Er is onlangs een nieuwe televisie-advertentie gelanceerd waarin het spel ‘Angry Birds’ de hoofdrol speelt. De 3 hoofdontwikkelaars van Angry Birds hebben elk hun eigen cartoonfiguurtje gekregen in de vorm van een van onze geveerde vrienden en vertellen over hun ervaringen met Google Chrome.

Zo tracht Chrome ook wat mee te pikken van de populariteit van Angry Birds en proberen ze de ontwikkelaars van andere applicaties en games ook richting Chrome te pushen. Of ze in hun opzet zullen slagen met deze advertentie is echter een andere vraag, wat mij betreft wel.

Al bij al is het een aangename advertentie die wel een glimlach tevoorschijn kan toveren, zeker als je al wat ervaring hebt met Angry Birds zelf, bekijk de reclamespot hier en laat me gerust weten wat je ervan vindt.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Persoonlijk denk ik niet dat we deze reclamespot binnenkort op de Belgische zenders zullen moeten verwachten, maar wie weet. Deze advertentie is echter niet de eerste televisie-advertentie voor Chrome. In 2009 heeft Google in Japan al een eerste televisie-advertentie gelanceerd voor Chrome (via Dutch Cowboys).

Click here to view the embedded video.

[bron: Androidspin]

In a very original attempt to promote the usage of smartphones with the mainstream, T-Mobile made a real life version of the game and installed it on a square in the center of Barcelona. Everybody who played was quite surprised and pleased with the result, as was I when i first saw the video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=jzIBZQkj6SY

Those of you with a Google Chrome browser can surf to the online version to play the virtual version on your desktop. Android and iPhone users can search for Angry Birds or the sequel Angry Birds Rio in there respective Market’s/App Store. For more information about the game visit Rovio Mobile’s website.

If you want to know more about the making of the Live version, be sure to check out this video:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uYSzff245dk

They’ve combined the 2 things men love most: soccer/football and the disco ball and made it into a cue sport, well kinda… How have they pulled this off? Well check out the video and you’ll find out soon enough.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLZUMNR_okc

The interesting thing is that this wasn’t their first tv spot that connected with pool. A few years ago they also introduced the larger variant: “Massive Pool-Ball” and you can’t blame them for using the word ‘Massive’!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=OaBgseOU4OU

Personally I’m impressed, although I’m trying to find a bar that has room for this ‘mini’ soccer field. But if I ever get see the poolball “table”, I’m sure to play a game though I won’t give up regular pool.

So what’s your favorite Budweiser/Bud Light commercial? And what do you think about it’s taste?

While flickr, Picassa and other platforms offer a lot of possibilities of exposing your pictures, I set up a new blog to do so. From now on you will be able to find a selection of my personal favorites on my new photoblog. This allows me to implement a more personal touch and lay-out, though I remain limited in my web design skills. (thank god for WordPress themes)

Any tips and trick to improve my pictures are always welcome and off course you can always let me know what you think of the pictures themselves.  If you would have questions concerning my pictures, you can always comment on them and I will be sure to respond!

So be sure to head over to photo.deram.net

I hope you enjoy the new site and the pictures!

There are some positive things I look forward too, the final matches where everybody is fighting for the last valuable points in search of this years title and the award ceremony where we hand over the cups and prize money to the champions accompanied with a few drinks here and there. However, this is not the only thing I look forward too, it’s also the time of the World Snooker Championship in the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield (UK). Every year, I try to get see as much of my favorite players in action. Unfortunately I have never been able to get tickets to see them in real life. I’m sure to do so though, just don’t ask me when. Check out World Snooker for scores and stats of the Championship, Eurosport and/or BBC broadcast most matches live.

For those of you who are interested: the final of the World Championship is scheduled to be played on sunday the 1st of may and monday the 2nd of may, live broadcasting will be available on BBC2 and most likely Eurosport (and possible other channels, depending on your region).

After the WC Snooker I will have a big empty space in my billiards related life, besides a tournament here and there. Since my level of pool has not been at par, I will most likely not participate in the qualifier rounds for the Belgian Championships. Any suggestions are always welcome!

So what are your cue sports plans for the summer period? A well deserved break or a hard training schedule? Any predictions on the World Snooker Championship are also welcome in the comment section below!

I used the same method for calculating the usage of Facebook, so that no new/different statistical errors would come up. I’m sure there are some errors in my method, such as (but not limited to): inadequate and simplified data. However, the data I collected, will give an indication of the usage of Facebook.

So with out further delay, the ‘beautiful’ graph:

Comparing to my previous demograph from June 2010, some interesting evolutions can be detected.

Norway has clearly lost its status as King of Facebook as it’s dropped down to less than 50% (though still #1). In June 2.568.460 users were registered to Facebook, but this dropped down to 2.302.100 in July and even further to 2.274.500 in August. According to the data I retreived this is currently 2.417.240, so there is a slight increase noticeable similar to the one noticed in August. Furthermore we must note that the Eastern European countries are pushing forward at all fronts.

Several Western European countries such as the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden & Finland stay in the same category while others such as Portugal & the Netherlands can ‘level up’ sort of speak.

In numbers the top 5 countries are:

1. Norway (49,79%)
2. Cyprus (49.23%)
3. Denmark (45,89%)
4. United Kingdom (45.67%)
5. Sweden (43.17%)

At the bottom of the table are:

• The Netherlands (21.95%)
• Germany (18.41%)
• Poland (13.84%)
• Romania (12.51%)
• Latvia (11.14%)

Viewing the data in total 91.740.420 people are registered to Facebook (in the countries of whom I have data) and the average increase is 5.55% compared to August. From June to July this was -0.08% and from July to August this was +2.23%.

I think that the countries in the higher categories will most likely start to stabilize while other will continue to grow until they reach a similar level. As Norway indicated a 50% or 1 person out of 2 could be the limit for Facebooks popularity. As long as certain generations are reluctant of using internet and its proper media, this will most likely stay as such. Or at least that’s my opinion but i’m eager to hear yours in the comments below…

The data used in this graph has been retreived on february 9th 2011. The data is a mere indication and  I cannot be held resposible for any mistakes or missing data. The data mentioned in this post can be used for further publishing purposes as long as i am acredited. If you would be interested in receiving the full table, you can always contact me by mail or by twitter.

]]> http://deram.net/2011/02/09/european-facebook-usage-statistics-february-2011/feed/ 0 http://deram.net/2010/12/19/theres-a-soldier-in-all-of-us/ http://deram.net/2010/12/19/theres-a-soldier-in-all-of-us/#comments Sun, 19 Dec 2010 12:37:44 +0000 Matthieu http://deram.net/?p=190 For the past few years the gaming industry has grown above anybody’s expectations. Little people expected that video games could generate such a revenue. The number of gamers in the world increases each year and the dollars/euros spent to accomodate ones need for action, thrill or just pure fun have increased at an even higher rate. Despite of all the talk of ‘illegal downloads’ and such, the gaming industry is doing just fine.

With increased income and higher competition within the industry itself comes off course higher marketing effort. The fans need to be impressed and won over and over again. Some software developpers and their publishers are known for their great advertisements.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=8sg7p5vFAZg

Although Call of Duty: Black ops has been released for over a month now, their marketing efforts have not yet reached a stop. Their latest tv ad is one that perfectly appeals the audiences targeted by their games and will be sure to win over a few thousand extra players (if not more)…

The latest commercial for Call of Duty:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=hncudrWXpX0

The previous Call of Duty (modern warfare 2) spawned hundreds of home made music videos for the tune in it own tv ad. Some more interesting than others but it didn’t miss its effect. Just for your viewing pleasure I added the video as well.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XS8u0dANuTw

Steve does make some points in his article concerning the whole corporate world such as the ‘experience controversy’.

You might think it’s important to get a job to gain experience.  But that’s like saying you should play golf to get experience playing golf.  You gain experience from living, regardless of whether you have a job or not.  A job only gives you experience at that job, but you gain ”experience” doing just about anything, so that’s no real benefit at all.  Sit around doing nothing for a couple years, and you can call yourself an experienced meditator, philosopher, or politician.

It’s common business for job recruiters to tell the applicants they have insufficient experience to get the job. Young graduates hear this all too many times and will get frustrated pretty soon as most job oppenings require ‘experience’. After quite a while the finally find a job, not always the one the were setting out for but you lower your standards after some time. When feeling confident they try to switch jobs to a different company/position in a more prefered deparment or field of expertise/interest. That’s when they hit the same wall, again or at least in some cases. A frustrating way of getting through your professional carreer. Although the opposite is true as well, when doing a job, you will most likely have to do things you would have never done sitting around doing nothing. The experience one gets while being self-employed has similar limitations as the experience you get as being a regular employee. It’s experience in running your own business (hopefully succesfully).

Steve, however is self-employed and has no problems with invisible walls or bosses that have less people skills (or any other skills for that matter) than their younger counterparts or in some companies almost slaves. Steve is sitting on a gold mine, earning quite a bit of money with his website or at least that’s what he tells us… I don’t really believe him on the numbers that he gives us but the man might have a point. Being self-employed has it’s advantages, though you need a field of expertise, something your good at. Good enough to get paid to do so. Everybody has a few things that he’s good at, better than average, though not all expertises might be qualified or interesting enough to get paid for.

The risk involved in being self-employed is another downside, to say the least. What happens when you run out of work, when you don’t get enough cash flow to pay the investments you made or to pay your rent or mortgage? I’m not saying that the regular employed don’t have a similar risk but it’s lower and it takes little or no investments.

I’m not saying not to be self-employed, as a matter of fact: I’m thinking and have been thinking for a long while to do the same thing. The risk however is what’s holding me back but the moral of my rambling today is: don’t believe everything these so called experts on how to real in the cash. Think about it, calculate some things and let it rest for a bit, not being a boss and have little or no worries when finishing the working hours can be a bliss as well.

The decrease in the Scandinavian countries has been tempered and only Denmark & Norway have negative digits (-0.73% and -1.2%) all the 27 other countries have a positive evolution ranging from +0.08% (Switzerland) to +16.43% (Hungary).

The top 5 is now

1. Hungary (16.43%)
2. Latvia (15.93%)
3. Poland (12.16%)
4. Cyprus (11.14%)
5. Estonia (8.52%)

Facebook Usage Statistics (August vs July)

Only 5 countries now have a Facebook penetration level of more than 40%: Norway (46.85%), Denmark (45.20%), United Kingdom (44.76%), Sweden (40.69%) and Malta (40.08%).

If you are interested in the full figures or have any other remarks or question: please feel free to contact me!

A while back I posted the Facebook usage statistics for Western Europe and i’ve recieved some feedback on that matter. Today I looked up the same statistics using the same method but came up with some interesting results. It seems that some countries are losing intrest in Facebook. 4 out of the top 5 countries in Facebook penetration in my previous article are now part of the top 5 countries with the biggest decline in users, amongst them all Scandinavian countries!

The top 5 with the biggest decline are:

1. Norway (-10.97%)
2. Sweden (-3.16%)
3. United Kingdom (-2.28%)
4. Denmark (-1.59%)
5. Finland (-1.14%)

Malta (-0.67%), Ireland (-0.47%) and Switzerland (-0.34%) were the only other countries with a decline in users compared to june.

The reasons for these declines are beyond me, though several scenarios are possible. One is that there has been an actual decline in the facebook users in the beforementioned countries. Another possibility is that privacy settings are prohibiting a correct measurement or some users have not quit facebook but changed their country for either privacy reasons or due to migration. The list of reasons is most likely longer that what I’ve summed up here…

Out of the 29 countries for which i’ve collected data, 8 have a decline while all others have a (small) increase. I feel somewhat obligated to point out that the Scandinavian countries are all represented in the top 5, coincidence or is there more behind these statistics?

On a more possitive note, The top 5 of increases are following countries:

1. Romania (19.48%)
2. Latvia (10.97%)
3. Hungary (10.88%)
4. Estonia (5.03%)
5. Lithuania (4.62%)

One remark though, when calculating statistics with smaller numbers the increase or decrease can be somewhat higher/lower than others because the data involved is way smaller than those in other calcluations. For example: going from 100 users to 150 in one month translates in an increase of 50% while only being ’50′ users whereas an increase of 1.000.000 to 1.001.000 is ‘only’ an increase of 1% while being 1.000 users.

Other parameters such as population, internet penetration and knowledge and many others come into play so I will certainly not be able to explain everything (or anything for that matter). I’m just being the messenger for the time being.

What are your thoughts on these statistics?

The data behind these statistics have been collected on june 10th and july 13th (2010) and have been found on facebook itself. If you would like to recieve the actual data, feel free to contact me!