POST CATEGORY : Blog

Are barcodes jumping the shark in North America?

Not quite, but it’s getting close.

QR Code Use Jumped 617% From January to December in Top 100 Magazines

A Record 4468 Mobile Action Codes Appeared in Ads and Editorial Pages. QR Code Market Share Reaches 80%.

The monthly count of codes printed in the top 100 magazines grew from 88 in January to 631 in December.

Advertisers contributed heavily to the growth. The monthly percentage of codes from advertising increased from 87% in January to 96% in Q4.

The average number of codes per issue grew – from 2.33 in Q1 to 6.50 in Q4.

QR market share increased from 66% in January to 80% in December.

Almost all codes in Q4 led to product demonstrations, branding videos, sweepstakes, e-commerce and/or social sharing sites.

Validation is the crack

Ben Parr really nails this one. Any consumer-focused product or service needs to keep this in mind.

Why do you post photos on Facebook? Why do you tweet? Why do you check out your Klout score, even though you claim you never check it? The answer is simple: we get an emotional high every time somebody likes, retweets or comments on the things we post. 

We always want another hit. Validation is the crack, Internet is the crack pipe and Facebook & Twitter are the dealers. 

Online Video Ad Spend To Grow 40%

A text-centric medium no longer.

After a robust 2011, online video advertising should enjoy yet another year of rapid growth. eMarketer said online video ad spending should jump 40% this year to reach $3.1 billion. That’s after a 52% rise in 2011, and the boost will continue to be powered by pre-roll ads. – MediaPost

My Best Sports Moment of 2011

124 years of Arsenal football, and we had never won a game against Barcelona. On February 16, 2011, I had a feeling it was going to be our night. With the family gathered round and only 12 minutes remaining down 1-0 it was not looking good. That’s when the magic happened…

First came the equalizer…

Then came the winner less than 5 minutes later, and a commentary moment every Arsenal fan will never forget ‘…looks for Arshaviiiiiiiiiiin!”

My favourite sports moment of 2011 by a country mile, and probably for a few years to come. Up the Arsenal!

My Worst Sports Moment of 2011

I put this question to Twitter and it didn’t take long before someone nailed mine.

I was at the Garden for Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Finals, my first ever Stanley Cup game.

Super fun trip, great company, brutal result. 8-1 Boston, and the beginning of the end for the Canucks dream season. Ouch! Definitely qualified as my lowest sporting moment of 2011.

35939587-5807781285_d3c6af181b_o
35939589-5808346624_059b6d2504_o
35939590-5807780649_5a71797316_o

Is Super Bowl Live Streaming a Touchdown, Field Goal or Just an Extra Point?

One of the primary reasons the NFL and its broadcasting partners have resisted making an online live stream available for the biggest game of the year is viewer cannibalization. However, with big events like the Olympics and March Madness having tested the live stream waters successfully, the NFL and NBC are ready to kick the Super Bowl to the web.

Canadians will be left out of the online party this time, but it won’t be long before that changes. Americans will be able to view two different streams, one with the much-hyped TV ads, and a different stream with ads targeted for the live stream only. While International viewers will be blocked, nobody in US will require a cable account to access the live stream on the web, while Verizon customers will also be granted access on their iOS or Android mobile device.

Of course the one thing everybody will want to know, is how many people will actually watch the game online vs. watching it on that massive flat-panel television you got for the holidays? Time will tell, but I would be surprised if this offering didn’t serve to both expand the audience and provide a pot-pourri of insightful analytics.

100,000 Toothpicks

“Scott Weaver’s amazing piece, made with over 100,000 toothpicks over the course of 35 years, is a depiction of San Francisco, with multiple ball runs that allow you to go on “tours” of different parts of the city.”