That got me to wonderin’ – how do some of the world’s most popular religions, in effect, ‘market’ themselves? What are some of the digital tools available online and does going the virtual route somewhat detract from physically being in a place of worship or complement someone’s spirituality?

So I spent a bit of time wandering in the digital desert and came across a number of interesting sites and apps.

Here’s a snapshot (alphabetized -- not listed in any particular order of preference):

Buddhism

Sumi Loundon Kim, the Buddhist chaplain at Duke University and minister for the Buddhist families of Durham, NC, summed up the dilemma of teaching Buddhism to a new generation that uses texting, Facebook, Twitter and other online social media.

“These other worlds exist only through the eyes and mind; there is no touch, no taste, no smell, and very little hearing. As such, virtual worlds present us Buddhist teachers with students who live not just one step removed from reality, but two,” said Kim.

Kim added that Buddhist teachers can’t afford to underestimate the impact of social media on young people today since they have become ‘neurologically adapted’ to this lifestyle.

“The next generation of dharma teachers must not shy away from understanding the force of technology,” she said.

And one of these entities is The Buddhist Channel. The site’s home page has a pithy slogan on its landing page – ‘Bringing Buddha Dharma Home.’ The Buddhist Channel offers a welter of information and tools – global news related to Buddhism, features on archaeology, arts & culture, healing, travel, various podcasts from Buddhist scholars, even e-cards and games.

Another site, Unfettered Mind was established in 2001 by a Buddhist teacher, Ken McLeod. It provides scores of hours of iTunes podcasts, Buddhist text translations, sutra sessions, and more.

In South Korea, where smartphones are more ubiquitous than in the U.S., there are numerous Buddhist apps ranging from a mobile version of Buddhist prayer beads to a location search program that uses GPS to find the nearest temple. Another app, ‘Hello Dharma School,’ features pop-up animations of the Buddha’s life and uses simple vocabulary to explain basic Buddhist philosophies.

“Modern day people are too busy and don’t have time to visit temples,” said Jung Ho, director of missionary research at the Jogye Order, the biggest Buddhist sect in the country. “With mobile apps, people can keep in touch with Buddhism – smartphones can serve as mobile temples.”

Christianity

Even the pope’s gone digital.  The Vatican is using technology to help Pope Benedict XVI reach out to his flock of more than one billion Catholics worldwide. The site has its own multimedia player called Vatican Player that aggregates content from Vatican media (managed by Vatican Radio). On the site you can access the pope’s encyclicals, homilies, read apostolic letters, download info on basilicas and papal chapels, etc.

But in one of his messages, the pope offered a caveat. New media and social networks offer a ‘great opportunity’ but he warned of the risks of having more virtual friends than real ones.

“It is important always to remember that virtual contact cannot and must not take the place of direct human contact with people at every level of our lives,” said the pope.

Another thriving Christian online site is GodTube.com, which is now drawing over two million monthly users. CEO Chris Wyatt recently said “we apply web technology to the Gospel in a way that appeals to young people – we call it Jesus 2.0.”

Chris Ford, a social media expert with the Southern Baptist Convention, said social media is a big plus for Christianity and has had an overall positive impact in three areas – evangelism, ministry outreach, and educational communications.

“It should be no surprise that, for spreading the Gospel and globally mobilizing people for missions, social media can have significant, positive implications,” said Ford.

Brandon Vogt, a Catholic writer/speaker who also blogs at ThinVeil.net, said that at its core, the church is ‘one giant social network.’ Church fellowship, noted Vogt, shouldn’t be exclusive and closed in on itself – it should always be outward-focused and mission-oriented.

“Fellowship in the past was constrained to times when people gathered at churches or in homes, but now conversations about Sunday sermons can linger throughout the week,” said Vogt.

Vogt added that social media also opens the doors of Christian fellowship, inviting millions of outsiders to join the community.

“Young secularists who would never darken the doors of a church find themselves dialoguing with Christian bloggers, and an atheist YouTube viewer stumbles across a religious debate and becomes intrigued by the idea of God…when used prudently, social media tightens the bonds among Christians and also connects them with millions outside the faith,” said Vogt.

Hinduism

Hinduism, the world’s third largest religion after Christianity and Islam, has about 950 million followers. It’s the dominant religion in India, Nepal and among the Tamils in Sri Lanka.

Hindu Online purports to be the world’s largest portal on Hindu religion, culture, shastras, and more. There’s a vast array of information available on the site – scores of articles, sections devoted to religion, culture, community, a digital library featuring manuscripts (e.g., Veda, Upanishads, Ayurveda), even a Learn Online area where you can get up to speed on everything from Sanskrit to Vedic mathematics.

Two more interesting examples:

Kauai’s Hindu Monastery, located in Kapaa, HI, is a monastery-temple complex with 21 monks. Established in 1949, the monastery has a very popular Facebook page – at last count almost 4,200 had ‘Liked’ it. The Facebook page features photos and videos of the temple, and site visitors share their thoughts and experiences on the monastery’s Wall. Lastly, the site provides links to other Hindu organizations such as the Hindu Students Association, Hinduism Today Magazine and Hindu American Foundation.

Twitter is also being used more frequently for major religious holidays.

Diwali, India’s biggest and most important holiday of the year, is celebrated in October or November each year and is also known as the Festival of Light. Run a search that time of year and you’ll find that #HappyDiwali will be trending.

One popular Tweet last year came from Bollywood actress Kareena Kapoor:

“A very happy Diwali to all of our followers! Spend some quality time with family and friends and be safe!”

Popular Hindu leaders have jumped on the Twitter bandwagon to reach out to their followers. Devotees of Mata Amritanandamayi, a spiritual leader and guru who is sometimes referred to as ‘The Hugging Saint,’ regularly tweets (@amritapuri) in order to provide real-time updates of her activities.

Islam

It has been well documented how social media helped usher in last year’s ‘Arab Spring.’ But technology is also playing an important role in reaching out to Muslims worldwide on religious matters/issues.

For starters, there have been a suite of apps developed for smartphones that have become popular during Ramadan, the ninth month on the Islamic calendar. Ramadan generally lasts about 30 days; participating Muslims refrain from drinking, eating, smoking and sex during daylight hours. Other apps help find the nearest mosque or halal (food that’s permissible per Islamic law) restaurants in various cities.

Some examples:

iQuran, an Android app on Google Play, enables viewers to read the Holy Quran in Arabic alongside its translation. It provides verse-by-verse audio playbacks, repeat functions and unlimited bookmarks.

The Essentials of Ramadan, available on iTunes, provides in-depth info on the rules and laws of Ramadan.

Find Mecca, also on iTunes, uses GPS to locate the Qibla (the direction that should be faced when a Muslim prays; it’s fixed as the direction of the Kaaba in Mecca) anywhere worldwide using an iPhone or iPad. Users can see Mecca with the camera in augmented reality mode; the app also can set an automatic countdown to the next required prayer and adjusts to various time zones.

Nidhal Guessoum, reporting in The Huffington Post, said Twitter is now being used frequently to send Quranic verses and religious injunctions; YouTube and Facebook to disseminate sermons.

Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamanei, even issued a fatwa (a juristic ruling issued by an Islamic scholar) on using Facebook:

“In general if it requires engaging in immorality and evil acts such as spreading corruption, lies and false materials, or if there is concern that it is sinful, or it strengthens the enemies of Islam and Muslims, it is not permissible. Otherwise it’s fine.”

Judaism

There are about 13.4 million Jews worldwide, about 0.2% of the world’s population, with about half in Israel, half in the United States. The rest are scattered widely.

One rabbi in the U.S. has taken proactive steps to bridge this diaspora.

Rabbi Laura Baum founded OurJewishCommunity.org – catchphrase under the Welcome sign on the home page reads, ‘Bringing Judaism to People Where They Are.’

The site’s chief objective is ‘to provide the same services of a brick-and-mortar congregation, such as access to rabbis, sermons, educational materials, social networking, discussions, and more.’

OurJewishCommunity.org uses a variety of tools to generate live content – live stream, blogs, video casts on YouTube, audio podcasts on iTunes, a Facebook Fan Page (currently more than 5,200 fans from 18 countries) and a Twitter feed.

Baum recently presided over an online Passover Seder, which attracted more than 400 people – but no Orthodox Jews, who are not allowed to use electronic devices during the Seder or Sabbath (Friday night through Saturday sunset).

“Sitting in a room is a powerful way to have community; but the fact you can do Passover with people all over the world, that is not any less of a community,” said Baum.

There are also a number of interesting mobile apps being used by Jews around the world.

The Orthodox Union recently released a new mobile app that provides information on what food products are kosher for Passover.

Crowded Road, a software firm, rolled out iTorah-iPad Edition, which includes vowels for Hebrew text to make it easier to read.

Davka Corporation, which bills itself as ‘First in Judaic Software,’ offers the Tanach Bible, a Study Tool for the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad. It includes the Hebrew text and English translation of the Torah and other important works, and can be downloaded on iTunes for $1.99.

Can social media glean modern day solutions to the challenges that first arose during biblical times and are still with us thousands of years later?

Jury’s still out. But these digital tools are having a significant impact on the social and religious lives of people of all faiths and denominations.

“Three obstacles have limited the impact of e-government efforts: ineffective governance, lack of Web-related capabilities, and reluctance to allow user participation in the creation of applications and content,” the report stated.

But 24 months in tech years probably equates to something like 500 dog years – in other words, advances in e-government technologies/processes have been remarkable.

These software solutions are now being implemented by various public agencies and municipalities both stateside and overseas.

Some capsule snapshots:

• The Newnan, GA Police Department is using an integrated software program called SunGard ONESolution, created by SunGard, a privately held Fortune 500 (ranked #434) software/technology services company. Once fully implemented, the city will team up with the Coweta County Sheriff’s Office to share important information as part of a multi-jurisdictional law enforcement strategy. SunGard says the interagency approach will enable emergency dispatchers to push info into the field faster and also help officers access data remotely via wireless-enabled mobile technology.  The software suite is also being used for the City of Johns Creek, GA (tenth largest in the state; incorporated in 2006) for local government, including apps for finance, human resources and community development.

• The Tauranga City Council (TCC) in New Zealand is using e-government software from Accela to manage more than US $2 billion of city assets and infrastructure. Tauranga is New Zealand’s sixth-largest urban area with about 120,000 residents. TCC also plans to use Accela Mobile Office, a mobile solution that will allow workers and contractors in the field to receive/transmit from-the-job work orders, inspection data, GIS data, and occupational health and safety information.

• GovPartner’s online permitting portal, known as CommunityDevelopmentPartner, has been a big hit with the Municipality of Abu Dhabi (pop. 1.6 million). The portal, accessed via the Abu Dhabi municipal website, issues more than a thousand monthly permits and handles electronic plan reviews. Here in the U.S., National City, CA (just south of downtown San Diego) is using the company’s software to centralize and streamline the city’s Community Development processes – it has also automated multiple departments, including Building, Business Licensing, Code Enforcement, Engineering and Planning.

“The old paradigm of residents having to go to City Hall to conduct business is shifting significantly for two reasons – technological innovation, and the ubiquity of Internet-ready devices,” said National City IT Manager Ron Williams.

Look for e-government to be a big part of so-called ‘smart cities’ in the next few years. ABI Research recently reported that $8.1 billion was spent on smart city technologies last year (including what they called ‘smart government’ services).  The market research firm expects this to increase to $39.5 billion by 2016.  ABI Research said there are currently 102 smart city projects worldwide – Europe has 38, North America at 35, Asia Pacific at 21, the Middle East and Africa at six; Latin America with two.

Writing in Public Management, GovPartner President Mike Daniel said that the most relevant e-government trends “will have as much to do with management principles as with technology, including integration, self-customization, and shared services and outsourcing.”

Palo Alto (CA) Mayor Sid Espinosa best summed it up:

“Technology providers are often seen as the delivery mechanism for these shapeless, faceless advancements that government leaders will then contend with. But the truth is that the simple daily use of a system coupled with a permit technician who thinks outside of the box, or a municipal staffer who envisions a new way of using that software, is what truly drives e-government.”

Ad of the Day: Cycle Safety | Adweek

While i don’t usually post broadcast ads, I am a cyclist, and the visual effects on this are striking.

TRUE STORY: Facebook Is Keeping My Brother Alive

I’ve seen posts talking about the problem of leaving a deceased person’s Facebook page active. This is a compelling argument for the opposite approach. Keeping their page alive, even if they’re not.

Why iPads are a retail game-changer – USATODAY.com

Some good data in this story about a recent Forrester study. Bottom line is while tablets are often lumped into mobile, we’re seeing more and more evidence that tablets are a more distinct screen experience.

DIGIDAY: 5 Niche Social Nets That Work

While the big social networks pull all the buzz, if your target audience is niche enough, you might find social networks like these to reach them through.

Don’t Be a Content Marketing Grinch – Convince & Convert

I couldn’t agree more with these fundamental ideas behind distributing content wherever you can find relevant readers.

How YouTube Wins in the Great Unbundling of Cable TV | Advertising Age

A good read on where the future of television and video content is headed.

AppGrooves: App Recommendation Engine Combines Social With “Hot Or Not” Feature | TechCrunch

It’s no secret that one of the biggest challenges in app production is getting noticed in the app store. This is an interesting app idea — to help you discover the most relevant apps — but there’s still a chicken and the egg situation. How will people discover this app?

Video Marketer’s Guide to YouTube Annotations & Why You Should Use Them

Video is still proving to be some of the most effective content you can produce, and these tips will help you make your videos on YouTube even more effective.

Disney Marketing: The Happiest Social Media Strategy on Earth

This article is a great example of how content is different from advertising. If you want to drive engagement, you might still need to be selling, but you’re selling in a less-direct way.

Is Social Media Taking Over Search: SlideShare Presentation

While this gets into some higher levels than non-search people may be able track, the upshot is, if you want to improve your seo standings today and even moreso in the future, get people to share your content.

Rhoda Alexander, director of monitor research for market research firm iSuppli, said hardware designers are overlooking an opportunity to leapfrog over what Apple is currently offering by moving the mobile platform beyond a simple consumption tablet to include true creation offerings.

“Touch provides the all-important key to a growing number of content doors, enabling users to easily flick from one application to another,” said Alexander. “Yet for the most part, these doors swing one way, allowing users to easily pull content while providing only rudimentary input options.”

The ideal paperless solution, added Alexander, would allow users to interact with the electronic content in the same way one does with the media it is replacing. This is particularly true in education environments where students and educators want more flexibility than a soft keyboard provides.

“They want the ability to make notes in margins and underline critical passages with the simple motion of a stylus, to jot down thoughts as they occur, and to sketch out a diagram or a mathematical solution,” she said.

Guillaume Largillier, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Bordeaux, France-based Stantum, which has been providing multi-touch technology solutions since 2002, concurred that education will be a key vertical for touch –  and the broad solution will be multi-touch technology, an ideal form factor for mobile and school computing because it's transportable and offers enough surface area for proper content manipulation and viewing.

“But the specific form factor requires the right type of multi-touch technology—a technology that makes touchscreens easier and less costly to build than those that use traditional capacitive multi-touch and, most importantly, that respond best to the needs of the user,” said Largillier.

"A user-friendly, touch-enabled smaller screen that doubles as a connected, multimedia e-textbook would be welcomed by students, parents, and teachers," says Lynn Marentette, a noted school psychologist who blogs about accessible off-the-desktop natural user interfaces.

"Tech-savvy teachers often incorporate digital storytelling and multimedia activities into their lessons, and 21st century learners need a fast and easy way to input and manipulate their creative content. Although some of the netbooks in line for purchase by the schools offer this capability, they don't provide the mode of touch that students love, a touch that might make learning tangible—and real," Marentette adds.

In developed countries, noted Largillier, students account for about 25 percent of the population. But in emerging countries, with governments investing heavily in developing their IT and education infrastructures, the addressable market is already close to a billion users. Also, given that education is now on the cusp of the cloud revolution, it would not be surprising if the education market becomes the next El Dorado for makers of connected devices of any sort.

“Computerized slates could be a learning and discovery tool from the very start, rather than yet another discipline to learn—a concept that has much more in common with paper notepads and plastic slates than it has with traditional classroom PCs,” he said.

And Largillier notes that a single interface could respond to the educational needs of users throughout their school careers—from elementary school to university—adapting input mechanisms, graphical elements, interaction flow, and applications as the user's ability grows.

The stakes are staggering. Apple claims more than 10 billion apps have been downloaded. Google's Android Market has seen 2.5 billion downloads. And Samsung reported last week that its mobile and TV apps have been downloaded 100 million times, although only a few million of these are TV apps.

Apps are now the life and blood of the mobile phone world. And their amazing success have caused ripple waves that are nothing short of astonishing. Apple has launched an App Store for its Macintosh platform. HP says that WebOS, formerly Palm's operating system, will be ported to HP’s computer platform. This new "app era" way of thinking will transform user interfaces, by making software developers focus on simplifying things — a boon for computer users worldwide.

Read the full article here.

Usual colorful characters were in full regalia promoting a respective company and/or product – a pair of vertically challenged hires wore head-to-toe bear costumes, an attractive young lady decked out as some kind of fairy godmother passed out flyers, and a number of people sported coiffures with bright hues of green, tangerine, even magenta.

Standard stuff for GDC.

Looking beyond GDC, overall, the PC gaming industry appears healthy and poised for significant growth assuming the economy slowly continues to improve both in the U.S. and abroad.

Market research firm Jon Peddie Research recently released its figures on the forecast for video game graphics boards sales for the next two years and actual Q4 2010 shipments. The firm found that worldwide, consumers spent five percent less during the holiday season on ultra high-end enthusiast video graphics than during Q3 2010, but four percent more on upper-end midrange performance boards.

This suggests, says Dr. Jon Peddie, president of the firm, that consumers were still watching their wallets and despite some encouraging news about an improving economy, cast their votes with their hard-earned dollars.

Overall, noted Peddie, the graphics board market generated sales of $4.4 billion in Q4 2010, and of that the firm estimates 44 percent was for gaming graphics (although the graphics boards can of course be used for other functions).

Looking forward, Peddie sees a steady growth in the high-performance enthusiast segment and expects it to reach $2.45 billion by 2013.  And last month the company released a PC gaming hardware market report, estimating that 2011 expenditures will be up 27 percent over 2010 to about $22 billion worldwide.

Another market research firm, NPD, released its figures covering video game console and game sales for February. They reported that U.S. consumers spent three percent more (a total of $1.36 billion) on video games last month compared to the same period a year ago.   NPD said console accessories sales figures scored the biggest gains – a 22 percent hike from last year - primarily due to sales of Microsoft’s Xbox Kinect motion sensor controller.

NPD said for February, the top five games in the U.S. were Call of Duty: Black Ops; Marvel vs. Capcom 3; Just Dance 2: NBA 2k11; and Dead Space 2.

Powerhouse Electronic Arts is somewhat upbeat too. In an interview with Gamasutra, EA Games President Frank Gibeau said MMORPG’s (massively multiplayer online role-playing game) and other PC games will continue to be a key revenue producer for EA.

“The user base is gigantic,” said Gibeau. “PC retail may be a big problem, but PC downloads are awesome. The margins are much better and we don’t have any rules in terms of first approvals. From our perspective, it’s an extremely health platform. It’s totally conceivable it will become our biggest platform.”

There are a number of key factors influencing the amount of money people are spending on PCs as a gaming platform.

Here are a few of these as reported by Jon Peddie Research:

• The natural cycle of PC hardware purchases from historical inflection points. The biggest inflection points correspond with highly anticipated software releases. The refresh cycle of PCs for this crop of gamers is hitting over the last year and through the next year. This stimulates sales.

• System demands of modern FPS (first person shooters) and RTS (real-time strategy) titles. To play Black Ops or Starcraft II at good resolutions and frame rates requires a pretty decent rig. Gamers that are interested in these titles are buying new rigs to run them, stimulating sales.

• The cost of 1920x1080 PC displays has dropped to around $200. This is a very important factor in mid-range PC gamers buying and upgrading equipment to run on this resolution at good frame rates.

• Solid state drives are on the wish lists of a lot of PC gamers and they are using this technology as the decision base for upgrades and new rigs.

• Steam, The EA Store, Direct2Drive, and other services make buying PC games very convenient. The word is getting out and it is influencing people to adopt the PC as a gaming platform.

• The current console platforms are old and they have performance limitations. Gamers are choosing the PC because of the incredible quality that is possible beyond a console. One can obtain a $600 PC that exceeds the capabilities of a console (and you can use it for a lot of other things).

• Direct X 11 is being widely applauded amongst higher end PC gamers who spend a lot of money.

• PC gamers are spending a lot of money on high quality speaker systems, headsets, mice, cases, cooling, and other accessories and customizations.

• 3D is also opening the wallets of PC gamers. Though it is not universal, there is a significant and growing interest in 3D capabilities.

• Ultra HD displays are on the wish lists of many high end PC gamers. Gamers need a very fast system to run these resolutions and this is stimulating sales.

• Wide gamut displays are starting to attract attention and dollars from PC gamers. Traditionally used by graphic designers, “wide gamut” displays are capable of showing more of the color spectrum, often making games look better.

Games go well with desktop and notebook computers; the market should only get stronger over the next several years.

Fast forward a year later, where 88% of small businesses and 74% of midsized organizations now use Twitter as their social media application of choice. However, marketers do have a preference when choosing their conversation agent.

A Website Magazine report shows that the top three Twitter clients among Web-savvy marketers are TweetDeck (my #1 preference), Tweetie, and HootSuite (my #2):

A recent LinkedIn poll confirms those findings, with 65% choosing TweetDeck and 25% opting for HootSuite:

Additional LinkedIn poll insights:

- 70% of respondents were male

- 30% of CxOs and VPs prefer HootSuite

- 60% of mid-level managers opt for TweetDeck

- 50% of marketers use both TweetDeck and HootSuite

(If you’re undecided about Twitter clients,  Sarah Worsham at Sazbean.com publishes a nice feature-by-feature breakdown of TweetDeck versus HootSuite, and Jarel Remick lists his thoughts in his post, “10 Reasons I’m Switching from TweetDeck to HootSuite.”)

So why are these figures important?

Because they paint a pretty picture as to which Twitter clients are preferred and which favored clients are true conversation agents. My prediction is that by the end of 2011, we’ll see far fewer companies sparring to be the number one Twitter client, with many on Website Magazine’s list being rolled up into another provider’s wheelhouse or disappearing altogether. Just another indicator that the market—and in this case, the marketer--dictates demand.

Which Twitter client do you prefer?

More from my source interview with AKQA CEO Tom Bedecarré, for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND.

In part two, Bedecarré talks about some of AKQA's all-time greatest initiatives, beginning with the Nike PhotoID mobile app (see video above). Along the way, we'll learn that for all the hype that surrounds Facebook, Bedecarré believes it remains grossly undervalued by marketers.

Tom Bedecarré, CEO, AKQA (Pt. 2): Nike, Visa & the Surprising Power of Facebook

>> Click Here to Listen to Audiocast <<

(Approx. 5:10)

In just the last few days, his global firm, AKQA, launched the new campaign for "Halo: Reach," which includes everything from a dark, engrossing online video series set in the video game's universe, to a robot that is enables fans to help select the position of 54,439 points of light for a new social media-enabled light sculpture.

And Friday morning, AKQA launched the latest in a long line of innovative digital & mobile initiatives for Target.

Dubbed My TargetWeekly, the solution will enable shoppers to customize Target's weekly ad to best fit their interests, and to even create alerts, which will send them the latest offers on their favorite brands and items via PC and mobile phone. The idea: to target, as it were, the smaller number of hard-to-reach, digitally savvy shoppers - who tend to spend more than others. They can even share their shopping experience via Facebook.

"Target is doing what smart retailers have to do: Go to where the customers are," Rebecca Lieb, vice president, North America at the research firm Econsultancy, tells USA Today. "You have to engage people on their own terms."

That may as well be Bedecarré's persona motto. In part one of an expansive source interview for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, Bedecarré shares the behind the scenes steps he took to shape what is arguably one of the most forward thinking digital marketing firms in the world

"There are a lot of advertising people who want to hang onto the past, want to hang onto 30-second television commercials and full-color magazine ads, and I think it's very hard to catch up," he tells me, with considerable understatement, before explaining how his team started putting the pieces in place a decade ago to capitalize on this amazing new era.

Over the next few days, I'll share more from this interview, including Bedecarreé's insights on some of today's mos exciting new channels, as well as his firm's most famous digital initiatives, from Design The World A Coke, to Nike PhotoID, to the Target snow globe iPhone app and more.

Building The Agency of Tomorrow, Today

AKQA CEO Tom Bedecarré (Pt.1)

(Approx. 3:10)

In part one of this exclusive audiocast, Tim Zuckert, CEO of ShiftControl Media, shares some of the astonishing statistics associated with branded games, and his insights on why a growing number of brands are exploring this emerging channel.

Zuckert, of course, is the man behind Coca-Cola's "Happiness Factory" branded game, as well as initiatives for Yahoo, Starwood Hotels, Energizer and many others. 

In this, a source interview for my new book, THE ON-DEMAND BRAND, he'll showcase the engagement branded games can activate - and have you thinking differently about what games can do for your brand.

Audio Interview: Tim Zuckert, CEO of ShiftControl Media - On Boosting Engagement Through Branded Games (Part 1)

CLICK HERE TO PLAY AUDIOCAST

(Approx 5:01)

According to the IAB's press release, the task force is helmed by senior publishing and interactive industry executives. The announcement was made at the IAB's two-day symposium, IAB Innovation Days: Content Conquers All.

"Since 1996, the IAB has played a critical role in the growth of interactive advertising by developing standards and best practices for existing and emerging digital media platforms," said Randall Rothenberg, president and CEO, IAB. "The Tablet Task Force launches an important conversation about what should happen to drive sustainable advertising growth for tablets and e-readers, and it taps into the combined experience and expertise of respected industry leaders."

The press release goes on to say that objective of the Tablet Task Force is to "explore and define comprehensive best practices in the area, build an infrastructure for ongoing growth and provide guidance on the development of ad standards that enhance the lush consumer experiences that these devices promise."

For more information, check out their site.

As if my mind wasn't in 50 different places at once, Sprint offers a widget to answers those questions and more via a burst of fun statistics with its interactive widget, revamped to accompany its new Sprint Now Network campaign.

Sprint's widget, which found some play on the web a few months ago, can be uploaded to iGoogle, Facebook, MySpace, your desktop or embedded on other sites.

The widget is engaging, to say the least. There's something for everyone, and if you're bored with what appears on your widget, you can reshuffle for new stats. And I admit -- I was intrigued by the red button.

My one criticism is that I looked at the microsite above at least a dozen times before I found the "Get the Now widget" button to download it. (Psst... it's a little right of the center of the page.)

The revamped widget, which found some play on the web a few months ago, was enhanced for Sprint's "What's Happening Now?" integrated campaign, featuring ads across television, online and select print nationwide. The online campaign includes a microsite, banner ads and several homepage takeovers on YouTube, Yahoo, MSN, and AOL. The first homepage takeover is scheduled to launch April 29 with others to follow. And later in 2009 the campaign will hit digital billboards in high traffic areas.

Browser Blur is the blurring of the lines between online and offline, between the web and the desktop (and, yes, I made it up).

From the Browser to the Desktop

On one hand, applications that pull content from the web are no longer sentenced to live inside the browser. Those prison walls are have been broken down. The best example of this is iTunes. Apple may not have "ads," but they certainly market plenty in the iTunes Store. I'd be willing to bet that a good number of people reading this are accessing Twitter from their the desktop without launching a browser via Tweetdeck, Twhirl or Seesmic.

Take a look through Dashboard Widgets on Apple's website. Brands from Virgin Atlantic to Petsmart to MSNBC have all created small branded applications that stream content to your computer without ever launching a browser. Microsoft has Gadgets (basically Widgets for the PC) in Vista and has hundreds of them available for download on their website.

This is an incredibly powerful tool for marketers because users choose to download these to their computers. It means they must be incredibly relevant to your target audience.

Adobe AIR is a key technology that is a catalyst for this trend. AIR is "a cross-OS runtime that allows developers to leverage their existing web development skills (Flash, Flex, HTML, Ajax) to build and deploy desktop RIAs." RIA is geek-speak for Rich Internet Applications—basically software interfaces that provide richer levels of interactivity for a better user experience. In a nutshell, it enables cool Flash apps sans browser.

From the Desktop to the Browser   The other side of this story is that software that has traditionally lived on the desktop is shifting online. Salesforce.com has been the champion of the "software as a service" movement with their hosted, online CRM tools. There's potential for a seismic shift in the way all software is delivered.   Google Docs, Zoho and Adobe Buzzword are fantastic tools.Users now have a choice: purchase Microsoft Office or use an online service like Buzzword for free. All you have to do is check the box and give permission for Writely to present you with targeted advertising. Imagine the potential of targeted ads being served up to business customer based on keywords in a document they are writing as they type? You can be sure the folks at Google have. So, there you have it. Sorry marketers. Didn't mean to heap yet another emerging media trend to get up to speed on onto your plate. If it makes things easier, file this one under "Web 2.0 Stuff."   It's all a blur, anyhow.

BK decided it wasn't worth going on without it.

I'll refrain from gushing any more in my blog over this app.  You can read my praise here.  But I will say this is something of a let down.  One might think Facebook was anxious to encourage clever, edgy moves like this. 

Could Facebook have been jealous?  According to AdWeek, "Facebook often works with brands on applications as part of larger ad buys. In this case, BK relied on viral distribution of Whopper Sacrifice and did not consult Facebook." 

In the short week Whopper Sacrifice lived, it scored 82,000 downloads and slashed 233,906 people from bloated friend lists.

You may have only lived for a week, Whopper Sacrifice.  But I have a feeling we'll be talking about you for years to come.

Crispin scores points here launching the first killer, branded Facebook app. Now that Facebook is officially a runaway freight train, who wasn't hustling to come up with this? They also score points (yet again) for rallying all kinds of buckets of unpaid media (online outlets from CNET to Scientific American; the LA Times to the NY Times picked up this story).

Where's the relevancy?  Um.  How about this.  In these tough economic times, everything comes at a cost.  And everything has a value (the BK app puts the value of your friends at $.37).  Sometimes it even costs you a few friends to get lunch. Not buying that?  Neither am I.  How about this.  BK's latest twist on their flagship sandwich is the "Angry Whopper."  I can see associating anger with dumping friends.  It's a stretch, but I can see it. The only problem is, neither the Whopper Sacrifice minisite or app mentions the "Angry" Whopper. 

Alas, Crispin still earns a high-five here. 

What's next for Crispin?  How about the first killer, branded iPhone app?

But in doing so, we’ve seen a significant blurring of the lines between what a desktop application is and what a Web application is. It’s hard enough for some developers to distinguish a difference anymore. But for brand owners who look to extend interactivity to the desktop and beyond, the confusion could be crippling. While the idea of a RIA has been around for quite some time, the way users think about them is clearly beginning to change.

With the help of some big players in the technology world, namely Google, Microsoft and Adobe, those distinctions are all but disappearing.

Google is one of the largest players in the RIA space. Through both innovation and acquisition, they now own many of the most successful consumer oriented Web based applications. From Google Docs which is providing a viable alternative to desktop office suites, to Google Calendar and the ubiquitous Gmail, Google created a formidable library of software. But there are still those users - and I count myself among them - who don't entirely feel comfortable switching from software they control to software someone else does.

I believe products like Google Chrome are trying to address this.

As a browser, Google Chrome offers a few pieces of helpful functionality not seen in other browsers, but the most significant feature, is the "Application Shortcuts." This feature allows an end user to create a shortcut to any Web based application and save it to their desktop, start menu and Quick Launch bar (see video demo). Rather than open the application in the standard browser window, it opens without the normal set of browser toolbars and menus, making the Web application feel like a desktop application.

This is exactly this perception shift that is driving Google's entry into the browser market.

On the other hand, Microsoft seems to be taking a different approach. As a whole, Microsoft is strongly rooted in the desktop with a huge majority of users running one of their Windows operating systems. But this is not the whole story. At PDC 2008, Microsoft's Professional Developers Conference, the company announced a number of Software + Service initiatives. While some of these, like Windows Azure the new "cloud-based" operating system, are firmly fixed in the enterprise server space, other announcements focus clearly on the consumer In particular, Office 14 will feature a Web based version known as Office Web. This offers consumers with a user experience that is comparable to the desktop version and certainly rivaling the Google Docs competition.

Microsoft has also made a huge investment in the Web as a platform with the introduction of Silverlight as a RIA runtime. Silverlight offers developers a really great toolset for building Web based applications, but most importantly, it allows developers who are familiar with Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF), (their desktop UI framework) to leverage most of that knowledge online. Software + Services as well as Silverlight will be the power behind Office Web and any number of as yet unannounced applications.

Finally, there’s Adobe. A veteran front runner in developing tools for Web based applications (with its Flash and Flex development environments and the Flash runtime) the competition from Microsoft's Silverlight has only forced them to improve their game. The recently released Flash 10 runtime is leaps and bounds above what they were developing two years ago and they have certainly renewed their commitment to the RIA. But they are not stopping there. Adobe released also the AIR runtime in February of this year which allows Flash/Flex developers to bring their applications to the desktop and taking advantage of all the benefits that provides.

The examples given above are just a small sampling of the changes coming from those three companies as well as all the other players out there. I think we'll be seeing fewer and fewer distinctions between what we do on the Web and what we do on the desktop. For brands, that means more and more connections and interactions with what were once two separate worlds.