree with points 1,2 and 3.
I have to agree to points 4 and five and would add:
- TV channels, in the way we see them now, will start disappearing in the next 15-20 years, which would be the moment the “dotcom boomers” (those born after 1990, well accustomed with internet media consumption) will reach consumer maturity and will dictate a new marketing and media approach.
- We will see the rise of small and medium media producers (teams of 1-5 people), flexible, niched and adding up to a Long Tail of media that will rise up to challenge media conglomerates. News Corp. – watch out!
- Mobile television will be more and more popular. Internet connected mobile devices are becoming ubiquitous. So will streamed mobile television.
- We will see the rise of television syndication. Passive viewing will not be that passive. We will be able to mix many televisions, ignore shows we hate, watch shows our friends recommend, mix and mash up as we want.
- User Generated Television. This is not a new thing but the Internet adds traction to it. Think Candid Camera Home videos meets YouTube.
Written by Mihai Dragan on Monday, August 17th, 2009 ( 3 responses )
Tags: arca, arcalunar, data on the moon, donations, interactive campaign, lunar
The Dream
As a boy I remember I was dreaming, while watching Star Trek (I am a huge trekkie), of one day to “boldly go where no man has gone before”. I still have this dream.
Several months ago I’ve met some people that share the same dream. ARCA Space. These people dream of putting a man in space but first they will land a rover on the moon, as part of the Google X Prize.
The Road to the Moon
They have already developed the cheapest space technology that may some day make the dream of space flight available to anyone. They have already developed the first eco-friendly rocket engine. They are the favourite team in the Google X Prize.
The Problem
But now, they need founding.
So we thought of offering everyone a different kind of trip to the moon. We launched ARCALunar.com where you can send your personal information to the moon. Through a time capsule you can send photos, text, audio files and even videos. Send them to the moon and to future generations.
Your financial efforts will keep the ARCA Space program live and who knows – maybe some day make space flight as cheap as a low cost plane flight.
You can choose your space plan here.
