A DIFFERENT TYPE OF AGENCY

As a collective, The Factory Interactive is fueled by a passion for developing enduring messages conceived through a marriage of design and technology. At the core, we are explorers of possibility and architects of memory. We create rich immersive experiences that increase message retention and reward the audience. Our mission: give personality to products, resulting in a stronger, more effective brand.

_{February 25, 2009}
Are Newspapers Still Relevant? _{By Ashley}

This topic keeps arising today so I feel it’s only necessary to base today’s blog post on the question: Are newspapers still relevant? Sure, there is something about getting the newspaper every morning and reading it over coffee (I may be one of the few who still do this). But 99% of the time, I already know about the stories I’m reading because I’ve already read it online, in places like Twitter and various blogs.

This morning, there was plane crash in Amsterdam… Twitter beat BBC to breaking the news by 15 minutes. Not 15 seconds. Not 5 minutes. But 15 MINUTES. That is crazy! (http://www.breakingtweets.com/) Last night, I did not watch President Obama’s speech but I did read up-to-the-second updates by numerous sources online. Traditional news sources are no doubt feeling the hurt right now and their survival comes down to one main factor; people will not want to pay for information they can get much quicker (almost real-time) and most importantly, for free. Especially in this economy.

Ad Age has an article today about whether newspapers should charge for online usage, http://adage.com/mediaworks/article?article_id=134796. I’ll go on the limb and say that this model won’t work because we can still subscribe to that very same journalists Twitter and blog pages for the same information for absolutely FREE… and faster.

Do you think newspapers are still relevant? Can they regain their previous value in the consumers eye?

Filed under: Marketing,Media News — Tags: blogs, newspapers, social media, traditional media, twitter — @ 3:12 pm

_{February 21, 2009}
Everything can be beautiful – Unexpected Inspired Design _{By jason}

Good designers can transform the most utilitarian of experiences into inspired experiences. The designers below have taken this mantra and transformed the mundane into moments of pure desire.  Through their eyes they re-imagine the world around and we are luckier for it. As Henry David Thoreau said “It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.”

Pixelnotes by Duncan Wilson

A collaboration with Sirkka Hammer. A wallpaper consisting of four layers of varying grey tones on a bright primary backing. Each layer is perforated in a grid format and backed with a tacky adhesive similar to ‘post-it’ notes. Pixelnotes is inspired by the way we work within a space. The walls become functional, an integrated noticeboard that documents our activity within the room.

The 360 Paper Bottle by BrandImage

The 360 Paper Bottle is a sustainable vision of the future. It is the first totally recyclable paper container made from 100% renewable resources. Versatile in its range of consumer applications and made from food-safe and fully recyclable materials, it decreases energy consumed throughout the product life cycle without sacrificing functionality. It is paper packaging that stands up to all liquid categories.  According to Jim Warner, the managing director of Brandimage “responsible design leads to a deeper understanding of a brand within the physical content of the world, its category and the  human beings that use it.”

Filed under: Design — Tags: Design, inspiration — @ 8:09 pm

_{February 20, 2009}
SEOtrack™ – Business Development Solutions For Search and Social Media Marketing. _{By jason}

As you know, the world of digital media and interactive advertising is experiencing tremendous growth. The competition within the digital landscape is perpetually evolving and emphatically dynamic. As an agency, TFI strives to stay one step ahead of the learning curve…mainly by defining the learning curve.

To help our clients in the battle for relevancy, especially during bleak economic times such as these, we have developed a “turn-key” business development program called “SEOtrack”. Our program uses Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Search Engine Marketing (SEM), as well as Social and Viral media as catalysts for “jump-starting” 360-degree marketing campaigns while maintaining focus on your key profit centers.

SEOtrack™

SEOtrack™ is a revolutionary search-based, digital marketing strategy designed specifically to leverage the power of online search results. How important is a well-crafted and executed search engine and social media marketing strategy? Consider the following recent statistics: In October 2008, roughly 12.5 billion U.S. search requests were handled by the top three players (Google, Yahoo! and MSN) – Google accounted for 63% of that volume (ComScore).

SEOtrack has been designed to diagnose, prescribe and treat your online marketing initiatives with a systematic, quantifiable, results driven program that maximizes your resources and budget. SEOtrack combines the immediate benefits of a managed keyword media buy with long-term search engine optimization efforts to effortlessly push your online properties to the front of the pack.

SEOtrack combines on- and off-site optimization practices in an effort to achieve your visibility goals. We only employ white hat SEO techniques and will never, under any circumstances, turn to unethical (black hat) SEO processes during your search marketing program.

We encourage you to carefully review the reports and analyses generated by SEOtrack; they will provide you with a solid roadmap to implementing an aggressive digital strategy. Due to the competitive nature of most industries, developing a digital strategy will require meticulous planning, profound analytical research, and precise implementation of innovative marketing tactics.

The Factory Interactive are here to help guide you through the process of understanding exactly where you stand and what you stand to gain. Ask questions. Seek out answers. Learn from your mistakes and the mistakes of your competitors. We know it can be a difficult task for many, but we are confident in SEOtrack’s ability to help you: Adapt. Evolve. Prosper in the digital global marketplace – lets build this success story together.

Start building your online strategy today!

http://www.seotrackonline.com/
Call us: 305.752.9400
Email us: inquiries@seotrackonline.com
Follow us on twitter: http://twitter.com/thefactoryi

SEOtrack™ - getting started

Filed under: Agency Life,Agency News,SEO — @ 5:47 pm

_{February 12, 2009}
BumpTop – the desktop re-invented _{By jason}

Most of those who know me will know that I live for design and scout the web for creative inspiration. Today I stumbled across this video on TED by speaker Anand Agarawala: Interaction designer; software developer and inventor.

His project BumpTop, is a user interface that takes the usual desktop metaphor to a glorious, 3-D extreme, transforming file navigation into a freewheeling playground of crumpled documents and clipping-covered “walls.” . Inspiring, humbling and very, very cool. Check out the video below and then cruise on over to the site for more info.

BumpTop Photos:

Filed under: Design — Tags: Design, interaction, interface, software, TED — @ 9:28 pm

Fictional Ad Personality wins Twitter’s First Annual Shorty Awards: _{By jason}

The Advertising world was all a twitter (sorry couldn’t resist) over the fictional Ad personality Peggy Olson’s win at the Shorty Awards. This 1st annual award honor users of the microbloging site, Twitter‘s 140-character messages art form, known as Tweets.

The winner in the advertising category caused some controversy as it was won by a user impersonating the fictional character Peggy Olson from the TV series Mad Men.  The Twitter user @PeggyOlson appears to be unconnected with the show but tweets in character, corresponding with a full counterpart cast.

Peggy Olson

“The Shorty Awards was conceived by the techies, Greg Galant, Adam Varga and Lee Semel, last fall and the format has been met with mixed reviews.  The main reason for the discontent is the two stage voting and selcetion process. The first round to determines the finalists and the second crowns the victors. The contest does not involve judging by any sort of objective Twitter expert. Nor did it include a comprehensive review of tweets to determine who used the format most effectively.

The larger concern by many is exactly who is behind @PeggyOlson.  Is it (as many suspect) the ad agency behind Mad Men, a rogue writer or just a very dedicated & creative fan ?

An even more pressing question is “who is guarding your virtual life”.  Twitter’s explosive growth of 752%, for a total of 4.43 million unique in December of 2008 begs the question “who is tweeting about you ?”

Twitter's Explosive Growth

Are you monitoring your social media buzz ? How are you measuring your client’s virtual street cred ? Are you being defamed on Twitter, or are you missing out on massive opportunities ? How can you keep up with this crazy wired world ?

Here at The Factory we utilize a wealth of tools on a daily basis to monitor, track and stay up-to-date with social trending on twitter. Here are a few that may you may want to incorporate into your daily life.

First off we follow each other on twitter – You can follow me here.

Gogole trends- shows how often a particular search term is entered relative the total search volume across various regions of the world, and in various

Twilert -  Twilert is a Twitter application that lets you receive regular email updates of tweets containing your brand, product, service, well any keyword you like really.

Twitterholic -  these twittastic robots scan the Twitter public timeline for new twits to tweet. A few times a day,they calculate individual statistics for each twittering twit & spit it out to a database.

Twitter Search -  See what’s happening — right now on Twitter.

Twitter Influence Cloud – Enter any Twitter username to see their influence in Twitter or have a look at the Twitter Influence cloud or the Twitter Influential 100

MIBAZAAR- This Google trends & Twitter search mashup is an attempt at looking into why certain keywords on Google Search is trending up by looking into who is twittering that keyword

Tweepler -  Tweepler Is an easy, more enjoyable way of processing your New Twitter Followers. View a list of New Followers and classify them in one of two “Buckets” Follow (meaning you wish to follow them back) and Ignore (meaning you don’t wish to follow them and want to archive them out of the way, reducing clutter).

Hope this helps you get up to speed with the Twitterati, my next blog post will be on Why Twitter may be Google’s only real competition.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: advertising, culture, google resources, social capital, social media, social networks, twitter — @ 12:01 pm

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