What We Did This Year: 2010

What We Did This Year: 2010

Hai Media Group had a busy and productive year in 2010. In fact, we were so busy that we didn’t really have time to update this website. The year was spent helping clients with PR campaigns, blogging, guest lecturing, and getting out to a lot of industry events.

So, here is a rundown of what we got up to and highlights of the success we’ve had:

HipLogic
http://www.hiplogic.com

Representing HipLogic, a rising star mobile technology company in Silicon Valley that is in-part funded by Benchmark Partners, the same investors who fund Twitter, we promoted news announcements, and helped build up awareness for the brand in Europe.

*Spark

HipLogic has figured out a better way to help people access social media and information content on your mobile phone. They offer a free application called *Spark that connects you with Twitter, Facebook as well as news, entertainment, weather updates and shopping deals from Groupon. The application can be personalized, allowing you to mash-up the information you are receiving on your handset, selecting what you want to receive, or want to skip.

For *Spark, we first got excitement going for the beta period, in which 100K people downloaded and tested out the app. The beta version of *Spark was featured in Stuff UK, among other outlets.

We launched the full release version of *Spark in December, handling press relations in Europe. Top coverage included a review in The Sunday Times ingear section, an upcoming feature in T3 magazine, and attention from top industry blogs including Allaboutsymbian.com, Androidguys.com, Mobile Marketing Magazine, Mobile Entertainment, GoMo News, and many more.

You can download *Spark for your Android or Symbian handset from the Android Market, Nokia’s Ovi store, GetJar, or from here:

http://www.sparkmyphone.com

Press was particularly interested in HipLogic’s new alliance with Groupon, which is the first of its kind between the massive deals company and a mobile application developer. In the UK, *Spark is the best way to get Groupon deals on your Android phone.

Earlier this year we also announced HipLogic’s partnership with The Carphone Warehouse, and secured attention for this partnership across mobile industry blogs, including an analysis by influential blogger Ajit Jaokar who writes the Open Gardens blog.

Robots & Avatars
http://www.robotsandavatars.net

Hai Media Group represented Robots & Avatars, a programme of events and educational activities. It is designed to explore how young people will work and play with new representational forms of virtual and physical life in 10-15 years time. As part of the programme, debates on topics of the Future World of Work and Behavior and Ethics have been held in London, with leading robotic industry experts and academics. The debates can be viewed on the Robots & Avatars website.

Schools throughout the UK are booking learning experiences offered by Robots & Avatars, with the team coming into classrooms to present interactive lectures on how to build and use avatars, and discussion about career opportunities in the field of robotics.

Robots & Avatars is funded by NESTA, and founded by the art and technology collective body>data>space.

We secured attention for the programme with the BBC Outriders, T3 magazine, The Hackney Gazette and a number of educational outlets and blogs covering technology and robotics. We were particularly excited about the T3 magazine feature, a full page article in the December 2010 issue, offering an interview with Robots & Avatars founder Ghislaine Boddington.

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2010
http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.com

We promoted the second annual Vodafone Mobile Clicks competition, a search for the best, most innovative mobile internet start-ups in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Portugal and Spain. This year’s competition saw more entries and received extensive media coverage across Europe. The first place winner was Cardmobili, who received €100,000. Second place was awarded to Roulette Cricket, who won €50,000.

We teamed up with Mobile Monday London and mobile expert Helen Keegan to work with Vodafone in promoting this major contest for European mobile technology start-ups.

StreetSpark
http://www.streetspark.com

StreetSpark is a mobile application that 50K+ people are using in London to meet other likeminded singles. The app uses your phone’s mobile GPS system to locate available people in your immediate area who have similar interests. Unlike other mobile dating apps, this sophisticated technology can match you with others who share your taste in music, food, entertainment and culture.

Top media attention we secured for StreetSpark appeared in Stuff UK, Cosmopolitan, Londonist.com, UrbanDaddy.com, Telecom TV, and more.

Pinnacle PR
http://www.pinnaclepr.net

Hai Media Group’s Director Lisa Devaney continued serving as a trainer for Pinnacle PR, teaching public relations professionals from across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, the tips and tricks of PR 2.0. In a full-day course, she teaches how Web technologies, including social media and blogging, can be integrated into promotional campaigns. This year she travelled to Brussels several times and to Berlin, where she trained public relations managers from across Europe preparing to promote European Mobility Week.

Over the Air
http://overtheair.org/blog

Hai Media Group’s Director Lisa Devaney hosted a DIY PR Workshop at the Over the Air mobile developers event in London, along with technology public relations star Lauren MacGregor. About 30 attendants provided positive feedback about the workshop, that showed how to promote your mobile application or service with low cost, creative planning and tactics.

Blogging for BrandRepublic

Lisa Devaney continued contributing blog posts to BrandRepublic magazine, where she has been a guest blogger for about three years now. The magazine launched its new social media blog The Wall Blog, and one post drew significant attention from across Europe and America, discussing how PRs are feeling like social media is being dumped on them:

http://wallblog.co.uk/2010/11/04/stop-dumping-soical-media-on-your-pr

Devaney was also invited to be a delegate, as a blogger and technology industry advocate in London, to an event called Innovation Future hosted by UK Trade & Investment, where Prime Minister David Cameron announced his intentions to have the government support creation of a new Silicon Valley in East London:
http://wallblog.co.uk/2010/11/09/american-insight-to-how-east-london-can-be-the-new-silicon-valley

Ark
Throughout 2010, we collaborated with Joan Smith, of Clarendon Media, a cross-platform media expert, to develop a transmedia entertainment property. We explored how to use the online medium to tell an eco-sci-fi story about humanity living on the brink of climate change. Ark is set 30 years in the future, and is under development to be told across Facebook, as a eco-survivalist game, in a book, and to be pitched as a TV programme.

A special thanks!

This year we also want to say thank you to the talented folks who pitched in to help from time to time.

Thank you Jocelyn Brandeis, our PR associate in New York City who supported USA outreach efforts.

Thank you Mary Epworth who is showing a real knack for technology PR, in addition to being a beautiful and talented singer and songwriter.

Thank you Katerina Hejralova for help and support in 2010, who has gone on to start a promising career with London agencies specializing in PR 2.0.

Thank you Kinura for ongoing help with maintaining the Hai Media Group website.

Looking ahead, the new year promises to be busy and packed with a variety of opportunities. If you are interested in working with Hai Media Group in 2011 contact Lisa Devaney at: lisa AT haimediagroup DOT com

You can also follow Lisa Devaney on Twitter at @lisadevaney

HMG Attends SHINE 09

HMG Attends SHINE 09

Hai Media Group’s Lisa Devaney attended SHINE 09, a two-day business “unconference” for social entrepreneurs. The event included one-to-one mentoring sessions, social collaboration games, creative brainstorming to foster new ideas, and guidance to help execute new projects.

Funding was won for a new project by Martin Sherrard, for his Stratford Walled Kitchen Garden concept, offering horticultural training and a community restaurant serving produce grown in the garden. He pitched his concept for the prize, along with Re-Made in Brixton, Open Free Cycle and Youandiskills.com.

Participating in Dave Wilcox’s social collaboration game, Devaney, along with others, conceived the concept of “Re-Think!” a community programme for troubled youths caught in the criminal justice system that would see them be taught new 21st century skills by learning how to re-furbish old computers from discarded consumer electronics. While Re-Think! didn’t win the game, due to a request for more funding than was on offer, the process brought together a mix of ideas and agendas and created something productive.

Lisa Devaney blogged about SHINE 09, here:

DigitalJournal.com

BrandRepublic.com

Other non-traditional conferences coming up in the UK include:
bTWEEN (11-12 June 2009, Liverpool), an interactive digital media forum

2gether09, a London summer conference run in festival style, aims to explore and celebrate how technology can be used to promote social progress.

Over The Air, a September London mobile development gathering spaced over two days of fun, learning, hacking and socializing with participants camping over night.

Blogging For Brand Republic

Hai Media Group’s Lisa Devaney is a contributing guest blogger to the trade magazine Brand Republic, for the advertising, marketing, media and public relations industries.

Her blog Quick Peeks offers insight to happenings in business, new technology, arts and entertainment. Quick Peeks was started in June 2008, at the invitation of the publication’s editor, and joins a collection of communications industry bloggers who are contributing to Brand Republic.

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