• PSFK
• Creativity Online
• Agency Spy
• The Denver Egotist
  

• BuddyPress Inspiration
• WPMU.org
• @pgibbs (BuddyPress core development team)

But I’m in two minds about the accolades. On the one hand, it’s flattering when your work is praised in publications that you’ve looked to for inspiration. Then again, the positive reviews in the ad press fit quite nicely with the meme that the ad industry as a whole is more interested in giving itself awards for “creativity” than in meeting its clients’ business objectives. Even I have a hard time talking about Zombies Vs. Hippies without admitting that not very many people actually played the game – although our problems were due mainly to unfortunate timing and a surprisingly small number of students with compatible smartphones.

But that wasn’t really the point of this project. Essentially, it was an elaborate usability test for Microsoft to learn how Tag could be used in a campus setting. Sure, it would have been great to have thousands of kids playing our game. But even though that didn’t happen, we know why it didn’t happen and we know what needs to be different in future implementations. In that sense, the project was definitely a success.

Along the way, we learned a few things about 2d barcodes (i.e. Tags & QR Codes) in general. Basically, there’s probably not much substance behind their being this marketing flavor-of-the-month. As anyone who’s ever worked in retail can tell you, there’s nothing inherently cool about scanning barcodes. The reason stores uses them is that they’re faster and more accurate than having employees manually type in SKUs at the register – i.e. they’re a more efficient way of doing something that you have to do anyway.

No one wants to download an app, install it, and scan a barcode for its own sake. (At least, that’s what we found with CU students.) In fact, those extra steps can actually turn people off, especially if what you’re asking them to do could be accomplished just as well by typing a short landing URL into their browser. So make something that people want, and make it accessible in the easiest, most intuitive way possible. If that happens to be a 2d barcode, that’s what people will use. Otherwise, they’ll use something else.

Learn more about Zombies Vs Hippies

Zombies vs. Hippies is a mobile game developed in conjunction with Austin-based Exopolis as a pilot program for Microsoft Tag. As the Project Lead and Technical Director, I kept all aspects of the project on track while also developing the bulk of our custom BuddyPress theme and plugins. Fortunately, I was working with a boatload of witty and gruesome graphics and copy from a talented creative team. If you happen to be in Boulder, look for the posters around town and join the game! The prize list compares favorably to most bike races.

DoYouHave5Dollars uses the mechanics of daily-deal and limited-sale websites to make it easy for people learn about issues and contribute to nonprofit organizations. I’m working with two other BDW students on this, and we believe that a simplified experience can help users connect with causes outside of the ones they already know and support. DoYouHave5Dollars launched our beta on Tuesday with StandUp For Kids-Boulder and today we’re featuring The WILD Foundation. Please check out the site and – if you have 5 dollars – make a donation.

Bike-wise, I’m continuing my copywriting and web content production with the good folks at Zipp. And I’ll be taking on a few new projects in 2011…

Granted, Kristof’s photo was the one that I used in my blog post and he mentioned the poll on Twitter and Facebook. So that gave him a leg up, for sure. Regardless, here’s what he had to say for himself.

How did you get started with the cycling photography project?

I live in Belgium, that alone should explain a lot… Having a passion for cycling is second nature to many of my countrymen. I’m no exception to that rule.

I’ve been working as a (TV)video-director for fifteen years now and during that period I’ve made several pieces on cycling for national tv. Almost 2 years ago I expanded my business and became a professional photographer (commercial and editorial portraits). So now I’m a director and a photographer. As a photographer I grew quickly and acquired new techniques, but wasn’t able to use them to the fullest in my professional work. Being a creative person I really needed these techniques to come out and decided to devote more time into personal projects so I could develop a personal style (without somebody imposing limits)

I quickly decided I wanted to portray (top/ProTour) riders… because that would combine 2 passions: cycling & photography. But one thing was clear to me from the start: I would make NO compromises on how I would portray them AND it couldn’t be in a traditional way… the pictures had to have something ‘different’ about them. That’s when I decided to portray the riders JUST BEFORE the race; when they were preparing to go to the start. I hadn’t seen a series like that before.

Choosing this approach had some other advantages. The most important being: riders have to prepare and wait BEFORE a race. That meant I had more chances of actually meeting them in a relatively relaxed mood. NO WAY this would’ve been possible AFTER a race…

Was it hard to get access at the races?

As mentioned before; I live in (Cycling Crazy) Belgium. From the end of march until early october there are, almost constantly, cycling races (with world-class riders) I can attend within a 100 mile radius of my home.
As soon as the road-races stop, cyclo-cross takes over. Again: at least 3 races a week with all the top riders (over the last 12 years Belgium won 10 world-championships…)

Cycling is an extremely crowd-friendly sport. Riders are very accessible and even with the top-riders you can easily get lucky if you are a little persistent (but always respectful!). Organisers in Belgium don’t have the habit of keeping the crowd away from team-busses at the start of races. So, if you look around and pay attention you can easily walk up to a rider and ask him if you can make a portrait… easy as 123! Although I light my ‘portraits’ with a softbox, they are made very fast: I always make sure I only ‘take’ about 15 seconds of a riders time and I always wish them the best of luck. I work with an assistant to be able to do this.

I was able to do this whole series without any accreditation whatsoever.

Did the riders and teams like how the photos came out?

I heard from some riders that they really liked what I did (via Twitter and via some personal contacts). I was able to send some riders their pictures, wich was nice.

Also the (overall) response after putting them on Flickr and Facebook has been enormous! I simply couldn’t believe how many people reacted and saw them. As a direct result of these pictures it landed me a job with a Belgian manufacturer of cycling-wear and I ended up doing (and restyling) their new catalog. That was simply fantastic!

Now there are plans of perhaps doing a book and an exhibition… these plans are still in a very early stage, but it’s all very exiting!

What’s your take on “mainstream” cycling photography?

If I look at pictures in Procycling or CycleSport I mainly see the same (decent) pictures over and over again. I’m not too bothered with that, but I don’t see much variety. In the case of Procycling there also seems to be but ONE (main) supplier of images: (my countryman) Tim DeWaele. He’s a very good cycling photographer, but it’s pretty straightforward photography. That of course is not his fault, but the photo-editors’. At least have several photographers contribute, to have a variety of styles at their disposal. Tim DeWaele and Graham Watson seem to be the only players in that segment of the market: very good craftsmen who’ve earned their stripes, but 2 is simply too few to cover the enormous range of posibilities.

I’d love to see a cycling magazine that combines the styles of different photographers such as: Stephan Vanfleteren, Tim Kölnn, Brent Humphreys, Simon Keitch, Ken Conley, Geoff Waugh, … that would bring the spirit/passion of cycling onto the pages instead of the more ‘newslike’ pictures that dominate the mainstream cycling magazines today.

I’d also love to see what photographers from different disciplines (skating/surfing/…) would bring to the table if they were to do cycling pics…

Notes

Second place in the poll went to Catherine Wygal’s image of the peloton crossing the Golden Gate Bridge in the pouring rain during the 2009 Tour of California.

Obviously, I’m a fan of Kristof’s work and I think his body of work was the freshest portrayal of cycling that I saw this year. But among the individual images in the poll, I’d have to give the slightest of edges to Walter Bendix Schönflies’ image from Paris-Roubaix.

Thanks to everyone who voted and congratulations to all the photographers who took an unconventional approach to shooting in cycling in 2009.

Here’s the Tour de France follow-up to my comparison of the Race Tracker used by Universal Sports for the Giro d’Italia to the Tour Tracker used by AEG for the Tour of California. In that post, I concluded that the Giro tracker “isn’t a fully baked product” with this qualifier:

The fundamental difference between the two is that the ATOC tracker is produced by AEG, who owns the event, while Universal Sports is limited by their role as a broadcast rights holder. AEG can duct tape GPS units on everyone’s bike, while it seems like Universal Sports just has one in the Garmin-Slipstream car (Garmin sponsors the Race Tracker).

Then I was contacted by Allan Padgett, the guy who built the Adobe Tour Tracker as part of their sponsorship of the Tour of California. He informed me that the Giro tracker was simply a re-skinning of the ATOC tracker with several features that had to be removed to due logistics and timing constraints. (If you recall, Universal Sports picked up the US broadcast rights to the Giro just days before the race.)

Then, when the Tour de France started, Versus rolled out their own live tracker. Just looking at the front end, the Versus tracker is clearly a different product from the Adobe tracker used for the Tour of California and the Giro. Visually, I prefer the cleaner, more modern look of the Adobe tracker. To me, the Versus tracker just looks dated.

The Versus tracker organizes the information differently, with a bigger panel that gives relatively less billing to the main attraction: the video. (Note that this is a screenshot of the free version; the paid version has slightly bigger video including full-screen mode.) Unfortunately, the Versus tracker’s prominently featured stage map and profile panels have been buggy, sometimes not even referring to the current stage. Like the Adobe tracker, the Versus tracker suffers from unreliable GPS data during bad weather and in the mountains. But with the advantage of a few years of development, the Adobe tracker seems to have this a little more dialed.

That said, the Versus tracker does a pretty good job of keeping track of which riders were in the different groups on the road, even if the time gaps are off – sometimes way off.

In terms of text commentary, the Adobe tracker has a significant edge. During the Tour of California, in-house commentators JoE Silva and Frankie Andreu did a good job with timely updates. For the Giro, the Adobe tracker had an even better source: Cyclingnews, the first web site to do any sort of live race coverage, albeit text-only. The Versus tracker meanwhile, is infrequently updated with Garmin-centric coverage. The latest update in this screenshot reads, “The elite of the Tour have shown themselves. Bradley Wiggins (Garmin-Slipstream) dropped a little but his teammate Christian Vande Velde rode outside himself to help his teammate. Armstrong played the perfect role of teammate as well.” It’s likely no coincidence that the ad below the text commentary was for the Garmin-Slipstream team store for much of the race.

The Versus tracker includes a three-column Twitter feed of the #tdf hashtag, @TeamSlipstream, and @lancearmstrong. The latter two seem out of place during the stage, but I like the idea of replacing the Adobe tracker’s in-site chat room with the world’s Twitter conversation.

From a technical standpoint, I appreciate Adobe tracker’s ability to resize all the panels manually and automatically with the size of the browser window. It’s also a much cleaner implementation – about 1/3 as many lines of code as the Versus tracker and a smaller Flash file. Granted, the Versus tracker has a lot more navigation and other stuff on the page.

I guess I’m coming down pretty clearly on the side of the Adobe tracker. That’s probably not too surprising, given that they produce the Flash platform that both products are built on. On the other hand, slick Flash development is not the hardest thing to find. Versus maybe be able to close the gap but Adobe will always be at least one step ahead in terms of technology. It’s unclear how either one of them is making money, but that’s a separate question…

Postscript

After I shelved the draft of this post, Allan sent out an email clarifying the difference between the Versus and Adobe trackers and pointing out the Australian broadcaster SBS was using the Adobe tracker for the Tour de France. The Aussie version also had a “Twitterati” section, although without the #tdf feed, and a few excellent new features: a live feed of Flickr photos from fans, live data from riders’ SRM power meters, and a return of the ATOC tracker’s  “My Riders” feature that allows users to track specific riders throughout the race via GPS. Although I couldn’t see the video, it looks like the best tracker yet.

I took the first two screenshots while watching the Giro and Tour coverage; the last is from the Adobe Tour Tracker website.

Robert Gourley of Mojave Interactive recently posted this analysis of social media performance during the Tour de France for Trek, Specialized, Cannondale, and Cervélo. He also gave this insightful interview on my buddy Rick Vosper’s blog. I have a different interpretation of the numbers, which I’ll get to in a minute. In short, Mojave found that:

… both Trek and Specialized use Social Media well. Specialized edges over Trek in some key areas, like integration and user engagement. Cervélo has great organic buzz, despite having a smaller corporate Social Media strategy.

Although Technorati paints the opposite picture over the last 30 days, I don’t dispute Mojave’s numbers. Here’s what Gourley told Vosper and I believe this is true.

We’re partnered with a bunch of different tracking tools analytics companies. But it turns out none of those tools really give you a complete picture. We’re a small group, and we have our own internal analysts, and we use them to develop a much more complete picture of what’s going on, and that’s how we put the Tour comparison together.

The problem

What the study fails to address is that Cervélo is the title sponsor of Cervélo TestTeam, whereas Trek, Specialized, and Cannondale are the bike sponsors of the Astana, Saxo Bank, and Liquigas teams. So when a blogger talks about Thor Hushovd or Carlos Sastre, Cervélo gets a mention by default. But when a blogger talks about Lance Armstrong or Alberto Contador, Astana is much more likely to be mentioned than Trek is. Same thing for Fabian Cancellara or Andy Schleck, Saxo Bank, and Specialized. Same thing for Franco Pellizotti or Vincenzo Nibali, Liquigas, and Cannondale.

To be fair, Gourley touches on this in the interview with Rick Vosper. But I think it’s a huge factor that significantly clouds Mojave’s analysis. It becomes more about the merits of Cervélo’s sponsorship strategy than it is about social media marketing. Despite the apparent social media benefits of their approach, Cervélo has stated that they can achieve their goals with the team (e.g. control of the program and rider involvement in product development) without being the title sponsor and they’re looking for a non-cycling brand to come on board

.

My point here is not to rip Mojave. They’ve produced an excellent analysis and I don’t doubt its accuracy. Instead, I mean to say that a brand’s social media performance has to be viewed in the context of its overall strategy.

Looking at the four brands in the study, I’d say that Specialized is by far the most active in social media. They’ve put significant online ad campaigns behind I Am Specialized and they’ve recently hired a full-time social media guy. Trek hasn’t been as active, although they’ve made some effort. So has Cannondale according to Gourley. Cervélo, meanwhile, hasn’t done as much socially. They haven’t used Twitter for conversation and their excellent video series at Bartape.net lacks social features.

Why aren’t these relative efforts even remotely reflected in Mojave’s popularity data? Because the numbers reflect more general brand positioning. Let’s take Specialized as a baseline and look factors in the other brands’ performance.

• Cervélo got a boost because they’re a title sponsor and therefore get more mentions (see above).
• Trek is in the same non-title sponsor boat as Specialized but sponsors the most talked-about riders, Lance Armstrong and Alberto Contador.
• Cannondale took a hit because their sponsored team, Liquigas, had a lower profile than Specialized’s Saxo Bank.

Conclusion

Social media is effective for brands. Joining the conversation in the right way with the right content can be a win for marketing, customer service, and sales. Clearly, there’s a huge opportunity, especially to reach a web-savvy consumer base like cyclists.

But there are too many variables – such as everything else that the company does – to compare one brand’s social media marketing to another’s over a short period. Metrics like those used by Mojave are extremely valuable but I think they’re much more useful when tracking single brand’s social media footprint over time. Combine that with internal conversion tracking to get the clearest picture of ROI from social media marketing.

(Photo taken by me at the Tour of California for Zipp. I wish I had time to Photoshop out the blue rope. Oh well.)

Especially during the Tour, teams and sponsors are generating some interesting documentary-style video coverage of pro cycling. But who’s got the best content? Let’s figure it out! I’ve posted sample videos below from five well known teams and brands. Watch them – or better yet, use the links to check out the full series – and complete the survey below to give each a rating. Then vote for your favorite. Voting will be open until the end of the Tour and I’ll post the results next week. Please leave comments (keep it clean, of course), share this page, and email me if you know of any other videos that I should add to this list!

Remember that each of these is just one video out of a series…

I Am Specialized

Series: http://www.iamspecialized.com

Beyond The Peloton (Cervélo)

Series: http://www.bartape.net
(Thanks to hupthur for this link to Cervelo TestTeam on Vimeo.)

Beyond The Peloton: five – FLANDERS from Cervelo TestTeam on Vimeo.

Document: Trek. Unscripted.

Series: http://www.trekbikes.com/us/en/trek_life/video/

Taking The Lead (Saxo Bank)

Series: http://www.saxobanktakingthelead.com/
(Sorry for the auto-play. If the video doesn’t show up, try switching to full-screen mode and then switch back.)

Garmin-Slipstream

Series: http://vimeo.com/user1942336/videos/

Now for the survey…

[SURVEYS 3]

Selection criteria

1. Must be an ongoing series, not a random one-off video.
2. Team or sponsor must hold the copyrights.
3. Full videos must be available online. No trailers.
4. Videos must be at least somewhat edited and decent quality. No camera-phones.
5. Content must feel like a “documentary” and not a “commercial” (i.e. not like this).
6. Must be more of a video series and less of a blogging campaign like Lance’s videos LIVESTRONG.com or The Road Diaries that I helped launch for SRAM.

Disclosure: I have worked with some of these companies, but not on any of these projects. See my portfolio for details.

Got questions? Leave a comment and I’ll respond.

Among these, the most significant undertaking was the feature-length I Love My Bicycle: The Story of FBM Bikes (trailer below). It’s a documentary charting the mayhem surrounding the BMX brand’s history mainly through interviews with founder Steve Crandall, other guys who were there from the beginning, and cameos by a couple of Big Names (Dave Mirra and Mat Hoffman). The contest footage and old videos of dudes setting stuff on fire were pretty solid but the most interesting part for me was hearing the FBM guys talk about why the make all their frames and parts in-house. Tighter quality control, faster prototyping, bringing new products to market more quickly, etc. are all of the same benefits that you’d hear from Zipp, a company at the opposite end of the bicycle industry spectrum in terms of corporate culture and technology.

Of all the shorts, I most impressed by Made In Queens, a 10-minute documentary about Trinidadian kids rigging absolutely enormous speakers to their bikes. With MTV’s backing, directors Joe Stevens and Nicolas Randall had the resources to create the slickest video of the evening. The production quality, the visuals, the sound, the music (featuring Queensbridge’s finest) – it was all on point. The filmmakers did a great job of getting the kids in the film to open up and share their stories in a really personal way.

The Scraper Bike King (aka Bay-be Champ) wasn’t so much sharing his story as performing – and he killed it. The kid is a born showman and he knows how to give his audience what they want. He even talked about how scraper bikes are “eco-friendly,” which isn’t really a big thing in East Oakland. Regardless, I love the scraper bike movement and I represent The Town.

Of the track bike/messenger/alleycat stuff, Safari London was my favorite. It’s just 4 minutes of time-lapse footage of a guy riding through London at night on a track bike. The focus of the piece was on immersion in the ride and the environment of the city rather than doing tricks and bombing traffic, which was a nice change of pace. It felt a little like a car commercial though.

I’m bummed that I had to leave early and missed Anima d’Acciaio from Cinecycle. And I really wish I could have seen Brian Vernor’s new movie, Where Are You Go. Both trailers look excellent.

More thoughts on the BFF coming within the next few days. Here’s the trailer for the FBM movie:

and some pre-show pics:

… Armstrong’s penchant for Twittering has caused VeloNews and others to re-think how they report news, and some are boycotting his tweets. “It’s one-sided,” Frothingham told E&P. “It’s just us sitting there taking what he’s giving. We can’t just not ask follow-up questions; we can’t ask any questions,” said Frothingham, a former editor at Bicycle Retailer & Industry News and for The Associated Press.

Responses to Frothingham’s lament have been mostly along the lines of “he just doesn’t get social media.” I think the opposite it true. Steve understands perfectly well that getting our news from high-profile social media users is more similar to getting it from advertisers than it is to getting it from traditional editorial media.

Make no mistake – Lance is advertising to you on Twitter. He’s using a powerful tool to cultivate and market his personal brand.* This is a huge difference from the way in which non-famous people used Twitter to disseminate information about the situation in Iran when the media couldn’t gain access. But it doesn’t mean Lance’s tweets don’t have value. They’re entertaining, informative, and insightful. We learn a lot from them that we wouldn’t otherwise know. But, as Frothingham points out, we are getting only the information that Lance wants us to have.

Without the media, this exchange between Lance and Paul Kimmage at the Tour of California wouldn’t have happened. Although it wasn’t exactly a feel-good moment, Lance handled it well and it added to our collective understanding.

To be fair, it’s not like everyone was perfectly transparent until Twitter came along. It’s always been possible to issue a self-congratuatory press release, say “no comment”, or refuse to grant interviews to journalists who might say something negative. Even if you do have to face questions from a hostile reporter, proper “media training” can teach to change the subject and say exactly what you want people to hear. Much to his credit, Lance provided a direct, thoughtful response to Kimmage.

Furthermore, the media certainly has its own shortcomings when it comes to the truth. Publications must show deference to advertisers and to the sensibilities of their audiences. Reporters’ personal biases and fondness for their subjects affect their stories. Journalistic objectivity is an unachievable ideal. Still, my experience is that, in aggregate, reporters care more about giving you the unaltered truth than advertisers do.

As an advertiser myself, I don’t mean to say that you are being lied to. But it’s no secret that advertising is supposed to make you feel a certain way about brands and products. Ultimately, brands want you to buy stuff. However, advertising can also have legitimate meaning – like Livestrong campaigns that truly affect people in a positive way. In particular, what I enjoy about social media marketing (and why I think it resonates with consumers) is that it’s such a great chance for advertising to be compelling on its own merits.

But if this debate had been going on a few years, the ultimate logical extension of the anti-Frothingham camp would have been, “Who needs the White House press corps when we have @GeorgeWBush?” That’s a scary thought. Personally, I’m glad we have a range of sources that includes both athletes and journalists on Twitter, writing blogs, and in the traditional media. All are significant voices in a conversation that’s an important part of my life. But if I had to choose one, I’d rather have VeloNews.com than @lancearmstrong.

*: I do the same thing on a 1:2,875 scale.

Homepage photo by Richard Masoner

In a recent column for ROAD, I argued that teams and events should more directly serve and monetize the sport’s existing core fan base. Here’s why:

The foundation of my argument here is that I see cycling’s pursuit of the “mainstream” as single minded and quixotic. The world is changing; the mainstream is shrinking. We’re not far from a time when even network television will reach only a niche audience. Granted some niches will be bigger than others, but the challenge for every form of entertainment will be to sustainably make money off a smaller audience.

One of my suggestions was that AEG charge for the Tour of California’s Tour Tracker website that features multiple live video streams, real-time GPS tracking per rider, photos, chat, etc. And guess what? Universal Sports has done exactly that with its Race Tracker for the Giro coverage that it scooped up from RCS just before the race started.

At $3.95 for a stage and $34.95 for the whole race, the Giro Race Tracker is pricier than the $25 I suggested in my column for the Tour de France. But I gave it a shot today, watching side-by-side with Universal Sports’ free live online video. As you can see from these screenshots, video quality on the free live video (first screenshot) is better than on the Race Tracker (second screenshot). But both were adequately watchable.

I should add that the Race Tracker offers “standard” and “premium” video, but I didn’t notice much difference in quality. There’s also a bunch of low-quality pirated streams out there. And RAI offers unrestricted coverage with multiple camera angles that I hear is good, although I can’t imagine it will be available much longer in countries where folks like Universal Sports have paid good money for online broadcast rights.

(Note: I watched the RAI coverage the day after this post. It has some Tracker-like features but they don’t outweigh the fact that I don’t speak Italian. Video quality was about the same as Universal Sports, which wasn’t loading. RAI’s archive of interviews and highlight clips would be a great feature for the Tracker.)

Race Tracker vs. Tour Tracker

Compared to the ATOC Tour Tracker, the Universal Sports Race Tracker isn’t a fully baked product. You can’t see the GC or information about any stages other than the one you’re currently watching. Nor does the Race Tracker allow you to follow individual riders by GPS or see their bios. It also lacks photo coverage.

Common features are live video (obviously), text play-by-play (Universal gets Cyclingnews’ live coverage with AEG’s is written in-house), interactive course profile, and public chat. Both are really slick Flash sites produced by Adobe.

The fundamental difference between the two is that the ATOC tracker is produced by AEG, who owns the event, while Universal Sports is limited by their role as a broadcast rightsholder. AEG can duct tape GPS units on everyone’s bike, while it seems like Universal Sports just has one in the Garmin-Slipstream car (Garmin sponsors the Race Tracker).

Of course, video quality and streaming consistency are the only things that really matter. Everything else you can get from Cyclingnews. I didn’t use the ATOC Tour Tracker at all (I was pretty busy that week) but my Twitter query gives me the impression that it was good, although frequently unavailable due to the crappy weather. Based on this morning’s stage, I’d give the Universal Sports Race Tracker pretty good marks as well.

But is it worth the money?

You’ve got four basic options:

• Various pirated streams (free)
• RAI with multiple camera angles (free but I don’t speak Italian)
• Universal Sports standard (free)
• Universal Sports Race Tracker ($3.95/day or $34.95 for the whole race)

For now, I’ll go with Universal Sports free coverage. But if that weren’t available, the Race Tracker would be my choice.