Wow! Great excecution at the source of the issue - the Red Light District.

As the growth of digital technology and publishing reaches its peak, the traditional method of print is in a rapid decline, many declaring the 'death of print'.

But, as with so many other items, the record player a great example, I wonder if owning a printed piece of 'art', as decpicted in the following short film from Glen Milner, will become 'fashionable'?

<p>Birth of a Book from Glen Milner on Vimeo.</p>

As part of trying to grow our Cycling and Triathlon club and introduce our wider cycling services, we recently set up a Facebook page for Cyclodam. This was a pretty obvious decision in a 'budget free marketing strategy' - where more than 90% of our current club members are active users, provides the perfect WOM platform to target new members and customers, and generate brand awareness. And, with Mashable recently reporting a 37% increase in time spent looking at pages, it makes sense for any business wouldn't you say?

One of the key elements of our Facebook Page, and key to any successful social media strategy, is the ability to interact with our fans and followers; posting information, sharing events, links and opinions too. But, another key element to our Facebook page and something that we rely on, is the ability for our fans or followers, to post their own opinions and/or links too, and be visible to other fans who may also want to further engage - we do after all provide a 'community' service in which we interact in person. 

Most recently, Facebook made significant changes to user profiles, adding what's called the 'Timeline'. I can completely understand why they have introduced this and, granted, it's not the cleanest of designs, but it has potential. From a social sharing and historical perspective, it's fantastic (and those complaining they're not happy with their past being visible to all need to reconsider why they're on Facebook in the first place!)

So, we're 3 paragraphs into the blog and I can hear you asking what my point or gripe is.

Facebook recently announced that Timeline is also being rolled out to Pages too, going live by the end of March, with the eager-beavers and well organised businesses that want to make sure the new layout is aligned with their brand look and feel, adopting the new Timeline feature already. And that's exactly what we did too. 

Now, don't get me wrong, there are a couple of features introduced as part of this design that work well - the headline image for one, follows much the traditional webpage design (and more of what we're seeing thanks to WordPress themes). And, much like our website, this helps us align our look and feel. 

The 'feature post' allows for greater emphasis on a particular status, which although doesn't look brilliant (something I'm sure/hope will be fixed over time), does play emphasis on particular piece of communication. 

The 'pin to top' feature, although with great intention, doesn't work as hard as it could; mainly down to the AWFUL split-pane feed, a complaint many have made about Timeline on personal profiles (and more below) - making it difficult to read and hard to look at. Even by pinning an item to the top of the timeline, the amount of space the item is given is pointless - you may as well post it 3 or 4 times as a 'feature' over a period of time to get full spacial benefit (and also appear regularly on user news feeds). However, as part of the new design, landing directly at a 3rd party app is no longer possible (a previous marketing tactic used by many brands to communicate a particular deal, say), the pin to top feature really should work harder.

But to me, there is one fundamental mistake in Timeline for Pages.

Refering back to the beginning of this blog, I mentioned the key element to our Facebook Page is the social interaction with our followers. I can't help think Facebook got lost along the way though; any kind of social sharing from fans is almost forgotten about, written out of the scope. Any direct posts we now receive from our fans are resigned to 1-line of text in a small copy box in the top of the right-hand pane, and unless you know what your'e looking for, you wouldn't know it's there! Same goes for the role of photos, resigned to a small thumbnail link under the header-image. The sharing and engaging functionality that makes Facebook a key social sharing platform has been degraded, if not, made redundant. 

And, as much as the split-pane design is causing problems for the average user, I have a big problem with it here too. With the 'Friend's' box firmly fixed at the top of the right-hand pane and the 'status' box at the top of the left-pane, any latest posts, marketing quips etc, are pushed below the fold. Unless you use the image headline for promotion (already a big no-no), there isn't a lot you can do but rely on your users to scroll and find your content... Two words I never want to use in a marketing campaign!

So, with our Timeline Page live now for over a week, I've can't help notice a considerable decrease in sharing. There could be other factors involved, I'll give it that, but based on what I've seen - I'm not convinced.  It'll be interesting to see what percentage of time users are spending on Facebook Pages once the Timeline role-out goes 100% live. It'll also be interesting to see how small and big businesses cope and respond to the changes. I'll be waiting for the stats, Masable!

What makes a video go viral? Keeping it simple, and humorous. Well done Guinness!

There seems to be a bit of a theme going on with my blog of late, or maybe it's a trend in the medium of marketing? Either way, here's more stunning work with LEDs from Mercedes, presenting the invisible car. The effects are truely fantastic!

@Dom telling one of the greatest business stories of today - how Twitter (and it's users) has changed the world in 140 characters (no 'Fail Whale' in this story!)

We've already had Neon Night Surfing with Strongbow and now it's time  to hit the white stuff with LED Snowboarder William Hughes (although the video title itself still refers to surfing). I love the cinematography of this video, but I can't help feel it really misses something. It lacks that... 'je ne sais quoi' wouldn't you say?

Unless you've been hibernating on another planet recently, then you'll know that the first 2 weeks of February were the coldest in Europe in decades. And, although not the coldest location in Europe, I don't think I'll be forgetting my cycle to work in -15 any time soon.

No matter how cold, or painful that cycle was however, it was worth it just to see Amsterdam come alive for the second time in a year. Normally, winter in Amsterdam means wrapping up warm in a cozy brown cafe or on the sofa at home. Over the course of a week, and after direction from the local council to stop tourist boats using the canals, slowly but surely they froze over. And, for the first time since 1997, they froze so deep, that the locals, the expats and the tourists alike, dug out their skates and gathered to do what for some, would never think possible - skate and walk on the water ways of Amsterdam. What a site!  Health and saftey thrown aside (come on... I'm English!), there was nothing that didn't happen on the canals last weekend - kids, adults, animals, babies wrapped up in their buggies, bonfires, locals setting up stalls and selling gluh wijn, an illegal party on the Friday night (although very quickly shut down by the police), to the ice-skating race set up within 3 days, attracted thousands along a short stretch of the Keisersgracht and streamed live on national TV. 

I think I've said it before, but I'll say it again, you can't fault the community of Amsterdam for getting together and having a great time - wind, rain or shine... and, erm, in the cold!

1000 instruments
4 months prep
4 days shooting
2 miles of desert
1 Chevy Sonic 

= Priceless video!

Details of this were announced a few months back; given their time-poor, social customer it only makes sense for KLM to develop such an innovative initiative. Meet and Seat integrates Facebook and LinkedIn details, to help you select a seat based on other passenger profiles, maximising business and social opportunities in what is normally a very restrictive form of transportation. (Although forget networking, I'd rather know the weight of the person I'm sitting next to!) Let the on/offline cyber stalking commence!