Here at Qube we (obviously) believe in Social Media as a platform for change. Social media and the Internet are such important parts of our daily lives it makes sense for public officials to start using it as a way of making a positive difference to our country. With that in mind we thought we would start highlighting some of the best and worst uses of social media and the Internet in official communication on a weekly basis. With the election looming it seems now more than ever social media will be important for the political parties.

More of This

This week saw political figures respond to questions asked by social network users. Barak Obama spent half an hour answering a variety of questions from Youtube users. While he was only able to answer a few of the 11,696 questions asked it was great to see the president of the United States taking the time to respond directly to his citizens. The video has received almost half a million views and has over 9,000 comments. That shows a great level of discussion and influence with a smart piece of crowd sourcing.

Over in the UK Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg was taking part in a similar endeavor. Reddit users had been asked to submit questions for Nick and then vote up their most popular questions. Mr Clegg then answered these questions in a refreshingly under produced Youtube video. It was great to see a party leader taking the time to go into other communities and get involved in discussions.

David Cameron has also taken some time to answer user submitted questions. Although the Liberal Democrats approach of going into existing communities may be preferential to some, it is great to see the Tories taking this action (they also have a nice and slick system for submitting and voting for comments).

Why is this worthwhile? A couple of Youtube comments from Nick Cleggs Reddit video make it perfectly clear why.

The next step is for the parties to get involved in these comments on their own videos

Less of This

Labour have a bunch of “tools for your website” on their official site. Rather than focus on their own policies they seem to have taken the school boy approach of throwing insults. There are a series of “satirical” widgets that you can install on your site to show txt speak conversations from the Conservatives. Hardly the most thought provoking or conversation starting stuff. Instead of creating fake conversations for your site perhaps they should help voters engage in real conversations with the party?

Have a look at the offending item below and let us know what you think. How do you think the political parties should be using social media?

Currently “PR” is the weapon of choice with regards to companies getting information about their games online. This entails a series of press releases and interviews appearing on the biggest gaming websites which then filter down through the smaller sites and eventually into the communities.

This practice is only a slight evolution of the old PR model used when print was king. The aim was getting column inches in the biggest newspapers and magazines and bagging the much sought after magazine cover. PR stands for Public Relations but most of this sounds like Media Relations to me.

This old school way of doing things is fine in the most part. A lot of gaming enthusiasts visit these sites so it makes sense to target them first. If you do get a story on there the site’s influence and advocacy will add kudos to your brand’s reputation.

That is if you even manage to get your story onto those sites in any meaningful way. Ad-funded sites need as much web traffic as possible so your news story could be old news within minutes.

Old school PR doesn’t reach those gamers not on these websites, the mums buying Wii Fit, the kids pining for a Ben Ten game and it’s hard to imagine all of those Call of Duty sales exactly matching the web traffic of Gamespot and IGN. Finally this top down message is all one way traffic. How often do you see game companies commenting on their own news stories with more insight, correcting misinformation or just answering questions from the community.

Another Way?

Just because you are making a game does not mean IGN or Gamespot are your best bet for reaching the widest audience. Really work out what your game is about and who would like it, different communities have different common interests.

Try looking at smaller games communities with niche interests that match your product, look further afield at communities that aren’t all about videogames. You may find that Mumsnet is a better place to get information for your new fitness game to reach its target audience than any games website.

In all honesty that bit of the job is the easy part, making your PR actual relations with the public requires more time and care. Make the information relevant to them and actually talk about what it is you are trying to sell. When someone asks a question go answer it. Show that you care about your audience and build your online reputation.

Having conversations with the right people and communities is much more important than a one way message to be disseminated from on high. Use all the social media tools (forums, blogs, Twitter, Facebook etc) to have real interactions with the people that matter most – your customers!

As we are in the first month of 2010 I am still allowed to make a prediction for the year. I predict this year we will see social media become a big part of videogames.

Right now there are a few standout shining examples in a sea of lame attempts and auto tweeting options. I will highlight a couple of these fantastic communities designed to allow players to interact with each other and the game while away from their console.

Bungie.net

Bungie.net is probably the poster child for linking a game and web community into one experience. Bungie have created a space that brings players of the popular franchise Halo together, wherever they are.

The site allows you to see global stats such as how many people are playing online and where they are, but more importantly it acts as a better way to share information than the in-game interface.

Bungie.net is a great resource for finding and sharing user generated content. Users are constantly sharing and rating their favourite content to share their experiences and add content to other peoples.

Killzone.com

Killzone.com joins the gaming community of the highly rated, Playstation 3 game, Killzone 2 together. Killzone.com also offers similar levels of stat tracking, enabling you to see who the best players are in the world and what online tournaments are coming up.

The site also allows me to check out my own statistics away from the game. I can also quickly check which of my friends are online playing and compare my progress to theirs. Now my friends can rub in how much better they are in the pub and use their iPhones to prove it (please don’t do this.)

Why are they so important?

Creating a web based user interface allows for greater flexibility than a game interface where the user is confined to a controller. A browser combined with a keyboard and mouse is much better for interacting with large sets of data and information. The experience shouldn’t be completely separated from the game but should enhance the options already available to the player. It should also act as a window into the game’s community away from the console.

For example Bungie.net allows the user to search the Bungie community for user created maps. The user can then filter these by tag or rating until something takes their fancy, then with the press of a button the map is queued up ready to download the next time they turn on their console. That level of integration is vital for joining the web and console communities together.

Social networks, such as Facebook, already have huge pull for users, so rather than reinventing the wheel with an isolated gaming community these existing platforms should be enabled. On Bungie.net a user can share links to their own maps, videos and statistics across their other social networks. Being able to share a great moment of fun or a level you have found across your Facebook or Twitter makes more sense than just sharing it within the game’s own space.

This can also pull players back into the game as their friends highlight why the game is still fun and may even help to drive sales as potential players see their friends enjoying themselves and want to get involved.

The communities allow all of your activity to be linked together, so when I ask a question on the forums I can see if the answer I am getting is from a player who knows what’s what (ie how much has he played Killzone and is he any good.) The beauty of all this is it happens without need for user input, I don’t have to manually input my stats or tell the site who my Playstation friends are, it just pulls all that data in. Again linking any communities that exist outside the game as closely as possible to the in-game community needs to be done as tightly as possible.

The more ways you allow the players to interact with your game and their friends when they are not sitting in front of the TV, the more likely they are to keep coming back and playing it and therefore more likely they are to keep telling other people about it.

To Wrap Up

Those are just some of the features these community sites offer. There are a host of other communities developed around games (listed below.) I recommend you check some out and spend some time getting to know why they are so interesting and how you might make a better one! If you know any other good examples let me know in the comments.

Over the coming year I expect a lot more integration of videogames in other places, whether it is checking out your friends’ stats on the web or sharing your top score on Facebook. Gaming’s integration into social media isn’t going away. It is only going to get bigger and better.

Fifa (http://www.eafootballworld.com)

EA Skate (http://skatereel.ea.com/)

Spore (http://eu.spore.com/sporepedia/)

An hour ago the Parlaphone Twitter account announced a competition to win tickets to the Blur film premier. To win you simply have to tweet #blurfilm more than anyone else does. Queue mass #blurfilm spam tweets. Wait, why is there so much spam? Parlaphone clearly said not to spam:

The problem is the entire competition was set up in a way that will always generate spam. In order to tell all of my twitter friends about the film I just have to make one tweet….that is how Twitter works. I make one tweet and all of my followers will see it. Sending each of them a message individually is still spam and unnecessary. This should have just been a random prize draw, even a Retweet competition would be better (although still spammy!)

Parlaphone in fairness use Twitter better than most, they interact with their followers and don’t just push news through an RSS feed but this is quite a faux pas. Fortunately it only lasted an hour, however even with the competition over some users seem unaware and are still spamming away.

Naughty Parlaphone!

UPDATE: Just got sent this screen grab from the Blur Facebook page encouraging users to tweet as much as they could. The comment has been taken down now, probably because the competition is over, but maybe to hide the spammy encouragement? Conspiracy! Double Naughty Parlaphone.

5 of the best social media stories of the week as chosen by the Qubite’s. Also 5 of the rest aka the “Bazaar of awesome”.

5 of the best

Google end censorship in China

Google will be ending its censorship of results in China. Google’s mantra is “Don’t Be Evil” and it looks like they might be living up to it.

Ad Agencies Please Know That Social Media is Not a Tactic

Too many times companies treat social media as another tick box without much further thought.

TV ad? “check”

Print ad? “check”

Facebook page? “check”

Social media is a conversational platform and not just another place to plaster your witty advertising slogan.

Zuckerberg: I know that people don’t want privacy

A fair few articles popped up around Zuckerberg’s recent comments on privacy. I have mixed views on internet privacy but you have to hand it to Facebook for being so willing to make huge changes to their product. Many companies get stuck for years with legacy systems that just don’t fit into the ever changing landscape.

Children who use technology are ‘better writers’

I have often wondered how the internet and social media effects literacy. Using the internet means we are often reading and writing more than ever. Sure there are arguments to be made about the quality of the writing, but being able to use the internet is quite a big incentive for someone to get literate.

The great specialist vs. network agency debate

As I work for a specialist social media agency I may be biased (slightly) but I would say the network agency have quite a lot of catching up to do in the social media space.

5 of the rest

Why I believe printers were sent from hell

The Qube printer is one of Qube’s most hated office appliance. Second is the stapler that always hides itself and decides to stop working when you finally find it.

ASDA Complaint – Welsh Pizza

What a punchline!

How to make Jack Nicholson very happy

I have no idea if this picture is real, but it is perfect in every way.

Audi A5 “suicide ad” still touring the web. p.s It’s still a spec ad and not real

This advert may not be real but it is expertly put together and very funny. I wonder if there is a way to track this fake ad to traffic, brand awareness or sales of Audi?

FARMVILLE Commercial!!

After my social gaming blog post about Farmville I received this funny and spot on video.

Its 2010! We are now in the future, hooray. Lets kick off the year with a nice 5 of the best blog. Please comment below on your favourite stories .

5 of the best

4chan Presents: YouTube Porn Day

Today is Youtube Porn day! 4chan has often been a force to be reckoned with, as creators of some of the biggest internet memes they really know how to create a social movement. So whether or not you agree with their latest campaign or the reasons behind it, you have to marvel at 4chans ability to mobilise large amounts of people in such a short space of time.

Social Network Removes 5,000 Users For Putting On Weight During Holiday Season

If you put any weight on during the Christmas season you may not be eligible for the Beautiful People social network. Robert Hintze, Founder “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”

Social media challenges social rules

How have you found social media changing the social rules and your social interactions? I have found myself using Facebook at the dinner table or immidiatly tweeting a quote from somebody, I wonder how these networks and our constant access to them is changing how we interact with people.

Personalised Newspaper target young readers

With more and more people getting their news online these days it is easy to see why newspaper moguls like Mr Murdoch are scared of their paper empire folding. The personalised newspaper idea has been floated around a few times and to my knowledge with little success. Also a lot of people are getting their news up to the minute from their peers through services like Twitter, is there still a space for this sort of thing?

The 100 Most Social Brands of 2009

An interesting list, but as I don’t see Qube Media on there I doubt its validity .

5 of the rest

Regretsy

Etsy is a great website that allows creative types to sell their wares. There are some truly great and unique items on their, however there are some items that are perhaps not so great (but still unique!).

This is Photobomb

Putting bunny ears behind someones head is so last decade!

Things You Saw In A Movie

Ever been watching a film and wondered where you could also get the same treadmill used by Will Smith in I am Legend? Well now you can! The site is a little bare at the moment, but give it some time and this could be a really useful resource for perfectly recreating that scene in Ferris Bueller where he uses a dummy on a string to convince his parents he is still asleep! (That’s my dream prank…)

Nexus One

The Android vs iPhone war wages on as Google announces it is moving into the mobile hardware market with its new phone, the Nexus One. I’m not sure it is a game changer for the phone industry, but anything that creates strong competition in a market is good for all of us with a pinchant for sexy smart phones.

Peter Griffin uses Grand Theft Auto as a driving tutorial

This is how I learnt to drive and also how to deal with people. Who says videogames aren’t educational!

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.

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!

Ten top quality stories (hopefully) half on social media and the general online world we work in….the other a mish-mash of silly, brilliant, funny, exciting, surprising and cute stories (again…hopefully)

5 of the best

Social Media Spins Into Specialization

An example of all the different services and businesses that offer Social Media in some form or another.

Oddities of outreach…

I love this quote “An outreach program should have only one objective; can I make these people fall in love with what we’re doing?” The reason the best advice in social media is to make great content and be honest is because it works! Great read.

Henry 8.0 – The Book of Faces

This is a bit hit or miss and it’s only real saving grace is Blessed. Still worth checking out though, they are all pretty short .

Just Married: Groom Changes Facebook Relationship Status at the Altar [VIDEO]

I am quite a big geek, and I think geeky things like “Should I give my child a fairly unique name so they can get the URL and a good Google rank easily”. However there is no way I am geeky enough to want to update my social networks at the altar!

Google to limit free news access

Looks like Google were the first to blink in the free news war of words with Murdoch. You can see what this is all about in a previous 5 of the best.

5 of the rest

The End Of The CrunchPad

I didn’t even know I wanted this until I found out it no longer existed. I assume $300 would translate to £300 but that would still be an amazingly cheap device considering the alternatives (which there aren’t really many of .) Fingers crossed this will flicker back to life.

Twitter Creator Launches ‘Square’ — Like Smartphone Paypal for Credit Cards

My favourite bit of how this works: “In order to accept credit card payment using Square’s iPhone app, a merchant attaches a card-reading dongle to the smartphone’s audio input — or “any device with an audio input jack.” Once the customer signs the phone with their finger, the transaction is complete, after which the app can e-mail a receipt to the customer:” Very clever! On a similar note I predict the next iPhone will have an RFID tag and allow payments oyster card style.

Christmas Cupzilla Cupcake

Feeling festive? Nothing is more festive than eating a Christmas cake..probably.

Saving Private Robin?

Robin Williams hasn’t really made me laugh in a while, but this was really funny.

Ministry of Sound To Take Over London’s Jubilee Line

This might just be so uncool that it is cool!