Marketing Thoughts by Domus Inc.

In an environment where traditional marketing is overshadowed by technological methods, equipping yourself with the newest and greatest digital capabilities is essential for any business to thrive.

Domus has upped the ante with the launch of Domus Digital, its leading edge digital marketing unit.  In addition to common digital capabilities, the agency can now harness scalable enterprise technologies such as cloud computing, as well as leading-edge technologies like augmented reality, computer vision and face recognition. We’re talking the latest and greatest in digital technology.

Not every Tom, Dick or Harry can pull this off.  Domus has armed itself with a team of high tech visionaries who built the digital marketing unit to provide clients with web service development, application development, technology envisioning and more.  Have you heard of computer vision?  If not, Google it.  Domus can integrate this scientific technology into client advertisements to augment reality, utilize photosynth integration, implement optical flow and face detection. It looks like sci-fi stuff, but the claims and capabilities of the technology are legit.

If you want to remain at the forefront of the marketing/communications industry, then you must adopt the newest digital capabilities available.  And if you don’t have the capabilities or you’re not looking to invest, then let us show you what going digital is all about.

Domus is an exciting marketing agency, combining classic marketing principles with state-of-the-art digital execution to continually deliver effective strategies and campaigns for our clients. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com or visit our digital and social media site at http://www.domusdigital.com.

Apple has officially announced their iAd development kit, “iAd JS”, which enables agencies to develop interactive ads for their clients. As explained in Apple’s technical documentation, it gives more interactive capabilities than any other existing interactive media, including Adobe Flash.

First, it can accept a user’s gestures, not only on the touch screen but also by motion. For example, you can create a banner ad showing a soda bottle, allowing users to shake it until it explodes. Using the kit, you can also develop ads that detect orientation.

Next, the iAd JS provides for integration with social media. When iAd is activated, the user is online; therefore, it can connect to a social network and download dynamic content to the banner. It’s also possible to update real-time status of an advertising campaign, such as competitive or ranking information.

Based on user interaction, it can also store an image generated by the banner to the iPhone’s photo gallery, so users can see ad images on their albums. For example, by utilizing social media integration, an iAd banner can create and save a user’s future baby photo with campaign copy based on a photo identified by Facebook ID.

Domus has full iAd creation capabilities and is actively involved in development projects for our clients. For more information, please visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

On April 30th, Apple released their first draft of the iAd framework reference document. Although this document is written for developers and not advertisers, it gave some insight into how advertisers will be able to use the iAd program.

Below are some key points -

1. Developers will be able to embed ads in their apps using the AdBannerView object. After developers embed ads in their apps, they will start earning revenue.
2. iAd will use an ad network. When adding iAd to an app, developers will choose to display their apps among different segments available in the ad network.
3. iAd includes standard ad sizes including 320×50 for portrait banner ads and 480×32 for landscape banner ads. The ads are shown in the background of an app.
4. The iAd program can be enabled and disabled. App developers can recognize if iAd is loaded by bannerLoaded property while cancelBannerViewAction allows applications to cancel displaying iAd.
5. Because developers can shutdown iAd at any time, revenue wouldn’t be calculated by PPC or PPV but instead a new way that is to be determined by Apple. Apple mentions that revenue can be lower if developers let apps close iAd frequently.
6. Lastly, this technical document only covers the iPhone and iPod touch but not yet the iPad.

We are eagerly awaiting more details on iAd as they become available.

Microsoft might well have hit a home run with its Windows Mobile 7 announcement this past week at Windows Mobile Conference, and well into the 9th inning at that.(Nice baseball references with Spring Training just a couple of weeks away…) Although the first phones based on the platform won’t be out until the fourth quarter, they seem worth waiting for. The user interface looks sleek and fluid, similar to the Zune’s. Strong support for social media, photos, music, and videos is built in. Even some XBox Live integration is included. And for business users, the phones will support mobile versions of Office, including OneNote and SharePoint.

Moreover, Microsoft has not yet announced everything. At next month’s MIX10 event in Las Vegas, they will probably announce Silverlight 4 support for Windows Mobile 7. More specifically, they’ll probably announce that Silverlight will be the native platform for Windows Mobile 7 application development. That unleashes a huge army of .NET Windows developers onto the market, and it also means that Windows Mobile 7 phones will have full rich media web capabilities.

Coming into 2010, it seemed like the Apple recently announced iPad was going to be the year’s technological game changer, but the real game changer might be Microsoft’s Windows Mobile 7 phones . It will be a long wait for the fourth quarter, but an interesting one.

Domus is a full-service marketing communications agency based in Philadelphia. For more information, visit us at http://www.domusinc.com.

Google just recently introduced their new Google Toolbar-based Sidewiki feature. This allows anyone with the Google Toolbar installed (which is a large percentage of internet users) to add his own side comments to ANY web site on the internet. And those comments are then visible to any other Sidewiki users who later visit that site.

Prior to Google Sidewiki, marketers at least had a little control over their own web site, even if they had effectively lost control over references to them on social networking sites, blogs, etc. Now, however, even your home page is an accessible target for web surfers, whether or not their comments are accurate or even relevant. And you have little or not control over what is written, other than adding your own comments to the mix.

Moreover, as of right now, those comments are not visible outside of Sidewiki – they don’t show up in any search engine searches – so unless you have Sidewiki yourself, you’ll never know what people are writing about you on your own web site. Therefore, like it or not, as of today, marketers should have at least one machine on which they have installed Sidewiki, and should regularly visit their own site to see if any side notes are added by others.

Domus is a Philadelphia advertising, public relations, and internet marketing agency. We’re a dynamic agency, different than most you’ve probably experienced. In fact, maybe we should be called the “un-agency.” Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com for more.

Microsoft’s Silverlight platform has been gaining ground as a rich internet platform. The installed base of Silverlight has been consistently growing, reaching over 30% of computers this summer. Moreover, Microsoft recently released version 3.0, which adds many new features for developers and media providers. For example, Silverlight 3 (and Microsoft’s Media Services 3.0) supports streaming video in high definition (1080p). And in 2010, Microsoft will enhance digital rights management (DRM) capabilities, making it easy for content providers to distribute their media digitally. Moreover, Microsoft is pushing Silverlight along many other fronts. It is now supported on the Xbox and on a number of Nokia phones. It will also be supported on all Windows 7.0 mobile phones (2010).

Silverlight is fast becoming a great cross-platform development platform. And Microsoft is making it easier for legions of individuals and small businesses to develop Silverlight applications by giving away development tools under its WebSpark program.

The next 18 months should prove very interesting in the number and type of applications being developed and delivered using Silverlight. The possibilities available to marketers should be just as interesting.

Domus, Inc. is a marketing communications company based in Philadelphia, with a development network that includes expertise in a number of areas, including Silverlight. Please visit our web site at http://www.domusinc.com.