the smell of fish and chips

Street Fighter IV

2009-02-16T08:18:00.000-08:00

Im excited as it is with the thought of the UK release of Street Fighter IV, but check out the official Street Fighter IV Fight Stick!

It will set you back $80 but I bet it will take you all the way back to the heady days of spending far too long in arcades at the weekend.

Someone Great...

2009-02-14T07:50:00.000-08:00

Just stumbled across Kid Cudi's latest track, Can I Be, and what an awesome track it is.

He's sampled LCD Soundsystem's Someone Great and the track just flows perfectly.

Seems like its not just Kid Cudi who fancies a piece of LCD Soundsystem's Someone Great as there is now a Diplo version of Justin Timberlake's My Love too....apparently.

Anymore for anymore?....

Kid Cudi

The Original

Its been ages...

2009-02-14T00:29:00.000-08:00

I haven't posted anything on here since December.

I cant really excuse the fact that its been radio silence from me for over 2 months but I think I may attribute it to a combination of work load and also me leaning towards using Twitter as my main blogging platform.

I know Twitter in its purest form is meant to simply let your friends know what you are doing so from the inane "ordering a coffee" to more complex short-form reportage from seminars etc. However, I feel like we are all now using it more of a news feed platform, sharing interesting links, thoughts and re-tweeting interesting posts. I didnt start this blog to hammer out long, rambling thoughts on marketing, media, comms etc. I started it to share stuff that excites me and the stuff that interests me. I guess what im trying to say is that one of the real reasons why im blogging less is down Twitter making it far easier for me to share the stuff i love.

(blimey that was quite rambling)

Behold the Yamaha Tenori-on

2008-12-19T04:45:00.000-08:00

I saw a band play last night at a gig we were putting on for our client.
The highlight of the gig was a girl called Little Boots. You may not have heard of her yet but you will, she’s awesome. The most amazing part of her performance was the instrument she plays; The Yamaha Tenori.
Its basically a digital instrument that sequences sounds that you control using a light board, the interface of the instrument is totally visual.

One of the best things ive ever seen.

Entertainment Brands

2008-12-15T03:18:00.001-08:00

Something that’s been burning a hole into our brains this morning is the question over when/if a brand that facilitates entertainment is an ‘entertainment brand’ in itself?
For example, would Apple now be deemed as an entertainment brand as its become one of the largest distributors of music in the world or is Hulu just a platform to view video content online as opposed to an entertainment brand in itself?

Apple is clearly rooted as a technology brand but im sure if you ask most people on the street if they consider Apple to be a gateway of entertainment then im sure they would agree. I guess the question is when does a facilitator or provider of entertainment content become and entertainment brand in its own right?

Does a brand have to produce entertainment content to be considered an entertainment brand? That would discount the likes of Apple, You Tube, E4 (pretty sure they commission all content?) etc. as they all are essentially providers not creators. But if you count Apple as an entertainment brand, down to the popularity of iTunes, you would then need to count HMV as an entertainment brand which in my mind doesn’t ring true!?

Bit of a rambling post but its slowly churning my brain….!

Twit Or Fit?

2008-12-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

Excellent someone’s created “Twit Or Fit”. Essentially using the same principles of the dozens of “Rate My” sites and mashing them with actual Twitter profiles.
You can only vote if you register with them. A little nerdy but quite funny.

the Jejune Institute

2008-11-03T06:55:00.000-08:00

The Jejune Institute site has all the hall-marks of an ARG, the institute is a pastiche on 70’s design and science with all sorts of odd (Hanso Foundation-like) refrences to happiness and ‘social engineering’.
After a bit of digging it turns out this is actually an art project created by a collective of artists based in San Fransisco, called Oaklandish.
The ‘Institute’ invites people to visit their practice in person for an ‘initiation’ and it turns out you can and people have done this, which essentially takes you around San Fransisco and you explore the city for street art and clues. The detailed post on this is all here.

This has to be one of very few non marketing-initiated ARG’s and fair play to ‘em, will be interesting to see what happens with this.

found by Kylie.

Little (Expensive) Big Planet

2008-10-20T02:35:00.000-07:00

Oh dear, (literally) every copy of PlayStation 3’s Little Big Planet will need to be recalled and re-printed.

Quite interesting though that an entire release has been recalled due to a single forum post.
As a client you can look at this two ways, great example of harnessing the power of peer to peer to anticipate issues further down the line or simply an (expensive) annoyance that may not have been spotted/highlighted in days of old 1.0.

eh!?

2008-10-15T05:59:00.000-07:00

Maybe im missing something here but - this is quite possibly the most useless ‘web experience’ ive ever encountered?

What is the point of this? Its just a poor rip-off of Nike Chain which was produced brilliantly and was enjoyable to watch and get involved with – this however is not.

I really, really like the stuff FON and BT are doing in a greater sense - in fact i think its an awesome initiative and I really hope it takes off.

Diesel SFW porn

2008-09-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Brilliant new viral from the whacky lot over at Diesel.
Absolutely love the dodgy cartoon sound effects throughout the film!!
Also, love the fact that it doesn’t try and be clever or witty in any way, just simple, juvenile stupidity at its best.

the Brits are here

2008-09-23T04:48:00.000-07:00

See more Little Britain videos at Funny or Die UK

Excellent to see that we now have our own UK version of Funny or Die and what better two funny people to launch it than Lucas and Walliams.
Ive always really liked the US site but felt that it was pretty much the Will Ferrell Show…online. It didn’t seem like they showcased any talent or other comics (other than s’lebs).
But by the sounds of it the UK version will make a bit more an effort on this front with Hat Trick being involved exclusively from the start.

Awesome stuff

its the Shite!

2008-09-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

No need to pick up your free-sheet on way home now you have London Shite.

Excellent stuff.

F*CK OFF!!!!!

2008-09-14T02:47:00.000-07:00

if i have to sit through another price comparison website ad, i will gouge my eyes out with a rusty nail.

and why do they all seem to follow the same cheap and nasty theme of placing real people in animated worlds, whether that be physically standing in a computer screen, standing in virtual space with rows upon rows of cars or living in a world of cardboard illustrations?

and why is GoCompare's "special five star rating" any more "special" than all the other fucking rating systems out there?!

Justice = awesome vids

2008-09-12T08:00:00.000-07:00

Justice keep producing amazing music videos!!
Love this video for Stress so much.

why?

2008-09-05T02:20:00.000-07:00

This is odd. Spotted this poster in a pub for Pepsi’s new RAW drink sporting copy explaining that it was “New and the UK leads the worldwide launch!”

I’m not sure if people actually care if the country we live in is the lead for a new product launch?! plus it just looks weird.

Penguin Dating

2008-08-26T06:44:00.000-07:00

Another genius idea from the clever book people at Penguin.
Penguin have created Penguin Dating; a new dating site that matches people together based on their favourite books and authors. There are no fears that the wont work or not have enough of a userbase to make worthwhile as its powered by Match.com

I love the idea as its such a simple yet compelling idea. It’s the sort of service that any publisher could have done but only Penguin would have thought of it.
There is a real theme behind a lot of Penguin’s work and it really is simplicity. Even something as potentially complicated as an ARG was made so simple and easy to engage with the We Tell Stories game they created earlier this year.

Its got me thinking if this match-making idea could work with other kinds of publishers such as record labels or even film studios? Perhaps film is too broad but music definitely can bring like-minded people together.

Awesome stuff.

Thanks to Kylie for this!

"I Am"

2008-08-18T03:41:00.000-07:00

Not new news, but I’ve been thinking about the latest Orange campaign – “I am Everyone”. Aside from the ads themselves, I was thinking specifically about the strapline on their outdoor/press ads directing people to search for “I Am” online for more information. Initially I thought it was a bit of w*nky ad-thing to do but thinking about it again it’s a really nifty way of encouraging people to take on your creative strategy and bring your brand into the vernacular.

Off the back of the recent news that 88% of people are now searching for brand specific terms online (as opposed to generic terms like “mobile phone tariff”), I think we could see this tactic being used even more as clients and agencies really start seeing the value search/PPC can bring to your brand as opposed to viewing it as just another sales driving platform.

pimms o'clock

2008-07-31T07:38:00.000-07:00

its harder and harder to get really excited about new widgets/applications these days.

but Pimms seem to have created one of the best little widgets i have come across in a long time.

the application allows users to simply type in your post code and the widget will search and display your nearest pubs and parks.

but the smart bit is that it also displays exactly which hours the pub/park is in direct sunshine for. This is obviously based on it being a sunny day!

Ticks all the boxes, its fun, easy to use and most of all its actually quite useful (could do with a few more locations but I think they are adding), oh and its still London only at moment.

idiots

2008-07-31T03:20:00.000-07:00

So, you get half a million people around the world playing your game and at the same time reviving a typically dying breed of board game among a young, entirely new generation of players.
What do you do then? You make a blindingly obvious mistake.

Wonder how long it will be for them to make an “official Scrabble” widget, and then wonder how long it will take for them to realize that no one downloads it as you have single handedly pissed off every player – oh well, learn the hard way eh?

Pinger

2008-07-04T08:36:00.000-07:00

Ive just read about a new service called Pinger.
Pinger basically allows you to dial a UK number and leave a short voice message then send the message on to any number of your mobile contacts in one go.
Sounds like a nifty piece of kit and Andy at Playpen explains how he can see the service being used as a form of voice Twitter. Im not so sure and when I think about it I really don’t see the use of this.

Firstly if I had voice messages for every Tweet that I get in a day it would do my head in! the nice thing about Twitter is that you can quickly scan Tweets to see whats going on in the Twitter world. Also, Twitter allows you to simply share useful links via tinyurl, imagine mumbling a url down the phone while your mate scrambles to find a pen to jot down the interesting link, nice.
I think it’s a nice idea but im not sure about it becoming a voice form of Twitter and I don’t really see the need for it generally as if you need to let a load of your mates know where you are, simply text, no hassle with having to bumble your way through a message.

I may be totally off the mark and it becomes an overnight success and everyone will point and laugh at me.

(rant over)

Interesting 2008

2008-06-26T03:24:00.001-07:00

Been meaning to write this earlier this week but its been mental!!!

I had the pleasure of attending my first Interesting last Saturday with some mates from work and it was, well, very interesting!
Im told by a mate that this year was even more focused on getting interesting people that we really would never have heard of, last year I think they had some more famous faces, especially from the bloggersphere; which made the whole event even more interesting and unexpected! no long talks on future of comms/marketing etc. all quick firing random, very interesting people talking about everything from coin design to handmade scotch eggs!

It was an early start for a Saturday morning but well worth it. Was nice to catch up with some people I hadn’t seen for a while and very odd kind of recognizing people from pictures on twitter etc.

I haven’t got time to go into the event in too much detail here but you can see all speakers and event details over here anyway. But if you haven’t been and missed last Saturday, definitely worth going next year!!

Thanks to all involved for making it an awesome day! – Conway Hall is a great venue too, felt like being back at school assembly.

Highlights for me;

“sign in” table
Radiohead Nude remix
Coin design
Geography
Informatics
Food Map
Graphic design and music
Funny words
Toilets around the world
Digestives shaped as “T”’s
The Final Countdown

Google continue the Net Neutrality fight

2008-06-16T02:05:00.000-07:00

Google have further weighed into the whole net neutrality debate with the announcement that they are going to be providing web users the tools they need to detect for themselves if their connection is being messed with by their ISP’s.

I think this is a bold and positive move form Google in the fight for net neutrality, but I have a bad feeling this wont be a big enough move to make a real difference as I feel the vast majority of people wont have the inclination to fight a battle that has been seemingly low in profile outside of tech circles. However, I hope I’ll be proved wrong and this does indeed turn from a small groundswell movement to a full blown wave of protest!!

Guardian and VW - Film Map

2008-05-28T05:36:00.000-07:00

The Guardian and VW have teamed up to create an interactive “Film Map”.
The Film Map allows you to search a database of films either via actors, directors, genre, country etc. and then visually maps out the links between films by either same actor, same director, same genre etc.

Its just a really simple and engaging way of visualizing a movie database and the links between films.

VW seem to be really hot at the moment on creating digital comms that easily visualize and sort data, check out their awesome site here, which is a perfect example of collating and distilling tons of info in an easy to use, simple and engaging way.

not magic enough...

2008-05-19T06:56:00.000-07:00

Such a shame to read that the ‘magical’ FA Cup final clash between under-dogs Portsmouth and Cardiff attracted record low viewer numbers for an FA Cup Final (just 5 mil).

The finalists had battled away throughout the competition and surprisingly knocked out all the big clubs to reach the final at Wembley last Saturday.

The media had billed this game as proof that the famous ‘magic’ of the FA Cup was not dead; i.e. proving the under-dog can go on to win great things even in this modern age of corporate monster clubs that can afford to have the likes of Shevchenko sat on the bench etc.

However, such a shame to see that this kind of nostalgic ‘magic’ obviously doesn’t mean anything to enough people these days.

3D video out of a piece of paper....

2008-05-19T06:53:00.000-07:00

So it looks like this cool new 3D ‘out of paper’ technology is being picked up and used now.
BBC have used the technology to encourage music fans who couldn’t make it to The Big Weekend this year to watch exclusive gigs/interviews with bands via a piece of paper with the printed out logo of BBC Radio 1. See above video of Scott Mills demonstrating it.

Nice.

Malkovich & Sony team up

2008-05-15T06:29:00.000-07:00

Snow Angel
Uploaded by angels_in_the_snow

Sony Vaio have done an interesting piece of digital comms.
They’ve teamed up with John Malkovitch who wrote the first scene for a short movie then Sony invited people to write the remaining scenes of the film for Malkovitch to shoose the winning entries. The pieced together script has been turned into a nice little animated short film…well worth a watch, just for the amazing animation alone.

the Sony site is here

via: Yellow Tutu

As Seen On TV!!!!!

2008-05-15T03:23:00.000-07:00

Ive been meaning to upload this photo for weeks but hadn’t got round to it.So glad Somerfield re-assure their shoppers before they choose to buy into the Coca-Cola brand.

Social Network Wars

2008-05-13T09:57:00.000-07:00

Brilliant! Very funny video ripping it out of social networks. Worth a laugh….

Twistori

2008-04-30T07:52:00.000-07:00

Yet another Twitter Feed visualizer!
This is Twistori. The site claim it to be a “First Step in An Ongoing Experiment” which I personally think is a load of self delusional bollocks quite frankly. However, I do believe this site to be a little gem!!

Twistori tracks Tweets with six specific verbs, “Love”, “Hate”, “Think”, “Believe”, “Feel” and “Wish”. The results are compelling reading and perfect thought starters when looking for inspiration, i.e. great to get a little snapshot of people’s core thoughts and feelings at any point and very randomly.

Well worth a look!

Via: RWW and Kylie

3D out of a box!

2008-04-24T05:29:00.000-07:00

This is amazing! This dude looks as though he has created a form of digital printing that can be morphed into a fully-rendered 3D objects once it has been filmed…im assuming. To be honest, I have no idea how this works but I like it, a lot!!

Via: Big Yellow Tutu

2008-04-22T07:20:00.000-07:00

Just stumbled across a very cool Tweet Buzz tracker/visualizer thingy – Twittermeter, plots out Tweets relating to specified keywords in an easy to read line graph over a period of time.
Easy to present any interesting findings to clients etc. in handy graph format.

Via: Paul

reach for the lasers...

2008-04-21T10:13:00.000-07:00

This rocks...

hours of fun and you can record your skills too!

Electric Tiger Land

2008-04-15T04:28:00.000-07:00

this is brilliant – Asics have created a one meter illuminated Onitsuka Tiger shoe as part of their ‘Made of Japan’ strategy, the shoe looks amazing and check out the ‘making of’ video; true Japanese craftsmanship and attention to detail.

Nippon Ichi!!

Getty offering music search

2008-04-11T06:44:00.000-07:00

Off the back of the recent news that Flickr are now offering video uploads to users, Getty now seem to be offering music within their search engine. Check it out here.
Obviously there are no Stones or Dylan tracks on file but it’s a fairly extensive library of independent artists with a wide range of genres.

the pin drops....

2008-04-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

Whoopee-do. News from NMA is that ‘major Premiership football clubs are preparing to incorporate user-generated content and social networking into their sites’. Wow! There’s a novel thought, for a business that is based on what is essentially weekly social gatherings where fans all over the country watch their team play and bond together before and after the match to discuss what went wrong, what went well, how crap the ref was, who to buy/sell next; and only now do the clubs realize the value in giving fans from all over the world to share this experience that comes with following their football team even for people who aren’t lucky enough to go to the game every week or live miles away from England.

The problem is that they have left it so late now that I doubt they will be able to compete with all the unofficial forums, message boards and communities that have been around for a good few years now and who have cemented a very loyal user base. I just cant believe its taken this long for football clubs to realise the potential value in extending the match-day experience around following your team to an online world. What’s more worrying is that major clubs like Arsenal are still ‘refusing to be drawn on it’s strategy’ when asked about this, I thought we were a forward thinking club?...

Tweet Clouds

2008-04-07T04:01:00.000-07:00

Tweet Clouds is a great Twitter app. that allows you to generate tag clouds instantly based on words used in (yours or anyone else’s) Tweets.
It’s nice and easy to use. Throws up some worrying results too!

Have a go here

Snowball!!!

2008-04-04T04:19:00.000-07:00

This is one of the funniest online ‘games’ ive ever played, funny because its so painfully bad.
I urge you to read the full instructions on the web page before you fire up the game as the description of the game itself is genius!!

Who thinks of game concepts like this?

Radiohead - Nude

2008-04-04T03:02:00.000-07:00

Those crazy, forward-thinking rockers have done it again and are now are offering fans the chance to officially remix their new track, Nude. Fans can go online and vote for the best track. I love the site itself, simple, easy to use and cool.

Great idea to really engage their fans and smart move by Radiohead to take ownership of some great (and not so great) remixes but in doing so they have also ensured that that the remixes will be of a high standard/quality as all the tunes will be put together using high quality samples from the song.

Cannot believe how bad the top rated remix is though…

This is my favourite.

fred and sharon rule...

2008-04-01T05:11:00.001-07:00

I love this.

Im not sure why I do but I just do. I especially like the great 'animations' these guys can offer too.

Shame their own official site doesnt take their business further!

hacking digital billboards

2008-04-01T05:03:00.000-07:00

This is very cool. An artist known as “Skullphone”(great name) has hacked into a load of Clear Channel’s digital billboards in the States to display his skull imagery.

Takes subverting advertising spaces to a whole new level and almost creates an illegal propaganda campaign on a massive scale using high impact platforms simultaneously, I imagine this would be the kind of stuff Banksy would do if he lived in the world of Blade Runner.

Could this be the start of an age where graf/street/urban (whatever you want to call it) artists can take their messages/artwork and literally take over official brand spaces in an instant, rather than having to incorporate messages within pre-existing advertising using spray paint or stencils?

This could be a bad thing as there have been some funny results from ads that have been tinkered with in an old school way…

Via: digicynic

Tron Swede

2008-03-28T09:49:00.000-07:00

Tron
Uploaded by freres-hueon

This is one of the best Swede’s ive ever seen.
More of this please!

PM Brown on Twitter!?

2008-03-28T05:11:00.000-07:00

This surely this has to be the point when Twitter finally goes main stream? No doubt we will see Dave, Boris, Ken etc. signing up to the service very soon.

On a separate note, ive started following the Big Man Brown but he hasn’t followed me back which is annoying!! There is nothing more annoying when you follow a brand/company/(important)person and they don’t follow you back, im not sure what it is but it grates, it feels as though there needs to be an unwritten rule or a code of conduct for companies/politicians etc who use Twitter.

Brown should take a leaf out of Obama’s book, my mate Kylie followed Obama and within 3 minutes Obama was following her back.

Via Digital Agency

the guitar zeros

2008-03-14T08:06:00.000-07:00

These dudes rock!...well not really but you have to love the ingenuity of doing something like this! I think its great and I hope to see loads more hacks like this.

I know this isn’t the first time anyone’s hacked a games console controller and it certainly wont be the last, but the difference here is the that they haven’t just turned what is essentially a remote control into…another remote control…

pot noodle viral

2008-03-13T08:54:00.000-07:00

Just been sent this spoof viral of Guinness’s Tipping Point ad.

Im not impressed at all. Was it me or did anyone else want to close it down way before it even reached the end?

I love spoof ads when done well, off the top of my head there are loads of good spoof ads like Tango’s spoof of Bravia and the spoof viral for VW’s small but tough Polo (not sure if this counts as it wasn’t created by VW?) and especially liked this random spoof of Bravia (well actually not sure how good it really is but just made me chuckle, think maybe it's the Gareth from The Office type character)

I think my issues with this is that has taken far too long for the viral to be released (correct me if im wrong, I have literally just seen this in Campaign today?) to make a decent impact as the original Guinness ad felt new and exciting months and months ago? They obviously wanted to make the domino effect of the mechanics look clumsy to reflect the “slag of all snacks” nature of the brand but this makes it just dull to watch, with no believability that this could actually happen in real life and there feels like no point in watching as you kinda get the gist of the ad in the first 10 seconds and know in the back of your mind its not going to get any more interesting or intriguing to watch.

Surely if you’re going to do a spoof ad, you should then make it worth while and most importantly make it more interesting/funnier than the original!!??

I (heart) Tweet Scan

2008-03-10T06:34:00.000-07:00

Tweet Scan is awesome.
I know Twitter offer their own tracking system but we’ve tried it via IM and well….its crap and doesn’t seem to work very well.

Tweet Scan is a really nice, free and easy way to instantly track public Tweets on anything and everything and it actually works too. Woo hoo!

no reception...

2008-03-07T02:56:00.000-08:00

some things in life are better because, they just are. i.e. toast tastes better cut into triangles NOT squares etc.

realised that offices are just instantly better without a "reception" area; just more welcoming, friendly and instantly inclusive. poor sod that sits closest to the door (Alina in our case!).

best music video of the year...so far

2008-03-06T02:28:00.000-08:00

Quite possibly one of the best music videos ive seen for a while!!!
Check out the video for Justice’s track DVNO; am absolutely loving the old school 80’s logos, reminds me of being a kid, watching cartoons like He-Man, Mask etc. with all the cheesy production company logos at the end of the toon. What a great idea and looks stunning.

Not sure what else to say other than awesome. Oh yeah…buy the album as it truly ROCKS too!!

2008-03-06T01:51:00.000-08:00

Brilliant – stumbled upon this site documenting people matching random bank notes from around the world to famous celebrity faces.

My personal favorite...Dr Evil!

fatigue...

2008-02-28T01:43:00.000-08:00

Ive just recently read about Rivals4Ever and Outquib on Mashable.

These interesting little social networks have been built purely for people to go online and join/start debates comparing products/people/services and anything really.

These sites are geared towards debating everything from “Dominoes vs Pizza Hut” to “Does Might Make it Right? – America’s Global Role”.

With news of specialist business network; Linkedin trebling its audience in 2007, another interesting thought is that with all this “Facebook Fatique” going about, could specialist social communities like Outquib, Linkedin, Sagaworld etc. start to really grow and replace the mass market social networks like Facebook because people seem to want a clear reason to go to a community now (“because I want to network for my business”, “because I am an oldy looking for other like minded oldies”, “because I want to debate and argue about my football team” etc.) rather than be mindlessly bombarded with “do you want to be a pirate/zombie/ninja” messages when actually all you wanted to do was keep in touch with mates?

Just a thought?

2008-02-15T03:04:00.000-08:00

This is one of the funniest things ive stumbled upon in a long, long time.
Check out Bad Gass’s casebook of all London’s best tasty chicken joints with special attention to the innovative brand names and distinctive signage…

I love it…im annoyed that my personal favorite, “Original Taste” in Bow is not included in the list though. Boo.

Tossing Off...

2008-01-15T05:37:00.000-08:00

Take one camera,
Take one photo subject,
Set the camera to timer function,
Depress the shutter button,
Then simply chuck the camera (and try to catch it!) and see the results!

Welcome to Camera Tossing!! A stupidly simple (and potentially expensive) way to get some really nice long-exposure shots with loads of weird lines and squiggles!! Nice.

There some great examples on Flickr here.

Hadouken!!!!

2008-01-11T07:04:00.000-08:00

Ive just seen this trailer for Street Fighter 4….looks stunning.
Also check out some initial in-game footage of it too.
Im glad they have kept the old-school 2D looking manga characters and not gone all hyper real which would have taken away the magic of the original Streetfighter series.

No idea when this is out, Capcom are keeping shtum…I cant wait!!!

UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT, B, A

Facebook helping people in difficult times...

2008-01-02T03:14:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year!!!
Hope you had a good Xmas break.

I just wanted to share some very sad news which has got me thinking about social networks on another scale.
One of Emma’s old school friends tragically died in a fatal car accident during the Christmas break, this has obviously shocked and deeply saddened all family and friends that were closed to her.
The day after she passed away all her friends united to create a personal group on Facebook in memory of her. This group now has over 200 friends who have all joined together as a mark of respect, the page has been set up to give friends & family a platform to inform people about the funeral, allow friends to post photos and generally act as a central platform allowing all friends and family to connect and share memories of their friend.

Letting friends and families know about a death is a painful process, using a social network it becomes an instant way of letting people around the world know about the death and communicating dates, times and places for the funeral. Not only has it made this painful process faster but Emma’s friend now has a permanent, central page where friends and family all over the world can access and share memories together.

Not really sure why I posted about this as its not the nicest of subjects, but Ive never thought about how important social networks can be in helping friends and family unite at such difficult times.

Mickys Fish Bar

2007-11-21T06:01:00.000-08:00

I recently found one of the best chippies in London.
It’s Micky’s Fish Bar in Paddington. I love it because it’s honest, their cod batter is light and fluffy, the chips are perfectly plump, they have good mushy peas and most importantly there always seems to be a decent number of “crispy chip bits” (those little, slightly over-cooked chip ends) in any chip portion.

Well worth a visit next time you’re hungry and in that part of town.

more digital buildings!

2007-11-06T07:46:00.000-08:00

Following on from my post below about how the world would generally be a better place if more buildings became interactive and ‘digital’…
Ive just stumbled upon Dexia Towers via the Hyper Blog. The Dexia Tower is a project being carried out in Brussels by the Royal Meteorological Institute of Belgium who have converted the skyscraper into Digital Weather Tower that changes colour and pattern to reflect tomorrow’s weather, i.e. Red lights indicating 6 degrees or higher than today etc. Another great example of making use of iconic city buildings and using them to do something more than just ‘being an office block’.

Interactive Architecture

2007-10-23T05:13:00.000-07:00

Christmas is scarily fast approaching and already the cheesy “I Wish It Could Be Xmas Everyday…” jingles are already being played on the radio.
I have just stumbled upon one of the best set of Christmas lights. Last Christmas Tokyo’s shopping district of Aoyama made their usual Christmas Light Columns interactive. For the first time the Tokyo public could “call in” to the light columns and change the colour of the neon lights by using just their voice. The guys at Semitransparent Design who created this innovation also got a Cannes Lion for this too.

I found this light project here on Ping Mag, it’s a great blog entry covering all sorts of interesting stuff the Japanese are doing to make their architecture interactive; from Sony’s Live Colour Wall to Microsoft’s Shadow Play.

I wish we had more interactive buildings or installations open to the general public here in the UK. When I say interactive, I mean really physically interactive, not just texting in a short message to be displayed on a on a cheap LED wall (Budweiser I think had something like this in Picadilly Circus?). For example, wouldn’t it be great if buildings could sense volumes or people walking past it via sensors and change its external lighting to match the buzz of people? We interact with buildings everyday, from pushing a button for a lift or using your Oyster Card to enter the Tube why not take this interactivity further and allow people to have fun while doing it?

congratulations Skype!

2007-10-19T07:05:00.000-07:00

Ive just seen this post on Hyper’s blog about Skype reaching 10 million simultaneous subscribers.
Sam and Techcrunch are pointing out that its all very well having 10 million subscribers but as Skype to Skype calls are free, the bigger Skype gets, the smaller the margin of profit.
I don’t think its all doom & gloom as surely this when Skype start to charge a small* subscription fee with over 10 million subscribers this would be a hefty revenue stream and by the sounds of it Skype are working on building some really innovative affiliate programmes and retail partnerships too with the likes of Gap and American Express which is further scope to boost revenue.

Sam’s quote is “Kind of like more and more people coming to your party, but drinking the hooch without bringing a bottle…”
I say “they might not bring any hooch, but they’ll chip-in and help you buy a bigger house while they are there…”

*£1

the barn cafe

2007-10-16T01:13:00.000-07:00

Its been all quiet on the posting front as ive just spent a very chilled week in Cornwall, relaxing, eating, swimming and walking.
We stayed in Lamorna and I can highly recommend it, it’s a quiet, beautiful and secluded cove about 3 miles from Mousehole on the south coast of Cornwall.

Another highly recommended place to check out if you are ever in that part of England and hungry is The Barn Café!
This is probably one of the best café’s ive visited in a long time. It’s a husband and wife owned café/greasy-spoon on a small farm about half a mile from Lands End and busting with character and charm ,but not in a cheesy tourist way. I had the fried bacon and mushroom “Tiger Bap” and it was amazing; the bacon was perfect, thick cut and not too watery. We ate our lunch in their garden surrounded by free roaming chickens, rabbits and a few horses in the field next door. One of the best greasy spoon/cafe ive been to…great place to end a long trek along the coast!

stoner

2007-10-04T10:23:00.000-07:00

I know its not new news but ive been following the news story over the past few days (Metro, BBC) about random stone sculptures being left outside random people’s houses in Yorkshire in the middle of the night.
Each sculpture had a strange marking spelling “Paradox” and came with a riddle individual to each sculpture. It turns out the sculptures were a stunt by a reclusive artist called Billy Johnson to promote his artwork.
Although the stunt is fairly rudimentary, it’s such a clever and simple way of creating fame and interest in a product without being “flashy” and over complicated. Although it could be argued it’s a gloried combination of door dropping and weird midnight stalking…

Sir Norman Foster to give Barcelona's ground a "Second Skin"

2007-09-24T02:49:00.000-07:00

Ive just seen Sir Norman Foster’s new plans for the “Second Skin” to be built around Barcelona’s Nou Camp.
From the model, I think it looks amazing, the “Second Skin” is going to be made from thousands of multi coloured tiles in Barca’s famous Blue, Gold and Red colours which really look impressive and does make the stadium look like a beautiful but deadly coiled snake wrapped around their fantastic ground.

I love the Arsenal’s Emirates stadium and its just as impressive viewing the ground from Hornsey Road as it is from my seat inside, but this bold commission from Barcalona sums up the pomp and self belief of arguably one of the greatest football clubs in the world to create a stadium designed but someone like Foster that really stands out and looks like no other modern ground in the world.

L.A.S.E.R Tag

2007-09-13T03:13:00.000-07:00

This is brilliant!

A bunch of techy (geeky) graff artists in the Netherlands have build an awesome laser tagging program that allows you to “tag” on massive surfaces, like buildings, using a laptop, projector and a laser pointer. The program itself has been built in open source which is makes it even better!

Check out the site here for more details.

I’ll see you outside Centre Point later…

Cadbury Gorilla Remix

2007-09-06T08:08:00.000-07:00

There are already a few remixes of the great new Cadbury’s Gorilla ad.

I found this one today which made me laugh.

i can feel it coming in the air tonight...

2007-09-03T02:51:00.000-07:00

If you watched the Big Brother live eviction on Friday you would have seen this ad created by Fallon / Hyper Happen for Cadbury’s Dairy Milk.

I think it is one of the most captivating ads ive seen in a long time, and it makes me smile.

I love it.

power to the people!!!

2007-08-31T03:19:00.000-07:00

A group of students who have created a protest group on Facebook to petition HSBC to reverse its decision to stop free overdrafts…have succeeded!

I believe the Facebook group of over 5,000 students is a great demonstration of the growing maturity of Social Networking sites like Facebook and how they are being viewed as more than just time wasting recreational platforms.

I was riled yesterday when I listened to an interview on Radio 5 Live with a chap called Peter Mooney from the Employment Law Advisory Services. The debate was about whether Facebook should be banned from all work places due to employees wasting work time on the (admittedly) addictive site.

There’s no doubting that Facebook as a site is used for recreational purposes in the main, but it’s also a vital platform for networking within working industries. There are tons of work related groups on Facebook and these groups facilitate important sharing of work related knowledge, ideas and the odd networking beer/coffee meet too.

I hope the HSBC protest group news story will now help the likes of Peter Mooney (""Why should employers pay for the privilege of allowing their employees to access Facebook, MySpace or Bebo from work computers whether in an employee's lunch-time or not?") realise the importance of sites like Facebook in connecting people for serious work-related or cause-related matters!

…anyway back to throwing sheep at Martin!!

my blogs bigger than yours

2007-08-30T06:23:00.000-07:00

After reading an article about "what virals can do for your brand” on Marketing Week I stumbled upon this amazing viral on You Tube.

Im not sure if it actually was created by “Scott” and “Brad” but I think its genius, I love the up yours tone of voice to the entire thing. I have a sneaky feeling it was created by someone in the industry though.

I wish I could wheely like that.

Wrangler Launderette

2007-08-22T08:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry its been a while, its taken me this long to sort myself out after V. Festival!

Staying on the festival theme, this was sent round the office today. It’s a novel idea from Wrangler to set up a portable Launderette that pitches up at festivals. Festival goers can drop off their muddy clothes for cleaning, you don’t even have to hang around and miss bands, as once your clothes are cleaned, Wrangler then send you a text message to let you know your washings ready to pick up…genius.

This is the sort of simple, yet brilliantly clever brand idea that can genuinely add something useful to someone’s festival experience and I think it rocks!

Visualisation

2007-08-16T05:31:00.000-07:00

Ive just been reading Amy Webb’s blog post about a really cool new visualization tool from IBM called “Many Eyes”.
Many Eyes allows you to upload any data sets to the site and the tool will take that data and visualize it for you in loads of different forms.
She has used George Bush’s State Of The Union speech as an example and visualized the speech text into a Tag Cloud, the sizes of each word represent the number of times that word was mentioned during the speech.

There seems to be a lot of talk about data visualization online, my mate Sam posted this on the Hyper blog. It’s an application that allows you to visualize your emails in your inbox by creating images from nature that represent the category of the email. Very cool but also very far out and not quite sure what the use would be at this stage other than pimping your inbox?

Wouldn’t it be cool if data could be uploaded from audio recordings of brainstorms, idea sessions or conferences at work into an easy to use Tag Cloud visualisation that can be shared with colleagues afterwards?
This could be an easy way to organise, store and share thoughts with large groups of colleagues, instead of cobbled together scribbles on note pads?

How many times did I use the word “cool” in this post?

Left it till late...again

2007-08-13T06:38:00.000-07:00

So, the first game of the new season kicked off on Sunday and what a game it was!
Although we were appallingly bad during the first half, the drama and the fight back at the end was amazing.
This spirited performance was exactly what we needed and in my view we would have walked away with a draw from this game last season, the difference is that this season we seem to be playing with far more desire and the kids have grown in confidence. Hleb needed to score a goal like that, hopefully this will give him the confidence he desperately needs to shoot more often rather than passing in front of goal.

A quick word about the atmosphere, I thought it was great yesterday and I really liked Elvis’s The Wonder Of You being played as the team runs out on the pitch, it’s a perfect song for a football club's anthem!

Frank Lampard TV anyone?

2007-08-10T02:21:00.000-07:00

Im not sure what to make of this really.
As an Arsenal fan, Frank Lampard is never really spoken highly of by me and by the looks of things his new mobile TV channel is not going to change this.
“Frank TV” is launching today and is going to be available to Orange mobile phone customers.

I find the likes of MUTV and Chelsea TV excruciatingly painful to watch and I must stress this is NOT (purely) because I’m an Arsenal fan but its because they just don’t have enough good content to warrant an entire TV channel dedicated to one team. How many interviews with Man Utd’s head physio and grounds keeper can you watch in one day?!

It’ll be interesting to see if Frank TV is well received by Chelsea fans and if this will open the doors to other players starting their own TV channels.
Can you imagine…”Joey Barton TV…this week Joey takes us through his favourite curry recipes”, I for one cannot wait!!!

Thanks to Emma for the link!

Brand Bravery

2007-08-08T01:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry it’s been quiet for a while on here, it’s been manic at work and I havnt had time to blog.

I watched Panorama’s documentary last week on the “phenomena” of kids filming real street fighting between other kids on their mobile phone and uploading the fights to “specialist” fighting sites like PSFights.com and video sharing sites like You Tube. Admittedly the footage was shockingly brutal and graphic but most of all, the scary part was knowing that this was all real.

Then came the interesting dilemma that “Blue Chip” advertisers such as Orange and BT were seen to be advertising on the very sites that were hosting these fight scenes. These advertisers obviously do not want to be associated with content like this and it’s understandable that they have taken their respective Media Buying Agencies to task about their appearance on these sites.

Since this documentary was screened last week, Vodafone (and many other brands) have announced that they were going to pull all advertising on Facebook due to the fact they were serving ads on the BNP’s Facebook group pages. Again, this is understandable that huge brands like Vodafone do not wish to be seen anywhere near right-wing neanderthals like the BNP, they have far too much to lose.

However, im starting to wonder how much brands will now start pulling back and feeling nervous about communicating within these powerful new sites.
For years now, clients, agencies and publishers alike have been extolling the values of “Web 2.0” and how we must all embrace this movement towards the “Democratisation of Communication” and how significant the empowerment is that these types of sites have handed to consumers.

With this in mind, im starting to feel like what’s the use in moving forward with brands to embrace this cultural change if at any point there is a whiff of controversy clients demand to be removed form these amazingly powerful platforms and run back to their “safe and warm places”? I don’t really understand why the likes of Bebo have created “Brand Safe Areas” within their community? I think this takes away the entire meaning of brands integrating within real communities and building a real relationship with its users based on transparency and truth. To me it reeks of half hearted communications and a poor way of using a very complex online environment as just another media “touchpoint”.

I think what im trying to say is that, of course Vodafone don’t want to align themselves with the BNP but if a brand wants to enter the brave new world of Web 2.0 they may just have to actually be brave and come to terms with the fact that consumer empowerment means that not all areas of the web can be totally controlled or sanitized at all times.

PS – Does anyone else find the Panaroma tone of voice excruciatingly painful and very Brass Eye!?? “Hi! I’m Jeremy Vine and this is controversial…”

PPS – 3 days to go until the start of the new Season Woooo Hooooo!!!

think free

2007-08-02T13:53:00.000-07:00

Mashable! has just posted on this great service called Think Free.

its a nifty service that allows you to create Word, Excel and Power Point documents that are totally compatible with Microsoft Office without having to pay full whack on the official software from Mr Gates and the best thing the service/product is totally free.

whats really cool is that this service has been built as a widget for Facebook that allows you to share any documents that you have created with your Network.

i like this but whats really interesting is that business/work orientated brands like Think Free are using a Social Networking site like Facebook to promote and seed their service. I really think this demonstrates the growing maturity of sites like Facebook and i'm sure we will see more business orientated applications and tools being created for social networks in the future.

cloverfield

2007-07-29T14:09:00.000-07:00

if you have managed to get to the cinema this weekend to watch Transformers you may have seen a strange teaser trailer for an unknown film. i haven't actually seen Transformers yet (heard mixed reviews) but I have managed to see this (very cool) teaser trailer (codename "Cloverfield") on youtube today and its brilliant!!

the trailer is for a film due out next year from the maker of Lost; JJ Abrams.
there will no doubt be a frenzy of people scouring the net searching for whatever info available on the film; I have to admit I will be one of them and ill keep this blog updated with any new news on this film.

i know its been said so many times before but this kind of "underground" anticipation being built before a movie release is remarkable (its not out until Jan next year!?) and would never have been possible to do effectively in the past without the Internet.

let the hype begin...

herbs from Tescos making me angry today...

2007-07-29T06:25:00.001-07:00

ive just got back from a "Big Shop" at Tescos with Emma and feel so angry that they fly in common garden herbs like Basil all the way from Israel?!

considering the current climate (excuse the pun), why would a supermarket like Tescos feel the need to source garden herbs from another country to be flown all the way to the UK? If I can grow Basil and Thyme with no problem at all here in my micro garden in Bow, then why the hell should we have to fly it over all the way from Israel?!

needless to say i didnt buy any herbs from Tescos today as they all looked like they had been flown in from glamourous sounding countries.

"Widsets"

2007-07-27T04:30:00.000-07:00

my mate Sam posted this on the Hyper blog today about “Widsets” and the demise of O2’s i-Mode. combined with the news today that Virgin Mobile are scrapping their mobile TV offering with BT’s Movio, has got me thinking that perhaps the future of mobile TV also lies in some kind of “Widsets” application that could act like a mobile Tivo device that streams content that you specifically ask for (Arsenal FC news stories) and also automatically streams Match of The Day highlights for example?

Again, I think people are just getting fed up with the cumbersome nature of viewing web content and TV content via their mobile handsets, this would further simplify the process of watching TV via your phone?

cloudy and murkey "negative SEO"

2007-07-26T02:59:00.001-07:00

there has been lots of talk about "Negative SEO".

however, there seems to be conflicting reports and it seems to be a murky area as to if it is technically possible. obviously Google are denying its possible but by the looks of things it is rife and "if you understand the rules of search...you can use them not just constructively, but also destructively."

...comforting thought for brand owners and agencies alike.

brilliant street stencil game

2007-07-24T07:18:00.000-07:00

a mate at work sent round this link.

She Loves The Moon is an interactive, ambient, street art game, type of thing...
Its basically a love story that 2 people can follow around the streets of San Francisco and you get given multiple choices to follow through different streets and districts. If the players make the right choices you end up meeting each other at the end. (romance, love, sex not guaranteed)

It reminds me of those old-school adventure game books that allowed you to "turn to page 18 if you choose to try and fight the giant dragon or turn to page 12 if you choose to turn and run...", except much for fun and involving...brilliant.

More here

the simpsons avatar creator

2007-07-24T06:21:00.000-07:00

...I love it!!
So simple but brilliant.
I love the way Matt Groening has illustrated these famous little yellow people. I find myself just laughing at Homer not doing or saying anything at all, its just his expression alone that does it for me.
Ive made myself fatter than i am in real life as i think i look funnier. (honest)
Ive included Emma on here too as I think she looks HOT!!

Have a go!!

fun in the sun with Accenture

2007-07-23T03:49:00.000-07:00

Why do I get a warm feeling inside when I think of brands like Accenture and UBS?
These aren’t normally the type of brands that you would expect to feel “warm” inside when thinking about and I think I may now realize why I get this feeling any time I see these giant corporate monsters.

I am so used to being exposed to these two brands (and other similar ones) when im either at an airport check-in on my way off on a nice holiday to a sandy beach or in a hotel room when watching CNN.

I know this is no revelation or colossal insight but I just think its interesting how a consumer can have a totally different take on a brand to anything that their marketing department would ever want someone to take out from their communications, or is this their plan? By using obvious business people’s touch points like airports and hotels they are also benefiting from a halo effect for the non-business traveller?

Sorry no real structure to this thought but I just needed to verbalise it to try and help me understand what im trying to get at?!

Ramble over...

nielsen scraps web page view rankings

2007-07-23T03:39:00.000-07:00

There is a shift happening away from the original model of site measurement.

Website page views are becoming less important when judging the strength of a site and site stickyness will become a more important benchmark in the future.

Digital planning tools like ComScore will now surely follow suit and revise their site analysis metrics to include a measurement tool of a site’s stickyness not just the number of impressions it generates.

This shift is born out of the fact that more and more advertisers are developing digital advertising and communications that rely on time spent viewing and engaging with content (video streaming, rich media ads, interactive ads, widgets etc.) not just clicking on banners…

i personally think this shift should have happened a few years ago, even when video streaming ads first started to really take off..

link

1st post.

2007-07-22T13:45:00.001-07:00

greetings!!
let the adventure begin, this is the first post on my new blog and hopefully the first of many more to come in the future.
i would appreciate any feedback both negative or positive...Enjoy your stay!