On the heels of the success of our popular Twitter client, HootSuite, Invoke is excited to announce our newest offering, Vidrollr, a video conversation tool.

Vidrollr is an online conversation space which provides highly desirable and unprecedented opportunities for both companies and advertisers.

Embed a Vidrollr box on any website, or on a multitude of sites, and invite consumers into a conversation; new content will appear on all your Vidrollr boxes, feeding conversation across the web. Because it doesn’t require an investment in new technology, Vidrollr is virtually risk-free and is a perfect complement to existing marketing and social media efforts.

Why Vidrollr is attractive:

* Companies love the revenue possibilites of a fully functional interactive unit that stimulates content creation.
* Advertisers love the increased exposure and engagement with their desired demographic.
* Consumers love the ability to instantly interact face-to-face with others, including celebrities, sports heroes, producers of their favorite shows and more–all you need is an account and a web camera.

Vidrollr recently released its first conversation space with partners MSNBC and Starbucks. To participate in the conversation, sign up and tell Willie and the Morning Joe team why you volunteer.

Vidrollr is poised to revolutionize the way companies and consumers interact online. We can’t wait.

Follow Vidrollr on Twitter for updates.

While product manager Nadia Nascimento carries the Invoke spirit to Digifest in Los Angeles next week, our illustrious business strategist, Dario Meli, will be attending ad:tech in New York City, from November 4th through 6th.

Ad:tech is far and away one of the most pivotal conferences for the digital marketing community globally. This year’s event will focus on how digital is impacting all forms of media and will feature heavyweight speakers from a variety of media companies, agencies and brands. Invoke is delighted to have been invited to share in the thought leadership at ad:tech New York.

If you can’t be at ad:tech to hear what the movers and shakers are saying in person, don’t miss the opportunity to follow what they’re saying on Twitter. Follow the condensed and potent twitter stream with the ad:tech speaker Twitter list Dario has compiled.

Japa Dog is a hot dog stand located on the corner of Burrard & Pender, in downtown Vancouver.ļ?½ Yesterday Japa Dog joined Twitter and, at around 9pm, called for a “tweet meet”:

Japa Dog tweet meet! Meet and eat Japa Dog! Tomorrow 12 Mar at Burrard Pender

It was their fourth-ever Twitter update.

In a stunning display of the local power of Twitter, the Vancouver community began retweeting in earnest. Before we could squeeze out the contents of three packs of relish, Japa Dog gained a sizeable following and folks all over the web began chatting about their fondness for hot dogs.

Once again, Twitter shows how useful it can be for a local business.

Here are links to some images of this afternoon’s Japa Dog Tweet Meet. Here’s hoping there are more to come!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/roland/sets/72157615158283106

http://twitpic.com/21c8s

http://twitpic.com/21a0f

Posted by Dario Meli

They say ‘the devil is in the details’ and thats no clich?©. Well maybe it is a clich?© but its also a statement of fact. Here are a couple lovely examples of people just getting it wrong and apparently nobody able to catch it before it ‘goes live.’

iPhone in an ad. This goes beyond a model not knowing how to hold the phone. Are you telling me nobody on this photo shoot knew which end was up? FAIL

And this is just unfortunate. Not even Barack has a grasp on a function he has been performing for many, many years:

OK, so that one is fake. It’s still somewhat entertaining and a perfect tie-in to the iPhone FAIL pic.

I know there are countless others. Post some links in the comments to your favorites.

Posted by Ryan Holmes

* This blog post is part of Invokeā€™s participation in the 2008 Vancouver Blogathon for Charity

Invoke has always had a holistic approach to the internet. Creating a nice website for someone is a good thing, but that’s not enough. Strategy and creation are critical to produce a product, but promotion and marketing are what justify the creation of the product. Simply put, if you build it and nobody comes, there wasn’t really any point in building it in the first place. Realizing this, Invoke was active in web 1.0 marketing channels such as Search Engine Marketing, Online ad buying, and email marketing. Web 2.0 has vastly expanded the 1.0 channel mix for online marketing through newer offerings like blogging, video (viral), microblogging/twitter, social networking sites, facebook applications / open social applications etc.

Search is good. It provides a way for people to get the content they need fast, however as online users become more savvy they become less reliant on search as their sole destination. The advent of blogging, social networking, and niche social networking allows users to get connected to friends, access content that is more tailored to what they are looking for and ultimately reduces dependence on “traditional” search (google/yahoo). Google, Yahoo and MSN know that ultimately they need to acquire viewers (and clickers) for their advertising. As these users rely less on search, search engines need to extend their network reach which explains many of the acquisitions we see.

So if search engines are extending into these 2.0 marketing channels it arguably makes good sense for advertisers and marketers to be there as well. Banner advertising is one method and probably the easiest, but it is not enough. Marketers need to think more about a cohesive campaign strategy that incorporates all channels in a way that is more engaging than a “look at me > buy me” advertising model. This conversation and interaction is what 2.0 channels efficiently allow for; creative, well executed campaigns using these channels is the challenge that marketers, advertisers and agencies need solve. Good luck!