IKEA Crazy Golf at 'Sweden On Stage', Hampstead Heath

To mark the start of the Sweden's Presidency of the EU, the Swedish Embassy and City of London Festival combined yesterday to create 'Sweden on Stage.' Sweden On Stage was 'a special celebration of Swedish culture and green activity and fun on Hampstead Heath.'

Sweden on stage full line up (click for larger image)

The Sweden on Stage event featured Swedish performers such as The Benny Andersson Band and Miss Li, as well as a variety of activities (primarily around climate change and the environment.) The Electric Pedals 'Green Tea' Pedal-powered tea stall was popular, alongside Friskis & Svettis demonstrations and craft activities like willow sculpture. Major Swedish companies were also involved as event sponsors and had their own stalls / activity centres. Tetrapak hosted various arts / crafts activities and IKEA provided one of the highlights for the day, IKEA crazy golf!

The IKEA Crazy Golf was very popular and a great way of showcasing IKEA products. Instead of hitting the ball through a windmill or into a tiger's mouth, golfers had to negotiate their way around obstacles made up of IKEA products!

Each IKEA golf hole was themed and then had the relevant IKEA products on show. On the first hole players had to hit up an IKEA bed, through an IKEA chest of drawers and under an IKEA table:

Following holes were then themed around IKEA lighting, IKEA storage, IKEA shelves, an IKEA sofa and IKEA taps.

The IKEA taps crazy golf hole:

The IKEA taps crazy golf hole (with other holes featuring IKEA sofa and shelving visible in the background):

At the start of each hole there was a poster about how the featured products were helping the environment. There was also a seperate poster with the price of each featured item:

Poster talking about how IKEA taps are designed with the environment in mind

IKEA keep surprising me with the way they act (flash operas in store, virtual furniture etc) and IKEA crazy golf was very enjoyable. A great way of engaging consumers in the latest IKEA products, whilst promoting IKEA's environmental credentials.

See Benny Andersson perform at Sweden on Stage here

More Sweden on Stage photos here

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Facebook usage statistics - Top 20 fastest growing countries by users

I recently wrote about how Facebook is having phenomenal global growth and listed the top 30 countries by Facebook total users. However, some of the fastest growing countries are not included in the top 30 countries by total Facebook users.

Here is a list of the 20 countries with the fastest growing number of Facebook users:

Rank	Country	Number of Facebook users July 2008	Number of Facebook users July 2009	12 month growth %
1	Indonesia	209,760	6,496,960	2997.2%
2	Romania	9,060	230,600	2445.3%
3	Slovakia	27,960	588,860	2006.1%
4	Czech Rep	51,860	1,088,020	2005.3%
5	Italy	491,100	10,218,400	1980.7%
6	Philippines	162,640	2,719,560	1572.13%
7	Argentina	417,980	4,906,220	1073.8%
8	Uruguay	40,920	395,800	867.3%
9	Taiwan	71,340	685,460	860.8%
10	Portugal	48,180	425,680	783.5%
11	Brazil	119,080	1,015,400	752.7%
12	Spain	695,900	5,773,200	729.6%
13	Paraguay	7,920	63,740	704.8%
14	Poland	83,180	619,180	644.4%
15	Bulgaria	60,240	436,480	624.6%
16	Austria	111,060	728,800	556.2%
17	Slovenia	53,740	343,320	538.9%
18	Lithuania	24,320	153,160	529.8%
19	Thailand	114,180	697,340	510.7%
20	Russia	67,760	412,840	509.3%

(*Facebook Usage Figures taken from Facebook - 1st July 2008 vs 1st July 2009)

It is interesting to see how many of these countries are not in the top 30 countries by volume of Facebook users. The rapid Facebook growth in the countries above also indicates that a new wave of Facebook usage expansion is imminent. In the Far East Facebook has started to take hold and Facebook is quickly growing in popularity in Eastern Europe.

The ones to watch though are the BRIC countries. Facebook is showing signs of hitting critical mass in Russia, Brazil has just passed the million Facebook users mark and India / China have had rapid growth in recent weeks.

It might not be too long before Facebook hits 300 million users......

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Michael Jackson Lego tribute abandoned - but 'Thriller in Lego' is still on YouTube.........

Legoland California planned to unveil a Michael Jackson lego tribute today. CNN users were given the chance to decide which one of five Michael Jackson models would be used:

The plan was to create a four-inch tall Michael Jackson Lego model that would feature in Miniland Southern California at LEGOLAND California. The Michael Jackson Lego model would then be seen by Park guests as 'he exits a limousine in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theatre. The scene will include photographers and random paparazzi surrounding the limousine as Minilander fans try to catch a glimpse of the pop icon.'

Michael Jackson Lego models proposed for Miniland at Legoland California

However, the LA Times is reporting that “due to unresolved legal issues” this will not now be happening.

Thriller in Lego is still on YouTube though, so for now, this remains the only Michael Jackson Lego tribute (and to see how good the attention to detail is, have a look at the last video where Nuno Teixeira plays the original Thriller video side by side with the Lego version):

Michael Jackson 'Thriller in Lego' full length version:


Thriller original film compared to the Thriller Lego version:

Michael Jackson Thriller - Lego Match Up from Nuno Teixeira on Vimeo.

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Absolut Vodka Drinkspiration iPhone app - instant drink recommendation application

Absolut Drinkspiration is a new, free iPhone App from Absolut Vodka.

The Absolut Drinkspiration app

The Drinkspiration application is effectively a virtual drink selector that contains over 400 drinks including drinks based on Vodka, Gin, Rum, Brandy, Whisky and Tequila.

The Absolut Drinkspiration App allows you to select drinks using various criteria - where you are, what's popular, Taste, Colour, Music volume, time of day and many others.

Drinkspiration Recommend a Classic feature

The iTunes App Store listing says:

"This sophisticated and interactive mobile drinks app combines the 3G iPhone technology with GPS, Twitter and Facebook, guiding you to a personalised drink recommendation based on real-time trends and data."

The Drinkspiration App also lets you keep a personal order history (could be useful!) and allows you tell friends where you are and what you are drinking via the Twitter and Facebook integrative capabilities.

The Absolut Vodka Drinkspiration App is a nice way of taking the Absolut brand onto the iPhone, making use of the full array of functionality that the iPhone offers. Another example of how smart phones are now allowing advertisers to create effective brand experiences on mobile.

Note from the App store - "due to its references to alcoholic content, Apple classify the Drinkspiration app as 17+. However, since the application is sponsored by ABSOLUT VODKA, by downloading it you state you are over the age of 21."

Hat tip: Adland

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Twitter global usage - 168 million monthly visits! App traffic is 80% of Twitter use, the monthly visit figure is much higher than we thought!

A while back Neville Hobson used various Twitter stats to try and work out the actual number of monthly visits and estimated that Twitter was getting around 60 million monthly visits when web traffic and app use was combined.

So why do I think Twitter is getting 160 million monthly visits?

When Neville did his maths in April Comscore were showing 19.1 million monthly web visits and Hitwise were showing UK Twitter traffic had increased to 0.13% of all UK web visits (with a growth trajectory that mirrored the global upward trend.)

Now consider that Hitwise are showing Twitter to be at 0.23% of UK internet visits - a 76% increase on the figure that Neville used. If this is applied to the Comscore data from April it would mean Twitter received 33.6 million global monthly visits from the web:

Hitwise UK Twitter traffic growth (Twitter web use - does not include traffic from mobile or Twitter Apps)

But what about the Twitter Apps? This traffic isn't included in any of the Hitwise or Comscore figures. What would Twitter monthly traffic be if app use was factored in?

We've only been able to guess before, but the Guardian has now given us some help. Evan Weaver, Twitter's lead engineer in it's services team tells the Guardian that:

"only 20% of its traffic comes through the Twitter website; the other 80% (logically) comes from third-party programs on smartphones or computers. So if you're looking at Twitter stats on your website, you're probably underestimating that source of traffic by a factor of five."

80% of Twitter traffic comes through Twitter Apps! 80% of Twitter use is not picked up in Comscore or Hitwise Twitter traffic figures.

This means that everyone has been grossly underestimating Twitter usage. Neville was conservative with 30% traffic through Twitter apps to get to his 60 million figure in April. Well thanks to the information from Evan Weaver in the Guardian we can safely assume that monthly visits to Twitter are now in excess of 150 million and if my flaky maths methodology above is to be believed, Twitter global monthly traffic could now be sitting as high as 168 million monthly visits!

It looks like Twitter is [even] more important than we thought...........

Follow me on Twitter @nickburcher

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