Earlier this month the UK Government’s Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced that it would be investigating free-to-play games which featured in-app purchases. The announcement comes in the wake of a number of reports over the last year in which parents came to find that their children had run a huge bill, in some cases thousands of pounds, while playing ‘freemium’ games on their smartphone or tablet.

A number of as-yet-unnamed companies have been contacted by the regulator, which is investigating whether games which offer in app purchases are entirely lawful. The OFT will be looking into whether children are being specifically targeted by in-game purchases. In a statement a spokesperson explained: “In particular, the OFT is looking into whether these games include ‘direct exhortations’ to children – a strong encouragement to make a purchase, or to do something that will necessitate making a purchase, or to persuade their parents or other adults to make a purchase for them.”

The potential breach being investigated here is of the Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations Act (2008). For any titles contravening the act, the publisher will be contacted and asked to remove the offending elements from the game. Whether games like Real Racing 3, The Simpsons: Tapped Out and Playmobil Pirates are deemed to contravene this act is significant as it could have implications when it comes to how developers’ monetise their work, how much investment is put into freemium titles, and which games are made accessible to children in the app store.

It is important to note, however, that the OFT’s report is not due until October the regulator is not looking to place a wholesale ban on the in-game purchase model.  As a result the responsibility falls on the shoulders of app store owners like Apple and Google to ensure that measures are in place for preventing unwanted purchases, as well as that information is provided to consumers outlining the steps that they can take to restrict what children can do while using their device(s).

One proactive step would be to set parental controls on your device to restrict the ability requiring that a password is entered before each download or purchase. Another failsafe approach would be to put the device in airplane mode before a child plays a game unsupervised.  This will block your internet connection and in turn both downloads and in-app purchases. If you’re unsure on how to go about this or would like further information, ask your mobile provider about financial and parental controls that may be available.

We’re looking for a junior digital project manager to join our team in Manchester. The successful candidate will work closely with the development team manager (remote office) and the designers (in-house and freelance) to get our projects from proposal stage through to completion. Experience in a digital environment is welcome but not essential in order to be successful in this role.

This is a list of things we think are essential for anyone applying:

Great communication skills
Keen eye for detail
An aptitude for understanding web technologies
Hunger to improve web-related knowledge and expertise
Friendly demeanour and positive attitude

Here’s a list of desirable but not essential stuff:

An understanding of the digital project lifecycle
Experience of creating website specification documents
Relevant degree or qualification
Experience of creating project timelines & quotes
Experience of creating CMS instruction manuals and delivering CMS training
Experience of managing the resolution of support tickets
Experience of getting costs agreed and approved by the client
Knowledge and experience of testing and quality assurance

And here’s some stuff we can offer you:

On the job training in an informal environment
An opportunity to carve out a role for yourself in a growing digital agency
Exposure to digital projects for a wide range of clients
A fast track career if you can show us you are a digital PM superstar
A flexible working environment in the Northern Quarter
Regular brews (we just bought a posh coffee machine too)

Please apply by sending your CV with covering letter to info(at)worshipdigital.co.uk.

Location: Northern Quarter, Manchester City Centre
Contract: Permanent, full-time
Hours: Monday – Friday, 9.00 – 17.30 (37.5 hours per week)
Holidays: 20 days plus Xmas shut down and bank holidays
Salary: £16,000 – £18,000 pa (dependent on skills and experience)
Benefits: Phone & company laptop, formal training offered after 6 months’ service

Hello recruitment agencies, here’s a little note just for you. We aren’t using recruitment agencies to fill this role so please don’t send CVs or call just in case we change our minds. We won’t. Thanks though :-)

The beginning of April marks the 40^th anniversary of the mobile phone.

In the 4 decades that followed that momentous day in New York on April 3^rd 1973 when Motorola employee Martin Cooper made a call to a rival telecom company using the Motorola DynaTAC, the humble device has taken over the world and revolutionised much more than just the telecoms industry.

It wasn’t until 1983, 10 years after this initial press release suggesting that a consumer launch for the technology was only a few years away, that Motorola made the DynaTAX 8000X commercially available.  It was then a further decade until the device transcended its initial role as a business tool for men in suits and truly entered the mainstream in the 1990s.

Today the worldwide mobile telecoms industry has annual revenue of £800 billion and the market leader, Apple, is one of the world’s most valuable companies. Last year a report by the ICU (International Telecommunication Union) found that there were 6 billion mobile phone subscriptions worldwide.

A far cry from the inaugural device which was limited to making phone calls, with a combination of widespread availability, increased processing power and reliable data connections mobile phones are today challenging (and increasingly replacing) a myriad of previously isolated electrical devices from cameras and video recorders to home computers and games consoles.

Now fully matured into an essential personal tool in the developed world, there still seems to be plenty of scope for development as the mobile platform enters its 5^th decade.  Perhaps the most exciting prospect in the mobile world is the idea of wearable technology. From smart watches (Apple) to sci-fi glasses (Google), the world’s largest tech companies are posturing in the fight to shape our future.

For anyone still unsure as to whether mobile is a platform which should be taken seriously from a commercial perspective, the increase in the number of connected mobile devices individuals have, combined with a more general increased global take-up will make interesting reading.

In a recent interview with the Guardian, Dr Michael Short from the institute of Engineering and Technology suggested that in another 40 years we should see an increase from 7 billion connected devices to in excess of ten times that figure.

We’re looking for a digital project manager to join our team in Manchester. The successful candidate will work closely with the development team manager (remote office) and the designers (in-house and freelance) to get our projects from proposal stage through to completion. We think you’ll need a minimum of 6 months experience in a digital environment to be successful in this role from the get go.

This is a list of things we think are essential for anyone applying:

Experience of creating website specification documents
Great communication skills
Keen eye for detail
An understanding of the digital project lifecycle
An aptitude for understanding web technologies
Hunger to improve web-related knowledge and expertise
Friendly demeanour and positive attitude

Here’s a list of desirable but not essential stuff:

Relevant degree or qualification
Experience of creating project timelines & quotes
Experience of creating CMS instruction manuals and delivering CMS training
Experience of managing the resolution of support tickets
Experience of getting costs agreed and approved by the client
Knowledge and experience of testing and quality assurance

And here’s some stuff we can offer you:

On the job training in an informal environment
An opportunity to carve out a role for yourself in a growing digital agency
Exposure to digital projects for a wide range of clients
A fast track career if you can show us you are a digital PM superstar
A flexible working environment in the Northern Quarter
Regular brews (we just bought a posh coffee machine too)

Please apply by sending your CV with covering letter to info(at)worshipdigital.co.uk.

Location: Northern Quarter, Manchester City Centre
Contract: Permanent, full-time
Hours: Monday – Friday, 9.00 – 17.30 (37.5 hours per week)
Holidays: 20 days plus Xmas shut down and bank holidays
Salary: £17,000 – £22,000 pa (dependent on skills and experience)
Benefits: Phone & company laptop, formal training offered after 6 months’ service

Hello recruitment agencies, here’s a little note just for you. We aren’t using recruitment agencies to fill this role so please don’t send CVs or call just in case we change our minds. We won’t. Thanks though :-)

While it won’t be a surprise to many to hear that mobile gaming spending is set to increase in 2013, recent figures published by industry analysts have provided confirmation as to just how much the sector is set to grow.  IHS Screen Digest forecast that a total of £300 million will be spent on mobile games in the UK this year, up from just a third of that in 2010. While over twice that figure is expected to be spent on console gaming in the same timeframe, the shift has already begun.

Recent global figures make even more impressive reading for those in the mobile games industry, with 46% of the world’s 1.3 Billion smartphone users playing games ‘daily’. Recent demonstrations at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona also showed technology capable of displaying mobile games directly on traditional TVs, further edging into traditional console territory.

The price and accessibility of mobile games is a strong selling point.  After all, being able to play a ‘lite’ version of a game for free or pay 69p for it on a device that you already own (or have on contract) and have with you all the time is extremely attractive. While in contrast, paying £60 for a game which requires that you have already spent hundreds of pounds for a box that sits under your TV in order to play it often isn’t.  Of course this is a gross simplification of the situation and console and mobile games offer for the most part a completely different gaming experience, but it’s clear to see why mobile gaming is on the rise.

While on this evidence, the future of the console in a future of gamers native to the touchscreen may seem bleak, with the unveiling of the PlayStation4 set to usher in a new generation of consoles there is room for optimism. Sony has confirmed intentions to allow gamers to use mobile devices (phones and tablets) as an additional screen when playing PlayStation games.  Exactly how touchscreens will be utilised remains to be seen, but it is clear that the Japanese company is taking the threat from mobile seriously.

Whether dedicated games consoles of can survive in the mobile future is uncertain.  What is certain is that mobile gaming is already having an impact on the console market and with smartphone uptake continuing to rise sharply and a wide selection of free and inexpensive games introducing new audiences to casual gaming, mobile is set to play an integral role in shaping the future of video gaming.

Thirty years ago (1 January, 1983), the modern internet was switched on. In moving to the TCP/IP protocol, the foundations were laid for one of the most important technological innovations in humanity’s history. It’s hard to imagine a time without it now, it’s irrevocably changed the modern world and the way we communicate within it.

As the Net widened, and removed itself from the shackles of cables and wires, the devices we experience it on have become smaller. The once humble (and brick-like) mobile phone is now an all-singing, all-dancing smartphone, a pocket-sized computer that can connect us to the world wherever we are. Tablets, non-existent a few short years ago, are now common in homes and offices alike.

Not only smaller, but smarter, and not just traditional computer forms but everyday objects too, like Pebble, the watch that can track your exercise routine, change your music and check your Twitter feed. The thermostat that knows when you’re out and what your routine is (Nest). Even the humble light bulb has had a technological makeover with Phillip’s Hue, a bulb that can change colour remotely. Different objects with one thing in common: they’re all controllable via an Internet-enabled smartphone, each has a custom app to enable the various functions, regardless of the user’s location.

And what of the next thirty years? Smaller, more intelligent (and increasingly ubiquitous) devices are an inevitability, but in what form? Possibly like something Google Glass, a pair of lensless glasses that provide a persistent small overlay in the top corner of a user’s vision that can display texts, directions, translations, photos or videos while being able to record both stills and moving images via voice commands. While the social (and moral) implications of something like Glass have yet to be fully explored, the marriage of technology, wireless information and the everyday objects around us is going to lead to a very different world than that of three decades ago.

On the 17^th December, the popular photo-sharing platform Instagram updated its Terms of Service, adding several new clauses that have sparked consternation amongst its userbase. The main point of concern is the following paragraph:

“To help us deliver interesting paid or sponsored content or promotions, you agree that a business may pay us to display your username, likeness, photos (along with any associated metadata), in connection with paid or sponsored content or promotions, without any compensation to you.”

This essentially implies that Instagram can sell your content  to advertisers with no recognition or payment to you, in perpetuity. Unlike their new owner’s ToS (Facebook acquired Instagram for $1 billion in April this year) that explicitly state their rights to your content end when you delete your account, Instagram’s has no such clause. Many are taking the ‘along with any associated metadata’ part to mean ‘location’, implying that photos of a particular building, say, could be used to advertise that same building. Instagram are seemingly creating  themselves a gigantic stock photo network that doesn’t pay its photographers any commission.

Understandably, many users have announced their intention to leave the service (like John de Guzman, and, ironically, Noah Kalina, Mark Zuckerberg’s wedding photographer) unless the clauses are changed. Services that allow to you to download all your photos in a .zip from Instagram are crashing under the weight of users, like instaport.me which has had a ‘We are expecting high traffic right now. If you have problems downloading your photos, please try again tomorrow or the next days.’ notice since Monday.  Twitter is awash with disgust and advice on how to leave the service. With impeccable timing, rival photo-sharing service Flickr has brought its iOS app back from the dead this week, after years in the wilderness, giving it a new lick of paint and modern functionality, like photo filters and simplified uploads to social network services. Much like Instagram. Where they differ, however, is that Flickr has had in place a system for its Pro users to license their photos for several years now and so has rapidly become an attractive proposition for users wishing to jump ship.

Unsurprisingly, Instagram earlier today announced that “it’s not our intention to sell your photos” and they will “modify specific parts of the terms to make it more clear what will happen with your photos”. Perhaps a little too late to prevent a downturn in users, or to regain lost goodwill, but it seems they’ll address the issues involved. Still, it’s surprising how many companies fail to clarify their Terms of Service sufficiently. In recent years, Facebook, Google and Twitpic have all fallen foul of badly written clauses that ignited mass outrage amongst their userbases. When your business rests on user-generated content, it pays to make your intentions crystal clear. As this recent episode shows, it only takes a sentence to take you from hipster darling to social pariah.

When the compact disc took a beating at the hands of the mighty MP3, many commentators noted that the digital revolution in music would soon be duplicated across other sectors in the entertainment industry. So much so, you could almost hear the humble paperback quaking on its shelf.

So, perhaps it’s no surprise to hear Amazon, the UK’s biggest book retailer, announce that their Kindle ebooks have now eclipsed sales of print books on their site. Sure, the news represents some great PR for Amazon’s own Kindle device (the book world’s answer to the iPod) but it also suggests that the long-predicted shift to digital could finally be taking shape in the publishing world.

Just as the sight of a record store becomes increasingly rare, the doom-mongers suggest this will spell the end for high-street and independent book stores. They’ve had their fair share of struggles already (a rise in e-commerce, changing consumer-trends) but whether they’ll be able to adapt their models to embrace customers’ new digital consumption remains to be seen.

Interestingly, however, Amazon suggests that the average Kindle owner buys four times more books than they did before owning the device. So whilst the trend could change the landscape of the sector, and the high-street for that matter, many are suggesting that our interaction with books has never been greater. And whether that’s a printed word, or one that sits on your screen, that can surely only be a positive thing.

So, after years of preparation and months of hype, Friday finally sees the start of London 2012. As a pre-cursor to the sporting showdowns, you’ll have no doubt been submerged by the deluge of media campaigns recently. From advert breaks consisting solely of Olympic-themed ads, to the 2012 logo adorning everything from delivery trucks to chocolate bars, it seems everyone wants a piece of the Olympic pie.

Some of the brands making a real impact with their promotion are those using digital platforms to deliver their message. EDF Energy, who sponsor the London Eye, will be making unique use of the landmark during the games, harnessing Twitter’s ability to monitor trends and sentiment.

As part of what EDF are calling the ‘world’s first social media-driven lightshow’, the wheel will be lit up each night of the Games, in direct relation to positive or negative tweets about the games. Real-time social sentiment tracking will split tweets using #Energy2012, analysing positive and negative conversations and then systematically convert them into a lightshow for the city to enjoy. If, for example, the nation’s energy is 75% positive, three quarters of the wheel will light up.

With such mixed feelings about the Games, some may argue that sentiment analysis is a risky strategy, but there’s no doubt the campaign will garner some interesting results. It is also another worthy example of how Twitter’s wealth of fast-moving, text-based information can be used to create stunning data visualisations, migrating content away from more traditional platforms.

More than ever before, social media will play a huge role at the Games and those brands savvy enough to find new, innovative ways of engaging with them will no doubt make the biggest splash in a congested market place. We’ll be keeping our eyes peeled over the coming weeks then for some inventive, Olympic-themed, digital campaigns.

We’re pleased to welcome our latest recruit, Neil Dring, who has filled the role of Senior Digital Project Manager.

Neil comes to Worship from a client-side background and has most recently worked for the RNCM as a Digital Marketing Manager where he oversaw the development of their digital offerings.

Neil’s experience includes overseeing the management of multiple large digital projects including websites and web applications.

Neil brings to Worship a wealth of skills and has gained experience in digital marketing, social media marketing and project management among disciplines, and is valid addition to the team.

On joining Neil commented: ‘I’m delighted to be given the opportunity to work for such an exciting agency. I look forward to immersing myself in the projects and helping  our clients deliver some fantastic digital products’

The Worship team would like to welcome Neil aboard and we look forward to working together in the future.