Funambulist

The most disgusting ad format

2007-03-01T09:35:00.000+08:00

The new MSN ad format which I think it's the most disgusting format I ever seen. It appears in my MSN massager today. When you mouse over this ad, a video will pop-up.(In the bottom left of the image) But it won't close when you mouse out. It needs you to click a close button to close the window. You will say this format is actually appearing in most portals. But THIS IS A MSN MASSAGER. You will open it all the time, and the ad like the massager. It will cover all other software. When you are operating your computer, you will mouse over it accidentally all the time. I have to hidden the massager to avoid opening it.

What MSN did is too snobbish and ignore all users' feeling.....

My new blog experiment

2007-02-12T17:36:00.000+08:00

I've set a new blog for experiment and made a Flash template for Wordpress. Now it only can display post title.....

Chinese characters

2007-02-08T09:43:00.000+08:00

Chinese characters are quite hard to handle in browser. You can't make it too small because it's to complicated, you can't embed into flash because the file size will be too big......

The above is what I see the new PCCW Wi-Fi site in my browser. I think that the designer try to embed the Chinese font and make something wrong. I can't see the bodycopy at all. Not only in my computer, I've try other computers and come out the same result. I think that the design house should have more computers in different setting in their testing environment when dealing with Chinese in Flash.

Other than the font display problem, the interaction is quite alright.

Get the Star

2007-02-06T09:28:00.000+08:00

There is a new hip area developed in last few year in Hong Kong - Star Street. Actually, there were only a few shops in the beginning until an enterprise's entry - Swire Properties. Obviously, it was more effective and organized. This is the website developed for Star Street by Swire Properties. Very clear and organized. Nicely done, Swire Properties's style...

What did I do recently?

2007-01-24T14:59:00.000+08:00

I haven't updated my blog for long. So what did I do? I think you will forgive me when I show you this, my latest project showcase – citibiome.com

I've spent quite long time to do this. And I am thinking to move my blog there, and make it into flash…………

Go Shopping

2007-01-05T11:14:00.000+08:00

A very well-designed website for a shopping mall - wtc more, Nice graphic and interaction. Howerver, I've spent some time to find out where the mall is.

O....the location is hidden in a very small footer menu. ... ...

Back from Holiday

2007-01-03T09:28:00.000+08:00

Finally back to office after a 10-days holiday. Have passed a very healthy holiday with sun&sea; diving and windsurfing almost every day, without online for even 1 second. Felt great!!!

The network is still very slow due to the earthquake-damaged cables. Internet connection in Hong Kong should be fully restored by mid-January. The natural disasters not only exposed the weaknesses in global communications, and also the weaknesses of our modern life. Work, communication, entertainment... our daily life has linked to the network. It breaks; our life breaks. I was not in HK on the day of broken network. But I heard from the news, some teenagers expressed that they hardly spent the day without network and MSN. I may be too old to understand it. I still refuse to have network at home. I still think that I already spend too much time on facing computer.

By the way, happy new year !!!

5 cities. 1 party

2006-12-18T14:24:00.000+08:00

Nokia will hold a global music event "Nokia New Year's Eve" in New Year's Eve in 5 cities, Hong Kong, Mumbai, Berlin, Rio and New York. The website mentions (only in Chinese, English version doesn’t mention???) that there will be some sharing and voting features online within or after the event. I'm looking forward to it. Online is the most efficient way to make "5 cities. 1 party" happens. Hope Nokia can come out some innovative idea on sharing. I think that will be cool if the online visitors can interact with the event visitors from other countries.

How much can you share with them?

2006-12-05T15:05:00.000+08:00

Levi's has launched a new Levi's Styling Concept Website for promoting Japanese styling and Japanese style jeans. Other than the shop and product info, a contest is created to ask visitors to sharing their ideas of styling.

Thx! Web2.0, now nine out of ten online campaigns are asking you to share, your comments, your photos, your videos .... It's already too much for the consumers, especially Hong Kong people - the most conservative on expressing ourselves. I've reviewed the campaign I reported before. Vita Lemon Tea has got only 5 entries in the past 1 month; I believe 3 of them are pre-made by agency. I have said that the audiences may not be able to associate them with Vita Lemon Tea. But how about Levi's, one of the top emotional brands, now they only got 1 entry which I think it's created by agency. Let's see how many will they get finally.

Vitual Pet + Real World Offers

2006-11-29T12:14:00.000+08:00

I think you all have experience on growing different kinds of online virtual pets and avatars. We found that most of them were failed to sustain, because the platform needs a lot of effects to maintain the momentum of participation... new dressing, new activities. A lot of online communities based on those TCG games finally ended embarrassingly because of dropping participation. However, a lot of marketers still love it. My Monkey is a new online community based on a TCG game which is growing a monkey. The community also provides a membership card with various offers. The offer information will be delivered in the game. But I don't really get their stress. It stresses on the game? or providing offering? For me, the monkey doesn't appeal to me at all, and there are not many offers......and ... the players needs to PAY !!? :0

Hong Kong Mobile Host for Travellers

2006-11-24T10:16:00.000+08:00

Will you consider come to travel Hong Kong? If yes, you can try a new mobile host audio service provided by Hong Kong Tourism Board. It provides travel information like sightseeing, shopping news, dining recommendations.... via your mobile phone. It is a very good start. I can imagine there will be some video information, Chinese language library, location-based tracking with travel information .... in the future.

HK4As Interactive and Direct Awards Result

2006-11-20T09:37:00.000+08:00

Taken a few days leaves for moving home. Meanwhile, the result of 2006 HK4As Interactive and Direct Awards have be announced. At the top of the list is OgilvyOne BJ, e-Crusade come second. But e-Crusade won the most interactive awards.

But the officical website only have the finalist at this moment.

Campaign promoting Yahoo! Search

2006-11-15T09:47:00.000+08:00

Yahoo! HK has launched an online campaign to promote the improved Yahoo! Search??? Yes, Yahoo! Search... It is an online game like a RPG. You have to search the hints by the Yahoo! Search to discover the "La Buena Vida (Beautiful Life)". But that's too time-consuming for me. I just played a small part and give-up......

E-Marketing Award in Taiwan

2006-11-13T19:49:00.000+08:00

That's the finalists of the E-Marketing Award in Taiwan. You can vote your favourite site online.

Pepsi China New TVC

2006-11-13T16:10:00.000+08:00

As per my report last week, Pepsi China asked people to submit the screenplays for next Pepsi TVC featuring Jay Chou, and voted by the web users. The TVC is launched!!! Howerver, seem like the idea of recruiting screenplays online is good for having noise, but not good for the TVC itself.

Click here to view the Pepsi China New TVC

Canon Baby

2006-11-11T10:02:00.000+08:00

Sorry! Blog again. But this time is a wonderful example from Canon. Canon has cooperated with Yahoo! Blog for a while. This campaign with Yahoo! is promoting using blog for babies and a baby photo competition. Canon really knows their customers and the nature of blog. All parents love to share their babies' photos around or seeing other babies' photos.

What's the hell going on here?

2006-11-10T18:40:00.000+08:00

Who will host her blog under Panadol ?!! Who think that a period pain relief Panadol banner always on the top of her blog is cool ?!! It's reminding you the period pain ???

Panadol launched a new website with a blog platform for its period pain relief product. Use the killing app!!! blog!!!, of course, targeting girls. But have the advertiser ever ask any girl if she willing to blog under them ...................

Design your own credit card

2006-11-09T11:42:00.000+08:00

While Hong Kong is still using card face design and offers to boost the registration, there is a bank in Mainland China has moved one step further. China Mensheng Bank has launched a new DIY credit card - MyIdea for you to design your own card face. A online tool is provided for you to upload your image and make some simple effects. I don't know if there is any bank has done it before. But that's a very cool idea.

Flashed Jay Chou

2006-11-07T09:32:00.000+08:00

That's Pepsi's campaign "Pepsi Creative Challenge – 百事我創百事巨星广告你做主" in Mainland China which is using Taiwanese singer Jay Chou 周杰倫 as their spokesperson. The first phase of the campaign asked people to submit the screenplays for next Pepsi TVC featuring Jay Chou. And it came to the second phase; it asked people to creative a Flash animation!!! on the selected screenplays.

Actually, how many people know how to use Flash in Mainland China? The submission of the written screenplays is a fabulous figure- 26,777. For the second phase of Flash animation submission, it is only 133. That comes to the argument, is it a wise decision of asking people to submit Flash? Although the winning Flash is very cool, I am sure that it must be more fun and more submission if they ask people to pretend Jay Chou and make their DIY TVC by their mobile phone or DC.

Video Video

2006-11-06T10:09:00.000+08:00

Interesting website for a newly opened French household store in Hong Kong - Pylones. Video is used as the main navigation. It is creative, and will be even better when our broadband is faster and the video quality can be higher .

Avenue A | Razorfish Acquires e-Crusade

2006-11-03T09:39:00.000+08:00

Avenue A Razorfish, one of the largest interactive marketing services firms in the U.S. has announced the acquisition of e-Crusade, a creative agency for digital marketing based in Hong Kong and Shanghai. The total purchase price will be determined based on profit contributions from e-Crusade over the next four years and e-Crusade's net asset value on October 24, 2006. A cash payment of HK$23.0 million was paid as upfront consideration on the earnout.

That is the first larger international interactive marketing firm back to Hong Kong after the dot-com bubble burst in 2001. At the bubble building moment, there were a few international firms like ModemMedia, IconMediaLab having their local office here. But they're all gone with the bubble. Now 2006, they are backing for the red hot bubble - the Mainland China

Are you cool enough?

2006-11-01T16:33:00.000+08:00

After the success of YouTube, all clients are really happy of hearing "Web2.0", "User generated contents" such buzz words. More and more online campaigns are asking us to submit our DIY videos. Like this one, Vita Lemon Tea's new campaign is asking people to submit their cool videos. But I really doubt the effectiveness of those online campaigns. Actually, the sharing idea is all about if the audiences want to associate them with the brands and its value. I am not sure how many people think that Vita Lemon Tea is cool. Seem not much.....

Run Nike Run!

2006-10-30T12:16:00.000+08:00

Nike Hong Kong 10K Challenge is one of the popular sport events in Hong Kong. The Website not only features the information of the events, and also a game and BBS. The interface is using a virtual town, and you control your runner to discover the information and other players' messages. The website itself is done very well. But I don't really get the meaning of the topic of the BBS - "Create Your Competitor"- I create my competitor? but using my name? then leave my message? and what's the meaning of the icon???

Do you like playing golf?

2006-10-27T09:13:00.000+08:00

Do you like playing golf? I don't. The HSBC Golf campaign don't seem to target me, even I have a HSBC account for over 25 years. But the HSBC is not Hongkong Bank any now. It is further consolidating its international premium bank position by ignoring most of local Hong Kong people. It do have promotion banners ( I think I've seen it before) and SEM in major potals in Hong Kong. But it don't have Traditional Chinese version for locals. HSBC is really international.

The game don't raise my interest. Can anyone playing golf tell me if it is interesting.

Cool Site from Mainland China

2006-10-23T09:56:00.000+08:00

It's the first Mainland China site introduced here. It's a really cool site from Mainland China which is promoting M-zone Hip-Hop Dance Competition 2006. Very well mixture of Chinese elements, street style graphic and latest web technology.

I.T

2006-10-20T16:30:00.000+08:00

That's my latest work for I.T which is using Flash to simulate a 3D environment. It's showing a unlimited space for exploration and creativeness projected by I.T.

New Government Portal

2006-10-20T10:02:00.000+08:00

Hong Kong Government has silently launched an information portal. It is an one-stop portal providing all information from different government departments. The information is categorized by various topics - that's an improvement from www.info.gov.hk which is department oriented. The initial direction is good, but there is a lot of space to improve. But I think it is just a test run for gathering feedback, since the information is not that much at this moment. It will be good if there is a personalized page like myYahoo or RSS feed to centralize all government news subscribed.

Yahoo! Time Capsule collects a portrait of the world

2006-10-19T14:11:00.000+08:00

Yahoo has launched a project of building a digital Yahoo! Time Capsule. Users can submit photos, writings, videos, audio or even drawings under themes such as love, anger, fun and faith. It will be sealed and entrusted to Smithsonian Folkways Recordings based in Washington D.C.. And Yahoo plans to open the time capsule in 2020.

The capsule was designed by artist Jonathan Harris. The submissions will be collected until 8 November.

The fun can be shared

2006-10-18T14:59:00.000+08:00

Really fun Flash game Line Rider reported by Quasimondo. That's so much fun that there are already many stunts show how they play it on youtube. Fun can be shared ....thx Web2.0

All for the girls

2006-10-18T09:40:00.000+08:00

According to research from Breakthrough, 75% teenagers in Hong Kong have or used to have their own blog. Blog seems to be the place where teenage speak and communicate. Clear and Clean has launched a blogthing targeting this group, especially school girls. It's 3 blogpetz for their members to download.

The petz has 4 life-cycles. Users are supposedly to feed and play with the petz regularly to grow them. At the same time, the petz will provide users with product information and tips. The visitors of users' blog can play with the petz as well. And the most important that their friend can also see the marketing message.

Hotter Halloween

2006-10-17T09:20:00.000+08:00

Halloween was getting hotter year by year, as well as Ocean Park. Various joint promotions were created with other brands. A lot of online campaigns are giving out the Halloween Bash tickets, like Pringles, Clean and Clear and Mega. Halloween Bash is already representing Halloween in Hong Kong.

The website is lovely as well. The execution is just like a fantasy movie website from Hollywood.

is it moving you?

2006-10-16T14:21:00.000+08:00

Smartone-vodafone has launched a new campaign Get Moving to promote mobile broadband. Large amount of video are created for the site. And satellite imagery is used in one of the interfaces to present the usage of broadband everywhere. But the satellite imagery here is just a image.I think it can be more impressive if geotagging can be implemented in the comments and photo submission to emphasize the feel of everywhere. To know more about geotagging, go Frappr.

2006 HK4As Interactive and Direct Awards

2006-10-16T09:47:00.000+08:00

The 2006 HK4As Interactive and Direct Awards will be announced on 15-11-2006. The website is fully reflecting the judging direction. Creative and interaction are much more important than the user friendliness.

My first post

2006-10-14T15:29:00.000+08:00

This is a blog about online marketing and new media news in Hong Kong. Over the time, I will put the recent online marketing campaigns and website launched in Hong Kong, hopefully Mainland China. Hope it can be a channel for my fellows to know each other. But at least, it can keep me observing the market. Obviously, I won't know the entire thing happening over the internet. Please update me if you notice anything interesting.

Obviously, this blog should starts with blog. I have been searching around for the suitable blog platform for myself. I have been registered quite a lot of platforms to see which one is better. And I found that it may be easier to design my own website rather than using CMS from xanga, yahoo. But the CMS platform can actually help me a lot on managing the content.

ok..The top advertisement of xanga and myspace is too big, yahoo has too much limitation, even it should be the most popular in HK. Finally, I pick blogger beta. It is much better the blogger. It has all basic features I needed, and it is the nicest looking one......At the end, I am a web designer.