The New Prisoner Series

This show, although is American seems to have on other boards gone over a lot of their heads. The original made a LOT of references to the notion of freedom and choice. This series gives some answers the original didn’t. For me, I think satisfactorily.

In short watching this series you will be invited to ask:

• To make a utopia, sacrifices must be made and do we agree the means justifies the end without tragedy?
• We can make choices against others but are we sure they will be correct when we don’t really know what we’re winning?
• Is it better to give up? Is surrendering the right choice if we are to welcome a new better age?  If so, at what cost?
• What will we do for self sacrifice?
• If given freedom to make a world better, what MUST I do to achieve it and at what cost?
• Who is really controlling us, ourselves or the big powers?

There is a rather bizarre twist, people are sent to The Village (we are lead against their will) to be cured of psychological pains. Doesn’t it sound good to be living in shall we say the real world cured, but your hurt psyche is imprisoned in another layer of consciousness?  Those who rebel in the Prisoner world are dealt with severely. But who says anyone gets actually killed if all your being is a shared consciousness and you’ll just be SHUT off from the shared sub consciousness? This is proved from one of the main protagonists who dies in Prisoner world and in the real world is fine!

Of course, the end sounds good, but its manipulation. We can also ask to what end is this being used for. The show doesn’t ask that and I think probably better not to.  It leaves too many questions about control open to debate.  This series makes the point on personal freedom comes with tragic choices and is more a debate on ethics than escape from the bad guy and find out why. This show tells you more or less why…. but what happens if you agree with the principles of the former? When does a benign Caeser turn into a vicious dictator?  For this reason I give it the HUGE thumbs up! I think it’s a great journey into how GRAND great inventions can turn into man’s worst nightmare, if the tech falls into the wrong hands!

There are some big plot holes and the technology of how it’d work in actuality. How come people can share consciousness and interact in Prisoner world? How did they get there in the first place?

We are lead to believe that there’s a lot of mental-ism between 2 and 6 IN the Prisoner world. Like any devil, 2 gives ALL the clues away, but of course with the flash forwards (or not) the viewer is confused.

People believe are sent to this world where there’s a “Derren Brown” thought/mind control added with a bit of “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” mind control thrown in for good measure. I can take that leap of faith as is normal in any  other matrix kind of world! But people interacting… this part I’ve not yet figured out in the plot!

Some people have said the characters are miscast. I’d say there’s a FEW lame parts, with 6 screaming at the gate “I’ll get you” etc… You’re more intrigued than tense throughout the shows but by episode 5 it’s already tying things together. In the final episode you’re given what actually happens,  it’s a forced treatment at night and you’re living in 2 places at once.  The pain of the mind is sent to Prisoner world to be conformed. This then has a positive change on the body living in the normal world. I think a very novel concept!

I’d say the filming, cast performance, direction and scripting is on bar with that of “Lost”. This is a VERY adventurous mini series.

If you’re expecting an original concept of 17 episodes of let’s face it a very spaced-out but excellent source material with the legendary 2 vs 6 battle of wits, then this will NOT be your show. There are a few technology to psychology parts that are not explained in the show, but with 6 episodes, it’s better left out and why complicate it.

If you’re expecting LONG plot curves this isn’t your show. With BSG and Lost having 6 series x 13 episodes (more or less), but you’ve condensed the major mind-thriller parts to 6 episodes, I think it’s a GRAND achievement on bar with Miike’s MPD Psycho. I found this show VERY stimulating and probably one of the most best recent remakes since BSG.

Viigo: Review. Great, stylish news reader!

Formerly published and known as Newsclip Viigo is a great RSS news reader for mobile devices. For this review I’m using this application on a HTC Diamond using WM6.1.

What is Viigo?

Viigo is a free RSS reader for mobile device / phones. It can work with stand alone PDAs using syncing. Like my favourite Avantgo [no longer running], I was looking for a great application for reading whole new stories. The main application has sections for news, weather, sports, traffic, politics, entertainment, and shopping and travel news.

How to use Viigo:

The application is free. All you need do is go to their main portal, Viigo.com and set up an account. Just download the application and using active sync or Windows Mobile centre add the device to your phone

It integrates with Google reader and using the account one can add or take off channels pretty easily.. It’s a pretty light application and easy to use. There’s 7 main content sections. The weather reports gives you the current conditions. It can show up to a 5 day forecast with the temperatures and conditions like rain, clouds and so on. However outside the US I’ve found the weather buggy on a HTC. As I’ve not tried on other PDAs I am unsure how stable the application is. There are options for more detailed forecast by clicking on an Extended Forecast that links into US centric AccuWeather.com info.

For Europeans the traffic news is again covers New York and London only. You might find using Google Maps a little more up to date for day-to-day use easier.

The application integrates easily with Google Reader and using the Viigo service allows blog and Twitter submissions. It can take quite a few syncs if you have updated Google Reader for Viigo to recognize a new feed. As a work around, I have found you have to delete and re-add Google reader for the new channels to be incorporated. It’s a minor annoyance and may be more down to HTC and Microsoft than the developer. For me, the best part is its integration into Twitter.

You can set up the application to download when you’re connected to your local network or via dataplan to your mobile provider. It can save up to 1250 articles. Just so you know the default articles are is 250. The great thing about RSS is that you can read whole articles [but depends on the site]. If you want the software to auto update you can select it for every few hours or to only update manually. You may also select to handle rich text and download images. However, if the device locks I have not found to date anyway to update news feeds with autolock function. If you are a manager or work in security I have not found a workaround for this.

News articles can be posted to Twitter, Delicious, and you may email it to a friend or even to yourself. The application already contains a link to Audio & Podcast, but it doesn’t seem to work that well. I believe it is still in production.

Overall, I’ve not found a better news reader to date. There are some teething problems with the application and if you’re tweaking your device it does become unstable. Additionally if you are using the device to download and you are viewing items performance is hindered. The only annoying factor is one is unable to state to use the stylus to move the page outside of the sidebar slider. As a free reader you will be hard pressed to find another reader this stylish on the market!

Emarketing Manager In Barcelona

Today I finally launched my new online web profile as an emarketing manager in Barcelona. I’ve been positing all my experience, accomplishments and achievements in the world of emarketing, web 2.0, lead generation, on-line PR and campaign management.

I’m quite excited as I’m picking up a few things again that were in the recess of my memories. Still, there’s some way to go with the coding for the site. I really have to tidy that little bugger up and to optimise the pages better with anchor links.

Still it’s a good start

Avant Goes: Top Newsreader announces the end

Today I read about the end of AvantGo’s mobile news service. I received this message:

“From June 30, 2009, AvantGo will no longer offer mobile Web content. Subscribers will not be able to sync their AvantGo accounts or update channels. Please consider using other services such as the Snac mobile widget application.

http://mysnacs.com/avantgo

Thank you.”

Putting this message into Google, I ran search to find out a little more information. I have not come across and official notices from the provider. I did notice that AvantGo were charging portals money for syndicating. Not a brilliant idea. Anyway, below is my fandom for the software and comments on why it might not have succeeded. Still, they had a good run.

Hardcore Fan

For 4 years I’ve used Avant-go and shall we say, whenever I have to hard reset my device, it’s the first thing to get back on-board. Unlike some, I’ve really been happy with it’s interface.

Problems Few

Like anyone, on occasions I get an account locked response when a data stream has dropped with my rubbish ADSL connection. I only have to put up with one advert a day, so what? On the whole, it does what it says. I can add services easily; upgrade my account to my symbian or WM. phone, no worries.

Why are they going down?

I would guess it would have to do with the business model and advertising per se. It’s hard to feature only free content streaming it free to a device, but what great marketing info? If they had monetised this publishers, advertisers and product managers would get an idea what interests their readers. It’s like a mini Google.

Maybe they ought to have looked into was strategic partnerships with content providers like e-consultancy, wired, FT.com, and other high rise magazines to feature aspects of the content for a reduced price and within interest themes. Like sky, there’s a basic package and let’s say there was to be a porn package from playboy, penthouse etc…. Well, you pay for this package and there’s an option to order the magazine online, download it etc. With this premium electronic content tne target market, predominantly male with disposable income would have been an ideal partner. Maybe this avenue was tried and it was the technical aspects of reducing, recoding and making it worth the while of the site creator to code and online version.

Catalogues for musical bands and shopping portals would again been great. Everyone flicks through their Amazon email and the weekly Sunday paper Avon catalogue and PC world, at least I do.

However it seems their model was ad-hoc advertising and more memory to download content. This was not enough. If there was better content, I would’ve upgraded.

Some time ago they did a promo for more space. I got an upgrade to 3mb per synch. Then there was no longer a need to upgrade. Good idea, but it’d been better to say try it for three months. Then the user has to cut the channels down. A majority probably continue with the same usage patterns. This is the same method used by mobile phone companies, try now, continue on or loose something you’re used to. It’s what I personally call, the crack offer!

The turning point for me not to upgrade was noticing many portals seemingly transmitting new updates [sci-fi news as an example], but the content remained static for 5 months. I noticed about 1 year ago, some of my favourite portals were not there, probably as they had been charged to provide content. AvantGo’s support sucked for the free product and was one of my major complaints against my choice to upgrade.

I’ve tried a few other readers with little success. Many seem to be ad-ridden, or purely seem not to function with some super geek OS set up. Let’s see what my IT friends say. For I, there’s quite a few that all my spyware and other privacy progs just scream alerts, plus seem quite invasive. I’ve seen a few that I’m to pay for. If there is no or little charge, plus support I think this is my only option.

I’ll try out their suggestion with the other reader. Even on cnet, there really seems a lack of decent free readers. On my phone I’m using Sony’s RSS feeder. This is okay, but the length of the articles is decidedly short. Maybe on cnet asia tech portal (often more interesting and content rich than the western one) they’re be an article.

Let’s see. Any recommendations are welcome!

Avant Go Dies, after June 30 2009

Today I read about the end of AvantGo’s mobile news service. I received this message:

“From June 30, 2009, AvantGo will no longer offer mobile Web content. Subscribers will not be able to sync their AvantGo accounts or update channels. Please consider using other services such as the Snac mobile widget application.

http://mysnacs.com/avantgo

Thank you.”

Putting this message into Google, I ran search to find out a little more information. I have not come across and official notices from the provider. I did notice that AvantGo were charging portals money for syndicating. Not a brilliant idea. Anyway, below is my fandom for the software and comments on why it might not have succeeded. Still, they had a good run.

Hardcore Fan

For 4 years I’ve used Avant-go and shall we say, whenever I have to hard reset my device, it’s the first thing to get back on-board. Unlike some, I’ve really been happy with it’s interface.

Problems Few

Like anyone, on occasions I get an account locked response when a data stream has dropped with my rubbish adsl connection. I only have to put up with one advert a day, so what? On the whole, it does what it says. I can add services easily, upgrade my account to my symbian or WM. phone, no worries.

Why are they going down?

I would guess it would have to do with the business model and advertising per se. It’s hard to feature only free content streaming it free to a device, but what great marketing info? If they had monitised this publishers, advertisers and product managers would get an idea what interests their readers. It’s like a mini Google.

Maybe they ought to have looked into was strategic partnerships with content providers like e-consultancy, wired, FT.com, and other high rise magazines to feature aspects of the content for a reduced price and within interest themes. Like sky, there’s a basic package and let’s say there was to be a porn package from playboy, penthouse etc…. Well, you pay for this package and there’s an option to order the magazine on-line, download it etc. With this premium electronic content target market, predominately male with disposable income would have been an ideal partner. Maybe this avenue was tried and it was the technical aspects of reducing, recoding and making it worth the while of the site creator to code and on-line version.

Catalogues for musical bands and shopping portals would again been great. Everyone flicks through their Amazon email and the weekly Sunday paper Avon catalogue and PC world, at least I do.

However it seems their model was ad-hoc advertising and more memory to download content. This was not enough. If there was better content, I would’ve upgraded.

Some time ago they did a promo for more space. I got an upgrade to 3mb per synch. Then there was no longer a need to upgrade. Good idea, but it’d been better to say try it for three months. Then the user has to cut the channels down. A majority probably continue with the same usage patterns. This is the same method used by mobile phone companies, try now, continue on or loose something you’re used to. It’s what I personally call, the crack offer!

The turning point for me not to upgrade was noticing many portals seemingly transmitting new updates [sci-fi news as an example], but the content remained static for 5 months. I noticed about 1 year ago, some of my favourite portals were not there, probably as they had been charged to provide content. AvantGo’s support sucked for the free product and was one of my major complaints against my choice to upgrade.

I’ve tried a few other readers with little success. Many seem to be ad-ridden, or purely seem not to function with some super geek OS set up. Let’s see what my IT friends say. For I, there’s quite a few that all my spyware and other privacy progs just scream alerts, plus seem quite invasive. I’ve seen a few that I’m to pay for. If there is no or little charge, plus support I think this is my only option.

I’ll try out their suggestion with the other reader. Even on cnet, there really seems a lack of decent free readers. On my phone I’m using Sony’s RSS feeder. This is okay, but the length of the articles is decidedly short. Maybe on cnet asia tech portal (often more interesting and content rich than the western one) they’re be an article.

Let’s see. Any recommendations are welcome!

The Formal Definition of Web 2.0

There is no formal definition of what is Web 2.0. The term was coined originally by internet guru Tom O’Reilly and MediaLive International at a conference about the collapse of the internet following the falls in value for many internet companies.

It is suggested that the Web 2.0 leader has been Google that gave prominence to relevance and position. Additionally the search engine company started by having no advertisements, it was providing internet information. The scene moved to provide more outlets to information, adding of mini programs or ad-ons like toolbars and more portal centric affiliate offerings that could be added into a website like Amazon and their infamous buy this book to website add-ons like Google maps.

For marketers this meant there were more outlets to suggest their product or service was giving value and could be contained within existing Online communities.

What are the benefits?

Jupiter Research reported that the take up for Web 2.0 tactics are being extensively employed. 48% of brand marketers will deploy marketing on social networking channels, compared to 38% last year. It is reckoned that 50% of brand marketers will target social networking sites in 2007.

Social marketing tactics used by see brands will compete for attention on already popular network sites like Myspace and Bebo. IDC go further estimating that by 2010 around 70% of web content will be user generated.

Bottom line: Network effects from strategic placing of content in places of user contributions are the key to market link and point of presence dominance with Web 2.0.

If all of this is a bit too much to take in, I’ve spied a very good definitive guide on the Basics of Web 2.0, its growth and how it works at SEOMoz.

What is SMO or SMM with Web 2.0? Simple: I like people ‘like’ me

Let’s talk about the world of SMO, [Search Media Optimisation] SMM [Search Media Optimisation] the re-aligned SEO [Search Engine Optimisation] and new marketing efforts by people such as myself.

Although it’s not a black and white picture I saw the first development of the Web, or Web 1.0 s it’s now known as the following:

• SEO: Remember link farms and Google bombing! This then later went into best practice as people became very aware of the difference between a good looking site and site rankings changed dramatically. This effected the suppliers of SEO at that time, moving towards a better practice. In essence, all SEO agencies are behind what the next strategy or Google ‘Algorithms’ would be. But that’s the nature of the game.
• Website structure, then later heat-maps and navigation ease
• CMS: Content Management and later dynamic and user specific content, like Amazon’s personalised logged in pages. This for me was crucial for a major player to move into Web 2.0 with personalised CRM as it’s leader and starting point.
• Booking engines, search portals [like Lycos with special offers]
• Email marketing [never forgotten]

Then later it went into:

• PPC, PCM, banners and affiliate campaigning
• Consistent pricing, price parity, terms and conditions and then back to web structure [as in part one].

Then there entered more development and this one was more morose, intrusive but informative about your life, profession and interests.

Why are Facebook et al famous?

Well, we always want to know what people who we worked with once are doing or even follow someone from afar who we knew was right or wrong but never really wanted to confront. So.. what does this mean commercially?

It meant that:

• Customers had the right to talk, critise as well as SHARE their thoughts with business.
• This created a rise in customer to business [c2b] then later.. customer to customer [c2c] and user generated content [ugc] took off!

So then what is Web 2.0?

It’s hard to say, even the world’s best can’t answer that one. I think it’s best to find the truth in the language game, i.e: language in use.

It seems clear to me that SMO or SMM encompasses the following elements:

• Blogs: The good, the bad and the ugly. They all have something to say. Are you listening?
• Photos and pictures: By the User
• Videos: By the User
• Rating and review sites: These include consumer reviews
• Networking sites: To on-line end players beit business or consumer or even a potential new buyer whos looking around at other possibilities and wants the real bottom line.

What are the key messages of SMO, SMM: The new SEO and marketing vibe?

Not easy to answer… Let’s look at how people make a buying decision [for b2b or b2c].

So are you offering it all? I personally think many firms don’t. Why do I think this?

• Web 1.0 to 2.0 lesson: 24% of sites do not allow customers to enlarge the product image
• 1 in 3 sites so not offer customer reviews: No feedback, no credibility!
• 61% do not offer any information on the product/service
• Web 1.0 lesson still not learned… 58% correctly answer an e-mail question within 24 hours.

EIAA Online –Shoppers Europe 2008Bottom line:

One has to consider entering Web 2.0 infact any form of elevated CRM with an:

• Understanding the audience: What are their motivators. Think about what they’d say about your brand exposure and make it right!
• Think less corporate and more risky point of view. This aims at being transparent, credible and valuable. Why, as I’ve heard your 10 second sales pitch, you’re saying you’re the best now why.. and without all the jargonised business power speech. Talk to me in my language and how I LIKE IT [most important element of SMO: Personally this is I believe an element it can never fulfil when push comes to shove].
• Take in, feed-back attitude to all learn to repeat.. truthfully!

It’s a tricky one to define this SEO, SMM and SMO idea. I’ve always preferred SMM as unless a company gets all it’s favourite consumers or fans inhouse and says here’s what you can do, tell us why you love us. Outside this, for me it’s marketing, not a labour of personal love.

As well, responding and engaging to me is something that is marketing and PR focused. Indeed, I would say a lot of Web 2.0, SMM, SMO is about safeguarding reputation online. Maybe as I had found in some agencies I’d worked for and networked with, online PR was always scoffed at. Now it seems to have come into central play again. For this reason, I think the BEST people to speak to would be an internet savvy PR agency and to learn ALL the basics of responce media.

ISP Based Web Marketing. A big deal for email marketeers

Some aspects I believe are missing from search per se are the words used during the buying cycle. Of course analytics provides various timelines, but as internet and the buying cycle is associated with different IP addresses for various searches now on various devices. Thus, heavy browsing may happen at home, some quick searches during the daytime at work and the adhoc reminders using mobile devices/notebooks.

A personal change in search, adverts etc could be changed to match business and consumer isp adsl packages. Indeed for isps to provide this information to ad searches is invaluable information. For advertisers it could mean different ads to business in the day to home an work isps, with an opt out option if their business model is for sme (ie a remote worker or sole business might use a personal email account for home and work). Isps might use this info to target users from different isps for acquisition for adsl and advertisers could find out which home domains provide the most conversions or type of customer.

For isps and email providers it is both a keen monitiser as well as risk. However from the leverage providing this information to analytic companies who in turn sell this onto the marketeer, this form of targetting will make email campaign analysis of domain openers a cost saving benefit. Wondering why gmail openers are less interested in your offers, well then separate via isp and then make a model for home users from btinternet who use gmail, brand up your campaign and make more sensible partnerships with their own campaigning. It provides another outlet and will help with locating the natural language of the recipient.

Why is Twitter Bad For Business? Only when it’s in the wrong hands

Recently Jonathan Ross tv and radio presenter accidentally published his email on twitter with another user. In essence, this is really easy to do. For I, now getting used to all the functionality of twitter [or lack of], it’s not hard to confuse the buttons. For web masters and marketeers this is quite dangerous. I have seen many corporates, like Cisco use Twitter for B2B networking. Imagine email addresses from present leads being exposed.

At least going for Jonathon it shows his postings are in fact real and not some invention of some clever SEM company in his agents employ.

I think twitter ought to change a background or at least name the type of reply one is making. Having a simple @ or D I think is party confusing [for someone like my Dad].

Although twitter did react quickly burying the post, it is showing the high risks of trying to bury twits. Indeed if you use any synchronising software across portals, a higher one. One is still able to find Jonathan Ross’s email using advanced search. I guess it will be a matter of time before removed altogether. Now for Ross, he is hoping their tech guys are not Fawlty tower fans!

With any form of on/offline libel at steak it is not hard to imagine this happening again.

This is a wake up call to webmasters who have got past the phase of burying bad web pages, but now syndicated and posted content that lies between b2b and c2c life its a risk that all good SMO’ers ought to be addressing in their process flow client documentation.
Recently Jonathan Ross tv and radio presenter accidentally published his email on twitter with another user. In essence, this is really easy to do. For I, now getting used to all the functionality of twitter [or lack of], it’s not hard to confuse the buttons. For web masters and marketeers this is quite dangerous. I have seen many corporates, like Cisco use Twitter for B2B networking. Imagine email addresses from present leads being exposed.

At least going for Jonathan it shows his postings are in fact real and not some invention of some clever SEM company in his agents employ.

I think twitter ought to change a background or at least name the type of reply one is making. Having a simple @ or D I think is party confusing [for someone like my Dad].

Although twitter did react quickly burying the post, it is showing the high risks of trying to bury twits. Indeed if you use any synchronising software across portals, a higher one. One is still able to find Jonathan Ross’s email using advanced search. I guess it will be a matter of time before removed altogether. Now for Ross, he is hoping their tech guys are not Fawlty tower fans!

With any form of on/off-line libel at steak it is not hard to imagine this happening again.

This is a wake up call to web masters who have got past the phase of burying bad web pages, but now syndicated and posted content that lies between b2b and c2c life its a risk that all good SMO’ers ought to be addressing in their process flow client documentation.

What SEO Guides Seem To Miss: The Path For Conversion

When looking at great how to guides on SEO, there appear to be, at least for I, some very important factors missing. These are aligning a campaign to the objectives and then making the content to support this. Many guides already and probably already rightly assume this has been done.

Let’s look at this a little deeper. Let’s use an example that actually inspired this article. The author is looking for a net book. Now early along the way in research I found problems such as short battery life, disk space, RAM differences, screen glare and weight.

Of course, but even complex terms are not really finding what I need. In short, the whole Web 2.0 experience centers search and content to a simple statement. They address, “I want to find people like me”. The nearest I’m going to get is a large portal like cnet.com, if I am lucky an independent review site. But search on these portals is limited. If I know already the make, model and RAM, then I can make an informed decision. So how about a lower spec machine running Linux to a higher one with XP?

Adding syndicated or embedded reviews, or even better adding comments, word clouds and rich snippets, I could find something in the decision buying phase. Now think, how could I have got people from the first research to my site? I’d say providing content with user experience and reviews adding real life examples of success stories. These could include an amateur writer taking it to the beach, watch movies, get free Wi-Fi, extra light with lots of batteries as the person is always out.

Sure, one can create this, but don’t surfers look for something a bit more dynamic? Searches change through time. For I search for easy answers to the questions I have. Still, if there’s another hurdle if price or service is my bane for bounces maybe one can addresses this via the potential conversions I could have got.

In SEO one part is to get people to your site, effect the decision of yes and convert. The shopping process is another aspect of conversion and best left to another posting.

Lucky SEOing all.