Street Fighter IV

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...

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...

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

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

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?

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

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

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!?

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

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

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!

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

Excellent stuff.

F*CK OFF!!!!!

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

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

why?

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

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"

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

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

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

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)