Holy Shit. Twitter broke

Twitter makes it okay with a nice fail picture.

Calm is not quite restored.

In other twitter related news, I’ve ordered my twitter username as a necklace from the very lovely people at Couch Objects. Delighful, geeky and pretty (just like me, obv).

Where’s Live Guy?

The new campaign for Vodafone is now live.  And it’s just like Where’s Wally but with a real man and real prizes to be won instead of the private smug feeling inside you get when you spot the grinning idiot amongst the medieval bears dancing round a fireplace made of balloons.  Er right. Back to the plot.

 He is of course Live Guy and he’s racing around the country starting in Edinburgh this Monday 17th November with his trusty netbook hinting at his wearabouts via twitter, facebook; piscassa and youtube; and if that wasn’t enough a GPS tracker pings his location to a google maps doo-dar just to keep him on his toes.   What is he running from? You of course dear reader. And if you catch him (literally run up to him, grab him, and say the magic words) then you get a free netbook with built in mobile broadband from Vodafone.  Everyone likes a chase yes? Especially when there’s prizes and clues involved (and maybe a kiss if you’re lucky just like at school).

 

Where's Live Guy?

 

 

What am I blethering about?  Find out more at findliveguy.com

Gulliverhats’ travels…

phew. It’s 3.14am and I’ve finished my hats for the big innocent knit and then of course uploaded the pictures complete with captions to flickr; twittered stupidly; and now blogged. Can I go to bed now? Thankyouplz

The wisdom of crowds

I met a man at interesting2008 that is interested in the wisdom of crowds.  I’m definitely interested in collective intelligence, especially when it comes to web stuff. This is why I love ffffound.  I love how there is no communication between the users yet everyone maintains a similar standard for their posts.  Here’s my ffffound to so you can judge whether I make the grade.  I’ve blogged about it not suffering from tragedy of the commons before and it’s still remaining glorious eye-candy.  Have a look if you’ve got 5 minutes. I’ve also got one invite if anyone wants one.  I’ll judge on some arbitrary basis of merit (tea making, Dr Who nerdery perhaps)

On the other end of the collective intelligence spectrum is the vicious hive mind of that cesspit of the internet /b/ (no link, you’ll have to find that particular perverse playground by yourself I’m afraid).  This is perhaps collective stupidity but it’s a fine example of how all the individuals follow the rules and rarely deviate despite there being no leader given that everyone is anonymous.

I’m rambling now as I’m killing time waiting for my brilliant friend Max to arrive.  I think I want to learn more about the wisdom of crowds.  There seems to be a lot of books out there that I’ll probably get around to reading sometime.

Question though: if crowds are so wise then why do people keep on ploughing into the train carriage doors when you’re trying to get out?  Is that because the hive mind think: too late loser, you should have packed up your knitting earlier to leave this train?  Or because commuters are arses?

As my friend says: none of us is as mean as all of us.

More on this later.  First I must drink.

This is an ad for thisisanad

Nick and Toby were in campaign today. Nick wore a flowery shirt and Toby removed his glasses for the occasion. More interestingly they wrote about how digital has killed advertising, or not as the case is. Even more interesting than that is our blog thisisanad.com that supports their essay which I’ve been allowed to contribute to. Alongside the sensible posts from other users, I’ve put up a grime music video celebrating fried chicken, the stabbing outside McDonalds, and confusing the Xbox help robot with silly half-baked philosophical questions. Enjoy.

Hello Balloons

I spent most of my day faffing around with this balloon idiocy. I’m assuming everyone else in digital advertising did too because twitter was very quiet for the entire afternoon.

Apart from the almost breaking teh internest with the pesky flash it is actually marvelous. Well done POKE

Here’s my rather sad balloon. You can boost him too if you like here

You may notice that my bobbing balloon in the corner there is rather reluctant to join the race. And you should be noticing many balloons ambling across the page too. But no. Somehow I’ve been excluded. *Sad face* Never mind. I’m hoping the race just hasn’t reached me yet.

The game play itself is stupidly simple and slightly tedious. There’s no real chance of winning the big prize. Probably little chance of winning any of the other prizes actually. It is really about the ‘taking part’. But what is really brilliant about it is you can just dip in and out. A little bit of engagement; a little bit of silliness; and a whole heap of free advertising for Orange. I assume it will also sweep up a whole heap of gongs.

Nick joined in too. I loled.

Blogging about Ste blogging about me blogging about him blogging.

What’s in the box? A radio head obviously.

I love mashups. I also love mash potato but that’s for a different post.

I think you’ve really made it when someone chooses to create something new out of your work. Or you help someone create a mashup of your own work. You follow?

Take for example Radiohead’s 15 steps: playing brilliantly on the hoo har of the stupendously expensive double vinyl box set and the excitement of their zillions of fans about receiving it.
Radiohead are a progressive band embracing the interwebs for all it’s 2.0 loveiness. Facecrack and youtube aren’t new or progressive I hear you say. However, Radiohead are massive. They have about 91 million plays on last.fm prompting some cynics to say that users have been deliberately playing Radiohead on loop to get them higher than The Beatles. Radiohead don’t have to muck about with myspades or facebook or anything like that, people will still buy their records whatever they do. What’s so charming about this, is it gives Radiohead a real D.I.Y feel to them. They regularly update their website with random musings on what they’re up to. They spew out facebook updates and have stuff on their youtube channel. Thom Yorke is a self-professed internet addict so it really is him writing the content giving a real inroad into his strange mind making you feel more connected to him. Man.

I am Jackson Pollock

And you can be too here

I’m liking these neen pieces.

This technically makes me a neenster (as opposed to a neenstar). You’ll stumble across the concept every now and again but the most overt neen copy in adland I’ve seen is the Leo Burnett website. Clearly stylish and great dramatisation of their black pencil brand identity but also a definite rip (homage?) from the ‘neen art’ movement.

This raises an important question I’ve been thinking about recently: is it advertising’s job to be innovative? Should we be exploring new territories and pushing boundaries? Should we be the neenstars?

My first response would be of course! What’s the point in working in a creative industry if you can’t create something unique, new and exciting?

But the pragmatists among us would say that it’s difficult to sell stuff to the ‘mainstream’ if you’re doing something that so out-there you alienate your audience. Plus you’re there to sell a product not create a movement or a subculture. Well, that’s an argument of course. Personally I think it’s bollocks. Why do we have to reflect culture rather than create it?

However, advertising are jumping on the wagons full of bands left right and centre. Just think of the K-Swiss ‘parkour‘ ads running at the moment. Da French yoof were chucking themselves all balletic like around the streets for years before that was in an ad. But then it does star Sebastian Foucan one of the originators of the movement. But then he was the dude in James Bond (think of this what you will).

Or think of another trend poaching brand: Madonna. “Krumping“ about like with the kids from South Central. Oh Please.

Advertisers are so lazy they don’t even look outside their own industry for inspiration. Think of the rash of Fallon type ads we’ve seen in the last year (or Fallonization as someone in Campaign called it). Take a look at the new Freelander advert. I’m not afraid to say it. Awful.

Is it because adland is too lazy to do something totally original? Or is it because the free-runners and the neenstars don’t work in advertising?

ffffound

For months now I’ve had my homepage set as the wonderful website ffffound.com. It’s a lovely ‘image bookmarking’ site where the community of users bookmark interesting images they’ve found on the net. It’s a closed community, which on the surface sounds quite unfair and cliquey and I spent a good hour searching around for an invite. I still don’t have one but I came across a good deal of chatter about this site that I stumbled upon (literally using the wondrous stumbleupon). The general consensus is that people appreciate the closed nature of the site as it doesn’t lead to the ‘tragedy of the commons’ like flickr where every ‘arty’ photo is a close up picture of a flower in brilliant technicolour.
I like it as it has no real system of organisation. There’s no search function. There’s no tagging. And there’s certainly no comments. You just take a wander through the images looking at stuff. You can see who posted it and where it came from. Lovely, simple, and clean.