Jay Wolff recently returned from Moscow, where he presented to top brand-clients of our friends at GRAPE, one of Russia’s leading interactive agencies.

His trip included visits to iconic sites in the great city, adventures with the staff of GRAPE, a lecture for an “all digital” university program, and most importantly, presenting to a large audience of international brands on the business underlying all digital campaigns.

To develop this presentation, Jay taps his experience as Odopod’s president, as well as his board positions for SoDA (the Society of Digital Agencies) and Boulder Digital Works. The lecture covers what it takes for agencies to be healthy in this business and is full of insights to be shared with actual “clients” on How Brands Can Be Successful in the Digital Space.

Take a look:

The Chairs of the Andy Awards have asked the jury nominees to respond to 5 questions about creativity, technology and industry at large. To help you get to know our favorite nominee and Odopod Founder, Jacquie Moss, we've reposted her answers here. Be sure to submit your vote »

Are big ideas relevant anymore?
Yes, definitely. People want to feel — to laugh, cry, scream, wince. The best big ideas tell meaningful stories that resonate at our core and illuminate some basic human truth.

What role does technology play in the future? Does the future belong to specialists or generalists?
Technology will continue to be at the core of all innovation. It will shape humanity as much as humans shape it. The future belongs to specialists who are able to generalize. The future needs experts who are able to collaborate with each other. Still, there’s always a place for amazing generalists who see interesting opportunities and excite a team of specialists.

Is the recession feeding creativity?
If nothing else, the recession has fed a different side to our creativity. Managing a clients reduced and more closely watched budgets requires being more versatile, resourceful and open-minded.

Do award shows matter any more, and who is qualified to judge work?
There’s so much great work being produced. It’s important to have a filter to celebrate the best. Awards are a moment to take stock of our industry’s progress and be inspired to push further. The most qualified judges are those who pay good attention and invest time to thoughtfully consider each entry. A judge should be someone who knows how to share a well-formed opinion. Their opinion is certainly more valuable when their own work is widely respected.

What keeps you up at night?
Right now, my six month old baby – Ruby.

The iTunes App Store just broke 2 billion downloads. Let's run down some of the crazy big numbers:

OK, of the currently 85,000 available apps, only a fraction are making a lot of money. Still, the App Store is an unprecedented economic achievement. No other software platform has gotten so many people to buy so much so fast. None.

So, what are the takeaways? What can we learn?

Continue reading our thinking »

It is no secret that Flash programmers seldom use the “Actions” window inside Flash Professional. Flex/Flash Builder is a full featured IDE for writing object oriented code and offers incredible efficiencies for all ActionScript (AS) programming tasks.

This being the case, writing code in Builder and publishing SWFs in Flash Professional is a fairly common workflow among Flash developers. Unfortunately, it is also a slow and clumsy process.

Publishing from Builder using mxmlc is quicker and more convenient but integrating it within existing Flash workflows can be complicated.

Earlier this year, we decided to start using mxmlc exclusively for our Flash projects. We have since refined our process to a point were it works very well.

Read More »

More and more we see brands providing useful tools and services to forge connections with consumers. Additionally, the penetration of web enabled devices and the massive popularity of iPhone apps are playing substantial role in this new maturation – elegantly illustrating how branded utility can foster an ongoing relationship with people.

By providing frequent, helpful interactions with consumers, these applications can quickly become a meaningful part of their daily lives. This regular contact can be a supremely potent way to establish trust and build brand loyalty.

Odopod's Director of Brand and Strategy, Guthrie Dolin, examines how and why companies are developing these strategic branded utility programs to engage their consumers and fast track them into becoming loyal brand advocates.

Read the Article »

Odopod's Founder and Technical Director David Bliss answers one of the questions we are often asked by our clients: Can Flash sites be indexed by search engines?

The short answer: Of course it can. In this article, David takes a look at the necessary steps and best practices to properly make Flash content available to search engines.

Read the Article »

Odopod Creative Director Albert Poon takes us inside the design of Routesy 2.0, an iPhone app that helps get San Francisco and Bay Area commuters from A to B using real-time public transit information.

Discover how we battled our way through the slew of ugly interfaces, spent valuable time considering design details and nuances and planned what's up next for Odopod and Routesy.

Check it out »

We like to feature some of our long term client relationships right here on our site and today we're highlighting the story of MTV and Odopod.

Our relationship with MTV is one of our most exciting because they bring us the tough problems. They‘ve asked Odopod to experiment with new platforms, to define new user experience strategies, even to launch new business initiatives online. Ultimately, the goal is always the same: connect with fans.

Our project roster with MTV includes the MTV Movie Awards, MTV Video Music Awards, MTV2 All That Rocks, MTV Remixer, MTV Video Music Awards Feed Widget, MTV You-R-Here, and mtvU Campus Guide Design which has most recently been honored as a 2009 Webby Award Winner in School/University.

Read the full brand story here »

Brands and their advertising agencies are choosing to create software as components of their marketing efforts. Whether it’s an iPhone app or a service like Nike Plus, these are essentially software products.

The traditional agency process is not very well suited to the creation of software. In fact, in many cases it may be counter-productive.

Let's take a closer look at one of the more successful models for software creation, the startup, to see how agencies and their clients can make some minor changes that lead to better apps and less friction.

Are you a Brand Marketing Manager or an Agency Account Person?
If so, here are some insights that may help if you choose to create software on behalf of your brand.

CLIENT APPROVAL vs. FIRST-MOVER ADVANTAGE
The startup’s primary goal is to gain first-mover advantage by delivering the most minimal, yet viable, Beta product they can, as quickly as possible. As a result, startups are fluid environments where regular adjustments are made to the feature set based on new technical, design, or business discoveries. In the best startups, design and technology both have strong voices in this process. Advertising agencies, on the other hand, are geared for “selling work” to clients. When a client “buys work” it is a critical event. It means production and media budgets are unlocked. There is a big financial disincentive to re-open the conversation about scope or features after this point. Suggestions to agencies: » Sell the app, not the features. Selling features prior to performing an engineering audit can lock you into costly development efforts that may be non-essential to reaching Beta.

» Try to introduce flexibility. Establish milestones where you can discuss modifications to the feature set with your client.

PLANS vs. PRIORITIES
Advertising agencies tend to prepare complete plans then execute against them for both creative and media. These plans tend not to change dramatically once production is underway. Startups are constantly adapting to new information. They must be willing to cut, modify or add features based on new discoveries. They do this by working against priorities rather than rigid requirements. Most often they use a Product Requirements Document (PRD) to help with this process. Suggestions to agencies: » Use a Product Requirements Document (PRD). The PRD is a ranked feature list. Features are typically ranked 1 for mandatory, 2 for highly desirable, 3 for lesser priorities and X for items that have been intentionally deferred to later versions.

CAMPAIGNS vs. PRODUCTS
Traditionally, advertising agencies create campaigns. The typical goal is to achieve a ramp-up of awareness that leads to action. While these campaigns have grown more complex they tend to be built around the synchronized and scripted launch of a series of ads and other brand experiences. Startups primarily create new software products. Their goal is to get the most minimal, yet viable, version of their product to users as quickly as possible. Additional features mean a later release date. Additionally, each feature becomes a piece of the product’s foundation and comes with an implied commitment of ongoing support. Suggestions to agencies and clients: » Start with the simplest app. Think of the first version of your app as the minimum set of features you can deliver and still have a viable user experience.

» Let users influence future versions. See how people use the product, what features they love, what they request, then build additional features from there.

MARKETING MANAGERS vs. PRODUCT MANAGERS
When brands release software products to the public there is an assumption on the part of many users that the software will be supported, repaired, and developed over time. If you embrace this perception it comes with long-term personnel commitments. Suggestions to clients: » Tech Support. Be prepared to respond to people having trouble with your app. At the very least, this should be a FAQ that is kept current. Better yet, use twitter to monitor and respond to complaints or problems.

» Bug Fixing & Future Development. Products need to evolve in order to stay relevant and competitive. At the very least, bugs should be fixed promptly. Better yet, begin work on future version following your initial release.

» Product Management. Hire a Product Manager to plan and manage the product. Within startups, Product Managers are the keepers of the PRD and the shepherds of each release.

Here at the ‘pod, we’ve been tapping and swiping en masse since the original iPhone. We recently came across this article from Ad Age Digital and felt we could offer our perspective on the App Store buzz.

A successful iPhone app, like any application or campaign, is based a lot on its quality of strategy and execution. In other words, for an iPhone app to be useful, it needs to be a good app. Additionally the app needs to fit into a brand’s larger objectives.

That being said, mobile apps are here to stay and are only going to become more and more relevant for advertisers and brands. Whether the iTunes App Store will be the dominant platform or ecosystem in 5 years is unknowable. What we can expect is that engaging, capable mobile experiences that are easy to find, get and use will be the norm -- whether it's a "native" app or an experience hosted in one of the ever-more capable mobile web browsers. Just as marketing dollars are shifting from traditional media to digital today, it would not be surprising to start seeing digital dollars shifting to mobile initiatives. In a few years, we may see a primarily mobile campaign with PC web media supporting it.

We have a running conversation on whether to support and extend development to other nascent mobile platforms -- Android, Blackberry, WebOS, Symbian, WinMo. We feel it should be considered on a case-by-case basis. It is unlikely that multiplying design and development effort to build for multiple platforms will result in a commensurate immediate bottom line (or PR) return for our client or for us. Deploying an application on a mobile platform that is not the iPhone should be considered an investment on learning that specific platform. In the long run, the learnings of creating experience concepts, strategies and interaction design for mobile devices will be invaluable for the future, regardless of what platforms are relevant then.

We believe the iPhone represents the best current platform for brands to gain invaluable experience on designing and developing for the inevitable mobile world.

One side-note: complaining about breaking into the App Store Top 10 is wasted energy. Apple, in the end, cannot be relied upon to be any app's primary marketing. The App Store is great because it is a bulletproof distribution and ecommerce platform. Marketing for mobile apps and experiences will need the same attention and effort as any other online experience or campaign. Tweets, blogs, web sites, ads, PR and all the other usual efforts will be required to reach an app's audience.