bv02 Blog

06 Feb

The Social Media Bowl

Three and a Half Million Dollars

That’ll raise a few eyebrows. That’s also how much some companies are spending on one 30 second TV spot during the Super Bowl. Sounds a bit insane, doesn’t it? Then again, it is The Super Bowl – arguably the best entertainment event of the year. In fact, Super Bowl 45 in 2011 drew an estimated 111 million viewers in the US alone. Now that’s and audience. But as far as ads go, we all know what to expect. Budweiser, Pepsi and General Motors will inevitably make a splash, engaging the male-centric audience with cheap laughs and sex appeal. Some things just don’t change. In fact, over the last ten years, those three companies have spent a combined $897 million on Super Bowl advertising alone.

While most Canadians were commercial starved and restricted to terrible local ads, Hyundai and Fiat did hit home with their ads. But let’s be honest, the real advertising game, as we all know, is played south of the border. And I’m sure by now you’ve all YouTubed the best American Super Bowl commercials of 2012.

However, every year there are new players in the (advertising) game. Last year we saw social sites Living Social, Groupon and Salesforce’s Chatter.com fork up the big bucks to make their mark. Was it worth it? Who knows. There is one thing I know for sure, and that is who won the Super Bowl…again. And no, I’m not talking about Eli Manning and The Giants. I’m talking about Social Media.

#WeAreTheChampions

Yup, they did it again. Social Media is your Superbowl champion. Now I know what you’re thinking. “Facebook and Twitter didn’t run any ads, what are you talking about?” That’s the thing – they didn’t have to. Everyone else did it for them. While spending over $3 million to promote their own brand, most companies also encouraged viewers to visit their Facebook Page or Follow them on Twitter. And of course let’s not forget the aforementioned YouTube that millions of people will flock to in order to relive these ads, over and over again.

I can see it now – Mark Zuckerberg, sitting back comfortably in his California home with a little smirk on his face every time his company’s name was mentioned in front over 100 million people – for free. It doesn’t get much sweeter than that.

While Facebook dominated last year’s Super Bowl, Twitter made a huge push this year. Some mega-brands utilized hashtags in their campaigns to drive conversation on Twitter, including Audi’s #SoLongVampires ad, a brilliant move to not only generate buzz around their product, but giving them the ability to track the conversation. Furthermore, Twitter announced last night, via their Twitter account, that during the last 3 minutes of the Super Bowl there was an average of 10,000 Tweets per second – a new record.

Chevrolet took a different approach, targeting the mobile market with their interactive trivia application that let users play along during the game for their chance to win one of 20 Chevy’s, while of course sharing their experience via their social networks.

It’s a Social Game

When the Patriots and Giants last met in the 2008 Super Bowl, Twitter was still in it’s infancy and Facebook only had a mere 100 million users. But oh have times changed. Four short years later, Facebook is approaching 900 million users world wide and Twitter has become the ultimate real-time communication tool. Twitter adoption in the NFL is arguably higher than any other major sports league as teams, fans, reporters and players alike have embraced this tool. In fact, of the players in this year’s SuperBowl, 64 of them are on Twitter. Incredible.

So this begs the question – have the NFL and the Super Bowl become more social, or has society?

We are not only seeing a huge shift in traditional advertising, but also in the way we communicate as human beings.

Tags: advertising, facebook, Social Media, Super Bowl, Twitter, YouTube
Categories: Social Media, Web

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03 Feb

WTF is with all the Web Acronyms?

by: Jason Faber 2 Comments

Ah, acronyms. They are supposed make things easier, and shorter. Right? Then how come there are so many ridiculous web acronyms out there? What do they all mean? Just say what you want to say! Are people really that lazy that they can’t type an extra 12 letters? Most of the time, people end up having to explain what the acronym means, so it’s really not all that efficient.

You’ve gotta admit, it’s getting out of hand. It seems that all started with chat and text messaging. People got lazy and shortened sayings, and full sentences into acronyms. Even sayings that weren’t common became common acronyms, like ROFL. Does anyone ever really want to say that they are “Rolling On Floor Laughing?” No, they don’t.

Recently, a few of our clients have expressed their frustrations with not being able to understand this new language. And it got us thinking, they’re right! We’ve decided to throw together a list of the most common, and annoyingly frustrating, acronyms that we’ve come across on the web. Here we go.

b/c – Because

BRB – Be Right Back

BSTS – Better Safe Than Sorry

BTW – By the Way

DTMS – Does That make Sense? …well no, it doesn’t!

DWMT – Don’t Waste My Time

JK – Just Kidding

LMAO – Laugh My Ass Off

LOL – Laugh Out Loud

NP – No Problem

OMG – Oh My God

ROFL – Rolling on Floor Laughing

TBMS – To Be More Specific

TCFC – Too Close For Comfort

THX – Thanks

TMI – Too Much Information

TMSIDK – Tell Me Something I Don’t Know

TTYL – Talk to You Later

WTF – What the F-…well you know.

YNK – You Never Know

I’m not saying that we should get rid of acronyms all together. I myself am quite guilty of using them from time to time, and they can in fact be useful. But it’s going too far. I am just waiting for the day when I open an email and all I see is acronyms.

If you have any acronyms to add to our list, please feel free to comment. Also, if you have any questions about any acronyms that we didn’t cover we’ll do our best to answer you!

Tags: Internet, Social Media, social networking, technology, Twitter, Web
Categories: Web

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24 Jan

Guess who is now a Certified Sitecore Partner!

by: Scott Mulligan No Comments

That’s right, it’s us! We are very pleased to announce that bv02 is now an official Sitecore Partner!

Sitecore is a fully featured enterprise-scale CMS platform that is well established and has received global recognition as an industry leader. As a certified Sitecore Partner, bv02 will be able to leverage the power and flexibility of Sitecore with our creative approach to yield some amazing results.

Here is a short list highlighting some of the features that Sitecore has to offer:

Sitecore features the ability to run multiple websites and administer each site in multiple languages. This is important as more and more organisations use their online presence to reach a global audience.
Sitecore is integrated with a Digital Marketing System that allows its websites to better interact with the user. This leads to better customer engagement because you are able to tailor the user experience based what the user needs. For example, you may wish to serve different content to a user based on what region of the world they are from.
Optimize the content for all the different devices your audience may use to browse your website. Whether it be mobile, a tablet, or through a RSS feed, Sitecore can detect and send the optimized content to your users.

Here at bv02 we understand the importance of continually evolving in order to better meet the needs of our clients. That is why we are so excited to add this award winning Content Management System to our growing arsenal of solutions.

Tags: bv02, bv02 office, bv02 team, CMS, mobile, mobileweb, sitecore, tablet, website
Categories: Web Development, Website Design, bv02 office

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18 Jan

Google Tests QR Code Enabled Logins

by: Jason Faber No Comments

Earlier this week Google launched a new way to securely login to your Google Account on public computers using QR codes and your smartphone. Simply visit accounts.google.com/sesame on the public computer where a QR code will be generated. Using your smartphone, scan the QR code. If you are already signed into your Google account on your phone, scanning the QR code will confirm that the user is in fact you. If you are not already signed in, you will be asked for your login details on your smartphone. In doing so, you have avoided typing in your password on a potentially insecure computer. Unfortunately, Google has concluded this experiment offering the following statement:

Hi there – thanks for your interest in our phone-based login experiment.

While we have concluded this particular experiment, we constantly experiment with new and more secure authentication mechanisms.

Stay tuned for something even better!

Dirk Balfanz, Google Security Team.

As security and privacy concerns continue to be among the greatest issues for Internet users, we expect to see more and more features like this QR Code login. Stay tuned for more updates!

Tags: Google, Privacy, QR codes, Security
Categories: Web, technology

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16 Jan

CES 2012: TVs Make a Comeback

by: Scott Mulligan No Comments

After a week of new technology on display at CES 2012 the overwhelming feeling I’m left with is that there was nothing really all that overwhelming.

CES was in full swing again this year with its extravagant invite-only parties, out of place celebrities, and the annual painfully awkward Keynote from Microsoft (Although Microsoft will not be attending next year’s event). However one of the disappointments of this year’s show was that there was no clear-cut “winner”. There was no single product or technology that the tech world will be talking about for months to come. Having said that, the general consensus from Las Vegas seemed to be that TV’s were among the most interesting technologies to be found around the show floor this year.

Last year the TV industry was pushing 3D pretty hard at CES and it didn’t really hit home with consumers as TV sales have been a bit lackluster in the past 12 months. Last year all the major players in the TV industry released products that seemed oddly identical in functionality. Let’s face it, at CES last year the only question you had to ask about a TV before moving on was “Is this an active or passive 3D TV?”.

This year it seems as though TV manufacturers have learned from that and have begun to differentiate themselves in various ways. While nearly all the TVs on display this year were again 3D capable, the big change was that 3D was not the main feature they were showing off to consumers.

Let’s take a look at some of the cool TVs and technologies that were unveiled at CES 2012:

Large Scale OLED TVs

LG’s 55-inch OLED TV - Source: The Verge

While OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) displays are nothing new, a 55-inch OLED TV is a pretty cool sight. LG and Samsung both unveiled 55-inch OLED TVs which were visually stunning in both physical appearance and TV performance.

Small and expensive OLED TVs have been on the market for some time and OLED screens are quite common in smartphones but large OLED displays are definitely a rarity. Even though OLED has the potential to out perform any other current flat panel display technology the barrier keeping OLED TVs out of consumer’s living rooms is the high cost. You can expect to see Samsung and LG release large scale OLED TVs in the second half of 2012 at prices around $10,000. While an exciting technology, the high price point means most consumers will have forgotten about this technology until new OLED TV’s are showcased at next year’s CES.

Smart TVs

The TV industry decided to get on another bandwagon this year. It was the year of Smart TV’s. In general, a “Smart TV” is one that has internet connectivity so that it has the ability to offer content in the form of apps, media streaming, and general web browsing. While last year saw the initial release of Smart TVs, their functionality was rather limited and they were only found in top tier televisions. The interesting thing about Smart TVs is that manufacturers have all implemented it in different ways leading to some differentiation in terms of TV software. For example, Samsung, LG and a number of other manufacturers showed off ways to use voice and motion-control to interact with TVs.

We’ll see how consumers feel about internet ready TVs since purchasing an internet connected set-top box can lead to much of the same functionality without the need to buy an expensive new TV (You can guess which way I’m leaning on this debate).

4K Displays

LG’s 84-inch "ultra-definition" 4K TV - Source: Engadget

As expected, a host of companies showed off 4K displays at CES this year. This ultra definition display has approximately four times as many pixels crammed into the screen as current HDTV’s. This would particularly be useful for extremely large screens where 1080P just doesn’t provide enough resolution. So you can bet you’re probably not going to see this technology in smaller TV’s such as 40-inch sets because it is not needed at that size.

While most manufacturers said they would have 4K TVs in stores this year for consumers, the real problem is that there is absolutely no content available to take advantage of the new ultra definition screens. Similar to the lack of 3D content which is holding back 3D TVs, most experts believe that it will be even harder to find 4K content anytime soon. There is literally nothing to watch in the 4K format. The lack of content probably explains why this technology did not garner as much attention as other TV technologies that were announced at CES. Cable and satellite companies do not even broadcast in 1080P yet so there is little hope of them adopting the 4K format anytime in the coming years.

Panasonic’s CTO noted this problem at CES and said that he foresees the initial demand for 4K displays to be in niche markets like for medical use. He also said that as for your living room, “It’s going to be a while. It’s not a technical issue. The biggest issue is the content”.

CinemaWide HDTV’s

Vizio’s CinemaWide HDTV featuring a 21:9 aspect ratio - Source: The Verge

Vizio showed off an unusual but intriguing line of HDTV’s they call the CinemaWide collection. They are some of the first TVs to use an aspect ratio of 21:9 which is the aspect ratio used in most theatres. The result is the elimination of those nasty black bars on your television while viewing widescreen content.

Since these TVs are so wide, another cool feature announced by Vizio is that the CinemaWide TVs will allow users to access the web while simultaneously viewing 1080P content on the same screen. I think this is great because I like the idea of watching TV while having TV apps open at the same time. In some cases the apps may even be able to interact with the content on the screen. I’m not sure this will be possible just yet but I think it is a good step in the right direction.

Conclusion

While CES was undoubtedly a fun and exciting week for any gadget lover, this year’s edition represented an evolution in technology over anything revolutionary. This was certainly seen in the TV industry as most new TV features were really just refined features from last year and new TV technologies that were announced are still a long way from entering your living room.

Does any of this new tech peak your interest? Does the idea of a Smart TV appeal to you?

Tags: 3D, 4K Display, CES, Cinema Wide HDTV, LG, OLED TV, Samsung, Smart TV, technology, TV, Vizio
Categories: technology

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13 Dec

The Art of the Interview

by: Matt No Comments

Here at bv02 we have shot many a two person interview (or two up). Here are some gear/layout tips and tricks to make the interview looks amazing.

Gear:

We primarily shoot with Digital SLR cameras. After breaking a handful of expensive bodies, we settled on the Canon 550D, which balances video quality and price quite nicely.

For interviews we always shoot prime lenses, switching between the Canon nifty fifty, and the Sigma 30mm 1.4

All of our audio is recorded separately on a Zoom H4n using Sony Lavalier microphones. This ensures high quality, noise free recording.

And of course transportation. All of our gear is transported using Pelican 1510 cases. These cases have taken us from the heat of Silicon Valley, to the ice and snow above the Arctic Circle.

We light all of our travel shots with the Kino Flow DIVA light 401 kit. This allows for a wide even portable light source, that can be broken down quickly without damaging the bulbs.

For synching audio and video we have a purpose built iPad app called Syncslate. This gives us timed beats and their matching numbers in the video to make it easy to match up. You can download Syncslate here

The Shoot

Our interview setup is fairly straightforward, but has many variables. Cameras are set for minimal depth of field, so ensuring the talent is in focus in a serious job. All audio is recorded separately, so syncing must be done in post.

Talent is set up beside each other at an angle, and both cameras are set with the same lens to focus on the subject. Introductions and establishing shots will be recorded after the interview. The location of the light is also fluid, dependant on the lighting of the room, depth of the background etc.

Categories: New Media, Video, Web

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09 Dec

The Christmas S.W.E.A.T.E.R. Project

by: Jason Faber No Comments

Fresh snow in the morning, ginger bread flavoured everything and shiny lights at every store front. The holiday season is official upon us. A time of generosity where we give back to those less fortunate than us. In that spirit, bv02 has decided to make a difference this holiday season by helping out those in need – our mobile phones. Year after year millions of people neglect their smart phones during the holiday season, letting them fall by the wayside to the harsh elements of the Canadian winter.

It’s gone on long enough. It’s time for us to take action. It’s time for the Christmas S.W.E.A.T.E.R. Project!

The Christmas S.W.E.A.T.E.R. Project is an organization of passionate smart phone enthusiasts dedicated to changing the lives of smart phones. Their mission is simple:

Save Wireless Electronic Activated (Mobile) Technology Everywhere Right (Now).

How you ask? Our volunteers have dedicated hundreds of hours to hand-knitting each and every customized sweater to ensure the warmth and comfort your smart phones needs this winter.

Give the gift of warmth this holiday season by wrapping your phone or in a hand knit Christmas S.W.E.A.T.E.R. Take a photo of your cozy device, and share it with us on Facebook or Twitter to win a customized sweater for your laptop or iPad. Don’t have a Christmas sweater? Then show us how you keep your phone warm during the winter months!

Remember, it’s four easy steps: Wrap, Snap, Submit and Enter to win!

Tags: bv02, bv02 christmas, bv02 office, bv02 team, christmas, contest, facebook, Twitter
Categories: Web, bv02 office

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02 Dec

Running a Network of Sites with WordPress Multisite

by: Paul Wright No Comments

One of the great and somewhat recent features of WordPress, the ubiquitous free and open-source content management system, is multisite, allowing you to operate a connected group of related websites. This is amazing because you can share code (including themes and plugins) between the sites, access all of the sites with one user account and decide if your sites will all have the same look or individual designs. Each site can have their own URL and technically don’t have to be related at all; WordPress.org famously hosts more than 23 million blogs, all from one installation of WordPress multisite. Combined with the simplicity of entering content into WordPress and the vast developer support, it’s definitely worth consideration for your next project.

bv02 has taken the WP multisite approach for Algonquin College, helping them create sites that have their own content and style, while maintaining consistency and keeping the codebase small and manageable. This gives consistent navigation for visitors, predictable URL structure and search engine indexing and one-click updates that apply across the entire network.

bv02 and Algonquin College are in the process of redesigning dozens of sub-sites that make up Algonquin’s online offering. bv02 has developed one master theme, activated on each site, containing the content areas, network-wide navigation, logo and base functionality that each of the sites will need. By creating plugins that enable configurable widgets with smart defaults for style and content, each of the sub-site owners can add calls-to-action, banners, news and events that fit the Algonquin brand, are fast to deploy, easy to maintain. For an example of what we’re doing with Algonquin, check out the Algonquin College Alumni site here http://www3.algonquincollege.com/alumni/

Is multisite right for you?

WordPress multisite adds a little complexity to your blog install and may be overkill for some projects. So how do you know if it’s right for you?

1. Your sites are connected by a common thread

In the case of Algonquin College, each department needed their own site including navigation, users, custom callouts and blog posts, yet still be a part of a larger site. This was a perfect use case for WordPress multisite. If there is no connection between the sites, there may not be a reason to use multisite, unless…

2. One (or a few) site administrators

Multisite allows a ’super administrator’ to access the network-wide backend as well as the backends for each of the sub-sites. This can cut down on site maintenance because updating a plugin in the network-wide backend updates the plugin for all sub-sites. Users can be managed across the whole network.

3. Smaller codebase

If you run 10 WordPress sites, each in single install mode, all of those installs have a theme and in most cases a few plugins. Multisite allows you to activate the same theme and plugins on any of the sites in your network, greatly reducing the codebase.

How is it done?

If you think WordPress multisite is right for you, how do you get started? First, you can download WordPress here and follow the famous 5-minute install here.

Then open up your wp-config.php file in your favourite code editor and add the following line anywhere above the /* That’s all, stop editing! Happy blogging. */ line:

define('WP_ALLOW_MULTISITE', true);

Now, sign in to your WordPress backend and head to the “Tools” section and notice that an extra menu item has been added called “Network Setup”.

Fill in the fields, hit install and just like that you’re ready to start. If you need any help, connect with us here: http://bv02.com/contact and on Twitter: http://twitter.com/bv02

Categories: Web, Web Development, Website Design, technology

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04 Nov

bv02 at Martini Madness

by: Krystin No Comments

The bv02 team was out in full force at the 6th Annual 2011 Martini Madness event last night, which raised over 25K for the Crohn’s and Colitis Foundation of Canada (CCFC)!

Our own Matt Davidson helped out with the event and his skills behind the camera were showcased in his photos that were featured in the art show portion of the event.

Ottawa law and creative elite made up the 300 that were in attendance at LAGO bar and grill. Hosted by Darren Pang, announcer for TSN, a silent (and loud) auction took place, with proceeds going to the CCFC.

bv02 can’t wait for next year’s event, and hopefully more awareness of this disease will prompt people to donate and help find a cure!

Tags: bv02 team, fundraising
Categories: bv02 office, community

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