Nigel Brown – Editor
Nigel has joined Republic as part of our Launch team after editing Sport.co.uk and working at T3. He’ll now be working on our latest creative titles such as Humans Invent.

Martin James – Senior Staff Writer
Martin has actually been beavering away behind the scenes at Republic for some time now, but he recently gave up the lazy freelance life to join us and work on NokNok full time.

Sarah Dowling – Operations Manager
Tea maker in chief, Sarah also has the unenviable position of keeping Republic’s unruly mob of talented employees in check. From HR stuff to helping out wherever needed, Sarah is truly one of Republic’s unsung heroes.

Emma Lancaster – Administrator
Emma helps Sarah to keep Republic running smoothly, and is another much valued part of our team. From expenses to holidays, to fetching the beers at the bar and all the other stuff we didn’t even realise we needed, we couldn’t manage without her!

Lucy Winstanely-Norris – Staff Writer
Having worked for the Guardian, local news, and even the government department for Culture, Media and Sport, Lucy now helps out on Vodafone’s World of Difference website. Check it out – you’ll be able to find info on the latest and most interesting charities.

First local edition of the official Nokia blog

Over the last two years, Republic Publishing has been working with the Nokia Social Media team to develop and run the official Nokia blog. Almost two years to the day since the launch of the global English language edition, we rolled out the Chinese edition in , together with the local team in Nokia China.

In the works for the last three months, the site mirrors the look and feel of the global edition, but is completely localised to make it easier for both readers and the team working on it. Although hosted in China, the site was built and is maintained by Republic Publishing.

To help get the site off the ground, and the local team up and running, JBC spent a week in Beijing working through the key functions of running an official corporate blog.

If you’re fluent in Chinese, then head over to Blog.Nokia.com.cn

This month we launched a series of engaging independent promotional guides and must-see videos highlighting the talents of the new Android-powered Sony Ericsson Xperia X10. Created by the Electricpig editors for Electricpig readers, each article and video was keenly tailored to engage their distinct tastes and core tech interests.

We’re offering our readers the chance to explore the X10 in real depth via an entirely fresh selection of standalone guides and enlightening easy-to-digest 60-second videos.

We wanted to illustrate the smartest things you can do with the X10 in a minute, and came up with a list of ten distinct scenarios where Sony Ericsson’s latest smartphone could help you out.

Visit our Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 campaign on Electricpig, or visit each of the 10 guides directly via the links below.

Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 in ten minutes:
What can you do in a minute?
Xperia X10: Throw the world’s fastest party
Xperia X10: Share your holiday snaps in seconds
Xperia X10: Catch up with friends in an instant
Xperia X10: Get off the tourist trail
Xperia X10: Become a pub quiz mastermind
Xperia X10: Make your mates smile
Xperia X10: Rock out to infinity
Xperia X10: Get the gossip, as it happens
Xperia X10: Learn new tricks with awesome apps
Xperia X10: Watch videos on the move

With a mixture of serious and not so serious topics, reader interaction from the blog and a spotlight on the latest apps and games, the official Nokia blog newsletter forms a weekly digest of the most important things to happen around Nokia.

The newsletter is the latest in a long line of additions made to the site since it launched in 2008.

Tim Whirldedge points out on his blog this campaign has created an interesting tone of voice for Dixons based on brutal honesty. Others like Ruth Mortimer at Marketing Week have been more sceptical of Dixons decision to undermine competitor brands. It’s a ballsy move, not every brand is prepared to sell itself on widely known values that haven’t always reflected positively.

I’ve written previously about how electrical retailers are embracing new forms of customer service. I admire this campaign for the distinct opportunity it has created for Dixons. Yes, in a recession hugely competitive price points are sustaining sales numbers but for how long will Dixons be able to ignore a customer service approach?

It’s no secret that Best Buy’s entrance in the UK is just around the corner. In the US they are renowned for their high levels of customer satisfaction and have built the brand around this. It will be interesting to see how consumers react to Dixons.

John Lewis have already publicly commented on this campaign. Rightly or wrongly this campaign has stimulated debate around the brands involved. Do you love or hate it? How does this make you feel about Dixons? Do you admire their pluckiness or are they making a mistake? Who makes the most of this and how they do it promises to be very interesting indeed.

Viral Video: ‘A video clip that gains widespread popularity through the process of Internet sharing, typically through email or Instant messaging, blogs and other media sharing websites.’ Source: Wikipedia

There was a time when viral video campaigns felt organic and about community and the best ones still work on the principle of getting the message out there. However, the latest crop, to my mind at least, seem to be little more than adverts better suited to a cinema audience than the internet.

The problem seems to be that Ad agencies have gotten involved and that means every increasing budgets and higher expectations. The latest two videos that seem to have taken this approach are both about laptops. I like both, for quite different reasons, but neither strike me as anything other than advertising.

The MSI ‘guy catches laptop in butt’ video has that ‘share’ appeal vital to virals as it’s simply a corny joke executed really really well. Everyone finds toilet humour funny on some level and this hits that chord nicely – I’m just not sure how many people will remember which notebook, or brand, it is that’s being advertised. Conversely, the latest Sony S.M.A.A campaign leaves its pay-off until the end – it’s not until you’ve sat through this mini-drama that we get to see it’s for a Sony VAIO after all!

Now, I’m not going to tell anyone how to spend their budgets but as community and sharing information is what we do daily on NokNok, there are far more cost-effective and informative ways to get that message out there. However, if viral video is a key part of getting that message out then one of the more successful, in my mind, of late has been setting the Nokia 3720 Classic in jelly! It’s quick, to the point and really has that viral appeal.

Viral marketing can work and works really well but it shouldn’t be the only part of a marketing campaign, it should compliment the other work you’re carrying out online on a daily basis – that’s the true benefit of community sites.

Nokia 3720 Classic:

Liane Dietrich, managing director of LinkShare, the affiliate network which conducted the research, said:

“Less than 10 per cent of our respondents are interacting with adverts across social networking sites…Online users are information shoppers – they are looking for buyer reviews – so adverts need relay more information to cater for this need”.

This serves as a good reminder to all that at its heart the internet is a service led business. The most successful sites are those that are consistently providing useful information to their customers.

This obviously is easier said than done and even Google can sometimes get it wrong. Recently I’ve been exploring their Ad-sense channel via YouTube and came across this particularly illuminating comment.

“Hey Google instead of these ads for your Google products how about you give instruction instead. That’s what people search YouTube for, not to see an ad”.

Wouldn’t it be great if more people actually searched for ads. Perhaps a good lesson for us all, remember advertising needs to be useful!

Yup, I work off two machines. That’s not bragging, it’s just that I commute with a netbook and here at Republic Republishing we all use MacBook Pros for the day job! Now, I’ve been using Macs for years as a reviewer but this is the first one I’ve owned and used every day. I’m still in two minds as to whether I’d buy one with my own money.

This has a knock-on effect that I’ve been humming and erring about the upcoming Apple kit. One that I know I’d never buy is the Apple Tablet. I am sure the analysts predicting it’ll sell in its millions are on safe ground, it’s just that I’m not a big fan of tablets in general, so the news that Apple may get involved during 2010 leaves me feeling a little cold.

So, what am I looking forward to in my Mac? Well, it seems that iTunes 9 will be offering Blu-ray movies for download. A MacBook Pro with Blu-ray makes a good deal of sense. That in itself isn’t as big a shock as people would expect but it does have the knock-on effect that Apple will need to update their laptops to handle true HD definitions and even sport Blu-ray drives.

In its most basic essence it means we’re likely to see MacBook Pros move to 17.3-inch and 15.6-inch to deliver true 16:9 aspect ratios. While Steve Jobs previously voiced concerns about loading his machines up with HD and the effects it may have on performance, it seems even Mr Jobs can’t hold back technology creep forever.

It also means that if we are to see an Apple Netbook any time soon, then it’ll no doubt sport a 11.6-inch screen to keep in line with this across the board move. Then again, the latest rumours point to an even smaller 9.7-inch device, which no doubt will be seen more as a super-iPhone Touch rather than a netbook. If they can get the battery life, and more importantly the price, right, then I could well see myself moving solely to an Apple desk and wave the Windows behind… we’ll see!

Plurk is a social media site that allows you to send the now standard 140 characters and pass them on to others who are Plurking.

Plurk takes everything that Twitter has to offer and ramps up the game by bringing onboard video and pictures that you can share right from within the service. However, it’s the Plurk wall that hits you the hardest. For the first time user it can be a little daunting getting used to all your activities up in front of you (one colleague has fled the service as it’s a too much to handle).

Once you’ve come to terms with the UI Plurk does offer quite a lot – the couple of late nights recently spent playing with it are testament to that fact. Getting to grips with Plurk seems to be the aim of the game but I’ve not seen many people using it over Twitter yet.

People seem to have cottoned on to Plurk and are using it much as they do Twitter. So, the question is are they actively using it as a real alternative, or, like me, is everyone just seeing what’s coming down the pipe?

1. The Queen hits Twitter
That’s right HRH has joined the social networking revolution with her own Twitter page. Technically it’s actually the whole Royal family’s Twitter page, and none of them will actually be tweeting. That’s left up to two teams at Buckingham Palace and Clarence House. STill at least it shows the Monarchy aren’t as out of touch as some people seem to think.

2. Health officials spend £30 million on marketing
“Where’s the social media link?” you say. Well, health officials have set aside a budget of £30 million to spend over the next three years on a marketing campaign to raise awareness on healthy eating, obesity and the like, with Facebook and Twitter being the main focus. Naturally, this has come under fire, with critics suggesting the money would be better off spent elsewhere. But at a time when advertisers are attaching increasing importance to the amount of time people spend on a site, then why shouldn’t health officals adopt a similar stance? After all Facebook is one of the biggest sites in the world, and Twitter is growing at an unprecedented rate.

3. PrankNET gets probed
Think prank calls are funny? The FBI certainly doesn’t. They’re investigating increasingly violent ‘pranks’ done by PrankNET – an anonymous prank-calling internet group. The group have claimed responsibility for such “pranks” as convincing staff in a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant to douse the restaurant with fire-suppressing chemicals, evacuate the building and strip off their clothes in the freezing cold. Now, firstly that’s not a very funny prank. And secondly, who in their right mind would follow those instructions anyway?

4. Google Street View hits Stonehenge
The internet road-mapping service, Google Street View, has decided to extend its service from driving routes to popular off-road destinations, such as the Angel of the North, Loch Ness and Stonehenge. The service has had its issues with privacy laws in the past, but I doubt Nessie will be kicking up a fuss. The Druids on the other hand, might pose a different challenge…

5. iPhone rings pure
You can get all sorts of applications for the iPhone nowadays. Applications that turn it into a satnav. Apps that run your bath for you. And now you can even get a Purity Ring iPhone application. Basically you take a “purity pledge” and a spinning silver ring is displayed on your iPhone’s screen. Whether this will work is debatable. Unless your iPhone also gives you a shock when you’re about to get frisky, I can’t believe that a spinning ring will stop you. But then I am weak willed.