Month: June 2010

Via @misentropy

The top 5 newspapers in the world are all in Japan. Why ?

I’m always misplacing my card reader which Natwest make a requirement now to use when you’re making payments and such via online banking so this would be magic if it gets rolled out across all the banks.

And here’s a video demo. 

Click through for the rest of the graphics.

The venerable office adhesive reminders (and medium for popular YouTube videos) turn 30 this year, and Post-It Notes are celebrating the anniversary with a unique Facebook application called Don’t Forget Your Friends. The trivia app rewards users for recalling facts about people in their Facebook networks, with Post-It Brand products available as prizes in the early rounds a grand prize of a “holiday of a lifetime” for the winner and a few of the winner’s friends.

The Facebook application is being supplemented with a real-world advertising campaign, including Post-It-shaped posters and billboards placed around busy business centers in the UK. Each ad will feature the Don’t Forget Your Friends branding, along with the URL for the Facebook app. The most prominent advertisement will be going up in London’s Broadgate Circus — a huge replica of a Post-It pad with the game and brand information.

As for the trivia game, Don’t Forget Your Friends is meant to help remind us that while it’s easy to accumulate digital friends, we should not forget why we have chosen to bring them into our circles. The application pulls info and photos from your personal profiles and actually tailors the questions based on your friend networks. Each question is multiple choice, with images puled from your own photo albums appearing along with the questions.

Answering the first round of questions, and there are a few Post-It products as prizes, however  only residents of the UK and Ireland are eligible to receive them. Go deeper into the trivia app, and after a couple of more rounds of increasingly difficult questions, you will be in the running for the grand prize if you can score above 80%.

After each attempt at Don’t Forget Your Friends, you can post your score in your newsfeed and challenge others to try to top your score and nab some prizes of their own.

This is a rather comprehensive campaign, combining a number of elements from past applications, advertising and gaming that have worked well individually (trivia, give-aways, challenges, cross-promotion and more). It’s a well designed and executed application, and brings a lot of brand awareness to a product that really has no place in the digital world. Yes, everyone knows one or two people who have ringed their computer monitors with the little notes, but there aren’t too many opportunities for their use on Facebook. Don’t Forget Your Friends reminds Facebook users through a fun, rewarding trivia game that there still needs to be some connection, and remembering the details is important.

This is actually pretty smart.

The game is Playfish’s first release since it was bought by Fifa makers EA

The latest video game in the Fifa football series has launched on Facebook rather than on games consoles.

The popularity of social media games has risen in recent years with up to 250 million global players logging on to various games each month.

Previous console Fifa games have retailed at around £30 but FIFA Superstars is free to play online.

The footballers making up each player’s team are purchased in packs at a cost of £1 – £2 per pack.

Players pit their teams against those belonging to their Facebook friends.

As the tournament progresses, each player earns points which can also be used to purchase team members.

Unlike console-based versions of Fifa games in which the player can decide to play as a manager, a player or both, on Facebook players can only be managers of virtual teams made up of real players from around the world.

They can also opt to participate in league games outside of their “friends” network.

“The Facebook version is a strategy game,” said Playfish chief executive Kristian Segerstrale.

“It extends the Fifa franchise by enabling you to play with friends.”

It will also reflect events as they unfold in the World Cup said Mr Segerstrale, although the details are yet to be announced.

There will be a new edition of the console version of Fifa at a later date.

Social media games developer Playfish was bought by Fifa makers Electronic Arts (EA) for $300m (£170m) in 2009.

This has the potential to be quite huge.. and further establishing Facebook as a nascent gaming platform.

Very clever.