TechnoCloud

Low budget horror ‘Paranormal Activity’ from Paramount Pictures has been using events website Eventful’s ‘Demand It’ feature to market the film.

‘Demand It’ uses social networks to build local and national demand for the likes of films, musicians and plays. This has helped Paranormal Activity to increase its original release to just 200 cinemas to a nationwide US release after reaching 1 million ‘demands’ for the film.

Of course crowdsourcing demand for content is nothing new, with a number of innovations in the music industry to allow fans to make micropayments to invest in getting a new album produced. All the same, the 1m figure is notable for its scale and shows the power of social networks and the internet to find an audience.

See what’s in demand here.

The Uganda Wildlife Authority is using an innovative approach to raise awareness of and funds for endangered gorillas. The ‘Friend a Gorilla’ website allows users to become friends on Facebook with their chosen gorilla for $1. The gorilla will then appear in their friends list and its status updates will appear in their news feed.

This is the first example I’ve seen of paying for friends on Facebook. While a charity is a laudable start, it may open up the practice to commercial organisations. Would you pay £1 to be one of a limited number of friends of Stephen Fry to get exclusive updates? And if so, how long until this practice is extended to creating a private Twitter network?

In a nice piece of publicity for Google Earth, Google responded to speculation that the fabled Atlantis had been found just off the coast of Hawaii.

Update: looks like I lost it too, it’s actually off the west coast of Africa, only it’s not if you see what I mean…

The ordered lines certainly looked man-made and it turned out they were - in a way.

A detailed explanation from the scientists involved with the project confirmed that in fact the lines were ’ship tracks’, showing the limited area covered by the ships echosounding the bottom of the sea - a lengthy and labour intensive job as it turns out.

The denial makes a nice story and will encourage others to explore the new Ocean service looking for further anomalies. Nice story, but even nicer piece of marketing.

To celebrate its 75th anniversary edition, Esquire magazine wanted a truly standout cover.

As you’ll see from the embedded video below, they certainly achieved that despite the limitations of the animation, which resembles one of the earliest animated gif banners.

The limited edition cover came at a cost. Although the official figures have not been released, the cover price was $2 more and it was co-funded by Ford who released animated magazine ad inside the front cover. The work involved to reduce the batteries to a suitable size is rumoured to have cost a six figure sum. Good job they last for a minimum of three months and a projected average of six months to help the purchasers display some serious table top eye-candy for their extra investment.

Despite the cost, Esquire have created a memorable cover to celebrate their anniversary, which has generated a great deal of buzz from people uploading a video of their copy to YouTube to the inevitable technologists taking the e-Ink technology apart and posting the results online.

What’s interesting about this beyond the first-mover ‘gimmick’ is the potential convergence between print and digital. E-Ink also provide the screen reader technology for the Kindle and once the technology advances, it is not unreasonable to expect video and wi-fi to provide the a/v content and real-time updates that makes the web so competitive to print.

Regular readers will know that I admire a well executed viral marketing campaign. It’s a pity that I heard about it before I saw it denying the neat twist at the end as the brand was revealed, although it doesn’t really detract from the entertainment.

So, if you don’t want to know what it’s marketing (there might be a little clue further up though…), then watch the embedded video below, then read the rest of the post.

The viral stands out on several counts: although personally I hate musicals I have to admire the quality of the acting and singing; the hidden cameras capture the surprise of the unsuspecting public perfectly; it plays on the lack of human interaction in large public spaces like airports; and it’s a great fit for promoting a theatre booking service and doesn’t damage the brand by trying to stand out by being too edgy.

Best of all it works, it’s had me thinking I should go to the theatre more often, just not to any musicals…

Do people think widgets grow on trees? Actually, it’s the other way around with an unusual, but laudable, promotion from ABC and the Arbor Day Foundation whereby for every ten times a video is viewed through the widget is viewed a tree will be planted.

While I’m not a fan of the execution of the widget which I find overly complex, I’m a supporter of the cause, so have embedded the widget below. Click on ‘grab it’ on the bottom of the widget to do so yourself and select ‘videos’ from the option.

You can check out progress by clicking on the yellow leaf icon on the bottom right of the widget.

Update: boo, it’s stopped at 100k trees. Not bad going all the same.

Update 2: As it’s slowing down the site loading, the widget has now been removed.

Like Elvis, Bob Dylan seems to have no limit to the number of Greatest Hits variations he can release. I can remember as a child listening to my parent’s Dylan compilation in the car some 20+ years ago and the old master is at it again with a single CD or ‘deluxe’ version with 3 CD Digipack no less.

Passing over the fact that most of the old favourites are there yet again, a piece of viral marketing for the album caught my eye.

The viral, also available as a Facebook application, allows you to create your own version of the famous ‘Subterranean Homesick Blues’ video where Dylan nonchalantly holds up lyric cards. In a neat piece of creative you can add your own lyrics to the cards and watch Dylan flick through them followed by a plug for the album.

You can share it via Facebook, email the website version to a friend (with the classic subject line ‘Bob Dylan has a message for you’ or embed it on your blog or social network after the slightly annoying step of having to provide a url and email address.

In the reveal-all world of social networking, it’s no surprise to find a widget that allows you to share your TV viewing preferences on the web. The MeeVee listings service has developed a neat little Flash widget built on its listings and recommendations service. It works as a loyalty tool as well as a marketing tool for those with the debatable pleasure of discovering more about your viewing habits.

Unfortunately, it’s US only, so I can’t share the delights of my TV dinners here in London, so readers will have to make do with what I might be watching if I lived in New York. Fascinating, I think you’ll agree…

Geographical grumbles aside, it’s interesting to see that the service completes the circle by linking you through to a page to download the episode via iTunes or alternatives. It would be even more interesting to see this technology come to mobile to enable customised recommendations and downloads on the move. Now that would be something worth sharing with the world.

One of the pieces of feedback from my audience session with Sky+ users was that they skip nearly all TV advertising.

I’m betting if the ads were as engaging/distubring as the remix below then they would watch them (and they are looking at the YouTube stats). I for one can’t get E-e-e-sure out of my head (and my insurance is up for renewal this month!).

Shame the remixes are being taken down from YouTube “due to terms of use violation” as this is a great way of getting the social networking community to engage with your content and certainly cheaper than a 30 second slot during Coronation Street…

Netflix are offering a $1m prize to the first person who can achieve a 10%+ improvement in their recommendation engine. They are making available sections of their ratings database and stress that all data is anonymous - after all they wouldn’t want an AOL data leak on their hands…

The standard Netflix model, as with competitors Blockbuster and Screenselect, is to get people to subscribe to a monthly service whereby they send you ‘x’ DVDs a month for a rolling fee. So if it’s a fixed monthly fee, how will Netflix get their $1m back by improving the recommendations?

• More recommendations equal a longer subscription time
• Competitive advantage for their service
• Encouraging people to move up the subscription ladder
• Driving people down the Long Tail of their content both to increase rentals and viewing of higher margin older titles. Long Tail originator Chris Andersen explains more.
• Feel free to add more in the comments section.

There’s also one other important consideration, PR, in what is a neat piece of viral marketing. An accessible $1m prize gets people talking - in the blogosphere (looks like I fell for it), in the mainstream media and around the water cooler. More awareness, not just of their website, but of their recommendation technology, means more sales.

Get it right and that $1m could be a snip…