Apple’s announcement can be said to have underwhelmed the talking heads. Coming on the heels of Amazon’s Kindle it felt a little like they were standing still.

It was inevitable.

When a company releases a breakthrough product, everything after it is a case of enhancement. Innovation is the gunshot which makes us take notice.

And yet we still want to focus on that gunshot when in fact we should be focussing on the effect it has had.

Look at it another way and we see that there are two sides to product development: the solution and the marketing.

The solution is where the innovation occurs. You take a ‘problem’ and find a solution. It’s what led to the iPod, the iPhone, to Google, to Twitter, the Dyson and to all the other technologies that have become ubiquitous in our lives.

Marketing is how it reaches the public. Key messages inform as to what that technology, what that solution, can do for us. Will it let me talk to my family in Australia? Does it enable me to write tragic poetry whilst standing on cliff-tops? Can I use it to find my way to that secret club where we dress up? These are the benefits which innovation can bestow upon me, the humble user.

There comes a point, however, when the majority of people are just quite content with how their benefits are delivered. Whilst some might care about how pin sharp their photos are, more will be happy just to flick through the blurry images they fired off on holiday. Others might want 1080p in order to fully appreciate the bright colours of the shaky handcam film they downloaded. More will be content with the fact that all it took was two simple actions to start watching the latest Tim Allen christmas movie.

In other words, there comes a time when the physical phone no longer matters. How fast a piece of technology is is only relevant when it hinders the benefits it promised to deliver.

Amazon know this. Their innovation is in the ecosystem; in the delivery of benefits. So too is Apple’s. They just didn’t focus on that. If they made any mistakes with their announcement of the 4s, it was in allowing their usual secrecy to complicate their very simple message in a way that never happens with their routine upgrading of the desktop and laptop hardware.

Innovation happens once in a product’s lifetime. After that it’s a question of showing people what it can do for them.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

In the interim I’ve had plenty more opportunities to put my foot in it and these days I’m more inclined to request time to think of a suitable response.

In the fast moving world of marketing, however, the pressure is on to have all of the answers, all of the time. It’s during job interviews, pitches and brain-storming sessions where the answers are needed quickly and full-formed. It’s during these situations when having them can often be most dangerous because when answers struggle to breathe, opinions can jump in and cause the damage.

All too often you and I have offered an opinion out of simple panic. The need to appear knowledgeable on all things, to have covered all bases on your chosen subject, is addictive.

Yet to do so undermines the process of discussion. It doesn’t allow for other viewpoints and has a tendency to work in absolutes – a dangerous thing in a profession that is (rightly so) fluid in its approaches.

So take your time. Think about it. If you don’t have the answer then that’s ok. Somebody has raised an important point and a little research won’t hurt. We aren’t operating on someone here so having the answer isn’t critical. Venture an opinion, by all means, but make it clear that’s what you are doing and reserve the right to change your mind after due consideration.

It’s worth thinking about it, first.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Take the humble browser. Once a tool for viewing web pages, some companies now see it as the means for you to “manage” your entire social network, infusing the concept with a level of complexity that deters the majority of people from engaging with social media.

Even tools designed to manage just one app can have a steep learning curve as function after function is piled into menu systems which strain through over-extension.

In doing so, social networking becomes a thing to understand, to come to grips with. How often have you had to say “look, it’s simple” when a friend or relation opines that they just don’t “get” Twitter or Facebook?

I see it most clearly through the users of Super Twario. @aaronthegunner sent me a message saying “I’m only using Twitter cos of you”.

And whilst that is lovely to hear and flattering to the Head First ego, it means something else. It means that there are people (lots of people judging from the stats) who are looking for a way in to Twitter. They balk at the prospect of finding followers and would turn away at the mention of retweet and via and lists and follow friday and hashtags. For them, Twitter is a way of talking.

A way of talking quickly and easily.

Without worrying about “getting” it.

Without worrying about running multiple profiles or search columns or any of the other amazing things you can do with a hardcore Twitter application.

Because it’s certain that Super Twario won’t satisfy their needs for a fully featured Twitter client. It was never designed to be more than a fun way in. An entertaining way of approaching Twitter.

Seeing how (and by whom) it is being used does lift the lid on a great many people’s reasons to Tweet.

It’s easy (of course) to see why social networking appears complicated. The tools that enable it are built by people who see the marvellous potential in keeping an eye on keywords for a brand or conversations for researchers. The more experienced a user becomes, the more confidence they feel about engaging with tens or hundreds of people, or mining data from tens of millions of people.

Such users are often seen as the majority and so maybe development looks to court them rather than risk being seen as “basic”.

I’d be lost without the wonderous simplicity of notepad. I find it the quickest way to write (I’m shallow and easily distracted by font choices). It would be a terrible thing if it began to extend its rather basic menu. Yet by equating functionality with complexity, many Twitter tools take that route and deter the casual user in favour of an “enterprise” solution.

And this at a time when enterprise software is beginning to learn from more usable and intuitive consumer software.

So how do I feel when I see @aaronthegunner using Twitter for iPhone to tell me that he only started using Twitter because of Super Twario? Do I feel sad? Of course not. I keep reading his tweets and watch him grow in confidence whilst turning to welcome the next new Twitterer looking for a way to talk about whatever it is they want to talk about.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Recently, @fatboyzim told me to “stop being so anal” and to not preach “like old media”. It was regarding a discussion concerning the changing of somebody else’s Tweet. The change altered the orginal meaning and the author (Mike Butcher of Tech Crunch) had an issue with it.

It led to a brief round table of opinions about clarity and it was resolved easily as you might expect.

But Simon (@fatboyzim) was right to ask that I not preach “like old media”.

Because when it comes to social media, I believe the standards should be even higher.

In print (or in “old media” in general), misrepresentation is easily caught and (relatively) easily rectified. Watchdogs such as the Press Complaints Commission or Advertising Standards Agency keep an eye on things and newspapers are held to account when they alter meaning. Nobody would defend the right of a company to change a film review from “This film is not great” to “This film is great”.

At least, I’d hope not.

So I had to have a think when the following tweet:

While LoveFilm mulls a sale, it signs another movie house for streaming service http://bit.ly/dPHRU3 by @mikebutcher

was changed to:

RT @TCEurope LoveFilm mulls a sale and still doesn’t make money? http://bit.ly/dPHRU3 by @mikebutcher

The change forced an opinion on the author that wasn’t in the story. In the fast moving world of Twitter where we don’t always follow links to get the full story, this can be a problem. At a glance it seems that the author (Mike) is judging LoveFilm. That could affect things for him and it certainly influences the reader.

As social media becomes ever quicker it becomes more shallow. It has a tendency to amplify the sound bite culture of old media in ways that are harder to regulate. Indeed, the beauty of Twitter is that it isn’t regulated but that doesn’t mean personal responsibility goes out of the window.

If we are taking on the role of citizen journalists then we have a duty to take that role seriously. Shaping the news is a wonderful thing, re-shaping the opinions of others is whole different thing.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

So I relished a statement made via the Twitter Gods, home to all off-the-cuff and unsubstantiated statements, that claimed all marketing had to figure Digital in any strategy.

Let’s first be clear: I love the possibilities afforded by digital campaigns. Technology is a marketing person’s dream, offering, as it does, a slew of measuring mechanisms to keep all but the most cynical of bosses happy. Digital plugs into many lives and the numbers it reaches increases daily.

It’s not, however, a must in every circumstance.

In fact the only real encompassing statement I stick my neck out on is that there is no “must”.

Let’s talk anecdotes.

Earlier in the year I had a meeting where I was urging a prospective client to do more with digital. We all agreed there was more to be done and it felt great.

Then, almost as a side discussion, I was given an insight into the value of a non-digital campaign.

The reasoning began simply with: not everybody has easy access to the web. And even if they do they won’t have the access you and I have. I’m here twelve hours a day and a web-capable device isn’t far from my hand.

It makes sense.

I don’t work behind a till or in a hospital or any of the many jobs that mean a person can’t access the Internet whenever they want to. Access to media can be restricted to a newspaper in backroom between jobs or over a sneaky brew.

Yet these people still lead consumer lives and companies still have reason to urge them to buy during their break times.

In these digital times when it seems everybody is forever on Twitter or Facebook it is all too easy to overlook these people and, in doing so, overlook the effectiveness of what is now called “traditional” media.

Digital is a way forward, not the way forward.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

Recently I read a quote about Postman Pat.

That’s right. Postman Pat.

Get to 40 and that’s how life pans out.

The quote referred to the updated version of the show, specifically how the more frenetic visuals and the inclusion of a helicopter were more suitable for “today’s generation of children”.

Then I read this from a review of Sonic The Hedgehog 4 “keep this from being a simple reconstruction of early 90s gaming”.

And something connected. Something about the assumption that each new generation needs bigger, faster or “better” forms of entertainment to keep them amused.

It seems to me there is some kind of disconnect going on here.

On the one hand we hear this sort of thing and see products moving at a completely different pace than they did when, say, I were a boy.

Then on the other hand we hear parents and grandparents saying how their kids were happiest playing with cardboard boxes.

You’ve probably heard that before.

I’ve also spent a bit of time discussing J K Rowling’s Harry Potter books. The conversation was spun around a similar theme – namely how the writer had to balance the needs of new readers with those of the initial fans. How, in other words, do you write a series over ten years and maintain your readership AND pitch it to a young audience who won’t be sticking around and growing up with you over ten years but able to access the final book as quickly as they want.

That’s an interesting target market.

I respect Rowling’s ability to do that.

We see similar process going on within video games where reviews are harsh for games on the grounds that they are “middle of the road”. Whilst there is no denying that some games (and books, and films, and music) are substandard, it does beg the question of where we draw the line.

Is it possible, for example, to create a product that is solid and enjoyable without it offering a challenge to more experienced consumers? Or do our children really have expectations above the level we once did as children?

In another review (of Megamind) the reviewer observed it would have been a much better film if the writers had included more humour for adults so that they are kept entertained as well as their kids. As though it wasn’t enough just to make a fun film for kids anymore without having the “adult” nods in there.

It’s a crazy, confusing state of affairs in which the “market” seems to have created rules separate to the needs of the actual audience. The perception seems to be that because older, more opinionated people feel that Postman Pat should be faster paced and include multiple murders* then that is the truth.

The same goes for every other form of media and none of it, as far as I can see, is backed up by any real research. At best it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy like getting someone addicted to crack and then saying they need crack to make their lives complete.

Sometimes you have to accept that it’s not your audience that is changing, it’s you. So, before deciding that your audience demands something bigger or faster, take time to ask the people who matter – them.

*This does not happen in any version of Postman Pat that I’ve seen.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

10:54. Missed call from @EGVroom. Stuffing what remains of a sausage butty into my mouth I head  back down to the main entrance to meet my expo wing-man. Apparently the queue outside is now stretching so far round Earls Court the powers that be have decided to open the doors 5 minutes early. That time is now! Making my way through the ensuing chaos I find EGVroom, give him his wristband and we make our way inside. Coincidentally he brought along a little friend, @SuperTwario, a rising star in the Twitterverse with a penchant for carrots, we’ll no doubt be hearing more from him in the very near future. After a brief pause for a caffeine pit-stop we launch ourselves into the fray on the hunt for the next hands-on experience.

Need for Speed Hot Pursuit
As a big fan of the Burnout series I never really got into Need for Speed. Burnout was all about the fast, frantic and more importantly fun aspect of racing fast cars around the streets. You can pick up the controller and within minutes be in the midst of a chaotic battle for first place, ‘taking down’ opponents with stylish moves. Need for Speed lacked this immediacy – certainly in latter installments. To this end I hadn’t really given the franchise much consideration. That changed with Hot Pursuit. One word, or rather one name can explain why. Criterion. A cursory glance walking past the stand and you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a new Burnout game on display. Taking up position next to EGVroom we await the start of our first multiplayer race. Going back to it’s roots Hot Pursuit  is all about the high speed police chase. Players get to decide whether to play as a cop or a racer, and choose from a healthy list of licenced supercars. From the moment the race begins it is clear this Need for Speed is all about action packed fun.

Whether cop or racer you have an array of weapons and equipment at your disposal to help you become the top cop in the county, or the most wanted racer. Playing as a cop I get to choose from: a helicopter, to help keep the racers I am pursuing ‘in sight’; an EMP to fire at vehicles, frying their systems and sending them out of control; a spike strip to be dropped ahead of the chase to damage or immobilise the racer/s car; and the ability to call in a roadblock to stop, or at the very least, slow down my prey. As I quickly found out these can also be used against your fellow cops. Only minutes into the game I had caught up with and was in pursuit of a racer. Before I get chance to score my takedown and claim the subsequent bounty I am hit with an EMP and sent careering across the freeway into the path of an oncoming car. As I slam helplessly at full speed into the car I am overtaken by a cop badged Dodge Viper who goes on to bag my intended target. Not only are you out to beat the racers but also your fellow cops – there’s only room for one top cop! All the while I’m playing, part of my mind is telling me not to be fooled, Hot Pursuit is nothing more than Burnout in a new dress. But even if that’s the case, it isn’t a bad thing. Based purely off the multiplayer part of the game I got to play, Hot Pursuit  is promising to be a great, fun, action packed addition to the Need for Speed stable. With talk of the single player portion of the game offering an open-world of over 100 miles of road and freeway to own, 4 times larger than Burnout’s Paradise City, it should keep gamers occupied for a while. I’m curious to see though how it sets itself apart from the Burnout franchise. For those wondering, I can’t remember who won between EGVroom and myself! ;o) Burnout Need for Speed Hot Pursuit is released in the UK on 19th November for Xbox 360, PS3, PC and Wii.

Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood
Parting company with EGVroom for a while I make my way to one of the many Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood stands. Having only recently started playing the first Assassin’s Creed (don’t ask) and thoroughly enjoying it I am very keen to get my hands on Brotherhood. Chatting with the Ubisoft rep it’s clear multiplayer is a major focus of the latest installment in the franchise. I try to draw him on the other multiplayer game modes recently announced, Hunted and Alliance, but he is having none of it. Initially skeptical of how they’d manage to add multiplayer without it feeling too contrived and shoe-horned in I was happily surprised. The demo on display consisted of an 8 minute round of Wanted, the only mode to be fully revealed so far. I have 8 character skins available to choose from which include the Priest, the Courtesan, the Executioner and the Doctor, each with their own unique weapon and signature move. On selecting your character, the sinister almost spy vs. spy looking Doctor in my case, you then have to decide on your special abilities. Abilities come paired together and choices include smoke bombs and morph, speed boost and throwing knives, disguise and hidden gun, and poison and decoy. By gaining XP whilst playing you progress through 50 experience levels which at set milestones unlock additional abilities, skins, perks etc.

When the game starts I am dropped into a smallish map, apparently an area within renaissance Rome, populated by NPCs made up of the various playable character skins. Within seconds I am assigned my assassination target, an image of the Priest appears in the top right corner of the HUD. At the same time I acquire a pursuer – another of the player assassins who now has me as their intended target. The aim of Wanted is simple, achieve the highest number of assassinations before time runs out, as stealthily as possible for maximum experience points and more importantly… stay alive! A very simple ‘compass’ at the bottom of the screen gives you a general direction of your target, the larger the ‘cone’ the closer you are. The trick is to find them without giving yourself away to your pursuer. By blending with, and acting like an NPC I move freely and unnoticed through the crowds zeroing in on my prey. Moving towards him the compass is now fully illuminated indicating I am right on top of my target. I am stood next to him at a market stall, the other player completely oblivious to my presence. With the press of a button I perform a perfectly silent assassination, a kid two seats down swearing in unexpected surprise. The key to my success was in acting as much like an NPC as possible, not only does it allow you to get close to your target but it keeps you relatively well hidden from the player pursuing you. Often all this boils down to is simply not running on scaling buildings – the two dead giveaways that that person is not an NPC. Unfortunately for me as I perform my pre-scripted assassination animation I am spotted by my pursuer. The HUD prompts me to “Run away” with a big red warning bar and a small red indicator on the compass showing their position relative to me. Much like the Assassin’s Creed single player mode I need to break the line of sight the other player has on me. When I do the red bar changes to a decreasing yellow ‘evade’ bar and I need to stay out of sight or hide in a haystack. When the bar reaches the end a pop up tells me I successfully escaped my pursuer and awards me 100 bonus XP – the other player has now lost me as his contract and must wait until they are assigned a new one. I am now free to pursue my next target. It is whilst evading and escaping a pursuer that your special abilities come into play. Using the smoke bomb for example I can temporarily incapacitate everyone in the immediate vicinity allowing me extra time to get away. Alternatively I can use disguise to temporarily transform  myself into a different character thereby throwing off my pursuer, just as long as I am out of sight when the effect wears off! Each ability can be used as often as you like, only limited by a cool-down period after each use to prevent continuous use. Had I used up my abilities but still not successful lost my pursuer there is one last resort – “chase breakers”. Ubisoft have cleverly placed these environmental features throughout the map which can be activated to delay my pursuer giving me valuable seconds in which to further distance myself. Identifying these breakers is made easy by way of a shimmering silver animus visual effect around them, and they include gates that slam shut as you run through them blocking the path of your pursuer and pulleys that when activated zip you to the roof of the building in seconds, forcing your pursuer to take the much slower route of climbing up after you. The more of a menace you become by scoring lots of assassinations without dying, the more pursuers have you assigned as their target. If you are running away with the points you can end up with four other players all hunting you down at the same time!

Wanted is just one of the multiplayer modes so far made playable, if the others are half as much fun then it should shape up to be a great addition to the single player campaign. My only niggling doubt is just how long this mode will remain appealing, as fun as it is I suspect once you have played with the different abilities, characters and maps it will get pretty samey. That being said it was probably the highlight of the expo for me, I played it 5 times over the course of the two days I was at the expo, crashing 3 PS3s in the process. Consider it pre-ordered! Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is released in the UK on 19th November for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC.

This post forms Part 2 of a series of posts coming over the next few days rounding up my thoughts on Eurogamer Expo 2010. Part 1 can be found here.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

The bandwagon gets a rough ride. Jump on board and everyone thinks you’re being lazy. The bandwagon haters form their own to ride alongside you and throw insults in your path.

It’s a fad, a phase, the next big thing. The bandwagon is, they say, where the also-ran sits, the followers, the sheep. Don’t ride the bandwagon because you’ll never find your way home to the cool stuff.

So iPhones and social media are what to avoid, hate Flash and eBooks. They have none of those on the anti-bandwagon bandwagon. Go your own way and travel with us.

But you’re in Marketing, they say, so what can we expect. The things we like don’t need marketing. Paper books and cathode ray tellys, open source systems and food from the bins. These are a few of our favourite things.

They are wrong though. The bandwagon isn’t such a bad place to be. Sure it gets crowded but what’s wrong with that? If you’ve something to say you need people to hear. A wagon full of people enjoying a trend or a movement or a product isn’t such a bad place to be. We all have to spend our leisure time doing something and if other people are drawn to a particular thing then maybe, just maybe there’s something to it. Something worth participating in, something worth enjoying alongside others.

It’s not all bad, this like-minded thing.

Yes, the bandwagon is fine form of transport. Hitch yourself to it and see where it takes you.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.

That’s the line blurted out by lead guitarist Russell Hammond (Billy Crudup) in Cameron Crowe’s retro rockumentary, Almost Famous.

It’s a plea that cuts straight to the heart of the film, capturing the hopes and desires of boys everywhere as they make the transition into awkward adulthood.

For gamers and film-goers it holds resonance even after that transition is complete. The subject matter of many games, especially those with an 18 rating, is clearly designed to draw us back to our childhoods – but with an edge that makes it more acceptable, more adult to do so. So how do we explain the seemingly endless stream of “childish” games for sale that contribute, in general, to the view of gamers as childish and socially awkward?

It all revolves around archetypes of course and is linked to the idea that as creative people we draw our inspiration from what inspired us when we were young and most impressionable. It’s sort of a snake eating its own tail scenario and explains why we get rehash after rehash of watered down science fiction “ideas” like Babylon 5 – poor Star Trek retread if ever there was one.

Take one game, Red Dead Redemption, something currently being played by most of the people here at Head First. It plays directly into the hands of everyone who ever wanted to roam the Wild West. More than just making the lead character a cowboy, however, it lets you role play fully, bringing your own personality to the part just as a child would. I have a family relation who refuses to do anything bad and spends all of his time helping people. I know of someone else who takes every opportunity to drag strangers behind his horse.

It’s easy to build up a psychological profile of individuals as children.

It isn’t just games, however, it’s every form of media. The most mainstream (measured by commercial popularity) success stories are the ones which appeal most to children. Take Harry Potter or the Twilight series as an example. If, like me, you spend half your waking day sat on a train observing the commuting class spend half of their days glued into a book or watching a film on a two inch screen then you can’t help but notice the subject matter. It’s rarely Shakespeare.

Archetypes explain a little of what’s going on. We all (in Western culture at least) buy into the hero, the trickster etc. Yet to take GTAIV as an example we find that archetype only gets you so far. Listening to the buzz in the office surrounding games such as Red Dead, Mass Effect, GTAIV, Batman Arkham Asylum and Just Cause reveals audibly greater championing for the titles that are more linked to childhood than others. So as great as GTAIV undoubtedly is, it is a lot harder to associate (and relate) to an Eatern European gangster than it is to a cowboy or spaceman. Few children, one would hope, would yearn to become a gangster when they grow up.

To many of us, the notion of “cool” IS what we wanted to accomplish as a child. The hopes we had back then of emulating our grown-up heroes who, it has to be said, were probably caught in pursuit of their own childhood dreams.

Perhaps it is the remembrance of an unihibited childhood that draws us back to certain entertainment types but it is revealing that, back in Almost Famous, it is the adult rockstar pleading with the teenage reporter to make him look cool.

©2012 HEAD BLOG. All Rights Reserved.