Towards an augmented social reality? MediaPro review.

big brand speakers at mediapro

big brand speakers at mediapro

On November 2-3 we were among many others at Olympia London to attend mediaPro. The event is rather unique in its kind but brings real value to the people within the “marketing and media industry”. Or as the organizers describe it their-selves:

“Things are changing in the world of media and marketing. Marketers, agencies and media owners now know all about email marketing and websites. They tell us that what they want now is a next generation event that helps them take their marketing and communications to the next level: and that means integrating channels including offline, online and all the exciting new stuff in mobile, social media etc. And that means mediaPro!”

Mix of exhibitors and keynote speakers

Visitors enjoyed a nice mixture of keynotes and classic trade fair exhibition stands.

Our final impression after the event coincides into the question “are we heading towards an augmented social reality?”.

Let’s try to unravel what this means… and how we stumbled upon this thought…

Augmented reality … an interesting technology!

We were fascinated by the maturity of AR technology shown at mediaPro.
Have a look in the below video and be astonished about the possibilities this technology brings along!

Social media

How many times a day do you log on to Facebook, Twitter or similar “social media”?

At the show “social media” was a central theme: two theatres were specifically devoted to topics within the realms of “social media” and a lot of exhibitors (suppliers to marketing agencies, corporates, brands, media, …) stressed their social media technology (in one way or another).

What if you combine augmented reality with social media? Augmented social reality! Hooray! Tagwhat!

Running an e-commerce website? Watch out for Google shopping.

Apparently Google launched a Beta version of “Google Shopping” (Google Achats) in France last week. The application looks very promising and might change the online shopping experience. If you sell over the internet, you definitely should consider listing your products in Google Shopping. How you index your products is explained below the screenshots.

Google Shopping France - homepage

Google Shopping France - homepage

Google Shopping - Bèta in France : search for iMac

Google Shopping - Beta in France : search for iMac

Google shopping : bèta in France - price comparison

Google shopping : beta in France - price comparison

Index your products through a feed in Google Merchant Center

In order to appear in the list, an e-commerce website or webshop needs to provide a feed of their products to the Google Merchant Center. Consequently Google indexes the data and makes them available for search and price comparison via a web interface on google.com (or in case via a country-specific url extension).

In addition, consumers are able to immediately buy the good if the e-commerce website supports Google Check-out.

Indexed enterprises in France that offer iMac on google.fr

Imagine you want to buy an iMac and want to know the perfect place and price for your purchase.
Imagine you’re a go-getter and will search for all places online where you can buy an iMac.
Imagine you accurately archive all information in a spreadsheet so to compare the offers.

How long would that take? How long does it take with Google Shopping?

Can you see the benefits already?

Companies that partner with Google within the “market of the search term ‘iMac’ on Google Shopping France” are listed below.

Just one more thing: online shopping is a global phenomenon

Isn’t it? Why roll out this service by country then?

Are you QR-coding your business card already?

QR code: call number, add to contacts, share

QR code: call number, add to contacts, share

What is a QR-code?

A QR Code is a bar code that is read by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera and smartphones. The code consists of black modules arranged in square patterns on a white background. Today’s mobile devices are standard equipped with a QR code reader. And if it’s not on it, you can easily install an application on your phone (as long as you have a photo camera build-in).

QR Code - capture information with your mobile device (download app; e.g. i-nigma)

QR Code - capture information with your mobile device (download app; e.g. i-nigma)

Benefit of a QR code

With intelligent mobile devices and smart phones as a common utility, the possibility to immediately send information to that device saves a lot of time and efforts. No longer need to manually put in all the contact information.

And this is only one possibility of QR codes…