Richard Gregory - Digital Marketing

Live YouTube being promoted on mobile

Richard Gregory — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 20:37:09 +0000

I just noticed Google promoting the lube coverage of the cricket in the mobile YouTube app.

As more of content gets streamed YouTube displace the iPlayer as the mobile TV platform of choice?

Searching on Google TV

Richard Gregory — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:59:44 +0000

I’ve been thinking about the launch of Google TV, later this year in the UK, and one thing that jumped out at me is the challenge of interacting with a connected TV, especially when searching.

The proposed design for the Sony/Google TV remote (below) looks great, but surely this is the time for voice commands to really come into play? It’s definitely got my playing around with voice search more on my phone and laptop.

Sony Google TV Remote for the UK Market

Ice cream sandwich on Nexus S in Uk

Richard Gregory — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:06:27 +0000

Ice cream sandwich, a photo by RichardStuartGregory on Flickr.

So I’ve finally updated to Android 4.0 on my Nexus S. Time to play with some of the new functionality, which includes:
– re-sizeable widgets
– screen capture (FINALLY!)
– improved email
– face unlock
– visual voicemail
– better call answering options
– faster camera and panorama function
…

Google’s Q4 UK revenues stay above the $1bn dollar mark

Richard Gregory — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 16:00:14 +0000

Another great set of results were unveiled by Google last night. Here are my quick takeaways on the UK element of that:

While this looks like the slowest QoQ growth for over a year it’s likely to have been impacted by USD/GBP exchange rates in the period.
Overall search traffic growth is being masked by lower CPCs, dropping 8% across all territories (there isn’t any breakout for UK data). This is the second quarter in a row that CPCs have declined. There’s a great article on SearchEngineLand from Andy Atkins Kruger that looks at why this might have happened.
The UK held it place as the second largest country for search spend at 10% of total revenues.

Where is Amazon’s gamification strategy?

Richard Gregory — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:50:00 +0000

Despite the acquisition of troubled Gowalla by Facebook, gamification is alive and well. In fact, Foursquare just announced a tripling of their user base to 15m global users.

Now gamification should be much more than location-based tech, but few pioneering online brands seem to have embraced the concept.

For me, Amazon is the brand that should be adopting gamification as it strives to encourage users to read more ebook and download more music track.

Platforms such as Foursquare, SCVNGR and the Nike+ initiative have demonstrated there is an innate human desire to receive intangible rewards for relatively small achievements.

If Amazon was to acquire GetGlue it would have a great mechanic for encouraging more ebook downloads; how about badges for completing 10, 100 and 1,000 reviews?

I guess that’s going to go on my list of 2012 predictions.

Why don’t Google do this with their Google+ app

Richard Gregory — Sat, 03 Dec 2011 20:35:28 +0000

Lovely home page widgets!

One of the apparent shortfalls of the Android operating system is that home page widgets can’t be installed for apps stored on the SD card.

Well, the team at Evernote have found a rather simple but ingenious way around this challenge. They’ve created a separate, but much smaller, app to run the home page widget, allowing users to store main, rather chunky, Evernote app on the SD card.

You can download the widget here.

With the Google+ app running at nearly 28MB for me, it would be great if Google could release something similar.

Foursquare will make me fat!

Richard Gregory — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 16:53:10 +0000

I’m a regular 4sq user on my mobile but today I went back onto the website and noticed something pretty cool. Using a bit of a Google Maps mash-up they’re plotting me and my “friends” as well as a selection of nearby restaurants.

What’s really cool is that these restaurants are based on recommendations from the other venues I’ve been to and which my “friends” have checked in at regularly.

What isn’t cool, is that I’m eating out more and this isn’t helping my waistline!

Google+ gets a little more like Facebook, thanks to Cadbury’s

Richard Gregory — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 00:00:19 +0000

Today, Cadbury’s launched a rather Facebook-esque campaign on Google+, clearly aimed at garnering advocated and increases shares of their business page.

This is the first time I’ve seen something specifically tempting the Google+ audience and reminded me of the emotion-inspiring posts, regularly placed on the Walt Disney page.

While the tens of comments posted on the Google+ page hardly compares to the thousands on the Facebook, it really feels like the start of something big for Google+

Are you ready to take Google+ seriously yet?

An afternoon of search in Manchester – SAScon mini conference

Richard Gregory — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 17:40:46 +0000

It was a pleasure to moderate at the SAScon mini conference yesterday and I’m amazed at the attendance we got for an afternoon event. It gives us a good indication that next years full conference should be the biggest yet!

You can find a great round-up of the conference over here and kudos to James Lowery for shoe-honing an obscure pop reference in the SSL encryption panel!

Search Awards…the alternative to regulation?

Richard Gregory — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 19:47:22 +0000

The debate about regulation the search industry has been on-going for many years now, and Judith Lewis puts forward a great case, as she did at this years SAScon event. As a representative it something we’ve struggled with for a while due to a multitude of challenges, including:

Agreeing suitable best practices
Policing SEO activity
The cost of administration
What powers would a moderating body hold?

Who is that dashing chap?

However, this month’s UK Search Awards gave another perspective on how to keep an industry honest. Rather than simply focus on those that operate outside of what everyone would think to be acceptable, why not focus on recognising those that do Search well? By spotlighting good practices it makes it clearer to differentiate from bad practices, and, aside from the intense judging, is much simpler to administer.