Archive for January, 2008
Nabeel Hyatt, founder and CEO of Conduit Labs, over at Brinking has a post showing the states of games on Facebook verses all the applications.
With an average install base of 2.7m users for top Facebook games, this is a massive new distribution channel that makes the curated Xbox Live Arcade look like a backwater. I’ll be chatting a bunch more on the topic at GDC in February where I’ll be leading a panel discussion on Facebook and the new web of Social Gaming. I’ve grabbed TJ Murphy (Warbook/SGN) and Mark Pincus (Texas Hold’Em) and it should be a one stop shop of what works, what doesn’t, and the size of the opportunity presented by social online gaming. Should be fun.
You can check out the other post by Nabeel on Is 2007 the year of the online game?. These are great articles (with stats) if you plan to market your game on Facebook or use the game as part of a larger marketing plan for your retail game.
Posted on 14 January '08 by Duane Brown, under Social Media. No Comments.
Here is the latest news and stories having an affect on our industry. A few will be from over the holidays, which you might have missed. 2008 and only starting to get shaken up.
Coke Brings ‘Happiness’ Franchise Online
Coke is back and this time there is no Second Life involed.
2008 Predictions: Getting Your Game On
The team at Critical Mass and their thoughts on the year ahead for gaming.
Way too early to write off virtual worlds: Joel
Mitch Joel of Twist Image talks about virtual worlds.
Tyson’s ‘Makeover’ integration top placement
Product placement and Second Life enjoying a place on the list.
Web Playgrounds of the Very Young
Webkinz is the hottest thing next to Harry Potter and the kids are loving it.
Secret Websites, Coded Messages: The New World of Immersive Games
ARGs are hot and even the music industry is getting involved.
Tipster Thursdays is a monthly feature covering technology and how you can incorporate it as part of your marketing plan. We’re going to look at different pieces of technology like Twitter, Pingie, Wiki, SmugMug, Facebook and delicious and show you 5 different and unusual uses for the technology. This weeks column is going to look at Twitter.
Twitter is a communication & notification tool more then anything. It allows you to connect with your audience. Fox TV, as far as I know, is the first one to setup a profile for an entertainment property. They used Twitter to promote their new series “Drive.” They have just over 1000 people following updates as the show ran last season. 
These are people who opted-in and wanted to learn everything there was to know about your brand. These are the people who will blog and promote your brand to everyone they know.
Imagine if Rockstar Games and Team Bondi setup its own Twitter feed to send out updates to its fans on new screens, website updates, game news and trailers. It could just include a short tweet (what we call Twitter messages) with a link back to the studio’s site. Major Nelson (aka Larry Herb) has a Twitter account and has been updating everyone on what is going down gaming related wise at CES.
The key to using Twitter from a marketing perspective is to think about it as a two way communication tool. The question you need to ask yourself is “How can I interact with my community using Twitter”, which could be the following:
- Announcing the release of the newest LA Noir trailer
- Get feedback from your community about the box art for LA Noir
- Have your community send in questions for an interviewing you are doing with the games developers
- Share the link to your latest podcast
- Notification tool as part of an ARG Rockstar launches
Twitter is a great tool to use if you don’t want to create an all-out, RSS-enabled corporate site or blog. How you can use Twitter to communicate and build a community around your product/brand is only limited by your imagination. What would you use Twitter for?
Posted on 10 January '08 by Duane Brown, under Tipster Thursdays. 4 Comments.
It has been an amazing year for the video game industry and advertising. From Google buying Adscape at the start of the year to the PS3’s new ad campaign to pretty much finish things off. GameDaily posted their own year in review yesterday. Two things are interesting when you compare year over year from 2006 and 2007.
- Very little has changed in the grand scheme of things. In-game ads are still ruling the day regardless of the platform.
- One slight twist on everything from last year and what can only continue as we get into 2008 is that consumers are getting involved with brands and company’s more. Just look at what a fan did for Bioshock.
One of the many promises in the vague term “Web 2.0″ is that of user interactivity. Often, this implies the ability for users to interact with each other, but sometimes it is more than that. When users are actually able to serve notice to the creators and directly interact with the companies they invested in, then we have something special.
Letting your customer touch and play with your brand won’t go away anytime soon. I see to many company’s not opening up and releasing some of their power. The only people who suffer when you wait until the end is you. You’ll be the last one left behind and maybe even forgotten.
I admit that the more things change the more they stay the same when it comes to knowing your market, product and demographic. But what is changing is how many people are sitting at your marketing table. The world is changing and you don’t want to get left behind, do you?
[Via GameDaily]
I just wanted to write a quick follow up to yesterday’s launch post and mention some features of the blog.
Delicious
Our readers share bookmarks with the BandwidthCamp community by tagging them BandwidthCamp on del.icio.us (a social bookmarking tool). If you’d like to participate, sign-up for delicious and share articles you think the community might find interesting.
Weekly News
Every Saturday I’ll sit down and look at what has been tagged and create a list of news that everyone might find interesting. We won’t list everything from that week, but I’ll list as much as I can… between 5 -10 articles a week.
Events listings
UpComing.org(now owned by Yahoo.) is a great social tool to help you track events happening around the globe. I setup up a group to track all the events I can find that have a marketing track related to video games. Anyone with an UpComing.org account can join and add events. You can also check out our events page to see what the latest events are.
If you have any questions, want to submit an event or send a comment, contact us directly through the contact form. Over the weeks and months to come, I hope to add more features and helpful resources for the community.
Posted on 8 January '08 by Duane Brown, under Community. No Comments.
