Tommi Pelkonen

This blog is dedicated for my English language blogging. At the moment, I have been too busy with my client projects to put sufficient effort to blog here frequently enough. Yet, hope to start more actively in the near future.Meanwhile, my Finnish readers, please tune into Digitaalinen Ihmemaailma, Vierityspalkki, Jaiku and Facebook commentary.Moreover, you will find my CV and links to my profile on these pages. Here below you can also find a collection of some articles that I have written during my career in English.Welcome!  

(orginally for Satama Research Blog)

Barbie’s parent, the world’s largest toymaker, on April 27 unveiled its newest Barbie initiative called “Barbie Girls” which meshes together the online and offline play experience for girls.

If from the Finnish angle you look at this, they are trying to challenge HabboHotel audiences or even younger generations. Similar to Lego approach. Children are online, they are built to be hooked to brands (also onlin) already from early ages.

Any other similar concepts out there?

Originally Satama Research Blog

Absolutely groundbreaking and thorough new report from Avenue A - Razorfish. If you study this, you will know it all. And can talk about key trends in our industry. New internet is born, and it is very different from the one we know from 1990s. If there is one analysis report you are going to study this quarter, this is the one!
Continue reading ‘Future of digital media by Avenue A - Razorfish’

(originally for Satama Research Blog)

Few recent interesting launches:

Yahoo Pipes

“Pipes is an interactive feed aggregator and manipulator. Using Pipes, you can create feeds that are more powerful, useful and relevant.”

In short: Programming content visually.

Google Apps

“Google Apps and its APIs open up a wide variety of new opportunities to integrate and extend Google’s communication and collaboration services. Domain adminstrators can use the APIs to migrate from and integrate with existing IT infrastructure. Application developers can use the APIs to extend Google’s growing offering of services.”

In short: Programme on top of Google to serve own service needs.

To get a better grasp what on can do with basing programming on top of online tune into here.

(Originally for Satama Research Blog)

As last year, decided to collect some forecasts to this forum.

E-Marketer online development trends for 2007 (the full article is also in Public Folders - Reports)
* Online Ad Spending Will Hit $20 Billion
* Some Money and Lots of Hype for Online Video Advertising
* Social Networks Are Set for a $1 Billion Windfall
* Downloadable Games Will Get Hotter
* Thirty-Seven Million Strong: A ‘Minority’ Bigger than Canada
* Mobile TV Arrives
* US B2C E-Commerce Will Cruise Past $200 Billion
* The Retail Power of Word-of-Mouth
* Broadband Services Will Matter as Much as Speed
* DVRs Pump Up TV Viewing
Continue reading ‘Predictions for 2007′

Wired has an interesting article on this:

“The virtual designer creates a three-dimensional model of a client’s avatar using screenshots taken in the world of Second Life. He uses an open-source design tool known as the OpenGLExtractor by Eyebeam OpenLab. After tweaking the model to make sure that there are no overly fragile parts — hair has been a big worry — Buckbee sends the design to the client for final approval. The digital file is then turned into reality using a 3-D printer made by Z Corp”

Basically means that Second Life freaks can bring their virtual world items live by “3D printing” them. Neat and bizarre. What will the future on this be - will the monsters and horrors of games extend out of game consoles. Will the toy industry merge with printing industry? When will the plastic printers enter mass markets…. what do you think?

Originally for Satama Research Blog

No longer one needs to be stuck with a computer to obtain updates of blogs and messaging tools. New innovation called Nabaztag promises the following:

Nabaztag is a desktop companion that utilises WiFi technology to fetch information from the Internet and convey it in various charming ways.

The gadget has been available at Schiphol for few months, but now it entered also Finland. Pricing ~100 euros.

Thus, Ambient Orb has now a more lively competitor. This may sping out more of similar internet media extensions. Why should media look like TV, newspaper or computer when it can be more personal…

What do you think - is this a toy or something that has potential?

(Originally for Satama Research Blog)

Huh, what a title…

Anyway, yesterday’s article from ClickZ made a very interesting point on consumers exposure to ad spots online.

Traditional advertising is now entertainment, just as much as any other piece of video. Type in a search for “commercials” at YouTube. At publication time, there were 44,110 results. The most viewed commercial, for Sony Bravia, has over 3.5 million views. Look at the comments; they illustrate the level of engagement. Impressive.

Try e.g. this YouTube search. You will see that the most watched commericals are by Sony, Volkswagen and Apple. This tells something about the the dominance of these global brands.

Commercials become entertainment - neat. Thus, what will this mean for marketing? Entertainment becomes marketing? Maybe.
Continue reading ‘Measuring advertising exposure in video networks’

Google Apps on your domain is Google’s latest approach to offer tools inside companies. They already offer Google Mini to have company-wide search. Now the new program brings e-mail (Gmail), IM+Voip (GoogleTalk), calender (Google Calender) and web editing (PageCreator) to usage of any company.

Now you can offer private-labeled email, IM and calendar tools to all of your users for free*, so they can share ideas and get things done more effectively. You can design and publish your organization’s website, too. It’s all hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.

Continue reading ‘Google enters the B2B domain’

(Originally for Satama Research Blog)

Google Image Search must be familiar to all of us bloggers. Yet, something that I think this great tool does not have is capability to find similar images to another. Thus, I took few minutes to explore that possibilities there are to find images that match another image with other tools beyond Google.

Great starting point for the exploration is Yahoo’s directory. It had a great list of search tools anyone can use in the similar tasks to me. Out of the list popped out the following.

Tiltomo: -playing on Flickr databases and finding similar photos
Retrivr: shape drawing tool based on Flickr
Montage Maker: Create a montage of similar images, not totally similar, but fancy tool anyway, see e.g. trial on ex-Finnish president Kekkonen

I think these tools open interesting possiblities for designers. Think about it - if your image is just not ok, why not to put on Flickr and seek for similar ones which look nearly the same. What a visual exploration journey…

Do you think this would interest you? Do you think this kind of tools would be good for creating e.g. moodboards etc.?

P.S. Remember the web 2.0 classic - Flickr Tag Browser. It is very similar to this thinking…