Keynote vs. PowerPoint - 1

The Mac has a native application in iWork, its office suite, called Keynote.

It is most 'famous' for being the presentation software that everyone thought was PowerPoint in the movie "An Inconvenient Truth". Al Gore toured with his laptop and would update his presentation on the road as he travelled, so the story goes.

Now, what you see in the documentary may be one of Keynote's big selling points - it tends to look fluid, simple, and almost cinematic.

The big question becomes, what do you want to do with your tool?

PowerPoint has an enormous installed base - most Windows office machines, and a good proportion of Mac machines running Microsoft Office. So if interoperability is what you want - PowerPoint is a good first choice.

Just watch out for the different PowerPoint versions - you'll suddenly be knee-deep in right-clicks if you start mixing versions and charts.

I have to vote (with some reservations) that if you want elegance, Keynote has an edge. As a relatively new Mac user, I have come to appreciate the clicks I don't have to make on a Mac.

Usability, (once you get used to the different conventions) is greater on Keynote. To change the colour of a chart series in Powerpoint:

- Click on the chart- click again (carefully) to select the data series- select the Fill Tool- select a colour fro the main or sub-menus

To change the colour of a chart series in Keynote:

:have the Colour Inspector open- drag the colour you want over the data series and drop it!

In the first round - there you have it. A standalone show does well on Keynote. In fact, you can export it as a movie, and the Mac handles this really well.A show that needs to move around from machine to machine would tend to be PowerPoint. That is, if you refuse to use OpenOffice (more on that in another article!)

Upwardly Mobile

The numbers do speak volumes.
Mobiles phones are a huge, gathering force in the media platform web, and they're decreasingly being used to do any talking at all.

According to a couple of media research outfits;
32% of new phones are smartphones.
- so why would that be? Palm-sized computers? The greatest use of these devices are respectively - social media, web browsing, research.

62% of carrier data traffic is ... iPhone usage.
- iPhones account for only about 1% of mobile devices. Think about that - provide usability, a desirable product and marketplace, and uptake hits the roof.

4.1 billion handsets.
- OMG, as the texters would say. SMS texting is doubling yearly, and the number of messages outnumber phone conversations more than 10 to 1.

The first webpage was created in August 1994.
The first SMS message was sent in December 1995.

The conversation is changing - there is a widely divergent pattern of use of mobile devices.

Stattaco stream-of-consciousness (SMS, Twitter) and rich media experiences (web applications, gaming).

Both are opportunities, neither are the web we knew, and the pace of change is exciting and disruptive for models built on scarcity and inertia.

Tweets or Twits?

Buzz is what people are paying attention to -
and the buzz in online marketing is social media.

If we take the leaders, like Facebook, MySpace and Twitter, you get a cross-section of the concern - is this social or is it media? Mixing the two is an exercise in discretion, inclusion and public relations. Who says business and pleasure don't mix? Well, social media are the playground where you can work out the mix.

Social Media are largely unbound by convention - and that's not such a bad thing. Advertising with long hair - well, not advertising exactly, but promotion. If you ever wondered what the 'voice' of your brand is, now is the time to work it out. Test it out. You will probably get lots of feedback (or worse, none, a message in itself).

MySpace tends to the younger demographic, and lean towards music and lifestyle. Our client Tritickets is an obvious match.

Facebook is the more middle-of-the-road community- half the size of MySpace's, but very lively and online-saavy. This is core audience for which an event tickets blog would be an ideal diversion.

Twitter, the micro-blogging tool - now that's a way of harnessing the power of PR and making it personable. 'Tweets' done well are informative and convey your voice. Done less well, they can occur as annoying chatter that will get people hitting that dreaded 'unfollow' button.

User-generated content - i.e. the feedback from your social marketing - can form a crucial part of your strategy. Bring your business case. Be prepared to be responsive and adaptive. And welcome to permission marketing.