Google open their doors to the internet

Google has opened the doors on its data centres for the first time giving us a glimpse of where the internet lives.

These beautiful photos are quite impressive.

See many more on Colossal.

Jubilympics musings

So has the Olympics whetted your appetite for how TV and internet can work together?   

Well that’s not just an excuse to mention London 2012 but we were thinking about what would be possible in the future with the new wave of internet TV services being announced.  Lots more content to come its seems.  

We’ve been told for quite some time it’s an era in which television and internet are converging; Google has launched Google TV and Apple TV is being relaunched apparently. BSkyB launched its NowTV service last month offering films and soon sport and entertainment, described as a brand new internet TV service from Sky.  

Are we going to want to actually watch all of this content sitting together on the living room sofa though?  Or does this new world of time-shifting, TV-on-demand and High Definition herald either an age of more arguments over the remote control. Or is this the end of watching TV together with family and friends, altogether perhaps as we chose to interact with these new services separately?

New insight into the best online advertising formats

The Internet Advertising Bureau (IAB) has recently completed an international piece of research into online advertising which highlighted that brands are benefiting from bigger online display formats.

The 'Size Matters' study was carried out in the UK, the US, Europe, Australia and South America over a period of almost two years and collected data from 770 campaigns.

The results showed that billboard formats outperformed other online advertising including more recent display formats such as wallpaper and half page, as well as the more traditional ones, such as MPU, banner and skyscraper. Formats were analysed according to five criteria: aided brand awareness, online ad awareness, message association, brand favourability and purchase intent.

The Billboard format performed significantly better across some criteria, scoring three times better in terms of ad awareness and twice as better for brand favourability than wallpaper, the second best format of those measured.

The Wallpaper format offered the highest brand awareness against all other formats and was five times better than the average in terms of message association.

However, not to be left out, the Skyscraper format was the most successful in the purchase intent metric.

Tim Elkington, IAB director of research and strategy, commented, 'The industry can only benefit from the new large display formats, as both brands and consumers seem to be excited by them. The findings from the Size Matters study highlight the advantages of formats like billboard and wallpaper.'

To find out more about online advertising you can find interesting insight on the IAB's website however some of it is only available in full to members.

The Little Printer

Design studio Berg has introduced a great new product called the Little Printer, available from 2012.

According to Berg, the Little Printer "lives in your front room and scours the web on your behalf, assembling the content you care about into designed deliveries a couple of times a day".

Take a look at the video below or click here to find out more. Its a great little gadget!

Internet Access Is A Human Right

"Given that the Internet has become an indispensable tool for realizing a range of human rights, combating inequality, and accelerating development and human progress, ensuring universal access to the Internet should be a priority for all states." Such the spirit of the report on "the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression" to the United Nations by Frank La Rue, considering Internet access a Human Right.

We can't help but thinking about the numerous occasions in which the Internet is and has been an important medium of expression. Be it information, solidarity, protest or of the latest j'accuse.

Read more.