Ukoko

One of the big disappointments with marketing that incorporates user-generated-content is that it rarely seems to resolve into something worthwhile for the users. Far too often it’s reduced to a competition: “make a film, win a prize” or “send a picture, win a prize”. Hardly imaginative, especially considering that those who regularly conrtute to Flickr/YouTube et al do it to share rather than compete; they are part of a community where the only opinions that count are your friends and peers, not the opinion of a selected-panel-of-judges.

But the Nokia Global Animation project executed by Universal Everything is one of the few exceptions to normal UGC marketing ideas. Nokia Global Animation project is, on the surface, a regular user-generated-content project but what makes it different is it’s inclusive aims, making all contributors part-of something bigger. Every contribution makes small but important difference, and, while I’m sure the images may be moderated, there won’t be one winner or, more importantly, any losers.

You’d have to be living in box not have noticed Producer/Director JJ Abrams viral campaign surrounding Cloverfield. Slusho, a recurring meme in Abram’s projects, has made cameo appearances in Alias and Heroes and one viral site for Cloverfield for a bit of cross-fertislisation so he’s not just limiting it to the web. The TV show Lost (an Abrams production) also had a sucessful extended reality called The Lost Experience and, in the run up to next series of Lost, there is currently is another campaign called Find 815.

Now it seems he’s at it again with the launch of the teaser for upcoming Star Trek film. Apparently starring Chris Pine in the James T Kirk role, the teaser can be seen on the official website but if you scroll down to the “Under Construction” banner there’s a small red dot. Click it to go through to another viral website and watch the “live” video stream from the construction site of the Enterprise NCC-1701 (under construction, get it? I’m here all week, folks).

So what else might be in store for the long run up to Star Trek movie’s release? It’s certainly an audience up for another extended experience or alternate reality game and Abrams certainly earned the title of a master at exploiting cross-media to tantalise and tease his audience. We have nearly a whole year of waiting to find out.

According to Reuters, a deal has been struck between Google and Japanese wireless carrier DoCoMo which should see Google’s Linux-based mobile OS “Android” rolled out on DoCoMo phones.

DoCoMo are founding members of the Open Handset Alliance along with other members Motorola, LG and Samsung but this deal marks the first major take-up of Android. It still† faces some big competiton in the Japanese marketplace but with support for DoCoMo’s innovative mobile Internet service, I-mode, and the† 5o million customers subscribed to it they’ll be in with fighting chance.With mobile advertising tipped as a big growth area this year (and every other yea r since 2000!) and Google holding the lion’s share of online advertising, the future of Android is looking increasingly viable.

The Android powered DoCoMo phones are *rumoured* for release later this year and expected to feature maps, YouTube, Gmail and a revenue split for Google advertising between the companies.

QR codes allow people to “scan” an special image with their phone and get a link to a site, some text, contact details or potentially any small amount of info, instantly. While it’s been available in the UK since late 2007, only a handful of mobile phones currently provide support for it, but it’s growing.

Late 2007 in Shoreditch, London, the DVD release of “28 Weeks Later” was promoted with a giant poster with nothing but a QR code but it is still not as widely used as you’d expect. While high-end phones such as the Nokia N95 come equipped with QR readers, and QR code-reading software is available to install on camera phones which do not have a reader already installed, few people are going to go to those lengths unless they have to.

As a result, the effective use of QR codes for marketing purposes in the UK has, so far, been an elusive goal with varying levels support and extremely low public awareness. But this could be about to change since The Sun newspaper, ran a “page 3″ feature on it in December 2007. Already “big in Japan”, hopefully this spells the beginning of a UK public awareness which will open the way more useful applications of the Quick Response codes from business cards to e-commerce to augmented reality gaming.

If you are the proud owner of a Nokia n95 or another QR Code enabled device, and fancy having a play, why not try and create your own QR codes.

Do Tank Digital Creative Agency created an interactive TV mash-up for Dutch TV channel 3Voor12’s weekly White Noise music show. The iTV show features a DJ set from Dave Clarke where the audience are given the ability to become the VJ by pulling user-generated images from Flickr. Our Flash-based iTV application spools the images and plays them back, synched in time with the music. It rocks, seriously.

Watch 3Voor12 on YouTube

“Missed Friendships” is the third in a series of corporate animations we’ve just produced for Genesys, the audio & web conferencing company. Written & created by Kate Dickins with character design by our very own Julian Parry, this episode tackles incompatibility problems often experienced by user of (ahem) other companies’ products, but not by the users of Genesys’ products.