We are in the midst of some heavy riffing on what makes for a good digital app here at F/F, and have noticed that many of our favourite apps fall into what we are calling the 3S formula:

Simple + Social = Successful

A highlight app on heavy rotation across mobile and tablet at the moment is photo sharing app Instagram. It exemplifies the 3S formula perfectly.

Simple: Take photo, apply filter, share. View photos from other and Like.

Social: API connectivity to your existing social accounts (twitter, Facebook, Flickr etc). Internal user follows and easy activity streams/notifications.

Successful: In the case of Instagram, it has recognised that content, not connections is the primary currency. Users come together through mutual content appreciation as well as existing connections.

I only have one personal experience of content bringing two people together as users in say Facebook (excluding people joining a page). In Instagram it’s a given much like Twitter that if you post interesting images you will attract followers, likewise if you see interesting content you will follow.

Flickr before it managed this social connectivity by content appreciation well as a website, but their app has never quite delivered for me – so much so that Instagram is my workflow tool for day to day photo saving to my Flickr account.

This is where the Simple factor is such a fine balance and increasingly we are finding an attraction to the most controlled and refined in terms of number of tasks the app performs.

Better 3 or 4 focused apps for individual tasks than a one stop does all – especially with the limited real-estate of the smallest mobile and touch devices.

As is said in these parts Keep It Simple Idiot.

Our top 5 3S apps will follow soon.

However we will go into what we think about the device so far in some depth in another post – here we want to look at some general observations about content and specifically eMags like Time, GQ and Popular Science.

In short the big thing we noted very early on is there are a few commonalities in usability and interaction like left right finger scrolling to move through articles at a first page and ad level and then vertical (top to bottom) scrolling to read through the actual article. This seems to have been adopted widely and for all of us is familiar from the early Wire videos we saw. However beyond this things get a little messy in that, each mag has it’s own take on deeper interactions – like scrubbing through thumbnails, launching embedded media or launching to a website.

This is interesting for the user as switching from eMag to eMag or between eReaders for your eBooks and then back again involves learning and remembering a number of subtle interaction models for each title or platform. This is a major difference between real print titles and their eVersions. In print we pretty much get to read from front to back or from back to front, a page is a page it’s there in front of us to read or scan.

Now things have got a whole lot more interesting in terms of content layers, relating embedded media and creating a very immersive experience, but they have also got more complicated – how to interact with each and everyone of these experience has it’s own unique twists.

Beyond the interaction itself there is another area of usability that is already creating problems – the design elements themselves. In our experiences so far most titles we have tried have used graphic devices from their print cousins that become misleading in the eVersion. Certain shapes and devices can give the user the impression they are buttons. Round shapes, outlines with rounded corners even some ratings devices have lulled us into tapping with the finger thinking we will see more content, an overlay or another image. Obviously you learn quickly but at the moment we only have hand full of eMags to compare what when we have access to the whole newsstand – again there aren’t really shared conventions for this stuff – in print this has never been an issue, you just look decipher and consume you don’t interact.

Much of this can be explained by the main difference in interaction between our touch devices and our computers – the lack of a rollover or mouse overstate, it’s a touch device not a hover device, so we don’t get intermediate feedback, we can’t test for interaction once we touch the device will do something on release or it won’t, but you don’t really wave your finger around over things like you do the mouse. It’s not say you can’t but it doesn’t feel intuitive to do this. (note this has in the past day been highlighted as one very valid reason why Flash and this device aren’t compatible at this stage – most Flash video players have playback controls that are revealed on hover, these would just not be there if browsing this content on an iPhone OS device – the user would have the impression it was broken. On this count alone Apples decision makes a lot of sense*.)

But in summary it is still early days, some content apps feels they may have been a little rushed to market, but on the whole it’s a really exciting way to consume content we are used to in print – it certainly questions wether a magazine needs a traditional website anymore – could the not just embed the UGC, and extended news content into these new eMags.

Also the opportunities for advertising are also very interesting and in the these early stages are clearly being missed – we haven’t seen anything yet that is engaging at a tactile level, just embedding a video or overlaying some web content is barely the beginning – even the iAd platform seems to rely on the idea of putting the old school micro-site into the ad rather than making the ad itself interesting in a way that is unique to the qualities of a touch device. More opinion on this to come.

Finally our biggest observation is how quickly this moves from a nice personal intimate entertainment device to something you pass around the group like you would a print mag, likewise when you are gaming it’s so easy to share, take turns, and it moves easily from my device to our device.

For anyone doubting that this is not just computing, well it isn’t this is a new device it’s not a smart phone and it’s not a computer it’s not even as Apple say ‘something in between’ it is so much more.

* read more here regarding on Flash on the iPad

So what is causes the gap to keep growing. The answer is what we ‘WANT’. We want so much and we in the west more so than anywhere are fed messages 24 hours a day that blur the line between ‘need’ and ‘want’. You know when your kid comes up and says daddy I need such and such, it’s an age old story – in truth there is very little that we need. Yet even adults tell themselves that you can’t just opt out the world is like this so we must participate, and in our western society the things we ‘want’ quickly get excused as the things we ‘need’.

So with an estimate by the UN of 6800000000 people on the planet in 2009 imagine the difference just 1% of people sacraficing just $100′s would make. In short sacraficing something each year they ‘want’ that costs at least $100 for providing something someone ‘needs’

Well it would raise exactly $1 per person on the planet, at anyone time, no small sum of money $6800000000 and rising. Given that the international poverty line is $1 per day – that’s 6800000000 days of basic life for people in the poorest countries alone.

Now obviously poverty is relative to the cost of living in any given country but even so, people in developed countries need to step and think about these kinds of basic figures – every time we buy a pair of running shoes we don’t need for $200!!

I genuinely think there is a campaign idea in this – and sitting there pondering the idea has made me realise how much more I can do even at a monetary level, how little I really ‘need’ vs how much I think I ‘want’.

1% of can equal $1 per person, by giving $100 what a simple idea!!

Could this have gone anymore wrong. What does it tell us about the state of the creative vs client culture we work in when at the final presentation the client asks itself ‘why are we doing this?’.

Posted via web from arcd

nice simple concept by VW – great way to highlight they are a think outside of the box kind of brand, while producing some great viral activity.

After a time, ‘Fun’ can no doubt turn to ‘Novelty’ and we all know ‘Novelty’ easily wears off, but I love the notion of causing changes in behavior with positive actions rather than threats or consequences. So far in the climate change debate, for example, too many messages are about ‘Massive Doom and Gloom Scenarios’ – for one reason or another these messages are rarely a catalyst for change with the masses – subconsciously overwhelmed they all too often continue with behavior as normal. VW may well be onto to something here with their Fun Theory…

Posted via web from BGreen-Now™

One interesting aspect of this identity will be how strong it is compared to the actual Metropolitan Melbourne identity. Essentially this is a brand that only applies to the CBD not Greater Melbourne which seems a shame as it is a very comprehensive and adaptive as a brand system which would certainly answer the challenges of a brand working across a whole Metropolitan area.

F/F are looking forward to seeing the brand in action here in Melbourne – but note the local reaction so far (including the desing community) has been a little frosty.

Can’t help but noting that it also has a little nod to the system Wolff Olins developed for NYC earlier this year.

http://www.wolffolins.com/nyc.php

Posted via web from tony’s posterous

Droga5’s Million mobile phone reward programme for schoolkids may have won a lot of awards but, beyond the hype, how effective will it prove to be in the long-term?

The Million project has picked up awards around the world, including top honours at this year’s D&AD. Some in the industry have described it as the ‘future of advertising’. Looking past the ad industry hype, we asked educators whether they thought giving mobile phones to schoolkids was really the best way to raise standards and levels of achievement. Read more here

Posted via web from tony’s posterous

I find from time to time that standing on your head really is the best way to get a new perspective on things. I remember at school when I did my first self portrait that we were advised to look at our drawing upside down as it was easier to spot where the drawing wasn’t working.

Well so it is with the age old approach to media and advertising strategies. Not only does looking at these things upside down highlight some problems in the present multimedia/digital age – it may also provide the basis for the answer.

In general terms for years and years we have delivered emotive but mostly passive messages through traditional advertising streams like Print, Outdoor, TV and Radio. At their very best these messages are engaging and thought provoking – initially hitting an emotion and then staying with you on a deeper level. At their worst they are either pretty, superficial brand implementation or a cheap joke that lasts till the next ‘cheap joke’ gets your attention. Fine in a traditional media approach, executions from the great to poor all have a degree of success or so we think (no real hard metrics to prove either way!!).

In this model the perception of what we need to create and how we create both a strategic plan and spend to achieve this are based on the top down TV & Outdoor + a mix of print and radio + followed some consideration for new digital channels like online and mobile.

‘But if this ever changing world in which we live in‘ is to be embraced then we need to look at things differently. The basic principle of engaging as many of our target audience in an effective and engaging manner is being missed if we follow the traditional model – principally because the figures tell us TV and magazines (traditional media) are in decline – while new media is on the up. Further more those who engage with new media are doing so in an interactive not passive model.

So simply ‘turn it on its head’. Flip the model round with 5 easy steps:

1) identify your target audience
2) identify all the non traditional media they engage with
3) build media strategy and spend from the bottom up – you might not even need to make a multi million (insert currency here) TVC
4) develop a message and creative direction that works for an interactive/cross media world
5) deliver & measure

Here’s to handstands.

image by ‘Perfecto Insecto‘

Barack Obama’s Presidential transition website Change.gov has put the entire site has been put under a Creative Commons license.

The actualCreative Commons license chosen by Change.gov, the “By” license (one of many options), replaces the default US Copyright of “all rights reserved,” enabling visitors to reuse any of the content from the site as long as they give attribution back to the original source. Standard Copyright is for protecting scarce content but Creative Commons is a legal framework set up to make sharing and reuse as easy as possible.

This Creative Commons license is a favourite of bloggers as many images on the popular Flickr platform use the CC “By”. Any image under the CC “By” can be used commercialy and in derivative works, as long as attribution is given to the original publisher.

To learn more about Creative Commons licenses read here.

Note the Obama team had already introduced OpenID login to the site for all it’s commenters.

In ad land the words are pretty much playing the co-lead with the actual creative execution. In brand land it’s pretty much the same again. As a result a great deal of time and craft are applied to these words. Art Directors work along side their wordsmith counterparts – Copywriters. Yet in digital land words are pretty much the last thing to be considered, if they are actually considered at all. It is far to common an occurrence that a ‘copy deck’ is compiled by an account director/producer and or the client in the dying moments of a project.

Yet the words are critical on so many levels. For one the way the actual content of the site is written sets a tone for the brand just as it does for an ad or any other piece of marketing. But more importantly for a user centric space like digital land the words play an essential role in the user interface. It’s fine to put the functionality in the best place with a structured layout and clever hierarchy but if the words on the signposts don’t call out to the user then the experience breaks. Still most digital projects are tackled with a negligent disregard of the words.

It generally starts when costing a job as there is unlikely to be any budget allocation for ‘copywriting’ – it just isn’t considered. With this it is pretty uncommon for digital agencies to even have copywriters in their team (with the exception of the big global networks).

To some extent it seems endemic of a general trend, in communication in a wider sense that users themselves are probably not as critical of these details as they should be. The younger generations have become more adaptable than their forefathers and the odd bad bit of copy here or there on a website will not prove to be the biggest downfall for them.

When pondering this issue I am always reminded of one of my favourite applications of good copy online – the user welcome on Flickr, each visit you are welcomed in a different language. This simple copy device sets a warm welcome to all with every visit real displays the power of well thought out applied copy.

Mingalaba Friends!
Now you know how to greet people in Burmese!

Well App Store shows there is at least intrigue in mobile based web/desktop apps. And the support Apple is putting into developing this platform certainly shows they believe mobile browsing is a big part of the future of digital connectivity. On the whole though App Store is still a home for iPhone versions of apps that presently exist as Widgets for Mac or Gadgets for PC, most of which are basically feed readers for a particular type of information – like ‘shares’. But there are some great apps as well and the initial level of game development would suggest this platform is going to be a serious competitor over time for Sony and Nintendo products alike!!

GPS for us offers the real excitement. Obviously the device is a really small laptop with a phone and a camera so great desktop like apps will get developed for it – the key is for developers to tap into the unique nature of this device over any other CPU and that is GPS. This thing is on the move with you and while in contact with the network service it knows where you are and can connect to where millions of other people are. It can feed unique information to a user based on their location, it can personalise the user experience based on that data – this is a genuine first. However there is still quite a way to go.

We already have apps like Loopt and CenceMe that tap into the idea of connecting to your network of friends and seeing what each other is doing in real-time. This type of functionality actually brings the social back to social networks, by bringing the experience and connections to the real world. Heading to a spot in town at the weekend and seeing via your map where all your other iPhone friends are.

Citysense another app that is available for the Blackberry and is coming to the iPhone is another nice early example of bringing real life data to users finger tips. They aggregate massive amounts of anonymous user data so you get a break down of activity in your area – how busy the CBD is to plan your travel. The busiest night spots or restaurants etc etc Though reliant on users being happy to be tracked it is anonymous and over time the useful data that can be captured is interesting.

It is obvious even with these very early and basic GPS based apps that the economic opportunities will be huge and also why the addition of open mobile platforms like Android and LiMo is going to help grow the space very quickly.

Users themselves are already pretty familiar with geo-tagging and now the device enables this to happen automatically, live blogging from the field will open some interesting opportunities in the news and reporting arena – see CNN’s Magic Wall and you start to get an idea of where this can be taken for mainstream news casting – then switch it back to the user and you get personalised interactive news casting to your phone.

This is the start of what we at F/F are coining ‘NextWeb™’.

More info on geo-broadcasting.
More on mobile social networking.

So what if any are the benefits of this working model and why should you consider engaging a micro agency for your next project?

For our own part the motivation behind Function/Form adopting this model was the very nature of our parts – we are a number of creatives in different fields of expertise, in a number of different countries. On the whole we are solo practitioners, we collaborate on projects, but also pursue solo interests and projects outside of the practice. This contrast of solo and joint pursuits is very much the essence of the agenda for us and something we believe to be key in pushing the creative boundaries. It brings a freshness and energy that would be lost were we to all set up a traditional agency model, move into one big studio, hire some account managers and slip into the old routine.

We see ourselves as complimentary parts of an organic whole but it is key to maintain a structure that actively encourages our individual differences as much as our complimentary visions – this is very much the essence around which collaboration thrives.

This is stretched further when actively seeking out other like minded collectives or the micro agencies to work with. It’s a network but not in the large global advertising agency sense. It’s scalability and agility in a market place what no longer has such defined notions of how large a budget or an execution to market should be. And so the power of the collective lies in it’s readiness to adapt, it isn’t anyone thing and by not being bound by a traditional structure it thrives on change and fresh challenges – in today’s every changing markets this makes it a serious contender.

Not to be approached by clients alone – increasingly smaller collectives are being hired by large traditional agencies to provide core expertise at all levels of the creative process on large corporate accounts. In North America and Europe this is seen to have great PR leverage for the launch of a campaign to market – hires to create the new online campaign for . In short the micro agency is seen in the same was as the photographer on the illustrator is an Art Director, a resource you hire in towards the creation of the big idea. Everyone wins: the micro agency get to work on a large international brand with a big budget, the large ad agency delivers a far fresher braver idea that it’s own structure would have allowed and the large international client gets a creative campaign fashioned with more passion and energy that the large ad agency would have delivered but with the safe knowledge that they have resources to deliver a campaign of this scale to market successfully.

We believe this is just the beginning for the collective / micro agency approach and that it marks what are becoming increasingly exciting times for the creative industry. If you are looking for new ideas, energy and a freshness of approach it might be time you looked to a collaborative design practice.

Obviously it started with the humble text message – more and more it seems we are too busy to actually talk via our phones and now that these very same devices are essentially becoming micro-laptops with web apps and full browser capabilities, the text will in turn be replaced by the more sophisticated email or an ‘instant message’ chat.

One thing I have noticed about the popularity of the humble ‘instant message’ is that the addition of said capability on Facebook means it’s genuinely there in the user consciousness again. For a while I felt it had died due to Facebook, as it seemed more and more lo-end users saw this site as a slow ‘IM’ where users post to a friends wall, get a reply the next day and back and forth. But the addition of and ‘IM’ service means everyone is getting their ‘IM’ on again, and a new generation of users are introduced the concept.

Ponder this, for everyone that does use an ‘IM’ service as a standalone app or through a site, why don’t they just use Skype and actually talk (and see) to each other for free – and so back to my view we don’t seem to like to talk anymore – and we obviously really don’t want to look at each other.

So it’s seems logical to watch on, with bated breath, the move away from phones as talking devices to phones as portable ‘IM’ devices.

Putting nostalgia for the old-school cat to one side this will have practical benefits. A big one is the ability to keep your conversations for future reference through the transcripts feature that most ‘IM’ apps have.

Brilliant no more pretending we never had that important conversation about (insert topic here).