ALDI launch iphone interface

ALDI Austria have recently launched a cut down version of their ALDI/HOFER website designed for mobiles. It’s main focus is weekly offers and grocery range. Whilst you cannot purchase items through ALDI, this interface is a leap forward for the retailler who have plans to extend the technology into other markets.

Australian first: online florist for iPhone

Queensland based florist, Brisbane City Blooms , has become the Australia’s first and only florist with an online store built for iPhone users.

Developed by enflexion, an Australian interactive design firm, the Brisbane City Blooms iPhone interface was created off the back of Flower Store In a Box, a dedicated e-commerce shopfront designed for florists.

Drew Wentzel, principal of enflexion said, “We are introducing florists to e-commerce through the iPhone. This is a new opportunity for online florists who are looking for new ways to reach their customers and want to engage with customers who need to make purchases while they are on the run.”

The enflexion Flower Store In a Box iPhone interface has been designed for retailers who want to capitalise on the iPhone to present an enhanced mobile shopping experience in a secure online environment.

Customers can shop for flowers by occasion, specific types of flowers or shop by price ranges. The interface has been optimised for the iPhone’s screen and users will not need to scroll or zoom in on a page to get more details as they would in a normal web page.

Buying has also been made easier with a simplified 128-bit secure checkout system that accepts all major credit cards. The level of security is similar to what users will expect from secure online transactions completed on a desktop computer or laptop.

Kirsty Farrell, owner of Brisbane City Blooms said: “The online florist industry is a competitive market and we see the iPhone store front as an additional channel for us to reach prospective customers who have an immediate need. We’re really excited with this new opportunity.”
Article from Insider Retailer 25/02/2010

IN SEARCH OF THICKER CONNECTIONS / THE SOCIAL WEB

Nice post from Contagious about the what, where and why of trusted sources

A lapse in trust between friends and peers, and why all social media connections are not created equal

A couple of days ago, Patricia McDonald of BBH Labs in New York put up a thought-provoking blog post entitled 'Will Social Media Eat Itself?' In this post, she responded to the startling finding, by the Edelman Trust Barometer, 'that we trust our friends and peers considerably less than we did two years ago'. Apparently, in the US, just 25% of respondents said that they regarded friends and peers as very/extremely credible - that's 20 points less than 2008. Go here for the full post - it's a great read.

We'll get into the loss of trust in real world environments towards the end, but for now, let's consider the 'media' angle of this social circumspection.

McDonald posits some different theories for the loss of trust with regard to the social web, for example: In times of trouble, we look to more established sources of information. As social media gets older, more commercial players treat it like old media and damage its credibility. Smart commercial uses of social information have been slow to emerge.

However, the suggestion we find most interesting is this:

As the network gets bigger, connections weaken.

BINGO.

We've been pondering this for a while. It is the great fallacy of social media that numbers mean power, and that all online connections are created equal. For example, on Facebook, there are people we communicate with all the time - close friends, family members etc. These we will term thick connections, as they facilitate regular exchange of content and sentiment.

Then, there are those creepy people from school that we agreed to be friends with because...well, that's Facebook, innit. These are thin connections. They are weak. They are barely used. They are breakable. They are there to bolster the numbers. And they were exploited deliciously and notoriously by Burger King at the beginning of 2009 with its Whopper Sacrifice app in which Facebook users were invited to sacrifice 10 thin connections in exchange for a free burger. 234,000 friends were dropped in five days, QED.

It's the different between blood and water. Online connections vary in 'thickness'. It's a fact of the web.

Twitter, too, is equally guilty of the numbers game, giving rise to a kind of hollow activism. Just because thousands of people are baying in 140 characters for policy change in Iran / the head of Jan Moir / Rage Against the Machine for Christmas Number One, it doesn't mean it will actually happen. (In the first two instances, it didn't. In the third, it was only when those people were persuaded to go one step further than retweeting, or adding their name to a Facebook group by actually buying the single that any kind of positive effect was produced).

There is no greater indication of the fact that numbers do not create de facto meaning than Chat Roulette, the random web chat service in which visitors are randomly paired with a stranger on the other side of the world. Acting as a kind of penis media delivery service, Chat Roulette exploded from 500 users in January to 10,000 by the beginning of February, despite the fact that most conversations either last only a few seconds or end in a picture of a scrotum. What does this mean? Nothing, probably. That we're bored. That we enjoy a little dose of unpredictability and randomness from the comfort of our own homes. Nothing that we didn't already know about human nature.

The rise of niche networks populated with enthusiasts and experts on a given subject has been predicted for a while. As McDonald points out, 'for a while this seemed counter-intuitive as I considered the all-conquering power of Facebook and the wisdom of fishing where the fish are.' However, the joy of a niche network is that all connections are thick connections. Information is shared on a regular basis on specific subjects by people who know or at least recognise each other's value, and enjoy interaction.

Dunbar's number is a theoretical number at which a community stops being 'stable' - the number at which people in the group cease to know and understand every other member of the community. The most commonly cited representative of this number is 150. It's fascinating to note that Facebook has more than 400m active users, yet the average user has 130 friends, pretty close to Dunbar's number. Even if marketers are judging the worth of Facebook on sheer weight of numbers, it appears that we know how to limit our social circles to manageable levels, tech or no tech.

It is here, we suspect, that the benefits for marketers may lie. By providing a utility, a platform, a sensitive addition to these connections, they get thicker, and stronger, and so does their association with the brand. Rather than an irritant, another clattering cymbal in the overwhelming noise of a network borne up by a million thin connections, the brand weaves itself into the DNA of a community. It is as much part of the experience as the participants.

Some other points to bear in mind:

In boom times, when we dedicate ourselves to the reckless accumulation of more stuff, it's more likely that purchase decisions will be made on the recommendation of a random peer or acquaintance. When money is less readily available and people are notably spending less, any purchase they do make is likely to be the result of more careful research from a number of different sources, both established and casual. It's not necessarily a reflection on the peer-to-peer relationship, more an indication of overall caution in the marketplace.

And finally - it's worth bearing in mind how exactly the report defines 'friend or peer'. As far as we could tell, the report makes no distinction between 'people that make me laugh on Twitter' and 'John and Sarah next door'. They're all just friends or peers. So - this isn't necessarily just indicative of a failure of trust in the connections that underpin our online lives. It points to something bigger. (Have a look at Richard Edelman's discussion of the results here.)

It's no coincidence that these results have emerged immediately following an absolute nail-biter of a year in which the global banking system came close to collapse, and many traditional sources of authority revealed themselves to be as clueless as the man on the street. Trust is not like energy. It can be both created, and destroyed, with devastating consequences.

According to the report, trust in the government is up, and trust in corporations (at least in the US) is slowly returning, yet trust in ALL information sources is down. Clearly, it takes time to rebuild what once was. So if we have less trust in our governments to protect us and our bankers to look after our money and our media outlets to be objective and our online social networks to be populated by anything other than mildly amusing strangers and old classmates, then what do we have left? The dichotomy of a world in which we are more in touch but less connected than ever before, and a feeling that if you want something doing, you know who your best bet is going to be

DHL Creative

OK it's not digi-wow, but i just love the simple smartness in this work. Thanks Fred via CrookedBrains:

Creative and clever DHL's advertising campaigns from all over the world.

DHL - Turning Page: Clever and innovative use of magazine; a transparent plastic sheet was placed into the magazine with DHL worker printed on both sides. And when you turn the paper the worker delivers the express mail to the customer.

DHL Online Tracking: To create awareness for DHL online tracking among the business community, a group of couriers with a white silhouette of a computer cursor on their backs were posted around the central business district. As they walked around, it literally demonstrated the possibility of constant tracking of DHL parcels. 'Courier 24 Hours Online Tracking.'

DHL Express - Pit lane: The back of a DHL cargo center in Amsterdam was converted into the biggest billboard in Europe. This huge poster measures 196 meters long and almost 4 meters high. As DHL is the official logistic partner of F1, they made a detailed replica of F1 pit lane. DHL vehicles would drive by day in day out to reach the main entrance of the building. And this would be seen by train travelers from Amsterdam to Zaandam.

DHL Installations: 'If it is where it belongs it was probably delivered by DHL.'

DHL: 'For all your heavyweight shipments'.

DHL Van: To create awareness for DHL online tracking among the business community, a large white silhouette of a computer cursor was installed on the fleet of DHL's runner vans which shuttles around the central business district. As a result there was an apparent drop in parcel enquiry recorded by the DHL phone tracking system while it effectively increased the usage of online tracking among the customers.

DHL - Tunnel box: To draw attention for the superfast DHL Express service from Asia, DHL provided boxes with a special inlay. The inlay, at the bottom of the box, shows another open box and together they make a long 'tunnel'. In one version the person hands over a toy box, in other version its laptop and shoe.

DHL - Maze: A huge three-dimensional billboard measuring 7 x 5 meters was installed directly in front of Schiphol Airport's main entrance, a small ball rolls from point A to B via the shortest route. At the end of its journey, the ball is transported by an invisible conveyor belt within the billboard back to the top to repeat the process, along the same route, again and again. This was done to get the attention of business travelers at Schiphol Airport, where 11 million people pass through each year.

DHL - Ups:

DHL - Fortune vase: 'Next time you will use DHL'.

DHL - Horse:

DHL- Small World: 'It's a small world'.

DHL - Determined: 'DHL express. Nothing stops us'.

(Image credit: adsoftheworld).
(Image credit: adsoftheworld).
DHL: Always first.

DHL Express: 'A direct line between you and more than 210 countries worldwide.'

Rob me please

Makes a lot of sense... Thanks PSFK
February 17, 2010

Aiming to highlight the potential dangers of location-based services, website “Please Rob Me” features a running list of Twitter users declaring they’re not home.

While the setup is humorous, in reality this kind of open physical location sharing could lead to trouble.

They explain:

Don’t get us wrong, we love the whole location-aware thing. The information is very interesting and can be used to create some pretty awesome applications. However, the way in which people are stimulated to participate in sharing this information, is less awesome.

…The danger is publicly telling people where you are. This is because it leaves one place you’re definitely not… home. So here we are; on one end we’re leaving lights on when we’re going on a holiday, and on the other we’re telling everybody on the internet we’re not home. It gets even worse if you have “friends” who want to colonize your house. That means they have to enter your address, to tell everyone where they are. Your address.. on the internet

…The goal of this website is to raise some awareness on this issue and have people think about how they use services like Foursquare, Brightkite, Google Buzz etc.