Internet sporn

There are some guys that achieve things that make you proud to be a man, then there are some guys that go and do things that reaffirm to the world that we are in fact all still little boys deep down. Allow me to elaborate.

There is a new game coming out called Spore which allows you to create you own creatures using various body parts of different shapes and sizes. Now there’s a million and one things that you could do with this game, brought to us by the creators of The Sims, and many interesting creatures that could be created.

However, one of the first things that a teaser pre-release version of the game has been used to do is create, shall we say, “top shelf” style creatures. Appropriately named “sporn”, the first of these creatures was developed by staff at PC Gamer UK, quickly followed by PC Gamer US staff who created a creature that they christened "Boobalicious". Since then there have been numerous example of “sporn” uploaded to community sites, social networks and YouTube.

MyTake – This won’t go away. Could it be a new meme? You betcha. While I wouldn’t say that it’s a creative use of the content, it does continue the trend of the online community taking original content and building on it. In a strange kind of way, it’s a bit like a kinky version of Pokenmon.

It's not just the weather that's freezing

If you thought flash mobs were on the way out, you’d be wrong. On Tuesday this week Sydney got in on the act with 500 people got together for a flash mob freeze at Pitt Street Mall. From the reports out there on the web, they were fairly well organised as well – even meeting up before hand to synchronise watches.

It’s not the first and it certainly won’t be the last. There have recently been other flash-mob freezes held in New York and London, and who can forget the “Rick rolling” event in London. This event was organised through Facebook, which seems to be the catalyst for the resurgence behind flash mobbing.

MyTake – Working in PR, flash mobbing was THE thing to get involved with about five years ago and to be honest, nobody was really that successful at it. Even the organic flash mobs that did happen tended to be a bit half-baked, mainly because it was hard to organise that amount of people. I think that Facebook and the like have made it very easy to get the word out and organise people, whether it be your 30th birthday, a kids play group or a flash mob

Wii’ve made a right mess!

The Wii strikes again, this time it’s the rest of your living room that’s taking a beating. You may remember a while ago that people were reporting that they were getting a bit too exciting when the console first came out, flinging their wiimotes at their TVs, causing a bit of damage.

Now, with the launch of Wii Fit we have a whole new range of Wii-related damages to contend with. According to a new survey out of the UK, British women using Wii Fit to work out have caused an estimated $41 million in collective damages to their living rooms – ouch and thank god for Ikea.

Sales of the latest Wii hit are going through the roof and according to the survey, it set to continue, with 86 per cent of those polled saying they either already owned Wii Fit or were planning to get it.

MyTake – There’s something quite special about the Wii. In no other situation can four adults prance around in a living room, pretend to play tennis while quaffing wine - I just described a Sunday night I enjoyed round a friend’s house a few weeks back. Said friends, Sandra and Greg, will also probably buy Wii Fit and why shouldn’t they? It’s fun, you get a workout and you’re distracted while you do it. Wii continues to establish itself as the favourite lounge room console with the mainstream crowd, mainly because they probably don’t even view it as gaming. Note to Sandra – don’t destroy the living room!

Time to (b)log on

I was at an event last night put on by The Media, Entertainment & Arts Alliance called ‘Freelance Journalists and Blogging’. The guest speaker of the night (and reason I went along) was Laurel Papworth. I already follow Laurel on twitter and find a lot of what she has to say very interesting, so I thought that this would be a good opportunity to see how she was going to get some of the best (paid) freelancers in Sydney to think about blogging for free.

Most of the session was fairly straight forward with Laurel explaining the basics of blogging, social networks and micro-blogging, which I think was required given the varying levels of experience in the room. However, the point that really interested me was a Q&A at the end of the session where Laurel was talking about how editors would in the future be looking to recruit bloggers with ready made contacts and followers to write stories based on their area of interest. Wow, what a thought. Definitely an innovative move for your traditional editor and one that would no doubt be a positive step forward. The world is changing quickly and everyone (not just editors) needs to change, evolve and adapt.

MyTake – I work in PR and for a long time people have been pointing the finger at my industry and telling us that we are dragging our feet, that we aren’t doing enough in the space. Now, I know that there are some PR professionals that do nothing in the digital space, but I am fortunate enough to have been involved with blogging, blogger-relations, podcasts, vodcasts, digital media releases, social network engagement….and you know what? It’s a bit scary. Sure it’s exciting, but doing something for the first time and working with new tools and networks is a bit unnerving - but the rewards are amazing. I have some very good friends that work as freelance journalists and the one thing that I will say about them is that they are not only extremely good writers, but just as good a businessman or women. They are innovative and are always looking for an opportunity to jump on. As such, I think that the freelancers of today are ready made to take advantage of the world of blogging and social media. Close your eyes, count to ten and jump in…. the water is surprisingly warm!

My colleague Dan Young has also posted about this, you can read his thoughts here

It's all about MEmes

What do you get if you mix Tay Zonday, Chris Crocker, Lauren Caitlin Upton, Eepybird, Mark Allen Hicks, Gary Brolsma, Judson Laipply, Liam Kyle Sullivan and dance duo Daft Bodies? The new Weezer video is what.

The video for their new single Pork and Beans includes a whole host of our favourite social media stars and internet memes. According to the stats, the video has already had over 4 million hits (probably more by now) and at just over 3 minutes in length, it manages to shoehorn in 30 memes. Perhaps the most exciting parts for fans of Zonday and the rest of the crew is that the video also includes some new performances



MyTake – Music videos have always drawn on quirky inspiration to get that edge in what is a highly competitive battle for eyeballs. In addition, the cameo appearance is also a mainstay of the music video genre, but bringing in social media stars does add a different dimension. For the first time, a piece of mainstream entertainment is incorporating and referencing people that are famous solely for their appearances on the net. Given, South Park have previously ventured into this territory, but this is more mainstream and thus is reliant on the fact that mainstream eyes will find it appealing – don’t be surprised if you see any of the above mentioned social media stars on the next episode of “how I met your Mother”.

The future is Blu, man

According to a German optical disc equipment maker called Singulus, Blu-Ray is being adopted faster than DVD was. They are basing this on the fact that they have gotten orders for 21 Blu-ray dual-layer machines in the last three months. According to them, this shows that Blu-Ray is being embraced much faster than DVD was over 11 years ago. The stats show that at this period in the DVD lifecycle, Singulus had only received order for 17 machines.

In the recent war-of-the-formats, Blu-Ray was declared the winner, with HD-DVD going the way of BetaMax. This was mainly due to the backing of the major Hollywood studios gradually sliding into the Blu-Ray camp, leaving HD-DVD with few friends where it mattered.

MyTake – Stretching it, I think. For a start, there are more of us about these days (well duh) and technology has become more integrated into our daily lives. As such, there are probably more early-mid adopters among us and let’s face it, we’ve had a while to get used to the idea of Blu-Ray