Steely Eye Digital Media

Plan UK’s Education for Girls Facebook App

The launch of Plan UK’s Education for Girls Facebook app, designed and developed by Steely Eye Digital Media, topped the Twitter chart on Friday June 29th by rapidly becoming the number one trending topic on the social media network. See here.

If that wasn’t incredible enough, the Facebook app went on to accumulate 15,055 tweets in just 24 hours and attracted the attention of some of Twitter’s big influencers, including Stephen Fry and Sophie Dahl.

It is hoped that the app, which evokes fond childhood memories by asking users to select which books they have read from a list of the most popular fifty and to select their favourite, will encourage people to support Plan by buying a virtual book. Each virtual book bought represents a child’s education and the integrated barometer feature allows for users to track the number of books bought and equate it to the number of girls that will receive an education as a result.
If you would like to get a personalised, virtual book visit the app here: https://apps.facebook.com/educationforgirls/

What does Bingo Friendzy on Facebook mean for the rest of the industry?

With the recently social gaming app released on Facebook, Bingo Friendzy, it’s apparent again that the egaming sector is again innovating on what we in the agency scene know as ‘emerging platforms’. Bingo Friendzy is a joint venture between Gamesys and Facebook, which was worth noting relatively quiet in its release on Facebook. The game is the first of its kind in that it is the first real-money gaming product on Facebook. Being a joint venture between Facebook and Gamesys, the former has surely put a lot of thought into how this venture into the gaming and gambling arena will be looked upon by the media and its user-base. Having worked with egaming industry brands on Facebook and personal devices, I feel it’s appropriate that I look at the opportunities and perils in a real-money product in what can be termed as the social gaming sector.
(more…)

Digital strategy planning for the future is futile

Hearing Ben Hammersley, the UK Prime Minister’s Ambassador to TechCity; London’s Internet Sector, mock the idea of  planning a digital strategy for the future goes against everything I’ve learnt/read/preached/and have been told in my industry. Furthermore, hearing Ben Hammersley intelligently and logically explain why this is so further gripped me. Working in the mobile industry means that I am inherently involved in digital strategies on a day-to-day basis – strategically and tactically so. The idea of planning for something that will never arrive is something that made me think during his talk – ‘you never get to the future’ somebody in the audience crowed.
(more…)

Are mobile apps under-appreciated as products?

At the fourth talk I attended Matt Webb, the CEO of BERG, eloquently spoke about the interconnected nature of products, culture, technology, design, and the experiential aspect that lubricates them all. His talk focused on hardware products, and the affably named Little Printer, within the context of the above. I work within the mobile design and development agency sector, so at times my mind did drift towards software products and how the conversation applied to them and mobile apps in particular. This led me to ponder – are mobile apps under-appreciated as products?
(more…)

Post Radian6-talk: Will Robinson’s experience working with social media monitoring tools

To provide a little bit more context to attending the Wall Street Journal Tech Cafes, my aim is to write a blogpost one each of the talks I attend, covering a subject matter that particularly resonated with me. Having attended the insightful Salesforce talks this morning, from both Miguel Milano and Madlen Nicolaus, the theme for this blogpost came to me quicker than the first two blogposts. I had initially intended to frame each of my blogposts within the mobile industry, the industry I’m currently working in. However, having  hands on experience working with social media monitoring tools, including Radian6, I felt it necessary to tell the story of my experiences working with social media monitoring tools.
(more…)