It was an exciting night for Cybercom at last night’s annual Digital Media Awards. Not only did we take home a whooping nine awards, but we retained our award for Winner of Best Digital Advertising / Marketing Agency, a title we are proud to say we have held for four of the last five years.

MC for the night was Ray Foley with Eamon Ryan TD, Minister for Communication, Energy & Natural Resources as Guest of Honour. Awards were presented in 21 categories, to the companies, people and organisations producing the most stylish, creative and pioneering work in their field.

Up against stiff competition, we took nine awards in seven categories.

Winner in Best in Social Media & Networking for “My Everest Challenge”
Winner in Best Digital Advertising / Marketing Agency
Silver in Best in Social Media & Networking for Powerade Never Give Up III
Silver in Best Digital Design for Coke eBoy
Silver in Best Online Campaign for Powerade Never Give Up–3 Year Story
Bronze in Best Online Campaign for Coke eBoy
Bronze in B2C Engagement for Ulster Bank RBS 6 Nations
Bronze in Online Social Impact Award for “My Everest Challenge”
Bronze in Best in Financial Services for Ulster Bank RBS 6 Nations

All in all, quite the night at the Oscars of Digital Media, not just for Cybercom the agency, but for one of our newest recruits, Ruaidhri Devery, who won gold for the design and development for the application behind The Playhouse.

It may be the end of February, but at Cybercom we feel like we’re at the start of a brand new year…here’s to the future.

Selby
http://www.theselby.com/
Want to see what other creative directors apartments look like? The Selby offers a unique insight into the creative process showcasing artistic people in their own personal space. Since its launch it has branched into advertising with campaigns for Habitat and Nike and it’s currently looking at expanding into live streaming.

NBC Olympics
http://www.nbcolympics.com/olympicpulse/tweet-tracker/index.html
NBC really brings the real time buzz from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics to the rest of the World through its Twitter Tracker.

Record Tripping
http://www.recordtripping.com/
Another additive online flash game… practice your scrolling skills in a great audio and visual experience from the Bell Brothers with backing music by Gorillaz, Beck, Death Cab for Cutie, and Spoon.

Couturious
http://www.couturious.com/
The future of everything is digital, even trying on clothes. Still in beta, when fully released Couturious’ 3D technology and social functionality could really push the styling category forward.

The internet is often hailed as a fantastic collaborative tool, something which allows people to share ideas and come together to solve problems. While that’s certainly true, it’s also so much more. The internet is a way for people to take the things they like, bring them together and create something completely new – the Mashup!

We recently came across this great little ‘story’ of how one mashup inspired another, which itself then inspired a third. What makes this ‘story’ particularly cool is that the final mashup is a brilliant analysis of where mashups came from and why they’re so important.

So it all started last March. AvoidantConsume created a really cool mashup for the Phoenix song Lisztomania. Having always thought the song had an 80′s feel to it, AvoidantConsumer pulled together footage from four classically 80′s movies: The Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Mannequin and Footloose.

Then in May, the GodDamnCobras decided to create a tribute to the AvoidantConsumer brat pack tribute. This took the form of a fun 90 minute shoot on the roof of one of their buildings. They describe it as a “welcome to summer, a goodbye to Heidi, and a tribute”.

So where to next? In February of this year, Normative put together this brilliant analysis of the two videos mentioned above, but also to a third that we weren’t even aware of – a tribute that was made to The GodDamnCobras mashup. So if you only watch one of these videos (though we do recommend you give them all a quick peek), make sure it’s this one. It’s pretty much all you’ll need to know about what a mashup is, where they come from, and, ultimately, why it’s so important that we keep on making them.

Finally, since we’re on the subject of mashups, why not take a look at Cybercom’s own Obama Mashup!

Adobe’s efforts to give their Flash Runtime a solid foothold on emerging smart phone platforms has received a much needed boost with the news that Google are making pro-active moves to fully support Flash on Android devices. Google Product Manager, Eric Tseng made the announcement this week at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona (see article).

Both Flash Player and Flash AIR mobile apps are to be integrated with the platform in an attempt by Google to capitalise on both the demand for Flash content from mobile internet users as well as the substantial Flash Developer Base. It remains to be seen to what degree Flash support will provide a competitive advantage to Android devices over the almost pervasive Apple iPhone which doesn’t directly support Flash in any way.

Apple have strongly rebuffed repeated advances by Adobe, most recently in the case of the Apple iPad, making it unlikely that Apple will ever provide Flash support on its mobile devices. Google have a great deal of catching up to do on the selection of 140,000+ applications currently available on the Apple App Store. Google’s decision to adopt an established runtime, like Flash, appears to be a move to address this.

You can view an unofficial video demo of how Flash will work in the Google Nexus One internet browser.

Adobe have, however, officially announced their AIR application runtime for Mobile devices. For a demo view Adobe AIR on Andriod.

The pace of announcements and the general buzz around the venue was somewhat quieter by the third day of the event. However this is THE event for the mobile industry and – let’s be honest – the future of the Internet so it was another busy day of new product launches, great speakers and significant developments for digital marketing.

Erik Huggers, the BBC’s director of future media and technology, delivered a thoroughly interesting session on mobile entertainment. The BBC is set to launch two applications for news and sport that will make it easier for smart phone users in the UK to access the broadcaster’s content on their handsets. An application for the iPlayer, the broadcaster’s hugely successful catch-up TV service, is under consideration for launch later in the year. The broadcaster will develop the apps first for Apple’s iPhone followed soon after for BlackBerry and Android-based handsets. It also intends to develop versions of the applications for other smart phone operating systems.

The BBC has seen a significant increase in mobile traffic since the start of 2009. The surge has been precipitated by two events: a heavy burst of snowy weather in the UK in February and the death of Michael Jackson in June. Both events triggered massive consumer interest in instantly finding out more information about a major event. ‘What’s interesting is that we saw spikes which we expected to fall back afterwards but the traffic kept growing’, said Huggers. Talk about classic ‘tipping point’ moments!

But the BBC and other content providers face challenges in their relationship with the mobile industry. Huggers listed three in particular, starting with standardisation. ‘The BBC has driven it for 88 years. Somehow we find it strange that burden falls to us to re-purpose our programming for every new product. Can we agree on a standard?’ asked Erik. Cybercom has now heard this same point be made over and over again in Barcelona. Be prepared to hear a lot more as brands are asked to cough off development costs on what’s effectively the same product.

He also signalled a potentially major issue of the mobile network overloading as an increasing amount of video is downloaded by users. Finally, he said, there is an absence of good data on mobile media consumption: ‘We are flying in the dark – the industry needs a set of metrics.’

Daniel Ek, Spotify Co-Founder, told delegates that the firm was in discussions with operators and handset makers to bring its pioneering music streaming service to mobile. This is great news for all fans that the amazing music cloud network is looking at deeper integration with mobile devices. We’re already using it here in Cybercom on their recently launched iPhone platform – well worth checking out if you have a UK credit card and postal address.

We loved Ek’s comments about ‘making all the music in the world playable for you within five seconds’ – what a vision! Interestingly, Spotify users have already past the 100 million playlists mark. In the short term, Ek sees bundling Spotify with tariffs as ‘something we’re going to see a lot more’. He’s adamant that Spotify will become the intermediary between the licensing side of music and the consumer. Who’d argue with him!?

Other highlights today (Wednesday) included a joint venture from Verizon Wireless, the largest US mobile operator, and Skype, the biggest VoIP provider. They’re developing an application that will enable the operator’s 3G smart phone users to make free or cheap international calls. The application – Skype mobile – will be available for download by users of popular Verizon Wireless smartphones from next month. The application has been developed by the two companies to run on the Verizon Wireless 3G EV-DO network.

The alliance confirms a change of attitude among mobile operators who have historically been hostile towards VoIP providers. The Skype mobile application will be offered to users of Verizon Wireless smart phones including BlackBerry models, HTC phones and Motorola’s Droid.

Very interestingly, we heard a contrasting opinion on standardisation for the first time! Hugh Bradlow, CTO of Telstra, Australia’s largest operator, put forward an alternative proposal. He said that customer demand would force the company to support numerous app stores and handset operating systems regardless of the various industry initiatives to reduce fragmentation. ‘We don’t see the growing number of available app stores or mobile operating systems as fragmentation, but as competition. I believe there will still be at least six to 10 mobile OS offerings on the market in the coming years.’ Perhaps the first remotely positive comment in Apple’s general direction all week!

On a slightly more technical point, there has been a lot of buzz around LTE this week. It stands for Long Term Evolution and is the project name of a new high performance air interface for mobile broadband. LTE seems to be the last step toward the 4th generation (4G) of radio technologies designed to increase the capacity and speed of mobile networks. Most major operators in the United States and several worldwide carriers have announced plans to convert their networks to LTE this year. The world’s first publicly available LTE-service was opened by TeliaSonera in the two Scandinavian capitals Stockholm and Oslo in December 2009. This is a very exciting space so worth watching intently this year!

So there you go! We hope you enjoyed our highlights from the Mobile World Congress. As Eric Schmidt said yesterday ‘this event is the place to be for everyone in the industry’. At Cybercom, we’re delighted to be in a position to share our learnings and blog about the industry’s future for the benefit of our clients and friends.

Subaru: Equipo
www.subaru-elaion.com/
When it comes to presenting rich video, stunning photography and all through an intuitive and easy to use navigation, Subaru have out done themselves here. This is a stunning site, offering a wealth of content that begs to be explored. Though we should point out that you may need to brush up on you Portuguese first

Nike: Jumpman23 CP3
nike.com/jumpman23/cp3/
Towards the end of last year we featured the Jumpman23 M6′s and the site that presented them so elegantly. Well step aside M6′s because Nike have just launched their new CP3′s and have done so magnificently – beautiful full video and a robust site, brimming with high quality imagery and information.

adidas: Basketball
youtube.com/adidasbasketball/
Ok, so this isn’t exactly a site but it certainly still makes the Best of the Web. adidas have taken a YouTube channel and really made it home to their basketball offering. This is jam packed with a stunning amount of videos. We dare you not to get lost in here for hours!

G-Star Raw: New York Fashion Week
facebook.com/gstarapp/
If you weren’t online, on Facebook on Tuesday evening you probably missed what was a milestone moment. G-Star Raw streamed their New York Fashion Week Show directly to Facebook from the Hammerstein Ballroom. Don’t worry though, if you did miss it, you can still watch the video!

If you are thinking “no that can’t be right” don’t worry, we were too. It may seem like YouTube has been with us for the last 10 years but the online video behemoth was only 5 years old this week.

In just than 5 years YouTube is now the second biggest search engine on the web behind its parent company Google. YouTube doesn’t plan to stop growing anytime soon. What you can expect to see in the future includes 1080p full HD, 3D, deploying auto-speech recognition technology, broadcasting of more live events, faster loading, high quality videos playable on any device, anywhere, all the time.

Here’s to the next 5 years!

To see the YouTube success story check out a brief history of the company in the below video.

Last night ‘G-Star Raw’ revealed their Fall/Winter 2010 collection at the Hammerstein Ballroom, as part of New York Fashion Week. The Dutch denim label, which recently signed Liv Tyler as the face of its 2010 ad campaign, turned out a collection bursting with bright colours while still remaining true to the G-Star Raw signature style.

Those lucky to be invited to the show did not have exclusive access to the collection. G-Star Raw streamed the show live from their Facebook page for the first time. Online users had the best seats in the Hammerstein Ballroom; from the comfort of their sofa. A mood cloud encouraged users to express their feelings towards the collection throughout the live streaming. The 14 minute and 8 second live show on Facebook went without any problems and gave the user the sense of being so close, they could wave hello to Liv Tyler and Mena Suvari in the audience. Congratulations to G-Star for putting on an unbelievable show and never failing to amaze.

For those that missed it, view it here – http://apps.facebook.com/gstarapp/

WOW! We’ve just finished our first day at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the industry’s annual get together. This is a conference like no other. Perhaps even a year like no other. There is a buzz around, in fact a genuine belief, that the world is about to go through another major paradigm shift.

Hans Vestberg, President and CEO of Ericsson had some very interesting comments to make earlier this afternoon. The jist of his presentation was that we have been through four technical revolutions (Industrial / Steam & Coal / Heavy Engineering / Oil) and are now finished the first phase of the world’s fifth technical revolution. The installation phase of the IT & Telecom revolution is complete and we are moving into deployment.

In layman’s terms, the ‘deployment’ refers to broadening the reach and capacity of mobile broadband – in effect an understanding and commitment that global consumers will demand ‘Internet on the go’. This is very exciting for Cybercom and our clients as it’s in tandem with our approach and thinking around the mobile channel.

Among the other impressive speakers today was Lu Yimin, President of China Unicom, who gave the audience rare and succinct insight into the country’s Internet public and industry. He spoke about how telecoms is the engine driver and pillar industry in China – representing a massive 7% of total GDP. There are now 747 million mobile subscribers in the country (56% penetration) while the 3G network covers a staggering 335 Chinese cities. In fact, 3G development is a core strategic requirement laid down by the government. Here’s to the Year of the Tiger!

It’s been great to hear that the fight against poverty and minimising CO2 emissions seem to genuinely be high on everyone’s agenda here. Predictably this seems to be led by Scandanavia and China but the talk is big and focuses on energy savings through the (much hyped) unified charger and rolling out 3G networks (mobile broadband) in developing countries.

HTC’s product launch was one of the most anticipated events today and the Taiwanese manufacturer certainly did not disappoint. HTC, which built the Nexus One for Google, unveiled three new smart phones – The Legend, The Desire and The Mini. The Legend and the Desire both run the latest version of Google’s Android operating system. There was a lot of buzz around the congress on the back of HTC claims that they will take Android ‘to the next level’. Today seemed like a watershed. It’s as if Android has finally arrived and is about start challenging the iPhone.

The anticipated ‘arrival’ on Android will have massive implications for marketers. At Cybercom, we anticipated that Android would finally make an impact on the global consumer. We are looking forward to redeveloping some of our iPhone applications for Irish Android users during 2010.

So what of Apple? Of course they will remain the largest player in the market definitely in the medium term and probably even in the long term. However they are conspicuous by their absence (or at least light presence) in Barcelona. There also seems to be a growing resentment about lack of integration. This is primarily aimed at Apple but also any companies that steel a march in the mobile web.

Vittorio Colao, CEO of Vodafone, thinks the mobile industry has reached a critical point. He claims lack of application interoperability between different types of phones is THE critical issue at the moment. He challenged the handset makers and software developers to start working together for the greater good. The theme of ‘coming together’ was echoed in one way or another by numerous leading global CEOs and Presidents throughout the day.

Still on Vittorio, he also had some interesting comments on Google and Yahoo – calling on public policy through global regulators and politicians to take a hard look at their growing influence. He has a good point when you consider over 80% of power rests with the search giants.

So, on that point, onwards to the last session of the day! It was delivered by none other than Mr. Eric Schmidt, Google’s CEO and Chairman. We love everything digital in Cybercom so this really was fever pitch stuff, better than any gig or game! In a strange way, the naivety of the organisers projecting ‘Happy Chinese New Year’ as Eric was introduced and the fact that the WIFI network couldn’t deal with the audience capacity just added to the event.

One of the most powerful people in the world told us that there are now more Google searches via mobile than desktop in emerging countries like Indonesia and South Africa. He also spoke about a girl caught in the rubble in Haiti who used messaging to direct her rescuers.

We got a lowdown of Google’s new mobile products – ‘the game changing’ development for the marketing industry is the launch of Flash 10.1 for Android. We can only assume that Apple will follow suit for this summer’s release of the fourth iPhone.

Brilliant new consumer innovations include the launch of Google Voice and Google Goggles (image recognition search) on the mobile. Check out more details of these when you get a chance.

The meeting point of the 3 critical waves seem to be the critical turning point over the last few months:

1. Computing (think Moore’s Law and where it’s going to take us over the next few years)
2. Connectivity (70 million public servers around the world)
3. Cloud (SIM card as an identifier to locate online data storage eg. Spotify)

Convergence is well and truly upon us. The time is absolutely now.

What we have learnt from today is that our agency belief that mobile comes first is actually right on the button. The phone is, well, no longer a phone. It’s the consumer’s alter ego – an extension to everything they do. We’ll leave you with a quote from Eric Schmidt: ‘Put Mobile First, Your Job Is To Create Magic!’

Check out our Twitter feed at twitter.com/cybercom tomorrow for ongoing buzz and news from Mobile World Congress.

The G-Star Raw 2010 Mercedes New York Fashion Week show is finally underway.

Tomorrow, the hotly anticipated G-Star Raw NYFW show kicks off at 7pm, New York or 12am Irish time. You too can be front row – watch the show ‘LIVE’ from Bryant Park, New York City on Facebook from the comfort of your laptop. This is the first time G-Star Raw is live streaming a fashion show on the social network. G-Star is infamous for putting on innovative and creative shows that never fail to amaze. This is one event you don’t want to miss.

Watch it here!