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We’ve got 10+ iPhone/iPod applications in development right now – yee-haw! There’s some really exciting stuff going through our office right now. But we want more!

Not only are we offering a free brainstorm for all iPhone apps but we are looking for clients (new and old) to work with in developing apps for the emerging platforms of Android (Google’s phone), Nokia and Microsoft. We’re even offering 25% off development fees.

If you are interested in being part of something exciting then just get in touch with us – best to speak to Benn Achilleas.

Earlier this month Facebook removed a branded application by fast food giant Burger King over fears that it was against their privacy code. But then that’s probably what Burger King wanted, seeing as it has won them global press beyond the capabilities of just a facebook application, not matter how ingenious. The whole affair has triggered multiple debates on the state of social networks, the place of applications and the effectiveness of simple but extreme marketing stunts.

The facebook application in point invited users to ditch their friends (or defriend as it is now technically known) in return for a free whopper. A fun concept that’s win:win for all. By exploiting the fact that adding friends on facebook has become rampant and meaningless they can offer the user a freebie in return for practically no cost (we can all think of 10 friends we only added out of politeness/drunkenness/confusion/because we have to work with them!!) and BK makes a very powerful point in the process. On one level they are proving that whoppers rank above some of our friends, but they are also proving that they understand their audience very well and they are not afraid of sticking their necks out.

Like other’s that have picked up on this over here, I’m sad that BK was only running the offer in the US. In terms of marketing strategy they have always seemed to be less locally focused than their biggest competitor, and it’s a shame that a campaign with such appeal to a UK market as well wasn’t rolled out over here – sometimes I even think that the clown cares about us Brits more!

A real strength of the application is that it’s non-intrusive. By its nature it doesn’t require you to pass it on virally to your friends and it’s temporary. This is a shift that Neoco is also embracing in the facebook applications we build for clients. It’s better to make a statement that people want to pass on of their own accord. What BK have done so well is grab hold of the right statement at the right time.

To those unfortunate enough to be forced to listen to my rants of personal grievance it will be known that Burger King have been my thoughts for other reasons of late. I had an interesting ‘debate’ with a member of their staff last week on being told that not only would BBQ sauce cost me extra, but it was not possible to swap the tomato sauce that had been forced upon me for a condiment of my own choosing. The next day at another branch of the same chain I was informed that, over night, the price of BBQ sauce had risen from 10p to 15p. Particularly irksome because I was all ready to swallow my pride and hand over my 10p but I didn’t have another 5 little pennies! I understand that this is probably my own fault for eating at Burger King twice in one week!

The moral of the story, however, is that actually going to a fast food chain is often not the nicest experience – involving bad service, dashed expectations, and pointless, faceless, policy (I’m not involving the quality of the food for obvious reasons). The challenge in marketing such brands is to manage expectation and get consumers engaged with a brand image that makes sense. As BK have shown, there’s still a lot of fun to be had, and that doesn’t have to mean just ticking new ‘healthy,’ ‘eco-friendly,’ ‘caring’ boxes.

And now I’m off to clear out my facebook of the friends I can do without and then reward myself with a burger…but without the incentive over here I will probably just buy it from the nearest store!

facebook developer garage london logo

Another event we will be attending, the FDG. A monthly staple of ours to chat to like minded folk about developing on Facebook. Again, we will feedback to clients anything interesting that comes out of this. This month doors open at 6 – which gives us more time for Pizza, Beer and that essential banter!

Join us this month as:

* Andy from Huddle talking about their experience on the LinkedIn platform, and how this compares to Facebook

*Victoria McEvedy – lets us know the legal stuff with ‘The law and social networking: third party applications’

*Cat Burton from Moshi Monsters join us to talk about their experience with Facebook applications

*We hear the latest on the MySpace platform from Chris Thorpe

*Mark Baker fro Sun / MySQL tells us about meeting Facebook’s scalability challenges, and scaling MySQL apps.

*Dan Lester, CTO of The iPlatform enlightens us on the framework for launching applications on multiple social networks

*Santosh from TwitBlogs talking about their experience building an Open Social container

Plus the regulars – Iskandar’s back with the Latest from the Platform and all the top advice, networking and free beer at Sun Microsystems.

whilst looking at the iphone screen, the WWExpo designer had a great idea for a logo...

Hooray! Widget Web Expo is coming to town (London)! The future of the web is widgets – in fact, the present of the web is widgets too. Long time associate and thoroughly nice bloke Ivan Pope (Mr Widget) is chairing the WidgetWebExpo 6-7th October, in Covent Garden, London. It should be a great event and you should really make it one of the things for you to do in October. I’ll be down with some of the team and maybe a few clients, so let me know if you want to come along – it will definitely be a chance to put you ahead of your competitors.

Wondering what a Widget is? The simplest explanation is 90% of the elements that make up your Facebook profile are widgets. It’s a loose term for little applications or interfaces which let you stream video, bid on ebay, upload docs – pretty much do anything you can already do on the web! The other great thing about widgets is the way users can incorporate them to their own environments or behaviour. This presents great opportunities to communicate brand messages and experiences in a way that engages the audience.

Being on the frontline of a digital marketing agency means I’m often the first person a client asks when they have a digital-related question. There seems to be a theme lately, as clients ask me to pinpoint the day that Facebook is going to die and what is going to come next. The opinion I’ve held for the last 18 months is quite simple… Facebook is going to be around for a long time and there is nothing coming to replace it any time soon.

For the foreseeable future, Facebook is only going to increase in size, strength and exposure. A few people have been distracted by how fast Facebook caught up with MySpace and presumed (logically?) that the same was going to quickly happen to Facebook. People were touting the same thing back in the early 00’s when that upstart company called Google surged over Microsoft and Yahoo! search. Many people subscribed to “it won’t last”, “there will be another one soon”, etc. Seven years later (Google was technically set up in ‘98 but it took a few years to really take over) and Google is a powerhouse online. Yahoo! and Microsoft fight over a measly 10% (depending on sources) slice of the Search Marketing pie. The reason is simple. Google took the lead, invested, acquired, innovated and never sat still. As long as Facebook maintain the same ethos there is no reason why in 3-4 years time, they will not be the de facto ‘address & social network’ of nearly all adults. I’ve already seen the little ‘F’ logo appearing on biz cards of ‘new media’ folk.

The problem is that as Facebook growth is a double-edged sword. It is great for me as a user as more of my contacts get a Facebook account because it enables me to stay in touch with more people. The down side is that I have been selective when accepting Facebook friends and already have 300+ (I know someone with 1,300+). In real life it is impossible to maintain meaningful relationships with 100+ people. Why should ‘virtual’ life be any different? It’s not. People are fooling themselves if they think they can be a real ‘friend’ to this many people.

The power of Facebook is realising this and using it as a social tool to empower your ‘real’ life. This is where brands can really enrich user experiences and connect with their audience. Facebook applications (games/ functionality/ etc) are more numerous than friend requests. I stopped deleting them a few months back and currently have about 900+. Just like my Facebook friends, I do not have the time to engage with everyone. I cherry pick. Often this is based on my existing relationship outside of Facebook. Do I know the brand? does it tie-in with an existing ATL (TV, radio, etc) campaign? Is the application productive to my real life beyond Facebook? These are a few of the questions that identify if an application is likely to gain traction with users. A big successful brand and ad campaign is no guarantee that the application will be a success but it means there is likely to be a higher install rate than a total unknown – check out the Indy campaign. Obviously, there are always exceptions to the rule (see a recent blog post about big brand/ big bucks applications that sit around with only 4 daily users).

So, the conclusion for Brand/ Marketing/ Account Directors and Managers looking at Facebook is that for the next 18 months, it is a safe bet to invest in to reach a mainstream adult audience. However, Facebook (like MySpace, Bebo and the other networks) campaigns are most effective when they are not the entirety of the campaign. It is rare that you see an application succeed and deliver campaign goals without any additional support outside of Facebook.

It’s only been available for one weekend but already 1 million new iPhone’s have been sold. And, although the queues were not as long as those of the original release, figures show that despite this, the sales of iPhones were much quicker this time round (it took 74 days to sell the first 1 million original iPhones).

So, what a great start for the iPhone 3G. Especially considering that the new iPhone owners have already downloaded 10 million iPhone applications – which is even more impressive when you consider that there were only around 500 applications available at launch. These figures once again reinforce the belief that users don’t see the iPhone as just another phone – it is another whole platform.

What do you think of the iPhone 3G and the available apps? Let us know…

Facebook has been forced to shut down two of it’s top applications this week after ‘privacy violations’.

Top Friends (which I’m sure most of you have heard of) was created by Slide and lets you to rank your friends in order of how much you like them. It was Facebook’s forth biggest application, but had to be removed after a hacker published users’ private details.

Hi Social was around the 25th most popular application on Facebook, with over 280,000 daily active users. The app lets uses find out what their friends really think of them, but has also had to be removed.

Facebook has said they are looking into each case and the Information Commissioner’s Office are meeting with Facebook this week to discuss the privacy issues on the site.

Both myself and Benn will be at June’s Facebook Developers Garage, next Wednesday 4th from 18.30. This month it’s going to cover: VOIP apps for Facebook, Facebook desktop apps and Facebook connect – as well as all the regular updates.

So come down and see us for the latest news on the platform and learn about the new apps to watch. Or if you can’t make it, get in touch and we’ll give you a lowdown.

A recent article in NMA has announced ‘poor levels of user take up for branded applications on Facebook’. Branded applications for MTV, Warner Bros and Woolworths were found to have as little as five daily active users. Similarly, applications from Boomerang promoting Fraggle Rock had 31 daily active users and applications for BBC Torchwood, iPlayer and BBC Weather have a combined average of 120 daily active users.

Whilst these examples show bad results for Facebook applications, many have had a great success. We think that the key to succeeding on Facebook is to stand out from other applications. Brands shouldn’t just jump on the bandwagon and create any old Facebook application – they should plan it as they would any other media. Creating something that users will be interested in and find useful, fun or entertaining is key.

The full article can be found here – however you will need to have a NMA subscription to view it…

http://www.nma.co.uk/

This week has seen hi5 become a victim of their own success, as their runaway growth has come with some some growing pains.

Over the last month, third-party developers have launched over 400 OpenSocial apps on hi5’s network. These apps have has faster adoption rates than those on any other social network. The hi5 platform has averaged at around a million application installs every day and around half of hi5’s 80 million members have engaged with three or more installed apps.

Mashable spoke to hi5 developers to find out the secrets to their success – the short version being that they just put together a really solid service and happened to quickly tap into a broad cross-section of countries. Their really impressive application statistics are continually attributed to their uniquely international userbase.

However, their success has come with some growing pains and Justin Smith at Inside Facebook has told Mashable: “Hi5 for a brief period turned off all platform notifications. However, Hi5 has since restored platform notification service to developers by making some changes to the way notifications work. Specifically, notifications are now processed asynchronously.  Hi5 will be continuing conversations with developers that are using notifications the most.”

See the full Mashable blog and hear their conversation at: http://mashable.com/2008/04/29/hi5-growth/