Hands up if you’ve already broken your New Year’s resolution?  If you’re anything like me, you probably gave up on your vow to stop eating cake/drinking cocktails/taking unnecessary taxis (delete where applicable) by the time the first day back at work came around.

New Year’s resolutions really can be a bore. Luckily for us, evian has recognised this and instead of focussing on the depressing side of having to give up your favourite things in gloomy January, they’re here to put a smile on our faces. And, as you may have read in Ad Age, we’ve been working with evian to bring their ‘Live young January’ campaign to life by creating a live social hub on Facebook which pulls together all the latest online and offline activity surrounding the campaign.

At the centre of the activity are 31 different ways to help you Live young this month.  These range from playing rock, paper, scissors for helping make decisions, to making a den in your living room – for evian, Living young isn’t about age, it’s a mindset.  Every day throughout January, we’ve been posting a new way to Live young on the evian UK Facebook wall and, so far, engagement rates have been soaring, showing that the campaign is having great traction amongst the fans. And whilst we’re talking fans, in just 1 week, the Facebook fan base has increased by a whopping 21,000 likes.

To drive further engagement around the campaign on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, we’re also running a competition giving fans the opportunity to win the ultimate Live young experience – a trip to Lapland to see the Northern Lights. Entrants simply need to submit a photo showing themselves Living young this month for their chance to win.

What’s really great about the Live young January activity, is that it’s truly integrated. We’ve been working as part of a cross-agency team with Havas Worldwide, Mediaedge CIA, Shine Communications and Live and Breathe to bring the campaign to life across all channels. In case you haven’t seen or heard about it, evian brought a giant pink snow-making ‘Live young playground‘ to London last week with the aim of encouraging commuters to find their inner Live young spirit by taking time out to play. There were digital panels on the underground to cheer up the commute and promote the playground, plus, there’s been lots of conversation on Twitter from people enjoying the magic of snow falling around them as they swing.

Of course, we wanted to maximise the reach and conversational buzz around the offline activity online and, with this in mind, we hooked up with a couple of influential bloggers in London and took them on a ‘Live young January’ day to remember. We started at the evian swings in Canary Wharf and gave them goodie bags containing envelopes which enclosed some of the 31 ways to Live young as clues to where we would be taking them throughout the day.  From exploring the wonders of Hamley’s toy shop and indulging in a Mad Hatter’s themed afternoon tea, to a karaoke session and a street art graffiti lesson to unlock their creativity; the day was tailored to ensure the bloggers had plenty of Live young content to capture and blog about.

It’s going to be an exciting couple of weeks building on the early results we’ve seen so far. The evian UK ‘Live young January’ campaign is live until, well…er, the end of January (!), so if, like me, you’re not always the best at sticking to those month long New Year resolutions, why not forget about taking yourself too seriously and aim to do a daily Live young challenge instead?

Happy New Year!

Today’s #SDMW report focuses on one of Asia’s most exciting markets: India.

With the world’s second largest population, India holds huge potential for marketers from all over the world.

The country’s 1.2 billion inhabitants have embraced social, digital and mobile technology too, and India’s online ecosystem offers some truly startling numbers.

To start with, here are the top headlines:

• India has 137 million internet users – more people than the total population of Japan.
• More than 60 million people in India use social networks – equivalent to the total population of Italy
• India is home to a staggering 934 million mobile subscriptions – equivalent to more than 13% of the world’s entire population

Despite these impressive numbers, however, internet penetration in India remains quite low, with just 11% of the population having used the internet.

The country’s 137 million users still put India in 3rd place on the global rankings by number of internet users though, and this number is continuing to rise by at least 1.5 million users per month.

Moreover, with 56% of India’s population aged below 30 – and a new child born in the country every 2 seconds – it’s clear that India’s digital journey still has plenty of potential for growth.

Indeed, India is the fastest growing online market in the world, and internet usage grew by more than 40% in the year to July.

Indian netizens also appear to spend a considerable amount of time online each day – up to 8 hours each – which adds extra weight to the basic user numbers.

These users spend plenty of money too; The Times of India reports that Indian youth will spend more than US$9 billion on mobile internet activities in 2012 alone. That’s more than the GDP of the Bahamas.

Social Networking continues to be the main driver behind much of India’s increased online activity, although social media penetration in India remains remarkably low at just 5%.

Facebook continues to dominate India’s social media landscape with more than 60 million active users, and the world’s most popular platform show no signs of slowing either, adding a new Indian user every single second.

With social networking use expected to grow by more than 50% in 2012, it’s likely that these numbers are also on the conservative side; estimates from eMarketer and Global Web Index both put Indian social networking users above 75 million.

Interestingly, 60% of India’s Facebook users are under 25, with barely 12% over the age of 35. They’re still predominantly male too, with barely 3 female users in every 10 on Facebook.

More than half of India’s social media users purport to use more than one social platform too, with Google+ claiming the second largest user base at around 50 million.

Twitter and LinkedIn are also popular amongst Indian netizens, with each claiming more than 15 million users.

YouTube has particular appeal for Indian audiences too, with 20 visitors every single second. Each month, almost 56 million visitors from India consume more than 4 billion videos – 25% of them via mobile devices.

And it’s mobile usage like this that’s leading the charge towards the future.

With almost 1 billion mobile subscriptions, India’s mobile market is second only to China’s.

Critically, more than one third of these subscriptions are from the rural areas that are home to 69% of India’s population.

Many of these rural areas still lack fixed communication infrastructure (mobile subscriptions outnumber fixed line telephones 30 to 1), so mobile holds the key to India’s evolving digital world.

Tellingly, there are already more than 50 million mobile internet users across the country, but this 36% of users accounts for more than 50% of national internet use.

Smartphone use is also picking up quickly in India, and the nation’s 27 million smartphone users each spend an average of more than 40 days every year using their phones – roughly 16% of their waking lives.

With numbers like that, it’s clear to see why we’re excited about India’s digital future too. We’ll see you there.

The sources for all the stats can be found at the bottom of each slide in the SlideShare deck above. You can also download a high-res PDF of this report here.

The world is waking up to the news that Facebook has acquired mobile photo sharing platform Instagram for a cool billion dollars.

Here is a round up of the reactions from around the webs;

Mark Zuckerberg makes the announcement on his Facebook page;

I’m excited to share the news that we’ve agreed to acquire Instagram and that their talented team will be joining Facebook.

For years, we’ve focused on building the best experience for sharing photos with your friends and family. Now, we’ll be able to work even more closely with the Instagram team to also offer the best experiences for sharing beautiful mobile photos with people based on your interests.

We’re looking forward to working with the Instagram team and to all of the great new experiences we’re going to be able to build together.

You can read his full statement here.

Instagram CEO Kevin Systrom breaks the news via Twitter

The tweet linked through to the Instagram Tumblr where Systrom had posted an official statement;

It’s important to be clear that Instagram is not going away. We’ll be working with Facebook to evolve Instagram and build the network. We’ll continue to add new features to the product and find new ways to create a better mobile photos experience.

The Instagram app will still be the same one you know and love. You’ll still have all the same people you follow and that follow you.You’ll still be able to share to other social networks. And you’ll still have all the other features that make the app so fun and unique.

We’re psyched to be joining Facebook and are excited to build a better Instagram for everyone.

You can read the full statement here.

TechCrunch highlights how Facebook has made way for Instagram;

This is a really big departure from the way Zuckerberg has historically run Facebook as a single product. He has always been insistent that everything feed back into Facebook itself.

Keeping Instagram as a separate product and brand is reminiscent of what Google has done with keeping YouTube and Android as separate fiefdoms within the company following their acquisitions.

The website has also remade their logo in honour of the acquisition. You can read the full article at TechCrunch.

Quora weighs in
Over on Quora the techsperts have been sharing their views. Ryan Charles, former head of mobile at Zagat, said;

If you’ve read The Facebook Effect, you’ll understand how pivotal photo sharing was to Facebook’s growth. The ability to tag a user in a photo was also a tremendous social and viral mechanism for Facebook.

Instagram could easily become a baked in component of a Facebook mobile OS and the team understands how to build a mobile community from the ground up.

Tech commentator Robert Scoble shared his views on the $1bn price tag;

Today Facebook has NO revenues from mobile. None. That’s amazing, since so many people, hundreds of millions of us, use Facebook on mobile clients.

Instagram will let Facebook develop a new kind of Open Graph advertising. One where Facebook will be able to offer mobile developers a lot of money in return for opening their apps up to Open Graph.

Venture capitalists in Silicon Valley are slobbering over this new potential revenue stream, so having lots of VC buy-in (they just got a nice payday) will be very important.

Imagine that Benchmark now “asks” all of its member companies to support such a new advertising scheme? This could result in billions of revenues for Facebook and member companies.

The Guardian highlighted the negative sentiment the deal has garnered;

Instagram and its various analogues have created a legion of smartphone users who are quite literally uploading billions of damaged images into the public record.

Make no mistake, you aren’t an artist. If you were an artist, you wouldn’t be using Instagram in the first place. You certainly wouldn’t be using a filter as a crutch.

At the end of the day, that’s what Instagram filters are: a crutch, a misguided replacement for a properly composed shot and a decent sensor.

- Chris Zeigler, writing at The Verge

The precedent is worrisome, though, if it means every time a startup encroaches on one of Facebook’s presumed strengths it will need to take out its pocketbook to defend its turf. That’s hardly a robust justification for a lofty valuation.

- Robert Cyran at BreakingViews

Twitter explodes
The most vocal outrage has been reserved for Twitter, with everyone from journalists and tech bloggers to Instagram users venting about the deal;

The strangest part of the deal
The Atlantic and Quora also picked up news that Instagram had sealed an extra $50m in funding only last week;

As a former entrepreneur myself, my sense is that there’s no way Instagram would have knowingly shrunk it valuation slice if they knew a potential sale was imminent.

It’s more likely that either the Facebook deal floored them, or that they were using the latest round of venture funding to show off their accelerating valuation to Facebook.

- Matthew O’Brian at The Atlantic

It seems clear that closing the investor round helped Instagram improve its negotiation position/valuation with Facebook. Instagram (closed) a big round that gave it enough money to stay independent for a long time while growing the company.

At that point, Facebook’s only option was to go big or go home.

- Muhammad At-Tauhidi on Quora

Instagram reacts
The existing users of the network reacted both with hubris and humour to the news;

We are still gathering our thoughts here at the We Are Social office, and will be posting them on the blog shortly.

In the mean time, tell us; is this the end of Instagram? Does this change anything? Let us know in the comments.

Americans of all ages turn to the Internet to get their news
A recent study from the Pew Research Center shows that the Internet is the main source of news for 41% of American adults, surpassing newspapers and getting closer and closer to the power of television as a news source. This data confirms a trend that has been visible for at least ten years – that more and more adults turn to the Internet for both national and international news.

But what’s particularly interesting – and new – is that the research shows that in 2010, the 18-29 demographic used the internet as its main source for catching up on the news, ahead of TV:

 
Corporate Blogs are still relevant
A survey covered by eMarketer shows that nearly a quarter of Fortune 1,000 companies have a corporate blog. The survey examined the reasons these companies maintain blogs:

MySpace to limit their international operations
Things aren’t exactly rosy for MySpace at present. The company, which was acquired by News Corporation in 2005 for US$580 million, is set to limit its international operations by announcing a major restructure, according to The Telegraph.

After layoffs that took place a few months ago, MySpace’s international presence extends simply to offices in London, Berlin and Sydney with roughly 150 employees combined. But with this evening’s news that much of the London office will close – leaving just a ‘skeleton’ staff – it’s clear that they’re not really backing the relaunch of the site; indeed, what’s far from clear is what the future of MySpace actually holds.

LinkedIn to go public in 2011?
According to Reuters, the social networking site LinkedIn plans to go public in 2011, although a spokesman for the company said “an IPO is just one of many tactics that we could consider” in the future.

However, news from Silicon Alley Insider doesn’t bode well – they claim that LinkedIn’s ads are not working at all well for marketers, with examples of ads with an average cost per click of $14.89 and very small conversion rates.

Facebook’s revenue figures and 750 million photos over NY weekend
This has been one of the stories of the week. Is Facebook valued too high or even too low? There are opinions across the spectrum, but what is clear is that its business is generating huge revenues. According to documents distributed by Goldman Sachs, Facebook generated $1.2 billion in revenue in the first nine months of 2010 and is expected to keep growing in the next fiscal year.

Talking of years, this one started well for Mark Zuckerberg and co, with almost 750 million photos being uploaded to the site over the New Year’s weekend.

Twitter starts 2011 with a new record
That’s right. Even though we are only 10 days into 2011, Twitter has already started making headlines and breaking records that seemed unbreakable. As published on the Twitter Blog a few days ago, minutes after midnight in Japan on January 1st the company set a new record with 6,939 Tweets sent per second.

This is partly because of the huge growth in mobile for the company – Twitter CEO Dick Costolo revealed at CES that 40% of all tweets come from mobile devices, up from 20-25% a year ago.

To see how Twitter was affected by the New Year, just look at Twitter’s visualisation of how it was slowly brought in around the world.

Why is Quora growing so fast?
Quora, the Q&A service created by Facebook’s former CTO, was founded in June 2009. But it wasn’t until recently that it started gaining traction in the online world and making the rounds of Twitter and several very important blogs. So, why did it take the site more than a year to become “popular” as it doubled its normal activity in the month of December?

Sysomos tried to address this by pointing out the associated spike in social media mentions (especially on Twitter), but also confirming the importance of TechCrunch in the site’s growth.

In spite of the huge number of new registrations, at We Are Social the jury is still out on Quora – with some finding it useless, a point epitomised by this satirical site.

Citibank goes to Twitter
Banks, over the years, have been reluctant to get involved in social media. But at least Citibank has decided to give it a try and start responding to those not happy with their service on Twitter. The man behind the account? None other than Frank Eliason, the who ran the famous @Comcastcares account.

‘Foursquare’ your meal and win a dinner for two
Remember the new photo support that was added to Foursquare in recent weeks? Well, Olive Valley, a restaurant in Brooklyn, has seen an opportunity and has started the first foursquare-based photo contest. Customers are encouraged to take photos of their meals and share them via Foursquare’s check-in system. The best ones that are submitted will win a dinner for two.

Ryan Babel charged for Twitter post
In what is to our knowledge a first, Ryan Babel has been charged by the FA for posting a mocked-up picture of referee Howard Webb in a Man United shirt on Twitter, following Liverpool’s defeat to Man United in the FA Cup 3rd round. This was in spite of later removing the post from Twitter. But it’s hard to sympathise with Babel when it was his dive which meant Arsenal were eliminated from the Champions League in 2008. What’s the Dutch for ‘what goes around, comes around’?

Where did all the spam go?
According to the BBC, spam e-mail levels have been falling dramatically since August, and especially since December.

There is no certain explanation for this unusual situation, but experts agree that this does not mean spam is over – spammers might well simply be targeting new services, such as Twitter and Facebook…

According to recent research by Sysomos, Twitter users have changed. Not only have they grown in numbers: they’ve grown up and have a more mature approach to Twitter.

It’s a collective acquisition of behaviours and uses that shows clearly Twitter is headed towards more engagement and more interaction between people (and brands, too).

A few insights from the research:

• Many have understood the importance of trust: the use of Twitter “bios” to tell people about their identity has increased (31% to 69%);

• Relevance is also important: having a detailed name helps to show a there’s a real person behind the account. Detailed user names have increased (33% > 73%);

• Differentiation is becoming one of the main challenges in social media, and attributes like location or website URL help develop it. Both these parameters have been communicated by many more Twitter users than last year;

• The number of users has increased, but also the average number of followers has grown, proving that new accounts are interacting well, learning from more experienced people;

What do you think about Twitter’s change? Do you feel its users are growing up and have a more effective approach to networking and conversation?

Social media research task force formed
Big news last week from the Council of American Survey Research Organizations, who established a task force to “address the many ethical and methodological issues developing in the wake of social media research’s emergence”. CASRO cites the “unique and complex issues” associated with social media research regarding privacy, disclosure, and the proper handling of data as the driving force for the move. As you’d expect, we see this as an essential step for the industry and we’ll be following developments closely.

Corporate Blogging Goes Mainstream

 
Now, you’ve surely seen this headline many times before. But a recent report by eMarketer estimates that:

34% of US companies will use a blog for marketing purposes this year, a proportion that will continue to grow to 43% by 2012.

The study points to a variety of blogging benefits, such as “communications, lead generation, customer service and brand marketing” driving this trend.

Twitter as stock market predictor
Studies have previously found a link between buzz on Twitter and a movie’s success or failure at the box office, but new research from Indiana University is believed to be the first to study Twitter and Wall Street:

Researchers at a US university found they were able to predict the rise and fall of the Dow Jones Industrial Average with near 90 percent accuracy several days in advance by analyzing messages on Twitter.

Researchers measured the ‘collective public mood’ by looking at more than 9.8 million “tweets” from 2.7 million users of the micro-blogging service during 10 months in 2008.

It’s a pretty amazing finding, and one that I imagine will have some social media specialists out there trying to replicate so as to reap the rewards on the stock market. And with an average 90 million Tweets now being sent per day, I wish them well.

We’ll however be trying to emulate the work of Economist-turned-advertising executive Jason Harper, who has developed a “Velocity and Acceleration” model to predict sales results, based on online conversations.

Foursquare Hits 4 Million Users AND outer space
Location-based mobile game Foursquare has passed four million users, according to co-founder and CEO Dennis Crowley. The service hit the 3 million mark a mere 50 days ago, in August 2010. According to GigaOm, this rapid growth can be explained by Foursquare beginning to “see a network effect — the more people sign-up, the faster it grows.”

Bets on when it will hit 5 million?

Meanwhile, one user is worth noting: Doug Wheelock (Astro_Wheels). He’s a Space Station Commander at the International Space Station, and the first to checkin on Foursquare from space. He was also the first person to unlock a new NASA Explorer foursquare badge. Eat your heart out Neil Armstrong.

The checkin is a part of a larger tie up between Fourtsquare and NASA:

Earthbound users will be able to earn the badge when Wheelock returns to earth in late November by following NASA and checking in at their recommended locations. The locations eligible for the badge are all related to the history of spaceflight, like the US Space and Rocket Center in Huntsville, AL or the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex.

Foursquare tips have been left at each location, making this a pretty cool partnership and a ‘great way for NASA to connect with a younger generation’.

Journalism on Twitter – two different takes
A well-publicised Twitter gaff by a Washington Post staffer last week prompted an internal memo to be sent telling all journalists “not to answer critics from Post-branded Twitter accounts or to use their personal accounts to ‘speak on behalf of the Post’.”

The memo was sent after a controversial guest article was published in the wake of a number of suicides by US teenagers who were bullied for being gay. The article, which argued that homosexuality is a mental health issue, was met with complaints via Twitter and blogs. A post staffer tried to defend the publishing of the article, which only fueled more controversy.  The tweet was later described by the Post as “misguided both in describing our rationale for publishing the piece and as a matter of practice.”

But, while the Post is trying to discourage the use of branded Post accounts to answer critics, The Guardian is taking a slightly different position to social media with their new guidelines.

The Guardian encourages their staff members to participate in conversations about the Guardian’s content, to present facts and embrace reader’s additional knowledge.

Which? launches first online community
Independent consumer rights group Which? has launched its first online consumer rights community, called Which? Conversation aimed at promoting debate around “technology, travel and transport, home and energy and money.” Which? Writers and guest bloggers will be contributing to the community, and the group intends to use it to keep their ‘finger on the pulse of the issues that really matter to consumers’.

Customers Asked to Share Handy Uses for Vaseline
Just in time for Vaseline Petroleum Jelly’s 140^th birthday, the company launched new packaging as part of a wider social media campaign to ask customers about the many ways they use the product “other than its original intended purpose.”

The promotion is being conducted on a dedicated Vaseline Facebook page and on Twitter, and the 140 best use cases will be compiled into a video montage by the brand to share with others. I’m not sure I’d want to be the moderator for that competition.

And there’s more – all entrants will automatically be entered in to a sweepstake having the chance to win a limited edition jar of Vaseline, covered in Swarovski crystals. Which answers the call from millions of male consumers for a jar of Vaseline they can finally leave in plain sight…

Social Media Dominates Asia Pacific Internet Usage
Nielsen announced its Asia Pacific Social Media Report and found the region has undergone an unprecedented level of growth in the past year. Notably, social media is seen as having a noticeable impact on consumer purchasing decisions:

In Asia Pacific, online product reviews are the third most trusted source of information when making purchase decisions, behind family and friends. This is particularly so for purchases of consumer electronics, cosmetics and cars – products where consumers are most likely to base their purchase decisions on online product reviews.

The report looks at Internet usage across Korean, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Australia, New Zealand, India, Singapore and China.

Foursquare in talks with Google, MS and Yahoo! about search partnerships
The Telegraph reports that Foursquare is in talks with the three major search engines which could allow people to look up the most popular bar or restaurant in their area in real-time. Dennis Crowley, Foursquare’s co-founder, has said:

Our data generates hugely interesting trends which would enrich search… Twitter helped the world and the search engines know what people are talking about. Foursquare would allow people to search for the types of place people are going to – and where is trending

It’s worth noting that Twitter’s first commercial deals were with Google, Yahoo!, and Microsoft, licensing its real-time feed of information.

Say Hello to the New MySpace Profiles
After reports of falling traffic figures, it looks as though MySpace is trying to change its fortunes by completely redesigning its user profiles. MySpace confirmed that it was demoing a new look and feel to the site, which includes:

• An improved UI and navigation menu
• A Facebook like newsfeed with a user’s recent activity
• Social network integration with other sites like Facebook or Twitter

Facebook will announce 500 million users; announces 150 million on mobile
In anticipation of hitting the half billion user mark, Facebook is planning to mark the occasion with a new consumer marketing initiative called ‘Facebook stories’ in which they hope to celebrate the impact of the social network on their users’ lives.

The announcement is expected any day now, and will sit alongside other large milestones announced last week, such as hitting 141 million unique visitors in the US (comScore). There are also an estimated 150 global mobile users, according to Facebook’s Head of Mobile Products Eric Tseng, who also indicated last week that we can expect to see Facebook’s “Like” buttons in mobile applications soon.

The New York Times notes that with this impressive growth, comes some grim challenges at the social network grapples with how to handle deaths in the system as older users die:

Now, people over 65 are adopting Facebook at a faster pace than any other age group, with 6.5 million signing up in May alone… People over 65, of course, also have the country’s highest mortality rate, so the problem is only going to get worse.

That said, big steps have been made to improve the ease with which ‘ghosts in its machine’ are identified, and profiles can be “memorialised” such that grieving friends can still post messages on those pages as a tribute.

Apple deleting mentions of Consumer Reports’ iPhone 4 piece on forums
Since the iPhone 4’s release last month, Apple has been going through a bit of a rough time with widespread reports of an antenna design flaw that was causing the mobile signal to degrade and calls to be dropped.

Consumer Reports last week released independent findings that confirmed there was a design flaw with the iPhone 4 which caused problems with its reception. This news spread quickly online, but Apple made the questionable decision of  “deleting threads about the Consumer Reports article from its support forums”, which deepened the crisis further.

Old Spice social media campaign
Last week Old Spice / Wieden+Kennedy turned a lot of heads with its innovative use of social media for its ‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’ campaign. We’ve twice written about the campaign so it needs little summary here – head over to our previous posts to learn more.

Starbucks is the first brand to reach 10 million Facebook fans
Following on the heels of Lady Gaga becoming the first ‘person’ to gather 10 million fans, Starbucks has now become the first brand to collect 10 million fans for its Facebook page. According to Inside Facebook:

The company’s audience of 10 million people around the world has been hard won with marketing, promotions and advertising. Over the years Starbucks has given away free ice cream on Facebook, been recognized by Facebook [for fan page innovation] and was also the most popular brand [on the social network].

Ben & Jerry’s drops email in favour of social media
Ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s is looking to abandon its current email marketing activity in favour of using social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, to engage with customers on an ongoing basis. The decision was based on the feedback they received from customers who would prefer being contacted via social media.  Ben & Jerry’s still plans to send one email update to customers each year, and the company has received “mainly positive feedback on the decision” thus far.

K2 Skis redirects entire company website to Facebook
K2 Skis has made the bold decision to redirect the company’s entire website to its Facebook Fan Page in an effort to boost its fan base. By becoming a Fan of their page, users will be able to see next year’s line up.  All Facebook notes that this is the first time they’ve “ever seen a company shut down their corporate site as part of a promotion,” but it doesn’t appear to be driving significant numbers just yet.

BT uses social media to decide ending for TV ad campaign
BT has taken to Facebook in order to have the public decide the ending to their long-running ‘Adam and Jane’ TV ad campaign. Fans of the “Please don’t let Adam and Jane off the BT home hub advert break up…” Facebook group were given a sneak peak of the ad before it aired this weekend, and asked to vote on the ending which will be aired in late August.

The Human Avatar

The internet is a dark dark place. And Josh is their plaything

This just about sums up The Human Avatar campaign for EA’s new game All Points Bulletin (APB).  To tie in with the customisation available in the new game, APB decided to take a real person and over the course of several weeks transform them into a real-life avatar that will be released in the game – all to be decided by votes via their website. After selecting the candidate Josh, users then voted on his haircut (cyber punk), piercing (septum) and tattoo (back wings).