business & innovation

Saw this handy summary of Facebook's profiles, groups, community pages and official pages and the potential opportunity for brands to take advantage.

I'd have poked, but I'm never really sure of the etiquette. Are you? Instead, here's something more useful, the presentation (re-blogged with permission) from the guys at Carve Consulting.

Phew! What an event! I had intended to live blog through the show, but with all the interesting panel sessions, excellent networking opportunities and after conference activities there was simply no time to put anything up during the conference.

The two days’ conference was an amazing opportunity for networking with senior executives from the Games industry. I have been to other major industry events all around the world, but none other has had industry stars attending and networking in such an open way (perhaps this is due to being held in the Newcastle - the friendliest place in the world?).

This is certainly an event to attend next year and with GameHorizon recently announcing that they are open up their services to all UK companies (not just those based in the North East) other companies should make a beeline for advanced registration.

I think it’s easy as an agency in a B2B market to forget about the greater good and the impact digital can have in truly bringing about positive change.

Having won a ticket through Chinwag to The Guardian’s Activate Summit 2010, I experienced a day I would most likely not have otherwise enjoyed, but will certainly not miss in years to come.

I sat through each session being reminded of just what an exceptional ‘ecosystem’ (to nick Julie Meyer’s term) we are all plugged in to with the wonderful world that is the internet, and saw glimpses of what social media looks like when used to influence government decisions (Beth Noveck, White House Open Government Initiative), how aid is administered in Third World outreaches (Ethan Zuckerman, Global Voices), and even in your local neighbourhood (Steven Clift, E-Democracy.org).

Following the very successful Thinking Digital event, Newcastle’s Codeworks next conference is focused on the Games Sector.

The GameHorizon Conference 29^th to 30^th June is billed as Europe's leading event for international game executives. A two-day conference featuring the most creative, entertaining and inspiring speakers from the games and entertainment industry.

Judging by the number of people coming along to the Partnering for Innovation events, there's lots of interest in collaboration to get a slice of the £18m Collaboration Across Digital Industries competition.

There are a number of challenges in entering a winning bid: meeting the scope of the competition, finding the time (you'll need ~100 hours for a mainstream application) and finding partners to collaborate with.

Are you working with Metadata? Want to get a share of £5m for research and development? Then get yourself along to one of three events covering the Technology Strategy Board's (TSB) new £5m competition, Metadata: Increasing Value in Digital Content Collaborative R&D Competition.

The competition, launched on the 1st June, provides match-funding for projects which address three opportunities to build revenue streams with more efficient and innovative use of metadata.