iBeer is the #5 top paid app on the iPhone. It's a great tool to show off to your friends and it costs $3.99 AUD

Cool. But for Free you can get the iPint App which does the same thing + has a free game. This is what picked up silver at Cannes 2008.

I always assumed Apple users were pretty smart. But this might be a case of over excited and over cashed nerds.

Many app on there are what you'd expect for free anyway. Todo lists apps for $3. C'mon.

It'll be interesting to see the new breed of apps coming for the iPhone in the future. Apple will also have to create a better way to sort through them as already it's 80% utter shite, 10% useless and 8% what you'd expect anyway and 2% inspired.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 4:12 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Technology

If you told someone that you're main source of income was for a site about LOLcats the reply would be WTF!

But the team behind I Can Has Cheez Burger not only have themselves one of the top blogs in the world (#8 to be precise) but they also now have a network of 4 other blogs with the same simple structure and same social network tools.

Failblog, Graphjam, Pundit Kitchen and their newest one Totally Looks Like are all perfect examples of what people want from online. Tiny bite sized laughs that they can contribute to easily. It's easy to join and play along and these are perfect email fodder.

This is a lesson for all potential bloggers or agencies trying to create blogs for their clients. Find something and do it well. These blogs pretty much run themselves now. The community do all the work and the team behind it reap the rewards.

After studying these more closely I need to tweak a few of my blogs. WTFcostumes is the easiest to update but doesn't have any of the necessary tools to let people contribute properly while Sleevage requires a lot of research and some posts take me more than two days to put together. The blog I'm working on now for City of Ember an underground blog also takes quite a long to put together.

Even Bannerblog could use a major overhaul in how I let people digest the site.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 1:06 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

Mike has done a lot of research into viral marketing patterns breaking them down into 21 different segments in this article.

For me he has missed a very obious trend and that's music. Check the top viewed videos on Youtube of all time, pretty much back to the top 100, and it's domicated by music. So if you want to market something tie it in with music.

And two he missed my personal fav Crowded Ads. But aside from those two omissions it's a good read.

Oh and he's missed mashups too. Ok no list will ever be complete or maybe these are covered these with different categories.

Oh and the virals that look like they took (and probably did) take a shit load of time and effort. Usually stop motion of some kind.

Oh and spoofs/parody.

Also don't forget the major element to anything going viral is being first (ie original). It doesnt matter i

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 10:54 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

What I love about having a vested interest in companies on the share market is it makes it easy to follow. When I was a kid all the numbers and numbers in (brackets) didn't mean anything. I had no idea how some shares were worth $25 and others 2c.

Which I why I find following the listed digital agencies in Australia so interesting. I can compare EBDIT's, profile ratios and billings with the others and my own.

While the DOTCOM boom maybe over people are still forking out wads of cash and people are still losing money, CEO's are being fired, companies liquidated, assets written off, profits not being met and much more.

It's sad to say there hasn't been a success case. There isn't any shining light to say this is how it's done. I'm basing my opinons purely off the share prices. Some companies may be running very well but for investors it's been painful.

All this is happening while digital is in a boom with money pouring into the sector from the other mediums.

I first covered this in January of this year and maybe I should have gone on record as things have gone downwill for every major player.

Here's where the shares were as of Jan 3, 2008. (approx)

SGN: STW COMMUNICATIONS: $2.38
HYO: Hyro: $0.18
BLU: Blue Freeway: $1.14
CQU: Commquest: $1.10
QXQ: Q Limited: $0.05
MCU: Mitchell Communication Group: $1.05

And this is where they are now. Just 6 months later in what was/is one of the biggest years in our industry.

SGN: STW COMMUNICATIONS: $1.47
HYO: Hyro: $0.046
BLU: Blue Freeway: $0.069
CQU: Commquest: $0.175
QXQ Q Limited: $0.015
MCU: Mitchell Communication Group: $0.55

Ouch! That's a tough lesson for investors and for those companies that recently sold themselves. I hope you took the cash offer!

Here's the slippery slope in graphical form.

In January I said you'd have been better off buying Apple shares. That was bad advice as shares have dropped from $199 - $170. Even with the Iphone!

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 10:14 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News

I just found the IAB Australia Youtube channel with the Great Place to work videos. Google and Yahoo! battle it out for the most produced video while the others go home made. I'm not sure if the winners has been announced but you can view the entries here for yourself.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 9:48 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Awards