by Lisa Devaney | 9 Jun, 2009 | News
Hai Media Group led efforts in the UK to launch Skyfire’s new 1.0 version, a milestone that took the popular smartphone mobile browser out of a successful beta period that attracted 1 million participants. Working with USA media partner VSC Consulting, the news earned attention from numerous mainstream media outlets, popular blogs and Skyfire became a popular topic on Twitter.
Prior to the debut of Skyfire’s version 1.0, on May 27, 2009, The New York Times named it to be “App of the Week” in the blog Gadgetwise. In the UK, bloggers and mobile experts raved about the service, saying:
“You see, Skyfire isn’t a ‘proper’ browser, more of a content viewer, with all the serious processing handled by the company’s proxy servers, the pages then being ‘rendered’ onto your phone. Just like the Opera browser in fact, but with more whistles, bells and streaming video.” – T3’s David Walker
“The release brings with it a host of improvements, such as improved navigation, zooming and interaction and a faster launch, lower power consumption, and new search functionality. Also, while the new version of the browser starts up, you can begin typing URLs or search queries into the box at the top, saving time. The company is operating a closed alpha for the BlackBerry platform, so that’ll likely be next for release.” –Pocket-lint.com’s Duncan Geere
“Their browser is fast and responsive, and Skyfire’s goal is to give a faithful representation of web pages that is equivalent to the desktop browsing experience. One important focus for Skyfire is in the area of video rendering… Skyfire’s approach is to introduce their own video-crunching servers between, say, YouTube and your Nokia N95. These servers take full Flash (Flash 10) and then video transcode the signal in real-time, giving a lower frame rate (8 frames per second), and a smaller screen rendering for mobile. The result is that the Skyfire browser can render an original YouTube page or Vimeo page, or even blogs with embedded video, so that you have access to the entire video catalogue, live on line.” –Martyn Davies, The Really Mobile Project
Watch The Phones Show for an interview with Skyfire’s VP of Business Development Raj Singh, offer extra insight to the browser’s features and hints of what’s to come.
Other UK coverage included:
FT.com
AllAboutSymbian.com
Zdnet.co.uk
Tech Radar UK
Pocketpicks.co.uk
Trustedreviews.com
Phonesreview.co.uk
Yahoo News UK
VNUnet.com
MobileMarketingMagazine.co.uk
Pocket-lint.com
The Really Mobile Project
Rethink-Wireless
GoMoNews.com
AlexKinch.com
Mashable
by Lisa Devaney | 26 May, 2009 | News
Hai Media Group helped Vodafone increase excitement for the first time its Vodafone Mobile Clicks contest ran in the UK. We encouraged UK mobile developers to submit entry applications to win 150K Euros for a mobile site or service concept. The competition closed 22 June 2009, and judges are now reviewing entries.
Vodafone Mobile Clicks
Vodafone Mobile Clicks is an international, high profile contest for the best mobile internet startup. The best mobile internet startup is selected by a professional jury in three different jury rounds. The main reason for the existence of Vodafone Mobile Clicks is to accelerate the innovation in the mobile internet sector in the UK and the Netherlands.
by Lisa Devaney | 20 May, 2009 | News
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.
by Lisa Devaney | 16 Apr, 2009 | News
Hai Media Group’s Lisa Devaney is now writing for citizen journalist website DigitalJournal.com, contributing news reports from London, UK.
Within a short time of writing for the outlet, she won attention from the editors, receiving acclaim and a Top Find Award for her coverage of the G20 protests in London, 1 April 2009. The editor’s who reviewed her work said:
“For instance, check out Lisa Devaney‘s stunning article on the G20 protests in London. She was able to write intimately on the anger flaring between demonstrators and police, nicely complementing her article with illustrative photos. She interviewed various activists and protesters who had some passionate statements to say about the political meeting. We commend Lisa for her in-person interviews and passion for being on the ground at one of the most important events of 2009.”
Read more of her articles here:
Author Zoe Margolis Replies to Amazon’s alleged censorship
New Tamil Protests Hit London, Questions Remain About G20 Death
Bloggers Make History At G20 Summit
All Night Camp Out Planned In Streets of London for G20 Protests
Banks Are Financial Casinos, Leading UK Economist Says
Day 1 of London G20 Protests More Gandhi Than Rambo
London Braces for G20 Protests Next Week
London Treated to Future of Sound, Future of Light Event
by Lisa Devaney | 16 Apr, 2009 | News
Hai Media Group helped the Future of Sound/Future of Light UK tour with online promotions of the event’s London showcase evening at Goldsmith’s College, 24 March 2009. The event is the brainchild of 80s pop star Martyn Ware (The Human League and Heaven 17) and his business partner Vince Clarke (Depeche Mode, Yazoo, The Assembly and Erasure), who together head the Illustrious Company, providing a 3D sound system for events, art exhibitions and architectural spaces.
Attention for this year’s Future of Sound/Future of Light tour was gained in a number of outlets, including being featured with:
Superfutures
DazedDigital
NME
Future of Sound/Future of Light continues to tour the UK, with next stops being:
Arnolfini, Bristol
25 April
The Sage Gateshead
23 May
BFI IMAX, London
11-12 July
by Lisa Devaney | 16 Apr, 2009 | News
Hai Media Group’s Lisa Devaney was a guest speaker at an evening networking event hosted by The Future Laboratory, held 11 March 2009. The evening’s focus was on social media trends, and guest speakers met with small groups of attendants to discuss the topic, including how Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and YouTube are being integrated into some company’s marketing plans.
The Future Laboratory publishes the trend spotting news information source LSN Global, providing forward thinking insight to branding professionals worldwide.
Devaney shared tips for brands to consider in using social media, which she blogged about here, and she was quoted in an article about social media trends by LSN Global. Her social media branding tips are:
What to Be In Social Media Branding
Be Seen: What do you look like to your social media audience? Are you human, or are you something off a shelf? People want to see other people in the world of social networking so in reaching out to your audiences pay attention to showing them what you and your team look like. Upload images to your Facebook group of your brand in action — people at events, people using your products, people in your office. Use Flickr to build an image trail of both products and people. Use YouTube to seed videos, integrating several visual tools to showcase the human side of your brand.
Be Real: Don’t piss off your audiences by engaging in blatant heavy promotional use of Twitter, Facebook or other social networking sites. Show a personality and offer up a variety of information to your audience, pointing them to helpful or quirky items.
Be Brave: This is new territory for brand building, and it takes an adventurous sort to take some risks in approaching social media. Think out common sense approaches to using social networking for your brand, and don’t be afraid to experiment out there.
Be On It: Assign a member of your team, or several, to be monitoring and watching for responses that come back via Tweets, Facebook, YouTube and Flickr comments, and blogs. Response to people’s comments should be swift and effective, helping those with complaints and thanking those with praise.
Be Interactive: It isn’t enough to hang up a billboard in Second Life or set up a Facebook group or Twitter account, unless you think out how your approach should interact with people. Think about what you can offer up to your audience that will be of interest and relevance to your brand. Can you host a virtual conference in Second Life with prominent speakers? Can you run a contest through Twitter? One company called Going.com created one of the most popular Facebook applications called Naughty Gifts, a slightly cheeky way to give adult gifts to your friends, that has produced millions of exchanges. To promote Going.com, they took the popularity offline and held adult-themed parties throughout America, promoting the events through the Naughty Gifts Facebook application.
