Forsman & Bodenfors are known for some great creative work, and they recently devised a Facebook campaign for a new Ikea store in Malmo, Sweden. When small budgets and big briefs clash, the out come only ever heads in a single direction these days…  to Facebook!

Some of the best campaign strategies are simple, and none simpler than using the default “tagging” tool on facebook to help create a bit of buzz for an online competition.
Users were drawn to the new Facebook profile page of the store manager, who’d uploaded pictures of his new showrooms.

People were told that the first to tag their name on any item, would win it. With the way tagging works on Facebook, the moment you tagged anything, everyone in your network instantly knew what was up for grabs! Subsequently, thousands and thousands of people were flooding the Facebook page in search of freebies!

Post courtesy of Digital Buzz Blog

Social media has unquestionably revolutionized communication. How big is the revolution you ask? Check out the videos below to see some of the staggering statistics. The first video was done by Social Media Energy this year and the second was done by Eric Qualman from Socialnomics last year.

Some info garnered that is particularly Shopbabbles-relavent are the following:

• 34% of bloggers (out of over 200 million) post opinions about products & brands
• 83% of all companies use Facebook
• Successful companies in social media listen first and sell second
• Consultants and marketing professionals are the most active users of social media
• Only 18% of traditional TV campaigns generate a positive ROI
• 90% of people that can TiVo ads do

There are many more interesting facts about the global social revolution below.

An augmented reality system that makes walls transparent could prevent road accidents.

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SEE/HEAR/BUY thrives on (mobile) NOWISM technologies that allow consumers to quickly find out more about an item, a song, or anything else they hear/see, and then buy it. This short overview of experience-and-buy services should get you going:

• Shopsavvy, an Android app, allows the user to scan almost any barcode using the phone’s camera, and it will then search over 20,000 online and local retailers to find the best price. Once the best deal has been found, users can either purchase online, or use the phone’s built-in Google Maps feature to find their way to the store.
• Californian SnapTell says half a million iPhone and Android users have downloaded its application (which, unlike Shopsavvy, allows users to photograph a product using cameras in their handsets, and then upload it to the website for reviews, recommendations and best prices), resulting in more than 1.5 million image queries so far. More than one in three buyers click through to an online retailer, earning SnapTell commissions.
• SnapTell is owned by Amazon.com, who recently also released its own, free, Android mobile application. This allows users to take photos of an item on their phone, or scan a barcode, and then have Amazon search for the same product online, enabling immediate comparison with the physical-retail price. If the price is right, users can purchase the item securely from their mobile device.
• SEE/HEAR/BUY pioneer Shazam, which was launched in 2002, offers a mobile app that allows users to identify tracks by recording a small clip of music. The app “tags” the track with a name and artist, and then allows users to purchase the music through an online store. The company just announced that more than 50 million people around the world have used the service; an increase of 15 million users since February of this year.Related: Midomi’s iPhone app offers a variety of ways for consumers to identify music. They can record a clip of live music, hum, sing or say the name of the song and Midomi will name the track and provide links to online content such as music videos and lyrics. Users can also click through to buy the song immediately.
• ColorSnap is a free iPhone application developed by US paint brand Sherwin-Williams. Launched in 2009, the application allows consumers to match the color of a photo taken on their iPhone with over 1,500 colors listed in the Sherwin-Williams database. This color and the complimentary color pallette is then sent to the phone. Next: a ‘buy now’ link to a DIY retail chain?

So… Who’s going to build similar SEE-HEAR-BUY services in 2010 for looking up movies, television shows and even commercials by just saying a few lines? And how will these instant gratification services further shape expectations among infolusty shoppers?

Source: www.trendwatching.com. One of the world’s leading trend firms, trendwatching.com sends out its free, monthly Trend Briefings to more than 160,000 subscribers worldwide.

Diesel’s “Be Stupid” campaign platform continues to drive innovative work. This time they’ve said that Digital is smart. Analog is stupid. And with that, Diesel has created a social event called Facepark, a live event where thousands turned up to create an analog version of Facebook, simulating pretty much everything you can do on Facebook in a physical format, starting with every guest receiving a profile cut-out on arrival that would become your analog wall for the day! Very very cool!

post thanks to Digitalbuzzblog.com

On Tuesday, Amazon.com took a step toward making the shopping experience on its Web site more social.

For many people, shopping is as much about socializing as it is about buying something — a chance to run into neighbors at the farmers’ market or spend time with a friend at the mall. And people who go shopping with a friend inevitably ask advice before buying. But it’s hard to do that when online shopping.

Now, Amazon shoppers who connect their Amazon and Facebook accounts transport their Facebook friends to Amazon — and can get recommendations from those friends on what to buy.

Amazon was an early leader in offering recommendations based on previous purchases and product searches, and in posting customer reviews on the site. But it has been slow to incorporate social features, while start-ups like Go Try It On, Polyvore and Swipely have been experimenting with ways to make online shopping more interactive.

Amazon’s new feature is the company’s small first step toward tapping into the world of social shopping.

When shoppers connect their Amazon and Facebook accounts, they see their Facebook profile photo on Amazon’s site. They also see which of their Facebook friends have upcoming birthdays, and receive gift suggestions based on the music, books and movies those friends have said they like on Facebook and on their Amazon wish lists. At the same time, they see recommendations on what to buy for themselves, based on what their friends like.

Mary Osako, an Amazon spokeswoman, said the company was hoping to improve customers’ shopping experiences and help them find friends with shared interests while shopping.

Shopping activity on Amazon will not be shared with Facebook, Amazon said. That means that shoppers’ purchase history and account information will never appear on Facebook. And this will be a relief to people who remember the Beacon blunder, when Facebook shared Christmas gift purchases with users’ friends.

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/27/an-amazon-facebook-alliance-to-make-shopping-more-social/

Augmented Reality Applications are more than just a simple accessory for your smart phone, it combines the physical real-world environment with interactive digital data providing you information or sometimes, just for fun using your phone’s camera, compass and GPS data to identify your location & field of view.

Many AR Apps have filled the market place in recent times on all the major OS and this category is quickly gaining momentum. Here are some of the best Augmented Reality Apps I found for Android Phones:

1. Wikitude World Browser

Wikitude World Browser is an augmented reality browser based on location-based Wikipedia and Qype content. You can search from 350,000 world-wide points of interest by GPS or by address and displayed in a list view, map view and “Augmented Reality” cam view, very handy for planning a trip or to find out about landmarks in your surroundings.

You can also share your AR Camera view you experience with your friends too

Search for Wikitude World Browser in the Android App Market to download it.

More Info

2. Layar Reality Browser

One of the first of it’s kind in the world, Layar App is a beautiful, fun augmented reality Browser app that displays real time digital information on top of the real world as seen through the camera of your mobile phone based on your location.

Watch this video to see it in action (Youtube)

Search for Layar in the Android App Market to download it.

More Info |

3. Wikitude Drive

Wikitude Drive is an Android navigation app that make use of the AR technology to overlay video being captured through your phone’s camera with driving instructions. This allows users to literally drive through their phone, watching the road even while they are looking at directions.

Search for Wikitude Drive in the Android App Market to download it.

More info

4. Weather Reality

Weather Reality allows you to explore the weather around you in an augmented reality view through the camera of your mobile phone. You can check current conditions, real-time radar and severe weather alerts. Plus track the path of the sun and moon. You can even share geo-tagged weather pictures on social networking sites.

Download it Here

5. AugSatNav

AugSatNav is an augmented reality navigation system which overlays WALKING directions upon a live camera feed of the PATH/ROAD ahead.

With AugSatNav there’s no need to follow instructions or interpret maps – you can find your way by walking along the route highlighted by a bright white line.

Download it Here

6. 3D AR Compass

This app is an augmented reality 3D compass which comes with Multi-compass types, Auto rotate map facility, Heading and degrees, Current address, Fast bright with one tap and much more

* Only as good as your hardware. Beware surrounding metal and magnetic field

Download it Here

7. Tweeps Around

Tweeps Around is a free App which shows users tweeting in full Augmented Reality around you. Its basically a launch application which works with Layar but its awesome.

This app requires that the Layar app is installed on your device and provides a shortcut to the Market if it is missing.

In principle, Dodgeball was bought by Google and then transformed into Latitude , then came Loopt and BrightKite , but for some time to take advantage of the opportunity to state its position with other geospatial (slang check-in ) was a small group of early adopters. 

Today Gowalla (over 150,000 users) and Foursquare (over 600,000 users), created by Dennis Crowley, creator of Dodgeball already, try to exit the niche of geeks, which ranks at the intersection of user-generated guide and social play (they are also called social lettings games ).

Here, in fact users are encouraged to report places visited, offering advice to future visitors, a complex and mysterious system of virtual prizes ( badge ). In some cases the most active is assigned a permission level higher than that of others (eg the ability to remove false signals).

The lever also becomes a rewarding new marketing element for companies that have a presence, like Starbucks , which decide to offer a personalized badge or a real gift to the patrons / sponsors more faithful.

Finally it seems interesting to consider how the concept of “friendship” in geo social networking takes on a new meaning, friend is one who is entitled to know our location.

The element of the game, combined with the growing availability of mobile devices with GPS, could push the use of these new services, but what happens when Facebook will enable you to communicate its position geospatial its 400 million users? How will our concept of privacy be?…