Let the buzz begin!

No, I’m not talking about the LeBron James free agent competition. It’s just been pseudo-announced that as of January 2011, just six short months away, iPhones will be available on the Verizon network.

We’ve all seen this coming, and a lot of people have been waiting for the day to finally come. It seems some loophole in contractual jargon will allow this to happen earlier than expected (A five year contract was supposed to tie iPhone solely to AT&T through 2012).

What will this mean?

What will the implications be for Verizon? Apple? AT&T? Droid?

Came across this infographic from mashable.com :

mashable.com : iPhone through the years

So, what are our predictions for 2011?

• APPLE ALSO GETS: Another bite taken out of its logo. Seriously, it’s been a while. With everyone wanting a piece of Apple, you can’t expect that one lonely bite to be the only one taken out of it for too long.
• THE WORLD GETS: Oprah… Bigger than ever before. Not necessarily a weight joke, but with the O! Network looming large, how long will it be before she runs all media? AND all the pizza shops in Chicago?
• # OF APPS: With the overall numbers of iPhone users about to increase drastically, more money will be invested in app development. When the iPhone 4 launched, there were 200,000 apps. Between Steve Jobs and Jesus, who knows what that number will grow to.
• iPHONE FOR VERIZON STATS -

1. Release Date: January 2010.
2. 1 Million Sold date: Seriously? Pre-order sales will dwarf 1 million.
3. Apple Stock Price : Just like it completely took over the music industry, Apple will likely own and run the stock exchange by 2011.

So, really, this move should work to benefit everyone… except for AT&T … and Droid … Google … well, you get the picture.

• How do you see things playing out in 2011?

It’s starting in Amsterdam. Touted as being a city with respectable and creative ad agencies, ‘Dam is leading the pack with doing away with the traditional 30 second TV spot.

Over the past decade there has been an evolving transition from TV commercials to internet video ads. With the internet medium, there are no limitations with time, content, etc. There have also been some examples of TV commercials that break the :30 rule. Recently, in the midst of the World Cup hooplah, Adidas has aired a 2-minute commercial spoofing a scene from Star Wars, including Snoop Dogg as Luke Skywalker, and David Beckham narrowly escaping murder.

Some brands have used a lengthy broadcast to their advantage, by airing episodic commercials throughout. In between TV shows, there was a love story to follow. One of the more successful examples of this was back in the 90’s in England, in a campaign for Taster’s Choice coffee. Two British actors starred in a love story centered around their passion for the coffee, and was a fairly successful and memorable campaign in the UK.

The death of TV commercials would likely mean the death of TV as a whole.

Bottom line: the traditional 30 second TV spot is on its way out. With the internet, there are many more opportunities, and options, as far as interactivity goes, etc. The obvious drawback to this is that people will only be viewing/engaging with the content if they so choose. The good thing about TV (at least, before TiVo and DVR) was that if you were watching a TV show, the commercials were there. However, with the rise of DVR and Hulu and whatever other commercial-escaping capabilities, the TV commercial is becoming less effective and irreverent.

• Do you think the traditional 30 second TV ad is on it’s way out?
• Is the internet the venue of the future?
• How might mobile technology not only come in to play, but change the game?

For those who fall anywhere between the range of addicted, to avid user, to occasional dabbler to social media news semi-follower, you’ve probably noticed that since the start of the World Cup on Friday, Twitter has had some serious issues staying afloat. World Cup fever appears to be too much for Twitter to handle. Trending topics are momentarily down, too, even when Twitter is up and running.

The ‘Fail Whale’ has become an all too common occurrence over the past five days, and with the World Cup lasting another three and a half weeks, can Twitter find a way to upgrade their capacity to be able to control the flood of tweets coming their way?

The World Cup buzz has effectively silenced Twitter.

Sports headlines at the beginning of the tournament read that the coach of the Netherlands team banned his squad from using Twitter during the duration of the World Cup, due to an incident. One of his players, Eljero Elia, was caught on streaming video apparently saying racially insensitive remarks towards Moroccans [though he later claimed it was directed towards a friend, an inside joke between the two]. As punishment, the Netherlands national team joins the English and Spanish teams on the list of teams not actively Tweeting.

I, for one, can’t help but see the coaches’ point. Just because the rest of the world has decided over the last few years to completely disregard any notion of a private life, why should their locker room be exposed to the world?

While this is merely a microcosm of the big questions regarding social media, the non-existence of private life, and the pros and cons of news immediacy through all things internet:

• How do you think social media and World Cup will play out?
• Or rather, how should it be handled?

“We got reskinned. Now it’s your turn.”

With its new Tea and Elixir line packaging, SoBe teamed up with Firstborn to create an online application that allows you to test out tattoos on an uploaded photo of yourself. The application can be found on SoBe’s website.

You can re-size, reshape, and play with other details of the tattoo on the picture you uploaded; a fun digital game. This was a cool interpretation of the idea of recreating a product’s packaging, or “reskinning,” as SoBe refers to it. The application allows you to download, email, or share the final image with your friends. By sharing these images on the web, the participants help market the product, by spreading the world on social networks such as Twitter and Facebook.

Here’s what people are saying about the new ReSkin application:

And, Andrew finally got the butterfly tattoo he always wanted…

Check out the Sobe ReSkin case study:

SoBe ReSkin – Case Study from Dofl Yun on Vimeo.

The prototype was found in the back of a limo after transporting several members of a Silicon Valley meeting to a conference. Our San Francisco office got wind of the iPhone prototype from a contact, and the CF team quickly jumped at the chance to explore the capabilities of this find.

The first thing you notice about the new iPhone is that it appears Apple has gone retro. This holy grail of a communications device is completely voice activated. We’re still playing around with different commands, but from what we can tell so far its voice recognition capabilities and performance are totally in synch.

The physical “phone” itself is actually a small piece of irony.

We heard rumors, but like just about everyone else out there, we, too, had our doubts. This find confirms it. The 4G leak was a red herring to cover up the impending 5G launch.

I have seen the future. It is beautiful. It is old school. And it’s just another bold move for Apple.

In response to the recent wave of big talent execs leaving big agencies to set up their own shop, CreativeFeed has put together some tips for those thinking of starting their own ad agency.

• Learn to deal with less support – quickly. Less people and money mean more of your time on everything. You’ll get used to it.
• You’re gonna make hiring mistakes. The smaller you are, the “who” matters more. (Trust us on this one.)
• The budgets will be lower. But the energy will be higher.
• You’ll have doubts. You won’t pay them much attention, as you’ll also be having the time of your life.

How can we be so sure?

CreativeFeed was started three years ago with the same focus you have now. To be more nimble, faster to react to market conditions and to get great work done more efficiently than one of the “big shops.”

Has the experiment worked? So far, so good. From a shop of four, and now to 20, we’ve been able to grow by maintaining our principles and giving our clients intelligent solutions designed for their success, not necessarily just creative accolades.

Now with offices in both SF and NYC, and one soon to open in Paris, we staff up with smart individuals who have unique skill sets perfect for their assigned projects. Being free from the labels of departments, we’ve become a collective of talented thinkers.

As these big-name departures continue to increase, we believe our own business model continues to prove itself valuable. We at CreativeFeed are just happy to be ahead of the curve.

Welcome to the roller coaster.

Want to blow some steam off? Better yet, want to unleash it on your Facebook friends? Why not just commit a minor act of internet terrorism, and bomb their page.

Dreamworks has used an innovative advertising strategy in partnership with Facebook to promote their newest movie, How to Train Your Dragon. This is no lame “send your friend a cocktail” option you are used to on Facebook, Flame It allows you to wreck havoc on anybody’s profile page or even a website by throwing balls of fire anywhere you please, dragon style.

After the wreckage is cleared, a wall posting emerges from the smoke, reminding you and all your friends to check out the movie. So…BOMBS AWAY!