An Post DMAs

Just a quick post to say congratulations to everyone who got shortlisted for tonight's An Post Direct Marketing Awards. Especially all the guys who I have the pleasure to work with. A fair batch of Cybercom entries in there...

Best Alcoholic Drink Category
Carlsberg Live It - Euro 2008

Best FMCG Category
Powerade - Never Give Up

Best Direct Digital Category
Vodafone Pass The Pressie
Powerade - Never Give Up

Best Integrated Campaign Category
Powerade - Never Give Up
Carlsberg Live It - Euro 2008 (joint nomination with Strategem, Initiative Media and Irish International)

---Update---

Results just in, straight from the Mansion House...

Best Alcoholic Drink Category
Carlsberg Live It - Euro 2008 >>> Silver Award

Best FMCG Category
Powerade - Never Give Up >>> Gold Award

Best Integrated Campaign Category
Powerade - Never Give Up >>> Silver Award
Carlsberg Live It - Euro 2008 >>> Bronze Award

WWF Augmented Reality

This is so cool, and for such a good cause. I wish we saw more of this type of application being developed.

Wolfram Alpha Unveiled

Back at the end of March I posted about Wolfram Alpha. Last week Dr. Stephen Wolfram, the inventor and creator of Wolfram Alpha, unveiled the first working demo of what is being heralded as possibly the most important technological invention of the the last decade.

At the Harvard University showcase, the renowned Particle Physicist showed the scientific community what is refereed to as an "answer engine" or "knowledge engine", rather than a search engine. It provides users with the function of typing a question and being given an answer. Bare in mind, that's an answer and not a list of websites. As such Wolfram Alpha is not what is being termed a Google-killer. It really isn't in direct competition with Google at all.

Part of the demonstration saw Dr. Wolfram enter various questions or queries, each to complete success. For example, when he entered 'Weather Oakland, California' the knowledge engine immediately came back with a full breakdown of weather patterns for the region over the previous 10 years.



After the showcase Tom Simpson, noted Digital Marketer, said: "What are the wider implications exactly? A new paradigm for using computers and the web? Probably. Emerging artificial intelligence and a step towards a self-organising internet? Possibly... I think this could be big."

Wolfram Alpha is perched on the crest of a wave with the potential to wash across the world changing the way we access and search information. Foremost the system's potential is its ability to compute answers "on the fly" (according to Dr. Wolfram), giving it the ability to tackle new questions that it has never seen before. This in turn gives it the ability to 'learn', producing faster results the next time that question, or one similar, is asked. The knock-on effect of how Wolfram Alpha 'learns' could be the first real steps towards artificial intelligence.

A key differentiator between the way in which Wolfram Alpha accesses information, how Google does it and how Wikipedia does it, is in the way the information is managed. Wikipedia is based on a user generated system that is moderated, edited and compiled by the public itself. In theory the information is correct due to collective input, however on niche topics it is not always the most reliable source. Google on the other hand uses bots and spiders to crawl the web and determine what it is that is on a webpage. This system is limited in that any information stored in exotic formats or within images is inaccessible to Google and it relies heavily on what the creator has 'tagged' the information as. Wolfram Alpha on the other hand will operate as a 'curated' system. It will rely on a team of up to 1,000 experts to assess if the information Wolfram Alpha is drawing on is indeed correct. Beyond this, the system is heavily based on Dr. Wolfram's award-winning Mathematica software, which is used everyday by scientists, engineers and mathematicians around the world.

Interestingly, Dr. Wolfram hasn't however ruled out any strategic alliances with these or other internet businesses, saying, "We're working to partner with all possible organisations that make sense; Search, narrative, news are complementary to what we have. Hopefully there will be some great synergies." He also confirmed that the system will utilise Wikipedia's popularity index to determine what users are likely to be referring to, when it comes to pop culture based questions.

Aussies Ban Sexist Ad (Shocker)

Don't get me wrong - I love Australia. I loved the time I spent out there (I presume there's a wiki article somewhere about how every Irish person must spend a year in Oz??) and I enjoy so much about Australian culture - beers, surf, the vast and expansive countryside, the skyscraper dotted cities, and the people.

But I'm not going to pretend that the Aussies are the most PC people I've ever spent time around.

So when I read that a Coke Zero ad had been pulled because it was deemed too sexist by their Advertising Standards Bureau, I was interested to say the least. Funny thing is, I don't think it's all that bad. Is this really any more demeaning to women then the Diet Coke Man was to men? Well, judge for yourself...

500 Posts

Having just realised that I had posted 499 posts I couldn't help myself from dropping in something fun for the 500th.