The Steady Increase Of Interactive Experience

Consumers are seeking and enjoying more complex and sophisticated forms of interactivity. They are happy to crossover modes, platforms, devices, content and expect to have the opportunity for interaction more and more often.

How immediate is your customer response?

When customers are searching online they always have questions. These range from general advice through to specific product requests. You can put your business well ahead of the game by introducing instant messaging. This is a natural extension of having a Facebook and Twitter presence. It means you are available in real time, to instantly answer questions that come to your site.

Of course capacity to do this will depend on the scale of your business and size of your team. But integrating into some part of your daily routine is something to consider if you really want to meet and exceed customer expectation.

Multiple screen activity

Users want a deeper experience when it comes to interacting with products and services. They are looking for unusual ways to engage. Many companies are focussing on campaign extension - providing activities that require two or more screens (such as mobile phone device and TV). This ranges from initiatives such as entering competitions on TV shows or ad campaigns via mobile phone, through to getting campaign updates and offers sent directly to phones and/or social media accounts.

Touch Screen - 3D and Augmented Reality

3D raises its head as a pop culture phase yet again. But this time, it may be here to stay, as technology is that much more sophisticated. Developers are busy creating AR (augmented reality) platforms for use on mobile phone devices, iPods and iPads etc that allow users to have interactive 3D experiences. Apps range from the helpful ( 3D Compass) to the playful (Panasonic's 3D Viera AR Greeting that released t-shirts with the promotional app for Viera TVs so it looks like creatures are emerging from your chest!).

Google wants to dominate the interactive TV space

We've been waiting for interactive TV since the internet began. It was only a matter of time until the two technologies merged and Google is intent on making a big splash in this arena. Google TV has been launched. It is basically a software platform currently supported by a number of TV and/or set-top box devices that allows you to use the web as TV, the TV as internet and both simultaneously.

Appealing features include using your mobile phone as a remote control and activating searches with voice recognition. There may be glitches to iron out, but it certainly looks as though this is a serious television revolution.

The big multinationals getting into social gaming

The Facebook social gaming platform Farmville (created and owned by social gaming giant Zynga) is reportedly played by over 30 million people every day. This fact did not escape the attention of McDonalds, who created a MacFarm for a day last year, allowing users to gain rewards called Farmville McCafe Consumables.

Of course capacity to do this will depend on the scale of your business and size of your team. But integrating into some part of your daily routine is something to consider if you really want to meet and exceed customer expectation.