Be aware of the buzz on your company and react to it

Danny Bradbury
Sun

“Cdn travelbugs,” said the public tweet that just flew across the screen. “Anyone used AirCanada’s Int’l flight passes? Trying to find out if one direction can include few days stopover midroute?”

A tweet is a message to the world on Twitter, a micro-blogging service that has had phenomenal success. The short, abbreviated messages (tweets can only be 140 characters) may seem insignificant, but because they are read by so many existing and potential customers, they can carry a lot of weight.

If businesses know how to deal with customer queries and complaints made via Twitter and other social networks, they can improve their customer service by an order of magnitude. But companies normally deal with their customers via phone, the postal service and perhaps email. How can businesses fold these new channels into the mix?

For many, simply monitoring Twitter and responding is enough. It would be impressive if Air Canada saw the public message and responded to the person using the service, at the very least pointing her to a Web page on its site containing an answer. That is what Torontobased Internet hosting company Peer 1 Hosting did.

Peer 1 dedicates employees to monitoring social networking channels including Twitter and Facebook. That came in handy in January, when some of the servers in its Atlanta-based data centre went down.

When the servers went down, the company didn’t fully understand the extent of the problem, or how it was affecting its customer base, recalls Rajan Sodhi, vice-president of marketing and communications for Peer 1. Monitoring Twitter enabled it to pick up more information about what people were experiencing. “Then, we were able to reach out and point people to our forums for more information as we discovered what was happening,” he said.

Pointing Twitter users to an online forum was a good move, said Tim Hickernell, an industry analyst working for Info-Tech Research. “What starts on Twitter doesn’t always end on Twitter,” he says. “I advise that our clients acknowledge the query on Twitter, so other Twitter users recognize that, but if you’re going to start in Twitter, make sure you assess whether to switch channels to resolve the issues.”

Promotional design agency RightSleeve took things up a notch when an innovative design idea backfired. The company designed the gifts included in swag bags for attendees of Mesh 2009, a Web conference held in Toronto. The swag bag included magnetic rocks, designed as stress relievers and business card holders.

“It was my worst nightmare,” said Mark Graham, chief executive and founder of Right Sleeve. He logged into Twitter expecting pleasant comments about the rocks, only to find irate comments, worried the magnetic rocks might wipe data from the hard drives and BlackBerrys carried by Mesh’s tech-savvy audience.

“We were getting dragged through the mud, and I was mortified,” Mr. Graham says. He used Twitter to apologize to the most vocal attendees, and then ‘tweeted’ a link to a YouTube video showing the rocks being rubbed on a BlackBerry, to prove they were not dangerous. People began to see the funny side, and the company’s reputation was restored.

But these activities require manual intervention — a resource few small businesses have. How can a company use social networking tools in a more automated way to get the maximum benefit?

“We have created our own customer relationship management system inhouse. We want to use Twitter’s API to monitor the conversation for any client of ours that happens to be on Twitter,” Mr. Graham says. This copies any tweets into a customer’s record on the system, so salespeople can see what is being said.

Other help desk and CRM systems are getting in on the act. Customer support software ManageEngine now has Twitter integration that lets support personnel see who is talking about their company on Twitter, and reach out to them, to resolve the issue.

But one of the most sophisticated integrations yet has come from online CRM company Salesforce, which integrates Twitter and Facebook support into its ServiceCloud offering. Service-Cloud is a customer service system that is hosted on Salesforce’s own computers. That means its clients can use the software to serve their customers without having to run their own software.

If someone asks a question on Twitter or a company’s Facebook fan page, ServiceCloud can pick that up, says Viviana Padilla, senior manager for product marketing at Salesforce. “You can bring that question into Servicec-Cloud, and use your online database to find an answer and bring it back to the customer,” she says.

Businesses using ServiceCloud can also collect relevant answers to queries from other customers using the social network service, Ms. Padilla says.

Firms can start by training support staff to use social networks, and then at the very least using a free Twitter tool such as Tweetdeck ( www.tweet-deck.com)monitor Twitter. And what of our earlier Tweeter? Will she ever get an answer via Twitter from Air Canada? www.twitter.com/AC_webSaver,its Twitter account for personalized travel deal alerts, seems pretty active.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Gillian Shaw
Sun

PictureMate Show, 2-in-1 Digital Photo Frame, Epson, $346 Multi-function is the name of the game when it comes to useful tech toys, and Epson delivers with a printer that doubles as a photo frame. Useful for on-the-go conversion of those snapshots to printed versions, it prints four-by-six photos. Print from a thumb drive or a memory card, and the printer will store up to 270 megabytes of photos in its internal memory. A 17.8-cm tilt screen lets you show off your photos. www.epson.ca.

ThinkPad X201 laptop, Lenovo, from $1,050

Weighing in at less than three pounds, the new X201 laptop is ultra portable, and unlike netbooks that may be only slightly lighter, it is a full-performance computer. Lenovo is using Intel normal-volt Core processors, rather than low-volt processors, putting it in the lead as the fastest ultra portable among the competition. That combines with more than 11 hours of battery life. Part

of Lenovo’s Think-branded lineup that includes the ThinkPad X201s, a featherweight under 2.5 pounds with more than 12 hours battery life and a price tag of $1,800. www.lenovo.com.

ThinkPad X201 Tablet, Lenovo, $1,730 Another in the new Lenovo lineup, the new tablet has a 12.1-inch multi-touch screen, giving users the options of using it as a pen-or finger-based slate or as a full-sized laptop with a keyboard. Windows 7 like the others and an angle screen that makes viewing possible up to 185 degrees. A list of features including a fingerprint reader, a 2.0-megapixel camera, TV tuner, firewire, WiMAX and 3G as well as Wi-Fi, Bluetooth and Ethernet connectivity and expandable memory up to eight gigabytes. www.lenovo.com

LaCie Coat, LaCie ForMoa, from $15 US

Wrap your netbook, MacBook or new iPad up in a colourful coat from LaCie that will protect it with a double layer of neoprene with a soft inside lining. The Coat has an inside zippered pocket so you can keep your power cord and other accessories neatly tucked away. The ForMoa has handles that tuck away, making it double as both sleeve and a carrying case and it comes with three pockets for organizing those extras. The new LaCie covers come in several sizes from the smallest 10.2-inch to three laptop sizes for 13-inch, 15-inch and 17-inch laptops. In five colours. www.lacie.com

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Country’s companies are staying traditional in their behaviour and mindset, Patrick Pichette says

Matt Hartley
Sun

From his office in Silicon Valley, Patrick Pichette has a unique view of the business landscape in his home country of Canada.

What he sees is a country in danger of missing international opportunities afforded by the Internet and the digital revolution which could potentially turn Canadian businesses into global champions.

The Canadian-born chief financial officer of web giant Google Inc. — a post he once held at BCE Inc. — was in Toronto on Tuesday to speak to a gathering of business leaders about using the Web to think beyond the borders of the Great White North.

“Every company now is global,” Pichette said in an interview. “As I travel the world, everybody who’s innovating doesn’t think ‘I’m doing this for France’ or ‘I’m doing this for Japan.’ They think ‘I’m taking this global.’

“I just want to make sure we as Canadian companies don’t miss the boat because we’re not set up that way.”

Although Canadians spend more time online than people in just about any other nation, advertising dollars and marketers haven’t followed audiences online to the same degree as in other countries such as the U.S. and U.K.

“The needle hasn’t moved in any significant way, and it continues to be an area where there’s fantastic opportunities for any company willing to invest in that space, whether they invest with Google or not,” he said.

“It’s not a Google issue, it’s an issue of ‘there’s a world out there that’s shaping and people should seize the opportunity.'”

Embracing the marketing power of the Web is especially important for small and medium businesses, even if they’re only spending $100 a month online, Pichette said.

“Canadian companies do not spend what would be required to capture the advertising opportunity; they are staying traditional in their behaviour and mindset,” he said.

“Even if they’re a medium-sized company and they’ve never done any of it before, to go and learn — whether it’s with Google or somewhere else — learn digital advertising, because that’s where people live now.”

While some areas of the economy are still recovering from the effects of the global economic downturn, Pichette said there’s really no recession in the digital space and the technology sector continues to grow despite the broader economy.

“The e-commerce and the digital sectors have done tremendously well,” he said. “It just shows there are two economies moving at different rates because they are governed by fundamentally different forces.”

Last week, the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Justice approved a landmark search advertising deal between Microsoft and Yahoo, which will see Google’s two biggest competitors in search team up to challenge the Web giant’s dominance.

Still, Pichette said the new alliance won’t change the way Google conducts its business in the search world.

“Competition is good because it keeps everybody honest,” he said. “We, Google, continue to be only one click away for everybody, so as soon as there’s a better mousetrap, you switch. So in that world, it will keep us even more focused on what we do well, but it doesn’t change our core agenda. We just need to take even more notice because now we have a competitor that has even more scale.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Gillian Shaw
Sun

Tom-tom EASE, limited red-and-white edition, TomTom, $130

With Canada hosting the 2010 Winter Olympics, TomTom is marking the event with a limited-edition red-and-white version of its EASE car navigation system commemorating Canada’s flag. With stories of visiting bus drivers getting lost on unfamiliar Vancouver streets, maybe they could have used these at the Olympics. The EASE has a two-icon 8.89-centimetre (3.5-inch) touch screen menu with quick access to search tools, and its Tele Atlas maps of Canada that come pre-installed get the highest rating in every market tested in Canada for having the most addresses, the most points of interest and the most accurate routes. www.tomtom.com

Pandemic Keyboard, Cleankeys, from $400 US

From Edmonton comes a new keyboard that can be wiped cleaned in a way that conventional keyboards can’t be. According to Cleankeys, clinical trials show a disinfecting cloth on the smooth surface of its keyboards kills 99 per cent of all bacteria, compared to five per cent with conventional rubber and plastic keyboards. The touch-sensitive keyboard only types when users tap on the keys, not just when they rest their hands on it. Pricey compared to your average keyboard, but cleaner. cleankeysinc.com

MobileOffice AD450 Scanner, Plustek, $270 US

A mobile scanner with an automatic document feeder and it can run via a USB connection or on AC power, making it truly portable. Documents can be saved in a range of popular formats including PDF, JPG, TIF and others. It can also scan rigid cards, including credit cards. www.plustek.com

BDP-S470 Blu-ray Disc Player, Sony, $300

Get ready for 3-D, coming soon to a TV near you. Sony’s stand-alone Bluray player than can be upgraded to play Blu-ray 3-D discs with a firmware update that is coming. A full-HD 1080p single-disk Blu-ray with DVD, CD and SA-CD player, it takes a USB wireless LAN adapter sold separately to use Wi-Fi. With a boot time of three seconds in quick-start mode, it’s Sony’s fastest Blu-ray Disc player. You can use your iPhone or iPod touch to control the player using BD remote, an application available at the Apple app store. The player streams movies, video, music and other online content when it’s linked to the Internet through a broadband connection using Sony Bravia’s Internet video platform. Grace note lets you check out details about actors and productions with Sony’s entertainment database browsers. On store shelves starting in March. www.sony.ca

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Murray Hill
Sun

For me, there’s nothing more frustrating than having to sort through the myriad remotes for each device I have in my system — “so, is that the remote for the DVD player or the TV?” Having a single remote is the only way to go.

I’m a big fan of Logitech Harmony universal remotes — I’ve used them for years and have never had a bad experience with one. The only problem with them is that they can be costly, so when I got a chance to have a look at their Harmony 700 Universal Remote, which retails for under $180, I jumped at it.

My favourite Harmony remote is the 900, but it retails for around $450, so most people will think long and hard before doling out that much cash for a remote control. I love it because it uses radio frequency (RF.), combined with infrared, to control up to 15 components. The advantage to a device that uses RF. is that it doesn’t have to be line-of-sight control, so the devices it controls can be behind solid doors and it’ll still control them. My system is behind doors, so the 900 is exactly what I want.

The 700 uses infrared, so line of sight is a must, and it will control up to six components — more than most families have connected to their system. You might have an Xbox, cable box, DVD player, receiver and a TV, but most users probably won’t have much more than that.

Setup is done on a computer — either a Mac or a PC, where the user simply tells the software what activity they want to do (watch TV, for instance). Then you select your components from the extremely long list that’s available and away you go. Once you’ve loaded all your components into the various activities you select, everything gets downloaded into the remote via a USB cable, and you’re in business. From there on, if you want to watch TV, for example, you press the watch TV button and the TV, the receiver, and your cable box comes on. From then on you control the volume from the Harmony and you also have individual access to your device menus through the Harmony — it’s a great system.

If your device isn’t on the Harmony website list — which is very unusual — then you can program the remote simply by pointing the remote for the particular device at the Harmony’s infrared eye. The software will walk you through the process involved in downloading the controls from one device to the other.

The one small problem with using any Harmony remote is that you need Internet access to set them up. That’s not a big deal these days when most households have access, and if you don’t have the Internet, chances are a remote for TVs isn’t too high on your list of priorities anyway.

The Harmony 700 comes with a standard micro USB cable for recharging the on-board AA batteries, which will give you around a week of use on a full charge.

The LCD screen is a bit small, but that’s not a real concern because once you’ve got all your activities set up properly, each common activity has a button you press. You’ll automatically gravitate to the correct button and probably won’t look at the screen unless there’s a glitch of some sort.

I’ve never hesitated to recommend buying a Harmony remote of any type, and now that there’s a relatively inexpensive option available I’d heartily recommend buyers have a look at the 700 if they’re in the market for a universal remote.

PROS: Pricing at under $180 makes this a good value for a universal remote; the online aspect makes all Harmony remotes winners.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Internet giant hopes to take on sites like Facebook, Twitter with service allowing updates on friends’ activities

Glenn Chapman
Sun

Google is giving its free e-mail service a “Buzz” by adding social-networking features that could challenge the supremacy of platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

Google Buzz product manager Todd Jackson equated the enhanced offering to “an entirely new world in Gmail” during an unveiling presentation on Tuesday at the Internet giant’s headquarters in California.

Buzz began rolling out Tuesday with users of Google’s web-based e-mail service getting updates about what friends are doing online and ways to share video, photos and other digitized snippets.

Google’s move comes as a direct challenge to social-networking stars Facebook and Twitter, which thrive on enabling people to share experiences, activities and thoughts as they go through their days.

“It could render short-message sites like Twitter redundant,” analyst Rob Enderle of Enderle Group in Silicon Valley said of Buzz.

“MySpace and Facebook are safe for now. … Folks put up much more personal content than the 140-characters you get on Twitter.”

Twitter has become a global sensation by letting people share thoughts, observations or developments in terse text messages, known as tweets, of no more than 140 characters per message.

Buzz feeds Twitter missives into Gmail, eliminating the need for people to visit the Twitter website to post updates or see those sent by people they have selected to follow, according to Enderle.

“I expect experimentation but not wholesale switching in the foreseeable future,” said Forrester media analyst Augie Ray. “Buzz could end up supplementing rather than replacing users’ other social networks for now.”

Buzz is tailored to work on smart phones, meaning users can tap into real-time posts on the move. Geo-location capabilities of smart phones let people see what those nearby are buzzing about.

“This is Google being the biggest player on the Web,” a one-stop shop for online users, Enderle said. “If they can capture and index information as it is created then no one should be able to touch them.”

MySpace and Facebook are safe for now. … Folks put up much more personal content than the 140 characters you get on Twitter.

Rob Enderle analyst with Enderle Group

As is the case with wildly popular microblogging service Twitter, Buzz lets users “follow” people that share updates with the world.

It goes beyond status updates by letting people “pull in” images, video or other data from websites including Picasa, Flickr, Twitter and Google Reader, according to Jackson.

“In today’s world of status messages, tweets and update streams, it’s increasingly tough to sort through it all, much less engage in meaningful conversations,” Jackson said.

“Our belief is that organizing the social information on the Web — finding relevance in the noise — has become a large-scale challenge, one that Google’s experience in organizing information can help solve.

Yahoo! more than a year ago added Updates social features to its free e-mail and other online services. Approximately 300 million people worldwide use Yahoo! Mail, according to the Internet pioneer.

Flickr, Twitter and YouTube are among more than 200 third-party websites that can feed photos, video, messages or other information to Yahoo! Updates.

In what could signal an escalating battle between Google and Facebook, the leading social-networking service celebrated its sixth birthday last week with changes that included a new message inbox that echoes the Gmail format.

Facebook boasts some 400 million users while Gmail had 176 million unique visitors in December, according to tracking firm comScore.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Jefferson Graham
USA Today

LOS ANGELES — Alex Buono, director of photography for NBC‘s Saturday Night Live, wanted a new look for the show’s opening video credits this year. He went to an unlikely source: a digital SLR camera from Canon.

Several models, such as the $2,499 EOS 5D Mark II and $1,699 EOS 7D, shoot high-quality stills and video that fans like Buono say look as good as a $10,000 video camera. “There’s nothing like it in the video world to even compare it to,” says Buono. “The image sensors are massive, and the images are amazing.”

But he quickly learned that he couldn’t just take the camera out of the box and start shooting. To maintain a steady image and proper focus, he reached for accessories that soup up the digital SLR/video hybrids (called VDSLRs) to turn them into super video cameras.

He opted for a loupe accessory for the LCD, which magnifies the image. “It would be impossible to focus without it,” says Buono.

About 2.7 million digital SLRs worth about $1.7 billion — many with video capability — will be sold this year in the United States, predicts market tracker IDC. And now there’s a boom in accessories to feed the trend.

Companies such as Dallas-based Redrock Microsystems and Chicago’s Zacuto are targeting VDSLR shooters. Their “rigs” are showing up prominently in the video departments at camera stores.

Simply pushing a camera’s record button isn’t enough if you want something “with some artistic merit,” says Brian Valente, a partner with Redrock. “The things we take for granted in a basic consumer video camera just aren’t there in the digital SLR.”

Some of the shortcomings and their problem-solving accessories:

•Controlling composition. You compose video through the camera’s LCD screen in “Live View” mode, similar to how you compose stills on a point-and-shoot. That makes it harder to focus and to compose correctly in low light.

Solution: LCD loupes from Hoodman, Zacuto or Cavision give you an eyepiece-like ability to compose. Prices range from about $80 to $375. Redrock and Zacuto also sell focus attachments for the camera body that allow for more precise focusing.

•Camera shake. The cameras are hard to hold steady for extended periods. Unlike video cameras, which tend to be heavier and easier to hold steady, the shakes really show up in VDSLRs.

Solution: “Steady rigs” from Redrock and Zacuto mount to the camera and help stabilize the image. The rigs rest on your shoulder.

•Sound. Audio from built-in microphones is inferior, and unacceptable for serious work. The 5D and 7D have mike inputs but higher-end microphones won’t fit.

Solution: David Speranza, who blogs about professional video for the website of New York retailer B&H Photo, recommends two small accessory microphones, the $200 Sennheiser MKE 400 and the $150 Rode VideoMic. Both plug into the mike jack, rest on the camera hot shoe and provide excellent sound, he says.

Speranza says VDSLR accessories are a big growth area for B&H. “There’s lots of interest in it. People who couldn’t conceive of shooting video that looked this good two years ago can now get amazing results for under $2,000.”

The cameras shoot directly to memory cards, but you’ll need a big one to hold the footage — an 8-gigabyte or 16-GB card is a must.

That dreamy look

Speranza says the 7D is far and away the best-selling VDSLR, because of its lower price and because it can record video in variable frame rates. The 5D shoots at 30 frames per second, standard for video, while the 7D can do 30 frames or 24 frames, similar to film. “It has that dreamy look that filmmakers love,” he says.

This week Canon announced another new VDSLR that can shoot 1080p video, at its lowest price yet. The $799 (body only) EOS Rebel T2i, out in March, has the same 18 megapixel image sensor as the 7D.

The image sensor on these cameras is much bigger than those found on video cameras. So it can produce images with shallow depth of field (blurry backgrounds) on a multitude of lenses.

“You’ve got sensors that are six to eight times the size of what you’ll find in video cameras,” says Syl Arena, a California photographer who recently used the 5D Mark II to shoot footage for a TV reality show pilot. “You get a cinematic look that is just amazing.”‘

Nikon introduced video to SLRs in 2008 with the D90. But video really took off for advanced amateurs, pros and indie productions with Canon’s 5D Mark II and 7D, which both shoot full 1080p high-definition video.

Besides Saturday Night Live, the Fox series 24 has shot scenes with the 5D. And the recent Terminator Salvation movie ran a series of Internet episodes promoting it that were all done with the 5D.

Shane Hurlbut, director of photography for Salvation, just finished making a feature film about the Navy SEALs using 5Ds, with Redrock gear to mount cameras for handheld use.

“It puts the viewer directly into the action,” he says. “With this technology, you feel like you’re in a video game.”

Gillian Shaw
Sun

If you’re planning to be at the upcoming Vancouver Olympics, take time to stop at the Ontario pavilion and give a thought to tech startup InteraXon.

That thought could be about lighting up Niagara Falls. Or the CN Tower. Or Ottawa’s Parliament buildings.

Mind-controlled computing has come off the pages of sci-finovels into real life and Toronto-based InteraXon is at the Olympics with the hope that demonstrating the technology to a world audience will help move it into the mainstream.

InteraXon’s project Bright Ideas at the Ontario pavilion will mark the world’s largest thought-controlled computing experience.

“We really want to be advocates of this technology, to show people it is something that is real,” said Trevor Coleman, InteraXon’s chief operating officer. “When we tell people what we do — we control computers with our brains — they say ‘what?'”

“This kind of exposure with an international audience is going to show people that this is a real possibility.”

While the Olympic demonstration centres around controlling light shows at three Ontario landmarks, using thoughts to control computers is a technology that can be applied to everything from video games to levitating chairs. While the last sounds like something you might run into at a seance, InteraXon’s chair trick is done with a winch, which the computer — controlled by someone’s thoughts — delivers instructions to the electric device.

“Anything you can plug in we can control,” said Coleman.

At the demonstration, visitors will be able to try out the technology by putting on a headset with four electrodes to measure their brain activity. That output is converted into a digital signal that’s fed into a computer letting the visitors control light shows on Parliament Hill, at the CN Tower and at Niagara Falls.

The electroencephalograph (EEG) that measures brain activity doesn’t take specific orders. Rather it translates your grey matter’s overall pattern of activity, so when you focus, the lights get brighter. When you relax they dim.

“The brain is constantly emitting this broad spectrum of energy,” said Coleman.

Practice helps when it comes to manipulating your brainwave pattern but for newcomers, focusing and relaxing can create the control.

“It is actually alpha and beta waves, concentration and relaxation are easy shorthand,” said Coleman.

You tend to have elevated beta waves when you’re concentrating and elevated alpha waves when relaxed.

“You have to practise for a while,” said Coleman.

“One of the problems for the technology is that it is so new we don’t have any senses to tell us what our brain is doing.”

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Gillian Shaw
Sun

There’s good news for late adopters who haven’t got around to upgrading to a new high definition television yet.

Instead of having to shell out for yet another television to replace a high def set, you can skip that and instead go straight to the new TV standard: 3-D HD.

You’ll be glad you saved the money on that interim TV.

When 3-D televisions start landing on store shelves this summer, they’ll come with the kind of hefty price tags that mark the early versions of any technology.

And with the arrival of the first 3-D Sony set at Sony’s downtown Vancouver store in Pacific Centre, customers are getting a few months to try before they buy as Sony showcases the LX900, one of three 3-D sets it plans for release this summer.

“The reaction has been overall positive,” said Sony spokesman Brent de Waal of this week’s demo, which is now offered at the Vancouver store and at one in Toronto with plans to roll it out at other Sony stores across the country in the coming months.

De Waal said while pricing hasn’t been set yet, it will be in the $5,000 range, or comparable to current high-end sets.

“People are surprised that it is ready, in the sense they can see it and it’s already in the store. Most are excited and if someone is interested in sports, when they see the soccer clip they get more excited. If they play video games, when they see the video game, they get more excited.

“Ultimately it is more about the content people want to see than the technology.”

As curious shoppers hung around waiting for their chance to try on the 3-D glasses that transform the somewhat blurry-looking 3-D screen into a sharp and immersive experience, a polar bear appeared on the screen of the LX900.

As the bear slid into water and bubbles arose all around, the 3-D glasses gave viewers the sensation of sinking with him. And when the polar bear came straight at the camera, it was reminiscent of watching big screen 3-D that so far has been limited to theatres.

But by summer, early adopters will be able to get that 3-D experience in their living rooms and it won’t just be about watching movies like Avatar.

The technology is available; it’s the content that is playing catch-up, just as it has with the shift to high definition.

While there were samples of 3-D games on the demo, you won’t find the games in stores yet.

“There isn’t anything now, which is why for the launch in the summer we’ve got to get all the content in line,” said de Waal.

“The PlayStation updates will have 3-D before the TV is available or they’ll be timed to launch at the same time. All the content initially will be on discs –Blu-ray games or Blu-ray movies.”

The next step is programming, with major sports leagues planning to start offering games in 3-D in the coming season.

Discovery Communications recently announced it is partnering with Sony and Imax to establish a 24-hour 3-D TV network and ESPN is launching 3-D for the FIFA World Cup in June.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun

Mitch Joel
Sun

When brands sit down to evaluate what they’re doing online and in the mobile channels, the first realization they have is that what they’re doing is usually not up to snuff with the massive amount of online usage that their consumers are engaged with. And more often than not, they also grapple with what their peers and competitors are doing in these spaces as well.

It’s all fine and dandy, as brands continue to try to out-design their competitors, but the digital landscape continues to evolve. And there’s a bigger, scarier realization that comes with just a little bit of scratching beneath the surface: Your website is not important any more.

Becoming a publisher of content online is what the digital channels are really all about.

Brands still get caught up in the functionality and minutia of what their website is (or what it can be). All of those shiny bells and whistles won’t amount to anything if you’re not constantly and consistently publishing content (which can be done in text, images, audio, video or any combination of those formats) that adds value to consumers’ lives. It’s not something brands like to hear, and the number-one retort when you explain to a brand that online works not based on what you’re showing people, but rather on the type of content that you’re publishing, is: “But we sell Product X. We’re not in the publishing or content-creation business.”

News flash: Yes, you are a publisher. And, if you’re not, you better start … soon.

The age of creating basic websites that shill your brands, products and services with mumbo jumbo and corporate rhetoric is over. The age of brochureware websites is just that — “an age” … it can’t (and wasn’t meant) to last forever.

The new types of employees that are going to fill the marketing, communications and sales departments of the most successful companies in the future are going to have job titles like “Community Manager,” “Editor In Chief,” “Blogger,” “Podcaster,” “Videographer” and “Social Media Director.” Don’t be surprised if words like “ROI” and “CPM” suddenly become replaced with words like “Engagement” and “Customer Reviews.”

Look no further than Amazon. What was originally an online e-commerce website for selling books has pushed well beyond that. The sheer retailing power of Amazon is staggering. Beyond the selection of products that they have expanded into (not to mention the development and sale of multiple technologies and the acquisition of other companies along the way), they are a juggernaut of content creation. Around each and every product you will find Amazon’s description sidled up against major industry news outlets’ reviews and customer comments and much, much more. Authors of books are invited to add their own blog feed, there are forums for discussions and even video demos. It’s no longer about the cheapest price or free shipping at Amazon, it’s about publishing enough information and product clarity that the consumer feels confident in their purchasing decision. Amazon is able to sell massive amounts of products because they are able to create an online atmosphere of confidence through the publishing of original content, the republishing of mass media content and the platform for any individual to publish their own perspective on what the product is like in the real world.

Is Amazon an online merchant? Is Amazon a great website? Or is Amazon really one of the leading publishers of content, reviews and insights about products and merchandise? Others have created websites that sell the same products for cheaper. Competitors have designed websites that are way more engaging and pleasing to the eye. Amazon has been winning the retail war by becoming a trusted provider of content that surrounds the products they sell. This is paramount to understanding what success looks like in the online channel.

This concept of “brand as publisher” extends well beyond your garden walls as well. When you create a page on Facebook, it’s not about a “build it and they will come” model. It’s an iterative process (like publishing) where you continually pulse out valuable content that people select, save, star and share with their own peers.

A brand on Twitter is really just publishing thoughts of value in 140 characters at a time, at a consistent-enough pace that builds interest in who you are, what you’re about and how you connect back to your consumers. Communities are created around this content, and those communities are expecting an engaging back-and-forth type of conversation. That can’t happen with a static website. That can only happen when brands shift their mindset from being a “marketer” to a “publisher.”

Some of the greatest brand stories of the past decade have done just that. From Dell and Starbucks to Zappos and Doritos. These brands are no longer just pushing out marketing messages, they are becoming publishers of text, images, audio and video. They’re not just publishing in their own spaces, they’re publishing on the platforms where their consumers are congregating, and they’re even pushing out further by publishing on their consumers’ spaces (with their permission) and enabling their consumers to publish content about them as well.

Is your business ready to become a publisher?

Mitch Joel is president of Twist Image and the author of Six Pixels of Separation.

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