At The Practice, we’ve always championed mobile as the future as more and more of us become converts to on-the-go online activity. There are numerous advantages, but now, are marketers starting to see mobile advertising as a thorn in their side while consumers are increasingly seeing it as a day-to-day annoyance?

The world’s watched the Presidential campaign in anticipation, and finally yesterday saw its nail-biting conclusion. First things first, we at The Practice want to extend our congratulations to newly re-elected President Barack Obama. Well-done Sir! If you’ve been avidly following, you can’t have failed to notice that social media’s played a huge part this year for both the Democrats and Republicans. But the question is, has it been tantamount to Obama’s victory?

The word on everyone’s lips this week is undoubtedly ‘Sandy’. At The Practice, we’ve certainly felt the ripple effect, with some of our New York team members and numerous clients stuck in the chaos. But if there’s one way of cutting through the mess, it’s through the communicative and instantaneous nature of social media, which has proved a lifeline for many throughout the crisis.

Our New York based team members at The Practice have certainly been hard at work exploring potential business opportunities around the East Coast. And let’s just say we’re glad all the travelling occurred last rather than this week! We’ve all been in touch across the Pond and it seems everything’s currently ground to a halt due to a certain and very nasty Hurricane Sandy…

Like all good social media platforms, you know that one’s successful if you can use its name as a verb and it still seems natural. How many times do you say, ‘I’ll ‘Facebook’ you’, or ‘Let me just Instagram that’? If you’re anything like The Practice team, then probably more often than not!

As an agency that undertakes rebranding strategies all the time, even we at The Practice sometimes feel that a major company’s decision to rebrand often looks arbitrary. After all, how can a cosmetic makeover, complete with new logo really help a brand’s success when its identity is already firmly cemented in the eyes of the consumer?

Sunday saw YouTube’s biggest live-streamed event yet. The Practice team didn’t manage to follow along, but were astounded to learn that skydiver Felix Baumgartner’s 24 mile dive from space achieved a live audience of 8 million. This made it the first live stream to gain the most concurrent views ever.

We’re sure you’re aware by now that The Practice team love entertainment variety. Reading, visiting the latest events, endless web surfing; you name it, one of us will probably be an aficionado! The problem is, we tire easily of routine. That’s where apps come in- they’re perfect for offering endless diversity. To revel in their genius, today we round up the ones we’re loving this week. (But Android users look away now- strictly for iPhone owners only!!)

You know a show’s buzzing when every facet of it is being shared and talked about on social media. Yes, we at The Practice are of course referring to none other than The X Factor,  which this year has seen record numbers of Twitter mentions for both contestants and the show itself.

It can’t have escaped your attention that The Practice are exploring exciting business opportunities in NYC. As ever, (being a creative design agency and all), our team have been capturing the Big Apple in all its glory through the Instagram lens. The result? A stunning photographic snapshot which we hope you’ll enjoy. Take a look!