HEAD BLOG

All that blarney yesterday was by way of introducing our latest social media app. There was too much background to the project (which we’ve called ReSporter) to just jump straight in.

Thinking about stuff is what we do.

Let’s try an analogy here.

Think of social media as a party. You are going alone. Don’t worry though, there will be around 100 million other people at the party. You’re bound to find someone interesting. Eventually. And if not, there’s always that Kardashian woman. Or Justin Bieber.

Now imagine if, as soon as you walk in, there were a bunch of people with a placard which read “We like what you like, talk to us.”

That would make life a whole lot easier, wouldn’t it?

This is where our thinking got us. We saw a need for a technology which really did let people focus on their interests first, regardless of where those interests were being played out. They could be on Twitter, Facebook, hell, they might even be on mySpace (cue canned laughter track).

It was about the interests.

We call the system, ReSporter. That’s because we’re going to focus on sports. For now.

And we’ve built the first App which plugs into this system. That’s called ReSporter: Football. For our UK viewers, let me clarify something: we’re talking NFL not Premiership here.

ReSporter: Football is out now and is at version one. It’s a pretty cool way of accessing what your favourite NFL players are saying. It’s a perfect, and focussed, way of getting ready for the Superbowl.

Pick your team and away you go. ReSporter: Football takes it from there. If you read something you respect or agree with, you can nominate that person to be a ReSporter. This will happen A LOT when you access the app during a game because there are A LOT of people wanting their say on things. The ReSporters with the most votes will appear more prominently.

Who knows, you might end up being a ReSporter too with people wanting to know what YOU think.

And as we’ve seen on Twitter, careers can be forged that way.

ReSporter: Football is available NOW on the App Store for iPhone and iPod Touch for GBP £0.69/ USD $0.99 /€0.99. Additional theme packs are available through an in-app purchase priced GBP £0.69/ USD $0.99 /€0.99.

Steven Moffat may not like it, but when every show advertises a hashtag in order to encourage viewers to participate in Twitter discussions during shows then you know that he’s pining for days gone by.

Many shows are ripe for hearty, heat-of-the-moment discussions and it can be as much fun to follow the #masterchef tweets of (say) Mic Wright or Greg Stekelman as it is to watch the programme. Worrying about missing out on the nuanced narrative of such telly isn’t a major issue.

The reality is, whereas once we relished the chance to discuss our favourite shows around the water cooler now we don’t have to wait. Social media commentators are regularly being quoted by the mainstream media and reputations are being made. Book deals or commissions can follow from such popularity.

Even before social media made this process easily accessible, people flocked to online chat rooms to “follow their interests”. And before that there were the bulletin boards. Life was simple, if you could manage to navigate the sign-up process and deal with a 14.4k baud rate and your mum telling you to get off the damn phone.

Twitter and Facebook finally made the rest of us sit up, take notice and take part in the social conversation and we now share squintillions of messages on what we love and hate about every aspect of our daily lives. But I think that maybe we’ve lost a little of the focus which older systems afforded. I first noticed this after we released Super Twario (a mad, fun bit of self-promotion). The vast majority of users were drawn to the app not by the fact that it was a Twitter app, but because it seemed* like it was focussed on gaming. Over the year or so since its release, I have spoken with many of the users and discussed their Twitter stats. It’s quite a revealing story. Many people start using Super Twario following nobody and by having no followers. At first this behaviour puzzled me. Then it worried me. Such people would be visiting an app that was meant to make viewing their Twitter feed that little bit different. It wasn’t designed to be a serious reader but to get something from it, you did need a feed to create the little platforms for our tiny hero to jump upon. Take this away and I think you would be puzzled.

But what it did show, was the role interests (or hobbies) play in social behaviour. People were flocking to something not because of the technology involved or the fact that they knew there was a powerful online meeting room, but because they had an interest.

And they wanted to talk about that interest.

Understanding that made me look at all the people I’d introduced to Twitter and I went back and questioned them. Rigorously. I found I could split them into two camps: power users and casual users. Power users are well catered for in the social media world. Services exist by the bucket which enable them to view millions of feeds, measure interest, analyse influence and send abuse in multiple languages.

But the casual users all reported a period of bewilderment when faced with signing up.

Who did they add to their lists? How did they know who was genuine and who wasn’t? And then, with maybe a dozen or so people in their pocket, how did they focus on what brought them here in the first place: their interests?

Which brought me back to #masterchef and realising, when 1,351 people are all chattering about a dozen different things, that sometimes I wish I’d the time to set up filters for my social feed.

More importantly, it led to a bunch of us sitting down and having a what-if discussion about social media apps.

But more of that tomorrow.

 

*On a sort of related note: I wish we had the time to develop Super Twario more. We still get calls for it to have this feature or that and there are many ways it could go that would be of benefit to the right brand. Maybe one day we will get a week or two to have a really good look at it again.

There’s an element to creativity I don’t like: opinion. Specifically other people’s opinions. Idea killers the lot of them. Toil and polish falls away at a handful of words and that, I don’t like.

Of course opinion is also vital to creativity. All that toil and all that polish can get you lost in a dark place, namely up your own arse and that’s somewhere nobody should be lost.

Experience lessens the importance of the opinions of others. Over time a writer or artist learns the impact of their work and how it is interpreted by others. That wonderful, frightening word, “interpret” is certainly one to watch out for as readers bring their own approach to bear upon carefully crafted work. Yet, as I say, experience tempers this element and folds it into the substance of the work. Ambiguity is employed as a tool rather than left dangling, ready to unravel meaning, and technique becomes adept at preempting any dissent in the ranks.

Years ago, way before I’d learned any formal writing technique, a friend read over a poem of mine and said he didn’t much care for it. My work, he offered, was becoming too practised, too glib. I agonised over the comment (and still do) undecided whether it was a good thing. In part he meant the technique I was learning to apply, the structures I was reaching for that would enable me to direct ideas rather than just have them. But he also meant that he missed the roughness and energy a wider understanding of technique often smooths out.

I remember being captivated by The Wasp Factory by Iain Banks. It was a short novel filled with ideas and surprises. Little of his later work has ever matched that power; growing less with each novel. Many writers lose that edge as their technical ability to structure, to wordplay, increases. Ultimately, it is about how to balance the two and where and when to bring in opinion. After all, it is easy to spot a writer who has studied at UEA.

Back when I was studying Victorian literature there was a seminar based on Mills & Boon and the art of writing to a market. Like most students of literature I was quick to dismiss the genre because a) I wasn’t the sort of reader who cared for heaving breasts and stallions being ridden by jodhpur wearing banking executives and b) I thought that sort of literature was “literature”; churned out for people who didn’t care what they read.

Ah, youth.

Luckily that same seminar set me right on how complex a craft the writing of Mills & Boon literature is. Sure it channelled great writers such as Emily Bronte but it did so knowingly and with a very clear understanding of a target market. The execution is also carried out by writers who can, y’know, write. Properly. They are clever, talented authors who know how to structure a novel and deliver total entertainment to their readership.

And by strange coincidence, I just saw this article.

Mills & Boon is targetted, commercial writing.

And there’s nothing wrong with that.

Anyone browsing through Waterstones these days (or watching ITV2) can’t have escaped what seems to be a glut of book covers featuring pale men, blood red roses and even paler women. It’s a style designed to signal that if you enjoyed Twilight by Stephanie Myers then you’ll love anything else in the “range”. Vampire fiction is hot property.

Like Mills & Boon though, it’s not the only range on the block. YA (young adult) fiction has many ranges appealing to many different readers (with a great deal of crossover appeal too).

And like Mills & Boon, these books are targetted, commercial and created by very talented writers.

Which got me thinking about how this approach works when it comes to creating games. Which it doesn’t.

Unfortunately.

Otherwise we’d be seeing some interesting games right now that tapped into this demand.

Development schedules, a desire for “originality”, costs, procedures – the list of why not to react to the market can be endless.

But what if games could react? What if a team of developers decided that instead of chasing the latest technology they would release games based on a simpler model which could be turned around within six months and be more focussed on engaging existing or potential gamers in the worlds they want to be engaged in.

Imagine a game based on the Max Payne engine. It has the right sort of feel and functionality to be host for a Vampire game. Why can’t that be repurposed to allow for different characters and a different storyline every six months? I know the reasons why it isn’t. But what are the reasons why it can’t be?

A new development model allowing for  game creators to dovetail their skills with those of the productive YA author could be exciting. It could develop a market for YA games that isn’t based on what a hardcore, live with games every day of my life developer sees as quality but rather based on the interests and aspirations of a generation who might want different things from their gaming time.

And yes, Head First has plenty of ideas what those things might be

Everyone loves excellence, particularly in the games industry. Developers are always striving for the most polygons, the shiniest cars and super-intelligent A.I. Publishers want more features, the most online players, more weapon types. Is this what the consumer wants? Not always, and very few people understand this.

Let’s look at Apple, a company that constantly stresses its commitment to the best design in the world, but which has built a massive business on the back of non-CD quality audio files. MP3 and AAC files are nowhere near CD quality and plenty of audiophiles argue that vinyl is better. So if Apple are selling what can be describe as a ‘substandard’ product, how come they’ve done so well? Well enough to sell 10 billion songs. The reason behind this is that sometimes people don’t want or need the best they just want it to be ‘good enough’. With MP3s, the consumer has traded quality for convenience and, for the most part, is very happy. They’ve decided they can cope with ‘almost-perfect’ sound quality if it means they can carry their entire music library around with them, or have the convenience of downloading any track when and where they want. The same goes for streaming services like Spotify which has a maximum quality of 320kbps, the same as the best MP3s, and also features advertising between every few tracks. We don’t mind a few ads if we get the benefit of an unlimited choice of music that’s available whenever we want it

The Nintendo Wii is a great example of ‘Good Enough’ technology. It isn’t ‘next-generation’, it isn’t HD, it has no Blu-Ray player or extensive online matchmaking system but it has sold 67 million units. Nintendo very cleverly and very simply looked at what the mass-market wanted and gave it to them. This gaming mass-market, perhaps first discovered by Sony with things like EyeToy, SingStar and Buzz! loves to play but doesn’t have time to learn complicated gaming mechanics or new control systems. Very importantly they also don’t want to spend very much money. They’re not hardcore gaming connoisseurs who know how many processors or polygons their machines has and they don’t care. The Wii plays fun games cheaply and that’s Good Enough.

Simplicity and value for money are also driving Apple’s app store with throwaway games that cost 59p making as much money as established franchises. I often think “59p, well it’s the same price as a Mars Bar, might as well have a go” which has led me to such delights as Younicorn and Bauble. One of my most played games is the free BlocksClassic. As ever, you get what you pay for, but the point is we’re not expecting epics for that price. Our friends at Four Door Lemon released QuizQuizQuiz in October 09 and it’s done very well, more than making its money back. What is it? It’s a quiz game. What did you expect? Press buttons to answer questions against the clock. 59p. Sorted. Sometimes people just want to press buttons and answer questions without distractions. Now it would be easy to take a game like this, add in an expensive 3D TV studio set, celebrity voice-overs and more, but is that really necessary? Pound for pound the game wouldn’t necessarily make any more profit.

For the consumer everything is a trade off and if they understand the benefit of what they’re getting then they can decide if its a trade they want to make. So sometimes you don’t have to go too far with a product and its important that you make something that will at least make its money back and hopefully make a profit – or there’s not much point in doing it. ‘Good enough’ is not always a bad thing, there’s still scope for excellence, and perhaps we need to concentrate on making the customer happy rather than worrying about things they don’t even care about.

Could a marketing department have created the Internet?

Could a marketing department have created the wind up radio?

Could a marketing department have created space war and with it the entire video game industry?

There was a little bit of fuss last night when Alex Bogusky highlighted a poor review of his book ‘Baked In’. The review was far from glowing and called the book “half baked”.

Witty stuff.

Beneath the easy point, however, the writer (Dan Neil) went on to suggest that whilst marketing has a place in product design, it is ludicrous to believe that marketing departments could originate product.

Twitter user @adsoftheworld disagreed saying:

New products should indeed originate from marketing dept.

Consider this post an analysis not of the book (more of which at the end) but of this one claim.

For me, the idea that marketing departments should be responsible for creating product seems to stem from a couple of places:

Firstly the place we’ve all been as creative people, namely around the table after the client has left. Here, before we begin to hammer out a reasoned campaign we might, perhaps, point out the if-onlys. If only the product did this, if only the product did that. If only the client had come to us first.

I have lost count of the number of times I’ve solved deep political issues after a two minute news broadcast.

The other place in which marketing’s place in product design is assured is

Yet the reason so much marketing is ineffective isn’t all down to poor product design or a lack of integrated narrative between marketing and design, it’s also down to poor marketing. Bad strategy, lazy creative, poor communication – marketing doesn’t always get it right. Even when the best and the brightest are involved.

Much of the so-called creativity we see from marketing is box ticking, consumer tested strategy. It rarely sidesteps perceived wisdom to deliver something astounding. It works with known understanding of consumer behaviour. It plays to our shopping weaknesses.

Does product design do the same?

Sometimes.

Sometimes it comes out of the blue. Sometimes an inventor is just trying to find a way to make her life better.

Then it occurs to them that it could improve the lives of others.

That’s when they approach marketing.

Because, well, that’s what marketing is there for.

To bring a product to market.

The idea that marketable ideas come, or ought to come from the marketing department omits one thing: history.

A marketing department couldn’t have created the Internet because it wasn’t a product to sell. Commercial potential came afterwards.

A marketing department couldn’t have created the wind up radio. Who is going to invest money in thinking how to help poor people?

And a basic game that ran on a machine which would never be available in shops?

I wouldn’t have thought of that.

But I am interested in buying the book. That’s the role Bogusky exploited when he shared the poor review of his book.