Merry Christmas to all from Qube… hope you have a fantastic festive season. We think Glenn in particular is looking stunning in our Christmas shot… he’s the one front right. Where did he get the beautiful pearls? And who’s the grinning guy behind him? And where has he got his hand?

Also, it has to be said Andrew, our MD, is also looking pretty foxy at the back there with his cigarette holder…

Fiona, unfortunately, seems to have gone all American Psycho… but you can’t have everything.

Merry Christmas all xxx

Qube at Christmas

So, the power of social networks and online purchasing has been demonstrated again, this time by the battle for the Christmas number 1.

Joe from X Factor - Raging

Poor old Joe ‘teeth’ McElderry… as every X Factor finalist is guaranteed a Christmas number 1, he must be more than a little gutted (although all of the previous winners must feel a little dispensible at Yuletide as at least 3 other finalists also record their No:1 song on the off-chance they’ll win).

Bad pun alert

The Facebook and Twitter campaign to secure Rage Against The Machine was… (wait for it) … a raging success. Sorry. No, really, I’m sorry.

Anyway, for the past week, I’ve seen mountains of Facebook updates, YouTube comments, tweets, retweets, @replies etc, all cajouling and egging each other on to download the Rage song and stop the EVIL that is X Factor. And it worked (although I didn’t buy either song, for the record).

Did people really care?

Now, I agree that X Factor has taken the fun out of the Christmas No:1 slot. I agree that mostly what Cowell gets the winner’s to trot out are crimes against nature – I mean, a Hannah Montana song. Seriously?

But I don’t think a lot of people jumped on the Rage bandwagon because they actually care that much about this. If they did, would they not have preferred getting a current, underrated band or artist to the top, one signed to an independant label and not to Sony?

People like being part of something

I think people jumped on the bandwagon because they like being part of something. A movement. They like being part of a community.

They like feeling that by joining together they can make something happen. Online communities give them power, peers and a voice. Whether they are actually bothered about what that voice is saying is another matter.

To me, that’s the power of social media. It can join people together because they like being connected – and that’s more important than whether they care that much about what they’re connecting about.

This is quite possibly the last Qube blog post of the year (and the decade!). So have a great Christmas and we will see you here in the New Year .

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @MrWasteland

“Problems with game credits today and how they reflect upon our industry, by @leighalexander http://bit.ly/54Flsm“

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @badjournalism

“BBC poses a tricky question – http://tinyurl.com/yzf7a7o (via @benjamin_cook)”

A tweet from @DerrenBrown

Blog Post: Scientists discover Earth-like, water-rich planet http://cli.gs/z9T5U

A tweet from@mashable

“Twitter Reveals Most Discussed Topics of 2009 http://bit.ly/68uwTU (via @mo_lishomwa)”

A tweet from @sebleedelise

“50 reasons why global warming isn’t natural: http://bit.ly/4DmxGW (via @yezzer)”

@Seelpod’s favourite tweet

A tweet from @Dunkndisorderly

“The best social media according to the twittersphere http://bit.ly/54TUfY“

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @jaffne

“Sites with a search bar filled with text saying “enter your search terms here”, that don’t disappear when you click within it: I hate you.”

A tweet from @divydovy

“Seriously, if you’re Danish and your girlfriend is ugly, thay’s a pretty big fail!”

@FionaJane’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @williammilne

“RT If you live in #Brighton and Love snow! [VIDEO] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeGpHxNfCfI&fmt=22“

5 of the best social media stories and 5 festive stories for you . This will probably be the last 5 of the best until the new year. Have a merry Christmas from all of Qube!

5 of the best

The 100 essential websites

100 websites you cant live without, really useful list. A lot of the obvious things on here like Google and Youtube, some hidden gems though are Zamzar, They Work For You and  Say no to 0870.

Blippy launches the Twitter of personal finance

Personally I feel the financial services are way behind on online technologies. Not sure I want to go as far as sharing all of my purchases with my friends, but I can see personal uses for this, or perhaps allowing a parent to monitor their child’s spending. Shame it looks American like all of these awesome online finance tools (See Mint.)

Digg Dialogg: Trent Reznor

I like this use of Social Media for doing interviews (as long as the interviewer doesn’t then selectively pick and choose which to ask) but also this interview is interesting as it shows someone who understands how the internet works and how people consume media these days.

Extreme Gaming with an Epson Projector

Viral videos give me mixed feelings. Part of me feels I am falling into a marketing trap and the other part of me goes oooOO this is clever and/or funny. This viral video is more of the latter, a clever video that did kind of make me want a projector.

Will Facebook’s privacy blunder hurt advertisers most?

There have been a lot of mixed feelings over the recent Facebook privacy settings change. Are advertisers the ones who are really going to suffer most though?

5 of the fest

Family sees red over Christmas card ‘ginger kids’ joke

Bullying isn’t really a laughing matter, but sometimes people take political correctness too far. No I am not trying to say it is fine to bully people with ginger hair, it isn’t. What I am saying is she goes a bit far when she says, “I just said there was nothing wrong with being a ginger, or a ninja for that matter.”…. Err. Weren’t ninjas highly effective, trained killers?

French Roast

Ok not quite Christmassy, but there is some snow in it. Think of this as more of a Christmas present from me to you. A truly brilliant short film.

Sketchy Santa

The internet sometimes brings us together to share beautiful moments. In this case though it shows us some of the most horrifying child experiences many of us face….a sketchy looking Santa.

Rage against the machine for Christmas number one

You cant seem to move without this being discussed on social networks! Whether or not you want to partake in this, at least it is raising money for charity and now some of the band are also donating.

NORAD santa tracking

You may have seen this before but every year the NORAD (North american aerospace defense command) track santas movements across the world. I knew he was real mummy!

You’re a games company, your PR plan is in place and everything seems great. There have been positive previews and the trailer has gone down well. Then a big feature announcement and new trailer has leaked. Your PR plan is in tatters and you have a choice:

1. Scrabble to reclaim control of the message (did you ever really have it?)

2. Put you fingers in your ears.

3. Embrace the leak.

Once information is online it isn’t going to go away. If you pull a Youtube video five more will replace it. If it is information forget even trying to control it, it will be across more forums than you can count (as long as people care in the first place.)

You can give a “no comment” response, but this is sometimes just as good as a confirmation. You could try a cease and desist order on websites, but this is almost certainly a confirmation that the news is true, and no doubt whatever your ceased will resurface in multiple places.

So what do you do? Well you could just ignore it, like a pink elephant tap dancing in the room…or you could embrace it.

When Valve’s spy video for Team Fortress 2 leaked, they fired everyone! Well they didn’t really, but it was a great series of blog posts. They turned the leak into some funny content on their site and rode the hype. (To read all the related blog posts, go here then scroll down to “Getting to the bottom of things” and read up.)

Hellogames upcoming game Joe Danger didn’t have a trailer, but when this video leaked online they suddenly did. They could have asked for it to be removed, after all this is footage of an unfinished product, but instead they embraced it. The video now has more than 16k views, not bad at all.

A few years ago a trailer for Brutal Legend leaked before the game had been announced. Sierra (now Activision Blizzard) flexed their legal muscle and pulled the video from Youtube. It was quickly replaced by many more, wouldn’t it have been better for them to have just embraced it? Perhaps released an HD version to trump the leak.

Just last week the existence of an upcoming piece of downloadable content for LittleBigPlanet was leaked and Media Molecule responded with a nice tongue in cheek tweet.

You don’t have to go all out and announce everything because of a leak, just don’t try and put the genie back in the bottle. Embrace him.

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @tomkiss

“@glennw My Little Pwny! But the Predator version: #19 http://tr.im/GCNG“

A tweet from @Media_Molecule

“Alex’s Mum sent him this cartoon, it’s so true: http://twitpic.com/snjhy“

A tweet from @ReesHitchcock

“@timlovejoy You’re in goal in a Champions league game & you need the toilet…… The cameras won’t stop you…..http://bit.ly/5gP1zR“

A tweet from @SimonParkin

“Dave Eggers on selling out: http://bit.ly/8vqR1e Awexome.”

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @Dunkndisorderly

“recommendation here check out the new lazyfeed interface, very cool. Changing the way you consume information http://bit.ly/4nbJ7E“

A tweet from @bmmSimon

“Still chuckling at the Tiger Woods real-time search result from yesterday – http://twitpic.com/ss38o“

A tweet from @rogerwarner

“me: my dad looked like dean martin. @ceden: was he your real dad? #sackableoffence > tickled m”

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @PoppyD

“A strange man just stroked my hair. I forgot that commuting was basically a massive orgy that nobody asked to be invited to.”

A tweet from @jo_rosie

“@Prycie: I love Asda – it is like a middle class trip to the zoo. We all go there – just to have a look and gawp at their mating calls.”

A tweet from @euzie

“Quadriplegic….that’s like 4 times better than plegic right?”

@FionaJane’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @nijay

“Good lord this is terrifying. Product design gone mad, I tell thee. http://tinyurl.com/ylbbx8e“

I am running out of collective commons images of the number 5! Might have to start making some myself. Here are this week’s 5 best social media stories and 5 other things of interest.

5 of the best

SMEs are smarter than you think

It is great to see so many SMEs using social media! In this day and age I think you would be a fool not too and it is an area that can really define you as a company. Social media isn’t free and doing it right will cost time, but the benefits are there for all to see.

November Data on Facebook’s US Growth by Age and Gender: Young Men Following the Women

A huge increase in the amount of males signing up to Facebook last month. Any ideas why? Tom in the office thinks it is because of Movember (being that girls cant enter and all) but it still seems a bit much to me! Please tell me if you know why

No Comment

I love this article (Kudos Hellogames). A really interesting perspective on what it is like for a company see their product talked about online and all the range of emotions. I went to the Eurogamer Expo mentioned and played the game with a lovely Hellogames man, and I thought Joe Danger was amazing! So put me down for a copy and here is some more positive word of mouth for you.

GiffGaff

People powered mobile phone network. Interesting. At the moment they also have free internet browsing, might drop a couple of these sim cards into some Christmas stockings .

Online portal gathers wedding photos from guests

Really interesting idea. You can already do this sort of thing with Facebook, Flickr or even Google Wave, but those services usually require a bit of tech savvy and an account! A good social service to bring all the memories from one of the most important days of your life together.

5 of the rest

My real name is David Jones

I believe we have posted about “Letters of Note” before. This one is well worth checking out .

Watson urges action on “UK Games Council”

I think it is about time Government took the UK Games Industry a bit more seriously. There is a lot more to the industry than warping our kids minds with guns and violence .

Google Me

This is like an American Dave Gorman. I have only watched a short amount of it, so will someone please let me know if it is worth watching all the way though .

Cute Overload

This is CUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUTE!

The Infinite Monkey Cage

A new podcast from the BBC that is somewhere between comedy and science. I have enjoyed the first 2 episodes so far and I have learnt some really interesting things, there is a jurrasic revalation on the first epsiode that shocked me to the core!

Welcome to Qube’s weekly video games column. We don’t have a name yet, but that can come later . Expect news, opinions, best practice and even the odd interview all focused around social media and the games industry. Excited? Good I am too!

To kick us off I thought I would get all social media and talk about a little social network called Twitter. All the rage in 2009, but how are games companies using it and more importantly how are they using it successfully.

The great thing about Twitter is it allows direct communication with your fans. It also helps that Twitter has certainly been embraced by the more geeky among us….many of whom just so happen to like video games.

The first mistake you can make is just to set up a Twitter account and spam it with links to your games or blog. That is quite a quick way to get unfollowed and recieve a negative reaction. What you need to do is engage with your followers and keep them interested. This is as much about customer relations as it is about marketing. Here are some great examples of games companies who really get Twitter:

Media Molecule (creators of LittleBigPlanet) use their Twitter account to to talk to their fans (duh!) but they spend a lot of time responding to peoples questions and spreading their love for their fans. Fan made sites, levels and sometimes Cakes are often Re-tweeted allowing the best fan work to be shared. Obviously they spend a fair amount of time talking about their game, but this is a Twitter account where the fans come first. Some Twitter highlights from Media Molecule include co-founder Alex losing his shoes and a request for Teabags resulting in loads of them arriving at the office, that’s crowd sourcing for you!Sega are really good at keeping their fans in the loop, interacting with them and also giving them great prizes! Every Friday Sega give away a bunch of prizes to their followers. This isn’t a #moonfruit retweet spam competition, just a plain old guess the answer to our question. This is about rewarding fans and having fun not spamming people until they hate you. I also really like how they use the one Sega account for all their English speaking regions, with responsibility flicking back and forth between UK and US with the timezones. It is a really great way of keeping the community together. Good work Sega!

Major Nelson, Director of Programming for Xbox Live, uses his Twitter account (and other social media profiles). Obviously this man is in a privileged position to Tweet out great content and news before anyone else, but what is really important is that he uses his Twitter account just like anyone else. There are plenty of tweets about Xbox sure, but he also tweets about his personal life. Keeping your Twitter account Human is so important, fans will engage so much more if they feel there is a nice person at the end of their @ replies.

Also big ups to @InfinityWard, @capcom_unity, @LucasArtsGames for creating top quality Twitter profiles too. If you want to find other games industry people on Twitter you should check out @samhouston’s list over at GameIndustryTweet

There has been a lot of talk in the media about Rupert Murdoch and his failure to embrace digital. I am not going to get involved in the argument, as there are plenty of people who are much more knowledgeable on the subject. This article on Brand Republic does a good job of summing it up.

What I will write about is this video, which appeared on PSFK earlier today, and shows how Time Warner are thinking about future proofing their print business model.

The idea is just a concept at the moment, and it will no doubt be a while before we see this happen. It does however show that Time Warner are thinking maybe not ahead of the curve, but definitely ahead of many of their competitors.

If the concept is realised, it will go a long way to adding value to the reader. By delivering dynamic content in an innovative but also familiar magazine format, they are giving the reader something that is genuinely useful, and will give people a reason to buy the magazine.

Allowing people to connect and seed this content on their social networks allows the content to spread, but will also give the publisher more control over the spread of the content.

On top of this, it also shows that while there is an abundance of bloggers who are willing to create content for nothing, there is still a great deal of value in professional journalism.

We may not see the idea exactly realised in its entirety, but the technology is not far off at all, and it is definitely the most interesting take on an online magazine I have seen yet.

Here are Qube’s favourite tweets from the last week.

@Glennw’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @rexbox

“I’m loving this font: http://www.dafont.com/punched-out.font“

A tweet from @mrtomasz

“Turns out Fererro Rocher are just pretentious happy hippos.”

A tweet from @fionajane

“Murdoch whining that change isn’t right or fair. Boo Hoo! Use your dollar notes to wipe your nose http://tinyurl.com/y8u87hl“

@Nijay’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @krishgm

“Sorry. I should have been more obviously sarcastic. No, I don’t really believe anything on Top Gear”

A tweet from @jwatton

“From promo material : “Thus, sparing you hassle and channelizing your valuable time …” CHANNELIZING?!!!!”

A tweet from @joodoo9

“Twitter Doesn’t Track The Zeitgeist. Only 2 Percent Of Tweets Overlap With Search Trends. http://ow.ly/H9lW (via @nickusborne)”

@MrTomasz’s favourite tweets

A tweet from @JonnyB

“OMG OMG the Toddler has been cast as Mary in the nursery nativity play!!! Take that, other parents!!!”

A tweet from @PoppyD

“Not entirely sure that this is a cab as opposed to some random man’s car. Probably not one of my better personal safety judgements.”

A tweet from @dr_whom

“Harry (2) asked by grandparents if he’d enjoyed shopping with mum this morning. “Oh, it was miserable!” Accidentally raising 18th c fop.”