Friday, October 7, 2011 at 12:30PM 
Let me start by confessing that I am somewhat of an anomaly in the advertising and marketing world. And it's not because that I am a copywriter who has absolutely no interest in writing the great American novel.
Email Article | 3 Comments | in Apple, Current Affairs, SxSwi, advertising, iPad, iPhone, social media Tuesday, March 8, 2011 at 12:16PM 
No matter if you're an Apple fanboy (and just for the record I am not) or a PC zealot (I'm not a zealot but prefer PCs), there is no denying that the way Apple markets its products is amazing.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010 at 3:51PM ;)
We’ve been watching and writing about Twitter for over a year now and a recent Mashable article highlights some of the concerns we’ve seen with recent Twitter developments
Tuesday, June 22, 2010 at 4:00PM
Location-based apps are the hottest thing going right now. Leading the pack is Foursquare. Foursquare isn’t the first location-based app on the market, nor is it the biggest, but what it does have going for it is that it’s the current media darling. The star of this year’s SXSW, this app is proving it’s not just for letting people know where you like to eat and shop.
The system is simple: you check-in to a location, earn badges for multiple check-ins and score points which, in some instances, can lead to real-world rewards from retailers. Local restaurants and bars have started offering free drinks, appetizers and discounts to the person that checked in the most to their establishment. Now you’re seeing the likes of Bravo, Virgin Airlines and Harvard University taking advantage of app to further reward customers. We searched the web to find examples of companies using this simple app in ingenious ways and found four great examples.
Harvard University has teamed up with Foursquare to create a campus-based game that rewards students who check in to locations with badges and helpful bits of information. The idea is to encourage students to connect with others and explore more of the campus. It’s a brilliant way for freshmen to learn about the university and connect with more people.
During New York Fashion Week, fashion designer Marc Jacobs created a “Fashion Victim” badge. It allowed customers during the week to check-in at any Marc Jacobs store to unlock the badge. Four people who unlocked the badge in New York received passes to attend the Marc Jacobs fashion show.
Shoe phenom Jimmy Choo has established a treasure hunt around London using Foursquare. A pair of Jimmy Choo trainers check-in at a location somewhere in the city and whomever checks-in and says, “I’ve been following you” to the pair of trainers before they leave the location will win a pair of Jimmy Choo training shoes. People can track the trainers through their Foursquare user page and their Twitter profile.
Desperate to stay relevant, The Wall Street Journal has created special badges that provide interesting facts about New York City and reviews of local business and movies. It’s always great when a print giant like the WSJ embraces new media instead of fighting it like so many other print outlets.
Hopefully you now feel inspired to craft a location-based campaign of your own. Feel free to share any bright ideas.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010 at 4:00PM With the impending international release of the iPad (May 28th) and over a million already sold in the US, the adoption of the platform is in full swing. And that of course means the new apps are flying fast – over 4,800 are available already. If you ask us, a smooth Twitter app plays a big part in the iPad’s usefulness. Unfortunately, you’ll have to pay for the majority of these apps. Of the Twitter apps we found, only one was free, but none was more than $5. These are the early days of iPad development and some of the apps clearly aren’t 100% there yet. With a few more revisions, all of these apps should be outstanding. As it stands now, they’re all pretty good solutions, but some have more problems than others.
TweetDeck for iPad (Price: free) - The transition to the iPad has been an easy one for the master of the desktop Twitter apps. All the features we love in the desktop app are available here including easy to navigate columns, multiple account support, photo sharing, and all the others we’ve come to rely on. It’s the best of the free Twitter apps.
Twitterific for iPad (Price: free; $4.99 for Pro account) - Twitterific Pro is the best iPad Twitter application we tried. The switch between portrait and landscape view is fluid, and even the free version has all the basics you need like being able to reply, re-tweet, DM and more. The $5 upgrade to Pro lets you add multiple Twitter accounts and remove the ads. It may not be free like Tweetdeck, but the small cost is worth it for the better functionality.
Twitepad (Price: $1.99) - For $3 less than Twitterific and Twittelator, Twitepad gives you most of the same functionality: multiple Twitter accounts, multiple columns, bit.ly stats and instapaper support. But you get what you pay for as it’s a little buggy, which is the only thing that keeps us from strongly recommending it. They have fixed a few of the bugs but it needs another round or two before it’s as good a tool as its competitors.
TwitRocker (Price: $4.99) - TwitRocker is another great app that features all the bells and whistles you need. With bit.ly URL shortening, multiple account support, OAuth security, search functions, list imports and all the basics such as retweeting, direct messages, and following/unfollowing people, TwitRocker truly does rock Twitter for the iPad. It’s a solid choice, but if you’re going to pay $5 for your app we’d still recommend Twitterific.
Twittelator for iPad (Price: $4.99) - Coming in at the more expensive level, Twittelator is easy to navigate and has great customization options. But $5 is expensive for an app, so it better work. With slow load times, problems switching from landscape to portrait mode and missing some of the iPhone features, Twittelator isn’t quite worth the price tag. Give this one a pass until it goes through a couple of revisions to work out the kinks. Once it does, it has the potential to be a great app.
Stefan Halley is the Digital Project Leader for The Duffy Agency. He loves to talk about social media.
