Flash stats go live

Through our Viral Manager tracking service, we track millions of viral campaign interactions and collect huge amounts of data on the users who interact with our campaigns. Our team use this info to develop great campaigns.

Slowly over time we'll be open sourcing this information to help other marketers plan and commission the most effective campaigns.

The first bit of information we've opened up is on the usage of Flash versions amongst web users. If you're commissioning a flash-based viral campaign, you need to know what flash version to specify, otherwise people may not be able to see your viral.

You can use our handy free stats to help you plan your viral campaign. » Check them out at ViralManager.com.

Viral Manager updated

After a month of hard work, we've just shipped a great update to our Viral Manager service for tracking and seeding viral campaigns.

We'll be releasing even more soon - things we're excited about include more campaign stats than ever, clean new look, and a very exciting automated system for seeding to our network of key influencers.

We had Bristol Day

Britain has not enough official holidays in our view. We can't change that across the country (Gordon Brown could, if he chose to), but we can give Rubber Republic people one extra 'statutory' holiday. So we did, and our staff looked frankly gleeful as they left the studio last Thursday night.

They had a range of things planned: pleasingly, quite a few were taking a long weekend to see friends and family (which is what we hoped as that's supposed to be a GENERALLY GOOD THING)

Our business of course is running Team Rubber (Rubber Republic's parent company): our income comes from billable time, so the cost to us is around £6000 in lost billings, but we think it's worth it. One way to look at it is that £6k is less than the typical recruitment fee for a graduate, so if we can attract (or retain) just one person through this kind of thinking about our employment culture, that's a winner. Or we can look at the health and productivity benefits of giving our staff a break between August and Christmas, just when those dark days come in and everyone gets a bit under the weather.

Why is it Bristol Day? Because we thought it up in Bristol - the city that brought you an extra day off. We're not the only ones doing this either, thanks to the magic of Pledge Bank, Bristol Day has been adopted by a bunch of other businesses who are imaginative about their employment culture. We'll be doing it again next year, same time (October), same place (Pledge Bank).

So a happy Bristol Day was had. Will you join us next year?

Casual Gamer area on MySpace

With the launch of the Casual Gamer space on Myspace, this article on ClickZ talks of the benefits of advertising through casual games (as if we needed to be told again!) A point to note is the comment that "run-of-site ads on social networks " [are] among the worst performers" which marks out viral games as an effective way to penetrate social networks. Always with our eye on the ball, a major recommendation now with any new game campaign is the addition of an embeddable version of a game that people can add to their blog/myspace/facebook profile.

Can't buy Facebook?- Make your own...

Is Google the next Facebook?

According to TechCrunch That's what Google have decided to do, having lost out to Microsoft in the bid to own some of Facebook.

The working name is Maka-maka and if, as rumours suggest, it does tie together all the wonderful apps and gadgets that Google provide it will be a tempting and powerful proposition that not only facilitates social networking but also wider professional productivity and information gathering.

Those of us with gmail accounts, already impressed by its functionality, will look forward to seeing how this battle works out.