D I G I W E D O

Moving on to www.digiwedo.net

2009-09-22T23:00:00.005+10:00

It's been a bit quite on this site for a while - mainly because I moved from Australia to the UK and had to get my whole life set up again. As part of that, I have moved Digiwedo operations from this site to www.digiwedo.net

I will eventually divert the traffic, when I actually get the time. In the meantime, please head on over to the new URl for more from me

The Twichhikers guide

2009-03-10T22:48:00.003+11:00

Everyday we hear of new and interesting ways that people are using Twitter, today I heard about the "Twitchhiker". Basically, it is what it sounds like, it's a guy using Twitter to hitchhike his way around the world.

Said man is a freelance journalist called Paul Smith who is trying to get from Newcastle to New Zealand in just 30 days. Now, there are a few rules that he has put in place for his journey and they are as follows:

He'll only accept help (lifts, a place to stay and food) from other people on Twitter
He can’t make any plans further than three days in advance
He can only spend money on food, drink and anything that might fit in his suitcase
If there’s more than one offer on the table, he gets to choose which he takes. If there’s only one, he has to take it within 48 hours
If he's unable to find a way to move on from a location within 48 hours, the challenge is over and he goes home

At the moment, he's currently at the InterContinental Hotel in Chicago and is possibly off to Dallas next, if nothing else comes up. Check him out here and you can also read his blog here, but for now, check out his latest twitchcast:

MyTake - This is some pretty damn interesting journalism and I for one will be following his progress. It clearly demonstrates the global power of Twitter and the sense of community that it has created. It almost gives a renewed faith in humanity, don't it.

Thru-You

2009-03-05T20:49:00.002+11:00

This is possibly one of the coolest things I have seen on YouTube in a while, that and I have always been a big fan of mash-up DJ's like The Outlaws and 2ManyDjs. Basically, an Israeli DJ by the name of Kutiman has created a mash-up of a whole host of music from YouTube and created an entire album from it.

The brilliant thing is that he's not used well-known musicians throughout, he's used amateurs, semi-pros and people just messing around that can't even play. The other cool thing he's done is actually used tutorials that have been uploaded by people as part of the mix for the title song, The Mother of all Funk Chords - check out the below.

I tried to take a look at his site, but it's crashed due to traffic, so there's obviously a fair few others that think the same as me. However, he also have a MySpace page you can take a look out and the mash-ups are all over YouTube

MyTake - Collaboration, content-mashing, shaping it your way then sharing it with the world, well now....that's web 3.0 behaviour isn't it. Alright, he's aggregator is probably his mac but the principle is there. He's already a successful musician in his own right, but as our man Mr McCullen said "the medium is the message".

Is there a pot of gold at the end of the skittles rainbow?

2009-03-03T20:45:00.004+11:00

There is, and has been, an awful lot of chatter about the skittles digital campaign that's currently underway which is predominantly focused on the use of Twitter. There's more to come from this campaign, so this post might be a bit premature but I wanted to get my thoughts on a post at this point because I think that unless we have "the big reveal" soon, it's going to die off.

If you haven't heard of it, Skittles has essentially changed it's entire website to pull in content from Twitter, Facebook (which features the game pictured to the right) and Flickr. So, the landing page actually features all the twitter chatter about the campaign, which is quite substantial given that the campaign is in full swing and there's a lot of buzz around it. The website also includes some fairly standard product info, a few videos and some pics - which really aren't that special. According to some of the tweets on the feed, the website is actually a copy of Modernista's site and after taking a look, it could be.....then again modernista could be working for Skittles.

There are a couple of posts floating around about the campaign that aren't that complimentary about it, pointing out the exposure of the brand to negative comments (and there have been a few) and the fact that they aren't actually interacting with their audience, breaking the first rule of the social web. But.... I think there's more to come and they have hinted at it on their Facebook page:

Skittles wroteYesterday, at 16:39
Thanks for all your thoughts on the new site. I know there are some lingering questions out there: will they twitter back? Is this site real? Am I causing that smell? Stay tuned for answers to those questions and more. We promise.

MyTake - This campaign hinges on what happens next and I for one am quite excited about what that might be. There's so much chatter around this already, so there's a lot of buzz around the brand which you'd think would spill over to mainstream media, making it a success from a PR/marketing perspective on two fronts. But they need to start interacting pretty soon in order to capitalise on the buzz, or risk losing the audience that they worked so hard to build.

140pedia....needs you

2009-03-03T19:58:00.003+11:00

Yet again it's been a long time between posts, but this will change as I have finally started work again after moving half way around the world....promise. Today, the story that has caught my eye is a rather clever, funny and original mash-up of two giants of the modern digital age by the creators of one of the funniest Internet memes.

So what do you get when you mix all this together, well, you get 140pedia brought to you by the I Can Has Cheezburger guys. 140pedia is the result of mashing twitter up with Wikipedia where everything is given a 140 character explanation/or meaning. For example

Cheezburger (thing)
A misspelling of cheeseburger — a meat sandwich made with cholesterol and fat. Also a coveted food of all cats on the Internet.

Or.....

Viagra (Drug)
The little blue wonder-drug of the 90s that let impotent men to cause headaches in their formerly headache-free sig. others.

As you can see, it's very mush in keeping with the ethos of the I Can Has Cheezburger guys in that it's completely irreverent. The site doesn't have that much on it at the moment, but you can submit your own entries and our course tweet your favourite existing entries.

MyTake - It's like a funny, online version of the Oxford dictionary with a social sharing aspect thrown in to boot. Is this going to spread like wildfire, probably. I'll certainly be submitting a few entries.

Facebook me sweetie

2009-02-13T06:13:00.005+11:00

OK, more survey stuff, but it's interesting! This time it's a survey about couples publicly dumping each other online. The survey is by a company called Swizzels Matlow, that makes sweets/candy/lollies (UK/US/AUS) so I'm not too sure of the actual link...... "We're sweeter than your sweetheart"??

That aside, the findings are interesting. a whopping 48 per cent of under 18's have publicly dumped their significant/not-so-significant other via social networks like MySpace and Facebook. Add to that that 18 per cent of 22-30 year-olds are guilty of the same crime and you've got some juicy figures.

Now, having dug-up a bit more info online, I've actually found the reason for the survey (see, proper blog this) and it's actually quite cleaver. Swizzels Matlow is the producer of a certain rather popular and retro type of sweet/candy/lollies called Love Hearts - you know, "Hug me" "Flirt" and guess what? They are in negotiating with Facebook to include "Facebook me" and.... they've timed the whole lot with Valentine's day - big pat on the back guys and gals.

MyTake - brilliant piece of PR using a tried and tested tactic. The findings themselves are really interesting if not that astounding. It's proof that more and more of our everyday life is being conducted through Facebook. I remember when the stories about "text dumping" started to come out years ago and guess what - that was way after the tipping point for texting. So guess what, Facebook has tipped.

Facehooked

2009-02-12T04:40:00.005+11:00

A new survey out today reveals a couple of boring facts and one interesting fact. The boring facts are that we're addicted to coffee and chocolate.....sounds like my better half (sorry dear). The interesting fact is that the UK is actually "addicted" to Facebook. Facebook is one of the top three addictions cited in a recent survey conducted by the Living Channel to promote the launch of their new show, Rehab. Plug done.

Now, we knew it, didn't we? I think there's something very English about this fact and if we look at the type of behaviour that typified our parents and grandparents, there's probably a lot of similarities about the way we interact on Facebook - check it out:

Checking your news feed, but never updating your status = Watching your neighbours from behind the net curtains
Regularly updating your status but not checking what anyone else was doing = Mrs Bucket visiting her long suffering neighbours
Direct messages between two people about a third = Going round Ivy's for a cup of tea, a cake and a gossip about Dora down the road

All joking aside, when surveys like this come out it's about time for people to accept the importance of the medium, in this case Facebook. With such a large proportion of the population on Facebook representing everyone from the average housewife to politicians, isn't it in fact the place to be? I think so.

MyTake - Next time someone asks "what's the point of Facebook" you can tell them "the same as coffee and chocolate". Sarcasm aside, social networking is just going to get bigger and bigger and will eventually represent a huge percentage of our interaction with each other. Throw in our English eccentricities and you've got a recipe for success.

Next-gen comics

2009-02-12T02:59:00.005+11:00

It's not often that you come across a new type of content, but today was one of those days for me. Take a look at this from Marvel. They are called Motion Comics and they are "not quite comics and not quite animation" - sounds like most of the cartoons my daughter watches.

The first Motion Comic to be released will be "Astonishing X-Men" and I have to say, it looks quite interesting. I think I have seen a few things like this before, but the big question is whether or not this actually catches on among a fairly tight community,

MyTake - How often do you see a new type of content, not often (as I already said...bad blogger) which is what makes this so interesting. The other interesting aspect of this is the level of innovation in a fairly tactile community - aren't comic fans interested in actually owning the comics anymore? Will it catch on, who knows, will it help expand the audience base thanks to the huge popularity of the likes of iTunes, who knows....... will it give comic fans another way to get their fix, for sure.

Flashers and flashmobs at Liverpool street

2009-02-11T02:34:00.003+11:00

Flicking through a popular free London paper yesterday I came across a story about a flashmob organised via Facebook, mimicking a popular TV for a mobile telco. My first thought was one of amazement at the continued popularity of flashmobs, but then I started thinking about the actual PR idea behind the flashmob.

Flashmobs have been around for a while now and there have been some very successful ones and some not so successful. Most of the successful ones have not been organised by brands or on behalf of brand, they have been for individual causes, or more often than not for no reason whatsoever - think about the Rickrolling event at Charing Cross last year. Now I've yet to make my mind up on how involved the actual brand was in this, as it attracted up to 13,000 people (including some guy that stripped off) and that's a hell of a lot of "willing" volunteers!

As mentioned, it was organised through Facebook and it generated a hell of a result that will surely have some traction for the brand - whether or not they were involved or not. It begs the question, are the social networks opening up to the world of marketing to a greater extent?

MyTake - Brilliant brand awareness and if it was a managed and delivered campaign, then a big pat on the back to all involved. From a marketing perspective, the social networks have always been a bit of a sacred place and the likes of Facebook is littered with cock-ups by a whole host of different companies, but perhaps this is good news for marketers.....build it and they will come.

Are they listening?

2009-02-10T20:31:00.002+11:00

Warning to some of my more conservative readers, this video contains more profanities than an episode of Gordon Ramsey's The F Word featuring several big brother contestants..... but it's damn funny.

I was actually in an interview a few days ago taking about launching new technology products and touched upon the issues raised in this video. Take a look and I'll explain.

As much as we'd like to try and deny it, there's a lot of truth in that video. In the interview I was talking about before the video, I was talking about the numerous technology and internet launches that promise the world, don't deliver and use use an Australian phrase "shoot throw like a Bondi tram". Some of the most successful gadgets or internet start-ups are those that are based on real customer insights, those that understand the needs and wants of that audience and then delivers them in a simply, easy-to-use, shiny box.

MyTake - Brands do need to start and listen a hell of a lot more and they need to respond to their audiences, both in the form of conversation and in the resulting products. Social media is probably to most effective testing pool in the world, when it comes to product development brands don't really have a more transparent tool at their disposal.

Fry's top of the tweets

2009-02-10T07:23:00.006+11:00

One of my favourite ports of call when it comes to interesting and original news is The Times Online. During my first stint in London I was actually quite good pals with the online time who I have to say have done an absolutely outstanding job. Today I was reading a story about the most popular celebrities on Twitter, which was really very interesting.... for more than one reason

Top of the list was none other that Stephen Fry, which I can actually understand, but other notables include the likes of Lance Armstrong, Britney Spears and Rick Sanchez..... don't worry if you don't know him, he's actually a US news anchorman.

The really interesting story for me isn't who's the most popular, but it's the relationship between them and their audience. What better way of getting your celebrity fix than checking their Twitter feed? It's real (we hope), up to date and actually authored (we hope) by your favourite celeb - what could be better, how can the likes of OK and Reveal compete with that?

MyTake - Is this the gossip mag for a whole new generation, the celebrity's very own broadcasting channel? It could be, and for me if I actually wanted to find out what my favourite celeb was doing that's the first place i'd look. But what about the people that actually are interested in that kind of content, is Twitter at the point where they even know it exists or is this type of usage that actually pushes it right the way through to the mainstream. Time (as usual) will tell

Change is (dot) coming

2009-01-21T07:07:00.004+11:00

Like millions of others around the world, I sat and watched in awe as Barack Obama gave his inauguration speech and felt that I was witnessing a genuine piece of history. But, perhaps more interesting than the handover between Mr Bush and Mr Obama is the handover of the websites. Well...more interesting for me.

I've blogged quite a bit on the success of the Obama web team and their excellent use of social media on the road to The Whitehouse, but what now? Obama's Change.gov is making the transition to the Whitehouse.gov site and it has already been asking for citizens to email in ideas, the best of which will be ranked then put in front of The President for consideration. But what about the Twitter account, the Flickr account, LinkedIn and Facebook? I guess only time will tell.

MyTake - The conversation has been started, so it must continue. I hope that we are going to see an era of openness and honesty and lets face it, this our best chance. The communication platform offered by social media probably represents the most powerful connection with Obama's audience. After all, a man of the people needs to talk to the people.

Vive la France

2008-12-18T17:39:00.003+11:00

What can I say? It's been a bit of a hectic couple of weeks as we've moved out of our house and ultimately left the great land down under. We arrived in France yesterday and picked up our little Kelpie (iconic Australian dog) from the pet transport company - thanks to Swissport Import and Eric over there - brilliant people.

There are a few things that have immediately hit me as I settle back in to European life, and here's a sample

1) Oh my God its f***ing cold!

2) It feels like Christmas here, the weather, the decorations

3) People are a lot nicer than I remember

4) The TGV and Eurostar is the best train experience ever

5) Central heating rocks

But, as it all starts coming back to me, as I watch BBC breakfast News (eat your heart out Kochie) and I hear about all the news from this great continent of hours, well....it feels great to be back.

Normal service will resume soon, Tinternet Treats, Video of the week and my usual observations on all things digital. Off to London for some interviews and meetings today, so if anyone fancies meeting up, ping me!

Throwing one last shrimp on the barbie

2008-12-11T11:18:00.002+11:00

Less than a week until I leave the Harbour City and as I mentioned in my previous post, I have complied a list of all the things I’ll miss and the tings that I won’t. I have to ay that if I didn’t limited the lists to 10 each, then the “miss” one would have been much longer, while I struggled to finish the “won’t miss” list. At the end of the day, Australia has been very good to me and my family and I have experienced so much in the three and a half years I’ve lived here. Hell, if Australia was just next to Europe I’d probably never leave.

Miss
1) Mateship – you can meet a bloke in a bar and the next minute he’ll invite you to stay at his beach house over the weekend and enjoy a few cold ones and a bit of fishing
2) A spade is a spade – they don’t mess around, it is what it is!
3) The weather and the surf – They’ve got more beaches than you can poke a stick at
4) Thongs (flip-flops) – the are listed on the “appropriate attire” list for flying on Qantas (Queensland and Northern Territory Air Services)
5) Stubby holders – someone was thinking when they invented that
6) The open road – jump in your car and head out of the Sydney and you get to see some of the most beautiful country on God’s green earth
7) Get up and go – There’s no sitting on your ass in this country!
8) The Harbour Bridge – one of the most amazing structures I have ever seen, I still get goosebumps when I go over it
9) She’ll be right – There’s still a bit of the Wild West out here, so you might just have to make do with a few things
10) Pride – I have never met an Aussie that isn’t proud of their country

Won’t miss
1) TV – Get foxtel or die, the TV here is damn awful
2) David Koch – hands down the most annoying man ever to grace a TV set
3) Baby names – everything gets a “baby name” here – breakie, Chrissy and so on – we’re not 5 years old you know
4) Both barrels but no back-up – it’s not uncommon for an Aussie to give you a piece of their mind and then scamper off before you’ve had time to retort
5) AFL – what is the point
6) The Australian Cricket team – hands down the most arrogant sportspeople on the planet…I’d have gone fishing too if I was Andrew Symonds
7) News – If it doesn’t happen in Australia, it doesn’t get covered – we live in a little place called Earth people!
8) Christmas – it’s just not the same in 30 degree heat
9) Distance – it’s a long way to anywhere else
10) Water shortages – I cleaned my car 3 times in the entire time I had it

So, my fair Australia, here’s to you and yours and all the fun I’ve had, the beers I’ve drank and the mates I’ve made.

All aboard the banter wagon

2008-12-11T09:52:00.004+11:00

The London Olympics is a fair way off, and as a Brit heading home from Australia I found this viral by Bullseye quite funny. I’m actually looking forward to seeing the greatest show on earth (sorry Madonna, it’s true) in my own fair (and damp) country. But apparently there are sections of the UK press that have gotten their knickers in a right twist about this, calling it "distinctly odd and morally dubious".

As a pom (POME/POHM - Prisoner of Mother England/Prisoner of Her Majesty) as British expats are referred to out here, I’m quite often at the receiving end of a fair bit of sporting banter, but you don’t moan about it, you play the culture card…. to which I often get the response “what’s that then, warm beer”…thank you Miss Yanco. Or you could point out a few other facts, take you pick:

1) The Wallabies haven’t beaten England in any MEANINGFUL game since before the 2003 World Cup….which we (the poms) won in your backyard
2) The English football team (the game you call soccer) has missed only a handful of World Cups since the comp began, The Socceroos have featured in just two
3) Great Britain finished fourth in the medal tally at Beijing, compared to Australia’s sixth place
4) We won’t mention the cricket……..

My Take - A bit of banter between the Brits and the Aussies is healthy and fun, so I say to the British press – don’t get mad, get even! I seem to remember a certain UK tabloid driving a truck around Sydney with the slogan “where the bloody hell were we? Above you in the medal tally”. It’s a bit different when the shoe is on the other foot isn’t it. But please, I beg you, stop the whining….we’re already referred to as whinging poms.

Tinternet treats: 11:12:08

2008-12-11T09:26:00.002+11:00

Hello Thursday, I’m afraid the weather has let you down….I’m normally more excited by your presence, but, well……meh. To today’s treats. First up, it’s the bracelet that every man needs to own. Gizmodo brings us a survival bracelet made of parachute cord, perfect for those moments when we need to rappel down the, er….garden fence after a night out. Second, news from Lifehacker (via TechCrunch) that Chrome will eventually leave beta – better fix the picture editing problems with Blogger then…. Third, Kotaku give a nod to the legend of gaming that is Doom, which turns 15 years old. Last but not least is a solid gold Vertu phone for barons or something. It’s my leaving drinks tonight, so I imagine Friday isn’t going to have its usual appeal either. Anyone based in Sydney that wants to pop down, it’s at the Firehouse in North Sydney

Gizmodo:
Survival Bracelet Made of Paracord For Emergency Rappeling Anytime, Anywhere
Lifehacker:
Google Chrome To Leave Beta Soon
Kotaku:
Fifteen Years Of Doom
Engadget:
The solid gold Vertu Boucheron 150 makes us hate humanity

War games or bore games?

2008-12-10T11:08:00.003+11:00

Obama and gaming seems to be a good combination. A while ago I wrote a post about the Obama campaign advertising in-game to entice earlier votes, now I’m writing about a game called “Commander in Chief” that let’s you have a shot at running the USA. The game, which hits the shelves the day Obama is sworn in, lets players make decisions about everything from budget through to health, military and diplomatic.

Produced by Eversim, the game is played out on a 3D world map and even lets you pick your own cabinet. To top it off, you get information from the likes of the United Nations, G7, OPEC, NATO and NAFTA to help you make the right decisions such as invading foreign countries (fail) topple unfriendly regimes (fail) and plot assassinations (fail?). The game is yours for a mere $US39.95, for which you get the play God with the entire planet.

MyTake – sims are always hugely popular, I remember getting hooked on Command and Conquer when I was at University. But do people really want to play a game about running the US? Yes, I think they do. The chance to run one of the biggest modern empires is going to appeal to a lot of people and given that it’ll probably be available on PC, the uptake should be good thanks to the huge install base. The question is – will people be trialling Obama’s decisions to see how they pan out?

Tinternet Treats: 10:12:08

2008-12-10T10:00:00.003+11:00

Wednesday, aka hump, aka the point in the week at which we stop hating the week. What have we got today then? First up, news from Gizmodo that Google now has the entire back catalogue of Popular Science and Popular Mechanics magazines available for our perusing. Second, Skype has launched its 2.5 Beta for Windows mobile with improved stability and quality, according to Lifehacker it’s a free service when using the WiFi function on your phone. Third is a bizarre cuckoo clock-inspired loudspeaker clock featured on Engadget that actually pops out it’s loudspeaker a la Cuckoo clock style. Last, probably the best news ever for arcade fans (even better than finding an old-school SEGA GT rally with bucket seats) is that Guitar Hero is coming to an arcade near you. Enjoy your Wednesday - I am in a fairly chipper mood because I spent last night watching Indiana Jones on my mate Greg's 42 inch, 1080p Sony Bravia - nice.

Gizmodo:
Browse the PopSci and PopMech Archives On Google Books' New Magazine Search
Lifehacker:
Skype For Windows Mobile 2.5 Beta Includes Quality And Stability Improvements
Engadget:
Cuckoo clock loudspeaker kicks out the jams, you out of bed
Kotaku:
Guitar Hero Arcade Coming In February

Tinternet treats: 09:12:08

2008-12-09T11:48:00.002+11:00

I spent most of yesterday clearing out the remaining crap from my old house before we officially moved in with our friends in fabulous Clovelly, as such there were no treats for you yesterday. But today, Tuesday’s treats were a bit hard to come by, I have to admit. First up we have a gaming helmet that lets you experience blows to the head while playing WWE or some other boxing/wrestling related game. Second is news that Vodafone is allowing customers to recharge their phones through PayPal – very handy. Third, news that PlayStation Home is a mere 9 days away – close your mouth, your drooling over your keyboard. Finally, there’s no stopping those guys and gals from Nintendo as they announce 800,000 Wiis sold in the US last week. Exactly one more week left in Australia before I head back to Europe…more posts to come on that.

Engadget:
TN Games HTX Helmet lets you feel those headshots
Lifehacker:
Vodafone Allows PayPal For Prepaid Phone Recharge
Gizmodo:
PlayStation Home Coming in 9 Days?
Kotaku:
Nintendo Sold 800K Wiis In The US Last Week

Video of the week: 04:12:08

2008-12-05T13:56:00.000+11:00

I had a few contenders for the video of the week, including a few very funny ones from the Fail blog, but this one won out in the end. Why? Because the guy is messaging around with a multi-million dollar piece of military hardware – otherwise known as a Harrier Jump-jet…which just happens to be British….. I also love the way that there’s what appears to be a battalion/unit of troops just hanging around waiting for him to do it. You know what, if I had a Harrier, I’d probably do the same. “Permission to buzz the tower….negative ghostrider, the pattern is full”

Tinternet treats: 05:12:08

2008-12-05T11:51:00.003+11:00

Hello Friday! Where have you been all week…. Right, what have we got then? First up is a rather nifty piece of work done by the guys at Cake PR in London. Ever been to London, seen the lions in Trafalgar Square? Well, imagined if they actually chatted back to you…. Second Engadget’s second go at the Nokia 97, iPhone killer, really?? Third is Lifeshacker letting us know about the new Opensource t-shirts, I’ll probably get one…. Last, Kotaku brings us new of a new product from Tap Tap in the form of imusic. That’s it, enjoy your Friday…be kind to your neighbour…unlike that French stiff that lives behind us

For Fuks Sake:
The Lions get a bit Lippy
Engadget:
Nokia 97 hands on part II
Lifehacker:
Opensource t-shirts available at the all new Mozilla community store
Kotaku:
Tap Tap transforms from igame into imusic

Tinternet treats: 04:12:08

2008-12-04T09:21:00.005+11:00

Thursday….the only day that’s better than you is Friday…and Saturday…well maybe Sunday as well…but only the morning part. Today’s picks are mostly quirky little inventions and gadgets, but all worthy of the Tinternet treats section. First up is a series of paper water bottles from design company Brandimage, Lost at e minor report that they are completely recyclable and can be re-used a few times as well. Second, we have another bookcase, this time from REK and I have to say that it looks more useful that the one we covered yesterday. Third, Lifehacker reports that Windows 7 beta is apparently due in January 2009. I was speaking to a few pals about this last night and as you can imagine, there’s a fair bit of excitement building. Lastly and perhaps my favourite, is an inflatable outdoor projection screen brought to us by bb gadgets. Have fun, happy Thursday and I hope like me you are looking forward to a few beers after work…no, wait, I have the dentist…damn it!

Lostateminor:
Paper water bottle
Gizmodo:
The REK bookcase to accommodate your growing collection
Lifehacker:
Windows 7 beta coming in January 2009
Boing Boing Gadgets:
Inflatable outdoor projection screen

The fight for Christmas begins: Xbox 360 Vs PS3

2008-12-03T13:59:00.005+11:00

The biggest rivalry in gaming hardware is between Microsoft and Sony, with the Xbox 30 up against the PlayStation 3. Now, the Xbox 360 was in the market a whole year earlier than the PlayStation 3 and they were incredibly astute at marketing the console. They learned a lot of lessons from the original Xbox, but one thing they didn’t forget was how to scrap when it mattered the most. According to news recently release by the guys and gals at Xbox, the Xbox 360 experienced what it called “record-breaking consoles sales” during the Thanksgiving weekend I the US with an estimated 25 per cent increase in sales from the previous year.

This is significant, because the guys at PlayStation have been chasing Xbox for a while now and for all intense and purposes, it seems that the Xbox team is beating them at their own game. The PlayStation 2 was still in the market when the Xbox 360 was released and was hands-down the most popular console in the market, shifting some serious numbers and well and truly beating Xbox 360. Now, admiittadly, the PlayStation2 was significantly cheaper, had a larger install base and a greater number of titles, but isn’t that what’s happened here? The Xbox 360 is now in line with the Wii over here in Australia and has a great install base and a raft of titles, people know and understand the Xbox 360, therefore will they be more comfortable buying in to it as the prices get lower and the number of titles increase?

The other great thing that Microsoft did with the 360 is that they built it with add-ons in mind and to some extent, followed the iPod model with new models like the Elite. Therefore, they have a “fresh” console on the market on an almost regular basis. But what about the PS3? They have blu-ray, the legacy of the PS1 and the PS2. All of this is true, but the old exclusive franchises that they used to have are no more and although they’re a lot of hope and hype surrounding Sackboy, will he deliver? The could-be-killer-blow for PlayStation was that the Xbox 360 was released first and has had acres of ground to get to a pretty commanding lead. But, you can never underestimate the guys at PlayStation, they have been redefining the gaming genre for decades and will surely be taking the fight back at Xbox 360. The DVD market is likely to move on next year and with an in-built blu-ray player, will the PS3 steal some ground?

MyTake – So many questions. It’s a tough one to call this, you have to wonder how far off the next generations of consoles is and just who will get the first the get one in to market. One thing’s for sure, if it’s Microsoft, you have to think that it won’t look good for PlayStation. On the flip side, all you need is one killer franchise for PlayStation and the whole thing could get flipped on it head. It’s a cliché, but the ultimate winner is the consumer. Get out there and get gaming.

Tinternet treats: 03:12:08

2008-12-03T10:05:00.002+11:00

Ah Wednesday, you’re like that chipper old bloke on the train that says hello, so polite and good mannered. Anyway, today’s treats are an assortment of the weird and wonderful, the useful and the downright stupid! First up, Pink Tentacle has some brilliant pictures of customised trains in Japan, featuring everything from Manga designs to sports teams. Second up is Momspit – now this is brilliant, it’s a wash that requires no water whatsoever, letting you wash yourself on the go, just like your mom did with a bit of spit and an old hanky. Third, more news on Google’s domination of every last bit of information ever as they buy 20 million archived newspaper pages. Last, probably the most useless thing I have ever seen, but quirky non-the-less, it’s the Platzhalter bookshelf that actually splits and moves apart to let you store more books….just buy another bookshelf – IKEA people……

Pink Tentacle:
Decorated trains in Japan
Boing Boing Gadgets:
Wash your face in Momspit
Lifehacker:
Google buys 20 million archived newspaper pages
Gizmodo:
Platzhalter bookshelf splits to store extra books

Rockin' in the real world

2008-12-02T12:12:00.003+11:00

I’m a gamer and as such, I’m pro-gaming across the board. So, I was thrilled to see some new research out of the UK that shows that playing games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero has encouraged up to 2.5 million kids to learn to play real musical instruments. You constantly hear the doom and gloom merchants bashing gaming on the head for distracting kids from other activities, but here we have a story about gaming encouraging kids to take up music for real. The research, conducted by UK charity Youth Music, shows that this relatively new genre of game is the inspiration behind this revived interest in musical instruments.

In addition, guitar stores around the country have reported increased sales of instruments featured in the game and music teachers have reported an increased number of requests for lessons. In an interesting twist, many of the kids are asking to learn what we would now deem rock-classics such as numbers by Alice Copper and Birmingham’s finest, Black Sabbath, because they are featured in the games. With Wii now in on the act, the number of kids looking to take-up musical instruments for real will surely increase, especially on the back of the success already had by the guys and gals at Xbox 360.

MyTake – Yet another reason why gaming is good and actually enhances and enriches lives. We constantly hear about the shrinking number of kids taking up the more traditional pastimes and hobbies, yet despite all efforts by society to reverse this, it’s gaming that actually gets the job done in the end. Look at the impact of other games such as the Brain Training products from Nintendo, the Viva Piñata from Xbox 360, yet more examples of the positive impact gaming can have on our kids. I guess for some people, the world is still flat and that’ll never change….shame, they’ll never get to enjoy the delights of Pro Evolution Soccer!

Tinternet treats: 02:12:08

2008-12-02T11:35:00.003+11:00

A bit late with this today, but I think I’ve just made it for the morning. Today’s offerings will appeal to the big kid in all of us and the serious sports fan and beer drinker. So, first up we have the evolution of the Nurf atomizer gun from bb gadgets, perhaps you’ll learn how to make your own. Second, we have the ezGear Wii Music pack featuring a veritable smorgasbord of instruments for the serious Wii Musician…no didgeridoo though. Third, Engadget brings probably the best home bar invention the world has ever seen – a beer dispenser with an inbuilt TV, perfect for State of Origin or the FA CUP. Last is news from Lifehacker that Joost is now streaming TV, movies and music videos to your iphone…I guess I’ll have to get an iphone then. Enjoy and happy Tuesday.

bb gadgets:
A NERF gun’s revolution
Gizmodo:
ezGear Wii MusicPack Rocks Entire Orchestra of Wiimote Peripherals
Engadget:
Micro Matic v-POD weds beer dispenser and LCD TV
Lifehacker:
Joost Streams TV, Movies to Your iPhone

Tinternet treats: 01:12:08

2008-12-01T10:41:00.003+11:00

Ah Monday, the least loved day of the week, the only joy felt on a Monday is when it’s over. Though, this morning when I was on my way to work the train driver was very chatty, pepping us all up with a few comments at every stop – thanks chirpy train driver, you got my Monday off to a good start.

Well, what do we have for today? First up some cool Lost t-shirts brought to you by the guys at Cool and Stuff. Second is a massive geek fest, but also a rather well edited piece of UGC, showing us who would win between Star Trek and Star Wars, courtesy of Gizmodo. The third link is something close to my heart as I am currently moving – declutter your home with the suitcase test – the idea is that if you only had a suitcase, what would you take with you? Lastly some rather retro costumes for everyones favourite hero, Sackboy. Enjoy….and say something nice to a friend today, after all, it’s Monday…

Cool and Stuff:
For all you Lost geeks
Gizmodo:
Star trek Vs Star Wars – The final battle
Lifehacker:
Declutter your home with the suitcase test
Kotaku:
Street Fighter Sackboy costumes OTW

Video of the week: 28:11:08

2008-11-28T11:37:00.000+11:00

Another new idea for the blog: Video of the week. Again, through a variety of social networks, email forwards and pure boredom, I come across a lot of videos that tickle my fancy.

The first is a viral entitled "Hatfield Hotdog Launcher Documentary" which immediately made me think of my friend Ed ...mainly because he's American and wears white socks with his sneakers.....and deep down even though he's very well educated, smart and sophisticated I know he'd be standing in the crowd screaming for a hotdog with a target painted on his T-shirt.....It's the white socks, see, they just give it away. Anyway, enjoy

Tinternet treats: 28:11:08

2008-11-28T09:29:00.006+11:00

Today we have everything from Gizmodo’s gadget gallery, which will apparently feature the Flux Capacitor – you guessed rights kids, the one from Back to the future - right through to a food preparing robot featured on Pink Tentacle. My other two picks – Engadget’s “crap gadgets” selection which will help us avoid putting a few duds in the stocking this Christmas and last but not least, Lexy Klain’s post on the links between social media and emos – not Nemo or Elmo.. though I'm sure they are both avid Facebookers

1) Gizmodo:
Reader Meetup and a Back To the Future Delorean
2) Engadget:
Crapgadget: thanks for nothing edition
3) Pink tentacle:
Motoman industrial robot cooks okonomiyaki
4) Lexy Klain:

Is social media responsible for the emo movement?

Heading home

2008-11-27T12:26:00.003+11:00

Apparently July 31 2005 was a pretty cold day in Sydney, but for a Pom that had just got here (Australia) from the UK, I thought it was practically a heat wave. My mate picked me and my partner Malin up from the airport and took us for a tour of Sydney – the Harbour Bridge, the Opera House, Kirribilli and Bondi…. I’d never seen a beach like it in my life. Over the past (almost) four years, we have fallen in love with Australia, even got into Rugby League and developed a bit of an Aussie twang. So, it’ll come as a surprise to some that me and Malin have decided to head back to Europe.

What’s behind this decision then? Well, we have decided to expand our family and after having one kid in Australia on our own, we thought we might need a little bit more support this time around. To put this in perspective, in the two and a half years since we’ve had Freja, me and Malin have had a total of one night off as parents, now we love our little bundle of joy, but the odd grandparent’s baby sitting session wouldn’t go a miss! And that’s the other big thing, being so far away from our families.

We’re heading off at the end of the month and it’ll be both a happy and a sad moment for us, Australia has given us so much – especially our little girl Freja. My friend Ed, who also recently left Australia to return home (to America) has inspired my to post this on the blog and I’ll probably be adding a few more posts like this over the coming weeks as the clock count down – things I love about Australia and will miss. So, for the first one – State of Origin. Now, as a Pom I have been spoilt with the English Premier League and the soccer World Cup, but I can hand on heart say that I have never seen a more emotional, intense rivalry in any sporting event. Despite living in NSW for my entire time in Australia, most of my friends are from Queensland and the friend that picked me up from the airport is a born-and-breed Brisbane boy, so from the start I backed Queensland – and thank God! It’s not often that a pom backs a winner!

People like surfing the web on their mobile...this surprises some people

2008-11-27T11:51:00.002+11:00

They first started talking about this when I was still at University, they called in WAP…but WAP was CRAP. Fast forward ten years and we finally have a device and an interface that is capable of providing us with a positive mobile Internet experience…. even if we don’t have the data plans in some countries….big island in the southern hemisphere *cough*

But, news is that mobile Internet use is going through the roof while traditional PC access is slowing, at least that’s what the guys and gals at Nielsen say. I think this is UK data, but according to the findings over 7 million people jumped online using their mobiles during the latter half of 2008, representing an increase of 25 per cent for mobiles compared to a teeny-tiny 3 per cent increase for PC access. Another interesting fact is that 25 per cent of mobile surfers are aged 15-24, while the same age group accessing the web via a PC is just 16 per cent.

MyTake – is this really surprising? No. I remember wanted to surf the net in the WAP days, but found it excruciatingly painful, so I gave up. Then again when 3G was launched, but the limitations around the browsing capabilities again put me off. Having seen the likes of the iPhone, it’s a much more positive experience that doesn’t have the drawbacks of its not-quite-there predecessors. This is exactly what people want and they are taking to it in droves.

Tinternet treats: 27:11:08

2008-11-27T10:43:00.007+11:00

I've decided to introduce a new idea (for me) to the blog. OK, it's not a new idea, but I come across so many things on the "tinternet" that I think are cool that I have decided to share the best of them on (an almost) daily basis. So, here's today's offerings:

1) Engadget:

Digital sales overtake CDs at Atlantic Records, music pie in general shrinks

2) Gizmodo:

Optima Prime T-Shirt, Font Transformed

3) Lost at e minor:

Fuel Cell Stickers

4) Cool and Stuff:

Like cup cakes? Got an iPhone?

Facebook turns ornithologist...finds whale

2008-11-26T16:00:00.003+11:00

News is that Facebook is interested in a little birdie….Twitter. There a lot of news doing the rounds out there and the apparent valuation on Twitter is US$500 million, but Biz Stone has refused to comment on the issue so far which would add more fuel to the acquisition fire. The most reputable source so far is the Financial Times in the UK, who have apparently got confirmation from two separate sources.

There’s been chatter about this proposed tie-up for a while now, so the Twitterati won’t be surprised by this talk. What is surprising are the values being placed on companies such as Facebook and Twitter, with the former having a rather lofty valuation slapped on it when Microsoft acquired a part of them earlier in the year. What will happen to our little birdie pal should Facebook snap it up, more importantly – what will happen to the Fail Whale? Well, rest assured my fellow Tweeters, the one thing that Biz Stone did say is that they want to remain an independent messaging service.

MyTake – this is probably going to happen, there are obvious synergies between the two companies and Twitter is approaching the tipping point, so Facebook will want to catch it just before. Living in Australia, Twitter has yet to get the same kind of following it enjoys in the rest of the world, mostly due to the way the telcos charge us for our mobile plans, but it’s still popular and I could see a move like this thrusting it into the limelight.

Earth is....connected

2008-11-25T14:13:00.003+11:00

When I started school, we had those old Victorian style wooden desks with the lift-up lids and holes for ink wells – I’m not kidding. It wasn’t long after that it was out with the old and in with the new (plastic) and progress was being made. Another thing that we didn’t have when I started school was computers. Sure, we had an old Atari at home and a BBC Micro machine, but IT wasn’t being taught at school until I got to secondary school (12 – 18). When I got to University, we were all still on dial-up connections that would work on the odd occasion that it felt like it and the most you could do was check your email.

When I finally got to work I experienced the wonder of high-speed Internet and proper email, but still the majority of our communication was done through fax and phone. So, when I saw this new video from Facebook today, It really made me stop and think how fair we’ve come in such as short space of time, after all, I am still relatively young….cough….

The video features a program that actually visualizes the activity taking place on the Facebook network including everything from status updates, friend requests, pokes, posted links and so on. Named Project Palantir, the program displays the activity on a 3D globe complete with a sun and was developed at Facebook Hackathon XI by a Facebook engineer.

MyTake – What a thing of beauty, to be able to see something like that demonstrates how connected we are all. Go back to 2000 and remember how worried we were about the Y2K bug, or accessing the net using dial-up and now think of this, eight short years and we can map the connected state of the world through a social network. Brilliant

MySpace gives us Chinese Democracy

2008-11-25T10:14:00.008+11:00

I’m back, I’ve been “sicky-woo” for the past week, but unlike our bumbling Facebook friend, I actually was ill with tonsillitis. Now, reviewing music is really not my thing, I tend to leave that to my mate Mat and his crew over at I’m with the band. Having said that, two things have led to this post, the first is my childhood infatuation with Guns N Roses and the second is the fact after 14 years in the making, their new album Chinese Democracy is now available and is streaming on their MySpace page. Another reason is the fact that the Chinese government is offended at the title and will probably block Chinese web users from logging on to listen, but anyway….

As I already mentioned, reviewing music is really not my thing as I tend to be somebody that hears something on radio and takes a liking to it – sorry Mat, I’ve let you down, I know. Having said that, I did have a listen to the album on the band’s MySpace page and thought I’d post up a little review. So here goes. Overall I thought that there was some really good stuff there and the Guns N Roses sound is still there, especially Axl’s vocals.

It’s a bit hard to pass judgment on an album that has been this long in the making after listening to it through a pair or PSP earphones via my PC (nothing wrong with PSP earphones or PCs – I love you both) but I will say that my favourites out of the bunch include: Better, Street of Dreams, Catcher in the Rye and Prostitute. One thing I thought it lacked though, was a kick-ass G’N’R anthem, you know the likes of Sweet Child O Mine, Paradise City, Live and Let Die or November Rain. But, having said that, maybe I just need to buy the album and listen to it really loud on a kick-ass stereo like the old days

MyTake – This is either going to be an act of genius by one of the most prolific song writers in the world, or it’s going to be an unfortunate foot note in an otherwise glittering career. I think that I am going to grow to love this album and like most average punters, as soon as I hear one of the tunes on the radio I’ll love it. Great move by the G’N’R boys for streaming it on their MySpace site, can’t wait for the promotional band wagon to role out the rest of the party

Super Obama World... just like Mario, but without Mario

2008-11-17T14:40:00.004+11:00

Gaming is more often than not about doing things you normally wouldn’t be able to do, like fighting aliens, scoring a goal against Man U or, in this case winning the US presidential election. A new game by ZenSoft called “Super Obama World”, which is based on a certain old school game staring an Italian plumber, is available online now for Obama fans to play. The game is apparently going to be released in installments, with the first chapter seeing President-Elect Obama taking on Sarah Palin in the ever-charming state of Alaska.

Imaginative is too poor a word to describe the enemies in this game, with foes such as hockey moms, Russian soldiers and pitbulls with lipstick….Genius. But it doesn’t stop there. The game also features the stores where Palin went on her questionable shopping sprees and you also have to avoid being run over by Palin on a snowmobile. For the icing on the cake, once you’ve completed a level you get congratulated with a screen proclaiming "Level completion we can believe in!"

MyTake – Brilliant, I thought that all the online fun was going to dry up after the election but then this comes along. I have had a quick play of the game and it’s very funny. It’s interesting to see that the “victory dance” of the online generation manifests itself as a game. But then again, they had a lot of material to work with, didn’t they. My mate Ed should play this game, he'd love it

Fake New York Times hits New York....Real New York Times decides it's a fake....

2008-11-13T12:01:00.004+11:00

It’s not often that traditional print media is current, in fact the majority of time it’s already out of date by the time it hits the stands. However, the residents of New York got a rare “glimpse” into the future when they picked up a copy of what they thought was The New York Times, with the headline on the front reading “Iraq War Ends”. Other stories included "Public Universities To Be Free", the catch? They were spoofs.

The “special edition” paper was dated July 4 2009 and was actually an elaborate stunt by a group called The Yes Men.According to reports out there, up to 1.2 million copies of the newspaper were distributed with a website also promoted. The stunt was organised via the web and most of the people involved were volunteers. The Yes Men had wanted their involvement to remain secret, but a few emails that have surfaced appear to prove they are behind this (genius) stunt. I particularly like the quote from a New York Times spokesperson: “This is obviously a fake issue” – ya think, genius!

MyTake – Clever stuff and it must have taken a hell of a lot of organization. My interpretation of this is that the old establishments such as the New York Times are never going to be able to cover the news as fast as their online cousins, and the raw truth is that online has been telling print what to write for about ten years now. Great stunt, got me talking about.

Google comes to the video chat party…..forgets to bring nibbles

2008-11-12T14:39:00.002+11:00

That’s right, Gmail (which I think is still in beta) has a brand new party outfit – video chat. I remember signing up for Gmail about five years ago mainly because of the huge amount of storage space it offered at the time. For a while, it was my preferred email host until I discovered the wonders of a combined .Mac email, iChat and .Mac page (now MobileMe) and I’ve hardly used. But, will this make me take a second look?

The one big thing that the Gmail version has over its competitors is that it doesn’t require any additional software, running alongside the Gmail web app. Another big plus, it works on both PC and Mac. As with iChat and Skype, users can chat via video and instant message each other at the same time….not sure why you’d do that, but hey.

MyTake – I’ve used the MSN version, Skype and iChat and I have to say, iChat wins hands-down. I haven’t seen this of course, but it’s going to have to do a lot of hard work to beat the boys from Apple. Being late to the party is not good for Team Google, especially as the verb has been taken – “shall we Skype?” Also, not everything has to be a web app – a little bit of software is good. Having said all this, how many things has Google got wrong? Check it out, I’m going to.

Let me entertain...me

2008-11-11T15:16:00.005+11:00

According to analyst reports out last week, people are starting to think about games in a whole new light. So much so that gaming will become the most popular form of entertainment in the UKover the coming year. The boffins are predicting that games sales will rise by a whopping 42 per cent to the dizzying heights of £4.64bn. Compare that to the total predicted sales for music AND video at £4.46bn and I think you’ll find that we have a new king of the castle.

Now, I love music, but I also love gaming (probably love gaming more) so I don’t want to be giving the music industry a hard time – but the figures don’t lie. Apparently the video games industry has more than doubled in the last 5 years while music sales have struggled. You might be thinking that the ongoing issue of online downloads has caused problems for the music industry, but the same figures show that downloads only represent 4 per cent of totals sales. Want to know what the big growth area for the music and video industry has been? Online sales of DVDs and CDs – go figure.

MyTake – Video games aren’t cheap, costing you around about 3 or 4 times the amount that a CD would cost you, so the more popular gaming becomes the more substantial the sales figures will be. But, you can’t take this achievement away from the gaming industry, it’s been in the pipeline for a long time. The interesting space to watch is what the “multitasking entertainer” is going to be doing in the coming years. We may only have one set of “eyeballs”, but we’re consuming up to 3 different types of entertainment at one time and that’s probably going to get even more intense.

The sweet sounds of a Smule

2008-11-10T15:34:00.002+11:00

Most of the big gadget blogs have covered this today, but it’s so cool that I had to do a post myself. You may have seen my posts on the iBand, a group of musicians that turned their iPod touches, iPhones and a Nintendo DS into a band….well, hold on to your pants because here comes another addition to the iPhone instrument collection – the digital Ocarina from Smule.

What’s different about this then? Well, this is just out there and all kinds of crazy, which is what makes it so cool. Think of it as the recorder (as in the musical instrument they make every kid in primary school play) of the iPhone world. Some boffin has developed an app that lets you blow into your iPhone mic then play a tune using the touch screen. Check out the video below.

MyTake – What will they think of next? But seriously, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, opening up the iPhone to third party developers is the smartest thing Apple have done. The PR value alone has to be worth thousands. How do you keep a product interesting and newsworthy – give it to the community and let them reinvent it every month.

Cometh the hour...

2008-11-05T08:46:00.007+11:00

What's that saying? Cometh the hour, cometh the man..... It's never been truer than it is right now as the U.S. sits on the eve of history either way. I written a fair few posts on the online campaigns from both parties, but more on the Obama campaign's efforts as they seem to be doing more.

But it's not over yet, you may remember the iPhone apps story that I posted sometime ago - that'll be in full swing right now. Also, people logging on to Facebook today will have a nice little reminder to go and vote and guess which campaign uses Facebook the most...yep, you've guessed it. Looking at the Facebook updates from my friends, there seems to be such a buzz with people organising to go to parties, making sure their friends have voted...I for one am very excited and can't wait to see the results. If you want to read more from a U.S. perspective, check out my friend Ed's blog - a Washington based PR.

MyTake - I have said is before and I'll say it again - they are going to talk about this campaign for years to come and from an online perspective, they are going to teach this stuff in colleges and universities around the world. Will we see something similar from the next UK elections? Probably not, but it's nice to dream...

Ad wars - Mac Vs PC continues

2008-10-29T13:49:00.005+11:00

These are the times when it's great to sit back and be a consumer. I posted a while ago on the new Microsoft PC adverts, which I think are really cool, and also on the South Park take-offs, which are cool in their own unique way. Now, here's the latest from from Mac camp.

Interesting that this is all happening around the PDC and Microsoft showing off Windows 7 and Azure. As Microsoft prepare to take on Google with cloud computing, Apple is busy highlighting the perceived shortcomings of Vista. Is this a war of two fronts that Microsoft might end up losing? Nope, but it's entertaining.

MyTake - The current economic climate is going to force a much harder game from marketeers where the focus is going to be on product, product and product. More specifically, why your product is better than your competitors and what their product is doing wrong. In the end, the consumer will be in quite a good spot, but then again, so will companies that have strong products.

Nokia sets the bench mark

2008-10-28T09:58:00.002+11:00

I don’t usually write about out-and-out marketing initiatives, but I happen to think hat this is a good one. Global handset manufacturer and collective group of Finish boffins, Nokia, has produced a number of benches complete with their new “comes with music” handsets integrated and placed them in cities around the UK. The really cool thing is that the music is different from city to city.

In Liverpool, the handsets have lots of Beatles tracks and in my home town of Birmingham (Brum to those in the know) the mighty (mighty) Sabbath feature heavily. We still love you Ozzie. Also, in order to protect them from theft and drunken student pranks, the benches come complete with a security guard and a performer.

MyTake – I thought experiential marketing had died on its arse (English term for ass) because of the associated costs, but apparently not. I think that this is good move by Nokia and will help get their brand out there and associated with music. One of the biggest rules with product marketing is that the power is in the product. How many times have you been talking to a friend and they tell you “you’ve gotta try it”?

If Hollywood worked for McCain

2008-10-23T13:26:00.004+11:00

I got forwarded this today by my friend Ed, yep, this Ed. I have to say, it's great when you see this type of thing being done - it shows that election fever is getting higher and higher.

I particularly like the John Woo ad, especially the slow-mo shots and running towards each other with guns yet somehow nobody gets hurt?

MyTake - Stay tuned for more of this stuff. I have already seen a few campaign badges going round featuring a Bulldog with lipstick and another one where Palin has the top billing over McCain. There's going to be a million and one opinions during this election and the net is going to provide a great output for them. Hopefully we'll get a few more of these

Oh, check out the Vlad and Boris song for Mrs Palin.... nice hair do

Introducing...Sackboy

2008-10-20T11:56:00.001+11:00

There aren’t many game characters that truly last the test of time, in fact I can only think of a handful: Mario, Sonic, Lara Croft, Master Chief…… But according to Sony PlayStation, the newest kid on the block might be a little rag doll by the name of Sackboy. Developed by a little known UK outfit called Media Molecule, Sackboy is the hero of Little Big Planet and Sony has pinned their reputation on this little guy becoming the next big thing in gaming.

Being pushed around in the console market by Nintendo, PlayStation are looking for Sackboy to help claw back some of the more casual gamers that Nintendo has charmed with the ever-popular Wii console. The game is remarkably straight forward – echoing the look and feel of a bygone era, you move left and right, jump over things and collect stuff as you go – sound familiar? The killer app for the game is the social networking element, which lets you design your own levels and customising characters that you can share with friends.

MyTake – The Wii captured hearts with its quirky controls and the customisable gameplay, bringing back a greater sense of “clean fun” to gaming which encouraged more people to get in to gaming. In addition, it cannot be forgotten that Playstation were the pioneers when it came to attracting non-gamers through titles such as SingStar. Having said that, it is very, very difficult to come up with a character that you can be confident in and put your brand reputation behind. Watch this space..and this video….cute, isn’t he?

Twitter Turnbull

2008-10-16T12:45:00.002+11:00

Kevin 07 isn’t exactly up there with the current Obama campaign, but for people in Australia it was pretty exciting to see politics embrace the online space…even if we did have the then Prime Minister John Howard starting all his YouTube broadcasts with “Good morning”. Malcolm Turnbull is probably the most savvy when it comes to the online space and special credit goes to him for leaving a negative comment on his site when every other politician removed any trace of negatively from theirs.

But, what’s the news? Well, Malcolm Turnbull is the first Australian politician to start using Twitter. He hasn’t been on it long and has only posted eight times, examples include “is in parliament”, “is learning about twitter”, “is in question time” and “is addressing the nation”. It wasn’t until his seventh post that he (his staff) realised that Twitter is in fact not your Facebook status update and decided to drop the word “is” from the start of every post, by post eight he/they finally twigged that Twitter is about sharing things and posted a link to his address on the financial crisis.

Yet, a couple of things still bother me about this. The first is the fact that all the updates are done from the web, which must mean he either has a laptop connected to the net with him at all times, or he’s not actually posting himself. The second thing, he has 413 followers and isn’t following a single person – kinda missed the point there, didn’t you guys.

MyTake – I applaud good examples of brands, companies and politicians getting involved with social media as it’s a really good way to talk to an online audience. However, the Turnbull team need to realise that social media is about a two-way conversation, not just pumping out message after message. Take a look at the Barack Obama Twitter feed, he/they are following 103,116 people. Now, while I’m sure Barack isn’t tweeting himself (of maybe his is) this is more in keeping with the Twitterverse as it’s positioned as the campaign tweeting.

Obama's got game revisited

2008-10-15T17:07:00.002+11:00

Who’s going to win the US election? We’ll, there appears to only be one team actually treating it like a race for the most important political position in the world, and that’s the Obama campaign. At work, I sit very near a good mannered US citizen by the name of Ed (read his blog here) who I always talk to when I want update on the US election…mainly because he explains everything in simple terms that I can understand, but also because I get to learn American phrases such as “that dog don’t hunt”.

The latest bit of news that Ed shared with me was that the Obama campaign has started advertising in online video games, namely Burnout Paradise on the Xbox 360 using Microsoft’s Live network. The adverts are actually on billboards along side the road in the game and advertise the campaign’s website VoteForChange.com. A quote from an EA rep (who makes the game) reads: "Like most television, radio and print outlets, we accept advertising from credible political candidates. Like political spots on the television networks, these ads do not reflect the political policies of EA or the opinions of its development teams.”

MyTake – The Obama campaign is busy nailing the few last nails in the coffin of the McCain campaign. Not only is Obama himself cleaning up in the debates, his team are kicking every goal possible in the online space. Trust me, they are going to write a text book on this election and generation of Communications students will learn about it.

Mac Vs PC...and Linux

2008-10-15T14:58:00.002+11:00

I don't actually have a reason for this post other than the fact that I think these (the videos below) are pretty funny. I'm a pro PC and pro Mac guys and I love my PC and my Mac, but the boys from South Park have got a point....

MyTake - a good advert can sporn many parodies and good parodies tend to go viral. If you've got a good idea at the center of your advertising campaign, the that can inspire a whole host of reactions and interpretations and it's these interpretations that spread your ideas far and wide.

Facebook stops the news

2008-10-14T13:31:00.003+11:00

I love my Facebook page and I probably get more chance to play with it because my work in digital PR involves a whole host of social networks. Having said that, it seems that a certain newsreader for 3AW loves their Facebook page a bit too much. According to the stories doing the rounds, during a broadcast a few weekends ago the newsreader was busy reading her Facebook updates and forgot to read the news.

When the newsreader was asked what went wrong, they claimed they were having “computer issues”…ahhh, those pesky “computer issues”…… After investigating the claims, the IT team found out that the newsreader was more interested in reading their facebook updates than the news. Oppps….but that’s not the end. How did station management deal with the incident? They sent an email to all staff telling them that Facebook was off-limits unless it was being used for research. Right…. So the next time it happens, it isn’t “computer issues”, it’s "research".

MyTake – The reason I picked this story is to demonstrate the increasing relevance that news about your friends, i.e. your Facebook page, has. In this story, the actual news took second billing to news about the newsreaders friends. Alright, it’s a bit of an outrageous example, but we're spending more time online and in social networks than we are engaging with other mediums. I wonder what the newsreader’s status update was, I’d like to take a guess: “3AW Newsreader is…so busted”

The Digital natives are coming to a corner near you

2008-10-09T11:52:00.004+11:00

For those that regularly read my blog, you'll know that my soapbox is technology and families, especially parents getting involved with their kids online lives. I think that it's hugely important that we as parents get involved with our kids lives and as these are becoming increasingly integrated with technology and the web, we need to go and "play" there so to speak.

For some of us, it's not a problem, because we work in the digital space or have a love of all things tech, but for others it's a little harder. So, thanks go to Microsoft for launching Kid's Corner, a new online destination for both parents and kids. Your can read more about it on Frank Arrigo's blog, which is where I heard about it.

MyTake - Read Frank's post on this, because he's hit the nail on the head. Our kids are "Digital natives" and get this anyway, they need our encouragement and support. WE need to remain relevant to them and do our jobs as parents. Make sure you check out some of the links on Frank's post as they're pretty good examples of how we parents can interact with our digital natives!

The phone that changed the world just might win the US election

2008-10-09T09:51:00.003+11:00

OK, a lofty claim, but the iPhone might do just that for the Obama campaign. A new application developed for Apple’s runaway success allows users to rally the troops in so called swing states. Called "Call Friends", the idea is simple – you call your friends around the country in order to get as much support as possible. The application puts a structure and tracking mechanism around this idea, letting users make notes on who they have called, where they live, how they will be voting and even if they need a reminder on election day.

But…there’s more. The app also provides up to date information and news from campaign HQ, plus a whole host of talking pints, video and photos to help convince in the most stubborn of pals. Obama, as I have previously posted, is very active in the online space and this could be the thing that tips it over the edge, alongside his other activities on YouTube and Facebook.

MyTake – You go where the audience is, and guess what, they’re online. The iPhone blew the mobile web market wide open with its easy-to-use software, big screen, speed and more importantly, the SDK. This is probably the smartest move to date by either party, tunneling through from the web to the phone, opening up the range of influence and taking that right up to the voting booth in the hands of countless voters.

You say you want a revolution

2008-10-09T09:07:00.003+11:00

Hasn’t this “debate” been going on for over a decade now? What am I talking about? Online music. News out of the UK is that Robbie Williams, Radiohead, Kaiser Chiefs and The Verve have started a pressure group called Featured Artists' Coalition, the aim of which is to keep the rights to their music and get more of a say in how their music is sold….“online… cough”.

More and more artists have been dipping their toes in the digital pond, with great success, which has caused them to ask questions of their record labels and music publishers. Some of the biggest pro-online bands include the likes of Radiohead, while we all know where our heavy metal pals Metallica stood until recently. There are obviously other objectives of the Coalition, namely to get more money for artists and performers, but it’s a big sign of things to come from the music industry.

MyTake – Funnily enough, I think that the music industry, i.e. the record labels and music publishers, are actually in a good position here. They have so much marketing experience, global reach and most likely huge databases of consumers at their finger tips. The model of yesterday isn’t going to work anymore and the industry needs to look at new revenue models as the artists and performers will increasingly want more of the revenue from direct sales and consumers want to pay less for music – so where is the sweet-spot for the industry? Sell, sell and resell your content and make it easily available to your intended audience, look at new opportunities to expose your artists to new groups and offer them a wide variety of content. The making of an album could spawn several pieces of content that could be sold either to the consumer or funded through advertising – the hi-def song, the low-def song, the making of, the lyrics, album design…the list goes on.

I'll leave you with this snippet from Sky News UK about Radiohead's "bold" online move. Were they first of many?....Probably

Ladies and gentlemen...The Trons!

2008-10-01T14:47:00.002+10:00

We’ve had iBand, now here’s………The Trons! Who are they then, you ask? Well they are/it is a band of robots or automated musicians if you will. The brainchild of an electronic engineer from Hamilton NZ called Greg Locke, the band is actually made up of parts that his mates have given him, or stuff that he’s managed to scrounge together.

The Trons consist of a keyboard player, a drummer, two guitarists and what can only be described as a “warbler”. Greg already has a MySpace page for the band and even uploaded a few tunes to YouTube, which is where he secured the band’s first international gig. Apparently, the PR firm for Mercedes-Benz got in touch with him and asked if The Trons would be interested in performing at the Paris Auto Show. But this wasn’t the first gig for the Kiwi bots, they have already toured New Zealand’s South Island.

MyTake – Some men look at their garden and think, I’ll dig a flower bed…..some men look at their shed and think, I’ll build a tool rack…This bloke look at his bedroom and thought, I’ll build a band to entertain me. Greg Locke, we salute you. Yes, it’s an example of innovation at its purest, but it also demonstrates that technology and software is becoming more and more accessible and that we’re all only an idea (and maybe a few beers) away from our very own Robert band. Check out the video below.

Go forth and blog

2008-09-30T09:39:00.005+10:00

I read an awesome article by Ruth Gledhill, who is the Religious correspondent for The (London) Times on one of their blogs. The post is about Church leaders in the UK drawing up the “Ten Commandments” of blogging, in order to help blogging Church-goers to avoid temptation. Thought-up and rubber-stamped at a conference called “Godblogs” in London, the commandments cover a wide range of potential pitfalls:

1 You shall not put your blog before your integrity

2 You shall not make an idol of your blog

3 You shall not misuse your screen name by using your anonymity to sin

4 Remember the Sabbath day by taking one day off a week from your blog

5 Honour your fellow-bloggers above yourselves and do not give undue significance to their mistakes

6 You shall not murder someone else's honour, reputation or feelings

7 You shall not use the web to commit or permit adultery in your mind

8 You shall not steal another person's content

9 You shall not give false testimony against your fellow-blogger

10 You shall not covet your neighbour's blog ranking. Be content with your own content

As if thinking up the commandments wasn’t enough, they have been “engraved on cyberspace tablets” by the Evangelical Alliance. I’ve hunted high and low for these virtual tables, but I can’t find them, all I could find was this post by the Evangelical Alliance

MyTake – We all need a few rules now and then to keep us honest, but I’m not so sure that there’s that much religion in the above. It’s more common sense. If you take away the “You shall nots” then you’ve got a fairly sensible list. I do think this is more of a publicity stunt than anything else – don’t get me wrong, I’m all for a good publicity stunt, and this IS a good publicity stunt. It’s not quite Moses on the mountain stuff, but it’s certainly getting the word out.

The Twitter song

2008-09-26T14:23:00.006+10:00

Ahh, Twitter, we love you. You have already spawned the Fail Whale and now you have your own song. Written by a UK musician called Ben Walker, the song proudly proclaims that "you're nobody if you're not on Twitter, and if you aren't there already, you've missed it".

I have to say, it's very catchy and has a healthy dose of good old fashioned British humour. It reminds me of the London Underground song that came out a few years ago, only without the swearing and stuff.....

MyTake - Don't worry, you've not really missed it, go and join Twitter today and you can even follow Ben or yours truly. This is yet another example of social media inspiring popular culture (you may have read my post on Facebook: The movie) and I think we are just going to see more and more examples of this. So, next time someone tells you that social media is a waste of time, sing them the Twitter song.

He said, he said

2008-09-24T14:56:00.003+10:00

Google seem to be in the news a lot today, but I’ve had enough Android as it’s not going to make it to Australia (big island in the southern hemisphere) and an Engadget test shows that the iPhone is faster. My Google news today is Google In Quotes from Google Labs, and it’s fun for all the family. In Quotes in a comparison tool that allows you to see what politicians are saying about certain topics, when you load up the site it defaults to the US edition featuring McCain and Obama.

As well as the US edition there is also UK, Canadian and Indian editions, but not an Australian (big island in the southern hemisphere, you know Kangaroos and all that) edition. Each edition has a number of default topics to compare quotes on, using the US edition it is: Iraq, oil, Bush and Iran, but you can also add other topics like, oh, I don’t know…say the economy? My favourite feature of the site is the “spin” button that acts a bit like a one-armed bandit, spinning the quotes before stopping on some new quotes for you to muse upon.

MyTake – A good, timely piece of lighthearted fun from the guys and gals at Google. I am a huge fan of the “spin” function, if only politicians could actually have this when they are speaking – how much fun would that be! Anyway, good fun, go check it out for yourself.

The Andoid will take over

2008-09-23T16:40:00.003+10:00

I already posted on the first phone to use Google's Android, but some news out to day seems to hint at the operating system going further than just the humble phone. Because Google Android is majority open-source, people have the chance to do whatever they want with it. According to the news doing the rounds today, some of the other places we could see Android includes TVs, set-top boxes and in-car computers.....interesting.

Apparently, the cat was let out of the bag by John Bruggeman, chief marketing officer at Wind River Systems who said something along the lines (you can read more in this Cnet article) of this, "We're starting to see Android get designed in on devices that extend way beyond the phone--things that might go in the automobile or things that might go in the home". Oh really John, tell us more. "I don't want to pre-announce any design wins," he said. "I think you'll see them in 2009. I would be shocked if you didn't."

MyTake - It's a bit like watching a football (soccer) match where you expect a coach to do one thing, then he comes out with a formation and set of players that you'd never expect - something is about to happen. In hindsight, it's probably obvious to some that Android would end up on other devices. After all, it seems to be a very flexible operating system that could be easily adapted to other uses. Expect an upset or two from the boys and gals at Google.

I'm a PC....and me...and me....and me

2008-09-22T15:11:00.004+10:00

My Apple obsessed brother will probably kill me for putting this on my blog, but I actually think it’s a really great advert. I have to admit, I actually liked the Jerry Seinfeld adverts as well, though I appear to be the only one that does.

I think Microsoft has done the right thing by focusing on the diversity of their audience. For all the criticism we throw at them, they have revolutionised they way we work, live and play and I think that this advert demonstrates that in more ways than one.

MyTake – I think the Apple boys are probably sitting there thinking “bring it on”, because this is what they (Apple) do best. In all honesty, I don’t think that Apple will get drawn in to a war of adverts, I think they’ll probably change their creative, but also lift the bar at the same time. Microsoft have struggled when it comes to marketing, especially on the advertising side, which is interesting considering the PR side of Microsoft is very well run compared to that of Apple. But - Microsoft, pat on the back, it’s a good advert.

Let the Android party begin

2008-09-18T13:56:00.002+10:00

If you’d have asked me my opinion about the mobile phone industry pre the iPhone, I’d have told you that it needs a good kick up the ass because we’re all sick of hearing about wap and video calling. Then the iPhone came along and set the bar (a far bit) higher and challenged the rest of the market to follow. And followed they have, every other manufacture has produced a so called “iPhone killer” to take on the boys at Apple. The problem is though, it’s not just about the hardware, is it?

Enter Google and their Android. The guys at Google know a killer app when they see one, so you’d probably be fairly safe in saying that Android is going to be the next installment in an already glittering portfolio. The news today is that T-Mobile in the US is going to be the first to show off a handset (HTC) featuring the software at a conference in New York on 23 September. It’s going to be interesting to see how the media and analysts react to it as this is Google’s play to widen their advertising model.

MyTake – This is really the best front to attack Apple on. It really doesn’t matter how cool that handset is, if the user-experience is poor, then so is the handset. Google have gone down the same road as Apple by opening up the software to third party developers, which in my opinion was Apple's master stroke. I predict a real clash of the titans type battle between these boys.

Banking blunders break light bulbs

2008-09-18T13:14:00.003+10:00

Some of the most innovative and forward thinking companies in the world could be in the front row when it comes to the inevitable funding cuts. As nervous investors all around the world strap themselves in for what is proving to be a bit of a bumpy ride on the global finance markets, small emerging tech companies look to be the first the get the chop. According to reports coming out of the UK, a total of $300 million funding has been diverted away from regional development agencies in order to prop-up the struggling housing market.

It’s a move that is probably being mirrored all over the world, with small start-ups being denied funding that they need in order to establish themselves and develop products. In a very real way, the immediate impact of the current stock-market problems will have a knock on effect in terms of future growth because the ideas of today wont be supported in order to provide the products of tomorrow.

MyTake – Someone’s house is obviously more important, but we really shouldn’t be in this situation to start with. Check out Thomas Friedman’s article here for a great insight and opinion on the current situation. It’s irritating to think that this could mean some of the best new ideas in the world will never get heard. I’d also take aim at some of the mainstream media here as well, because they have a responsibility. They have a responsibility to tell the story as it is without over dramatising it. I was watching the news yesterday when the anchor darkly claimed that global markets were in “meltdown”, real the end is neigh type stuff. I also saw a UK tabloid comparing the situation to the great depression – great stuff guys, let’s panic the world into a recession shall we.

3D web

2008-09-18T10:26:00.002+10:00

Ever had one of those moments when you try something for the first time and you think to yourself that might have just experienced something that is going to have a huge impact on society? They don’t happen often, because things like that just don’t come along everyday. But I think I might just have had that feeling when I downloaded and installed ExitReality, a piece of software that turns the web into a virtual 3D world and lets you roam about it using an avatar.

Now we’ve had the likes of Second Life for a while, but this goes an extra mile (possibly thousands) and allows you to experience the web that’s out there now in 3D and what’s more – you can easily customise your own site for other visitors to enjoy. Founded and developed by Danny Stefanic, ExitReality turns standard webpages into virtual hang outs, for example if you visit YouTube it’s like being in a giant theatre. It also allows you to interact with other visitors through your avatar thanks to a messaging function and a series of gestures.

MyTake – Go and try this, you won’t regret it. It’s a small 3.5MB download that’s loaded up very quickly. I found it a little bit clunky and the load-times for pages are obviously not as quite as it would be if you were surfing the web normally. But that said, the experience was amazing and as they say in the movies, this could be the start of something special.

It pays to be social

2008-09-17T12:36:00.002+10:00

I’m a bit biased when it comes to the U.S. elections as I’m very much an Obama fan. Even though I’m not American (and therefore have no say in the matter) I think that the election of the next President of the United Sates of America is pretty important to all of us. So, it’s with interest that I have been following the news on the election, occasionally posting a few stories here when it relates. Here is one such story that relates –Obama has more friends than McCain.

It’s official. According to a report by Pew Research Centre that looked at the respective candidate’s online presence, Obama is the man out in front. With 1.7 million Facebook supporters and 510,000 MySpace friends, Obama out punches McCain with 309,000 Facebook supporters and 88,000 MySpace Friends. The report also revealed that Obama’s fan base on YouTube was 11 times the size of McCain’s.

MyTake – They’re going to call this the Facebook election the rate this is going. It’s amazing to see the emphasis that is being placed on each candidate’s online presence and activities. With such a large geographic area to cover, online does offer the best solution to interact with your audience on a continuous basis, but it's the effort that's being put into the space that is quite amazing. I can’t wait for election day on Facebook - “Barack Obama is……the President of the United Sates of America”

Lots of Thread(les)s to wear

2008-09-16T14:25:00.003+10:00

I’ve been a T-shirt junky for a while now and I love it when I pick up something that I know a lot of other people aren't going to have. It all started for me when I was living in London and still considered myself to be relatively young and cool. I fell in love with small boutique brands like CardBoredRobert and my passion has never left, even though my cool factor has probably waned (a lot). But every now and again, I pick-up a new T when I find something off the beaten track.

So, you can imagine my joy when I came across Threadless, which actually combines my love of all things social on the web with original ideas that manifest themselves as T-shirts. It’s hard to describe exactly what Threadless does in its entirety because it’s more than just a T-Shirt company. They are a community of artists and fans that come up with new ideas for T-shirts, help shape those ideas and then help bring the T-shirts to life through UGC such as fan pictures.

The design featured in this post caught my attention and the designer, Evan Ferstenfeld, says this of it “This slogan came to me while thinking about our trusty ol' internet, and what would happen if without warning it decided to roll down its iron gates and close up tight for the holidays and beyond like any other shopping arena in real life? My guess: a 135 percent increase in people rolling on the floor laughing at bars and picnics around the globe.” And drinking beer Evan, don’t forget the beer….

MyTake – Pretty damn awesome idea, I’m just going to have to figure out how to get a T-shirt before they sell out! I love the collaborative approach they have taken and the idea of the Street Team is a great way to engage an already active community. It’s not going to change the world, but it will bring a smile to your face, it will give designers the chance to showcase their work, and most importantly….it’ll give me a bit of cool back.

Napster gets Best Bought

2008-09-16T13:37:00.002+10:00

The first experience most of us had with online music probably came through Napster (not me gov, clean as a whistle I am!) when they were lauded as a peoples champion for allowing us to “share” our music using the Internet. Many of us probably watched their decline and inevitable battle with the giants of the music industry in what arguably laid many of the building blocks for the online music services we have today. So, as 2008 turns its head towards the final quarter of the year, Napster’s ride comes to a close as it steps closer to a buy-out by US electronics retailer Best Buy.

According to the press out there so far, Best Buy has valued Napster’s share at twice the market value as it prepare to seal the deal. Despite a few acquisitions of their own and the long (and hard) road they have travelled, it looks like we’ll be saying goodbye to the little chap with the earphones. I’m not exactly sure what Best Buy’s plans are for the brand, if they’ll keep it or if they are simply after the interface and subscribers, but it does seem sadly ironic that the maverick of music is getting bought out by a mall stalwart.

MyTake – We salute you Napster, for showing us that there was an easier way to get, store and play our music – who knows where the online music industry would be today without you. The likes of iTunes owe a lot to the early pioneers of online music, Napster being the biggest. So, unplug those earphones little fella and take that nap you’ve been after.

Open sauce storage

2008-09-16T12:54:00.002+10:00

Alright, so that’s my lame attempt at a play on words, but this is anything but lame, check this out - It’s a bottle opener that’s also a flash drive! Somebody brought their A-game to work the day this was thought-up. I can probably guess the tough process behind it – you’re stuck at work late, its beer o’clock and you want to get home, but you’re got stuff to do…enter TrekStor’s storage/bottle opener thingy so you can store your work to take home after you’ve opened a beer.

MyTake – This is up there with ideas like the wheel, electricity and cable TV. TrekStor, take a bow, for you have done a service to the many men and women of offices all over the world. But (and it’s a big but) it’s apparently only going to launch in Europe – what about us thirsty office workers in Australia, or our brothers and sisters in North America, surely we deserve the right to open, pour and store!

LinkedIn(side information)

2008-09-16T12:12:00.002+10:00

I’m all for being upfront, transparent and open when it comes to social networking, even when it comes to LinkedIn. If you start lying on your profile, someone will eventually point it out. But, having said that, there’s probably a point at which you need to pull-back on the openness front, as a very unlucky Apple employee recently found out. In short, an Apple employee by the name of Wei-han Lien listed his responsibilities on his profile, including the fact that he was managing the “ARM CPU architecture”. What’s so bad about that then?

Well, not so long ago Apple acquired a company called PA Semiconductor to work on new processors for the next generation of iPhone. The big question was of course which type of processor and I guess we all know the answer to that now.

MyTake – It’s a fumble as opposed to a dropped ball. The market could see the direction this was going, but I guess the company and investors still had some wiggle room that has now probably disappeared. My message to Wei-han Lien – go make a kick ass processor my man, all will be forgotten when they ship a million plus next gen iPhone’s with your processor inside!

I am also not Sarah Palin

2008-09-11T13:04:00.002+10:00

Another day, another Wikipedia scandal. This time, it is Sarah Palin’s entry that has been, shall we say, finessed. Here are the facts: about a day before she was announced as the running mate for McCain, the entry for Sarah Palin was significantly changed with a more than positive glow added by a user called Young Trigg. Trigg, as my colleague Ed Hoover told me this morning, is in fact the name of Sarah Palin’s baby son….the plot thickens.

Apparently, the last edits by Young Trigg were made only a few hours before the big announcement, just in time for the million-plus hits it was about to receive. Young Trigg has since disappeared into nowhere and Wikipedia is now only allowing established editors to change the entry. The usual ruckus then commenced with questions over Young Trigg’s integrity until he came out to answer all the speculation: “I am not Sarah Palin. I am not a member of Sarah Palin’s family, or even Michael Palin’s family…..I will acknowledge that I volunteer for the McCain campaign, one of thousands of people nationwide who are working to elect the best candidate for the job. Palin was not the nominee when I made my edits, though I am certainly excited about the selection. I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest problem.” It's a bit like Spartacus, only without the swords...and the hero....

MyTake – I have this vision of little Trigg editing the entry himself, sort of like Stewie from Family Guy, only without the British accent. In all seriousness, Wikipedia is becoming a huge part of the political battle and the importance being placed upon it is fairly obvious from incidents like this. As a PR practitioner who always advises transparency online, I’d probably say that they have gotten away with it – of the people that hit that page in all its polished glory, I bet only a handful hear about the fact that it was altered by a “volunteer for the McCain campaign”. To close, I’d like to follow Young Trigg and say that I am also not Sarah Palin. I am also not a member of Sarah Palin’s family, or even Michael Palin’s family. I will acknowledge that I write this blog, one of thousands of people all over the world that write blogs. Palin was the nominee when I wrote this post. I don’t believe I have a conflict of interest problem – I am a non-violent person and I believe myself to be quite interesting.

Mumanddadbook

2008-09-11T11:41:00.002+10:00

I think it was only a couple of weeks ago that I wrote a post on how important it is for parents to understand technology, the web, gaming et al, so that they can better interact with this kids and more importantly. Well, it seems that the UK government is actually doing something about this. In my post, I mentioned that parents would probably have to get a bit more savvy with things like Nielsen reports in order to get an understanding of what their kids are up to, but UK-based Parentline Plus is set to launch a social networking site.

While it has a wider remit of providing support for parents in general, its very presence on the web gives it the advantage of being able to act as an authority for kids and the web. According to info on the web, the network is aimed at helping parents of teenage children share their problems, challenges and worries. What’s the old saying, a problem shared is a problem halved.

MyTake – Great initiative, I’d love to see the take up numbers on this. Having been a resident in the UK I can tell you that the people that are in most need are often the people that have the least – which probably doesn’t include a PC with access to the net. Having said that, if this can help parents going through a hard time (god knows mine did with me!) then it’s worth it.

Studbook: Connecting animals

2008-09-10T16:17:00.003+10:00

It seems if you write about one marsupial and you have to write about them all. Only kidding, but it seems odd that last week it was Google’s Kangaroo and this week it’s a Koala trying to find a date online. Killarney the Koala is available and she’s online on a studbook. Sounds like some adults only version of Facebook doesn’t it, but it’s actually something that a lot of Zoo’s around the world are getting involved with in order to find mates for animals held in captivity.

This post is actually based on a CNN article I read today. My favourite quote from the story talks about the various tricks the Zoo keepers use to get animals to breed: "There are some frogs that you have to simulate rain for or they won't come out and breed"….."Other frogs, they just need to hear the sound of rain and the sound of lightening and thunder. That's what sets off their hormones." Oh, easy then.

MyTake – An intriguing article that goes to show that the guys at CNN have a sense of humor and are interested in the little guys as well as the bigger stories. I think that the idea of online studbooks that can help breeding efforts is great, I can just see the friend feed now: “Killarney has updated her relationship status”

Man Interrupted

2008-09-10T12:48:00.002+10:00

You’d be forgiven for thinking that email had been around forever, but it wasn’t long ago that the fax machine and the common letter were still the main forms of communication. I read on a colleague’s blog that she remembers when she started work she had to share an email account with another employee. When I started working in PR in the ancient days of 1999 I spent most of my first internship standing by the fax machine sending information to journalists and clients.

Hard to believe in a world dominated by online communications with email now the mainstay for us all. Why am I talking about email? Well, some research has been released by a guy called Dr Thomas Jackson and he works at Loughborough University in the UK, according to him email is a huge distraction that beaks our train of thought. He has some interesting findings and reckons that it takes us over a minute to get our concentration back after we’ve received an email which equates to eight and a half hours a week of “what was I doing again..” type thoughts for those of us that check our email every five minutes.

MyTake – I’m not sure what concentration is any more! I get “interrupted” by emails, phone calls, Instant messages, tweets, questions….the lot. I think that they average person has a more fluid sense of concentration that is more outcome based, i.e. what are the tasks at hand and when do I need to achieve them by. But, I am not a doctor and Thomas Jackson is, so check out his website for tips on managing email. Just a thought though Doc, what about a study looking at instant messaging and micro-blogging?

KutcherCrunch

2008-09-10T12:05:00.002+10:00

Something quite brilliant has been happening for a couple of years now and the guys at TechCrunch are behind it. TechCrunch50 is the second conference to be held by the TechCrunch guys and is aimed at finding “the best start-ups and launch them in front of our industry’s most influential VCs, corporations, fellow entrepreneurs and press”.

According to the reports coming out of this year’s conference, the place is buzzing and there are a lot of cool start-ups there including TweeGee.com, Hangout.net, Goplanit and Blahgirls.com, a venture backed by Ashton Kutcher. The idea behind his venture is to provide gossip with attitude and was inspired by driving round the daughters of wife, Demi Moore.

TechCrunch received over 1,000 applications companies wishing to take part but at the three day event, as Christopher Lambert once uttered, “there cam be only one”, and that one will walk away with a cash prize of $50,000. I have some friends at the event and have been following them on Twitter, Dave Ambrose said yesterday “A lot of people here at TechCrunch50 very open and looking for suggestions around their ideas”, which is awesome to hear, because that’s what this space is all about – sharing, growing and developing ideas with a bunch of people. Feedback is the buzz word of web 2.0 is more ways than one.

MyTake – It’s been a while since there’s been this amount of buzz and excitement around a conference and I think it’s great. We get to hear about people and companies that are out there thinking up cool things for us to play with and ultimately make the web a more interesting space. The more we collaborate, the more we learn and the more we learn the better the end product.

Yesterday’s fish & chip paper gets turned back into news

2008-09-10T11:02:00.002+10:00

Alright, that’s a British saying and if you haven’t heard it before, it goes something like this “Today’s news is tomorrow’s fish & chip paper” it’s a saying from an ear when we Brits used to get our fish & chips handed to us wrapped in newspaper, demonstrating that nobody cared what was in the newspaper the day before. Getting to the point, Google announced that it has partnered with around a hundred newspapers to make old copies available online both as scans and text.

The announcement was made at the TechCrunch50 in San Francisco where Google showed examples of newspapers covering the U.S. moon landing. According to the demonstration, you’ll be able to see the paper as it was printed, with information and articles separated out for ease of reading. The initiative appears to be beneficial for all parties, with Google running its AdSense service as part of the project with profits being shared with the newspaper partners.

MyTake – it’s long been Google’s aim to make all the information ever available to everyone (or something like that) and they are getting closer and closer, first Google books and now this. Despite what is said about print, it is a barometer for the times and allows us a glimpse at what was. An idea I had when my daughter, nephew and niece were born was to buy them the newspaper from the day they were born so that they could get a feel for the world when they were born – I can’t even imagine the information that they will have available to them when they grow-up. They probably won’t look at that newspaper, but maybe we’ll have fish & chips on them.

Intergalactic planetary….tweets

2008-09-09T14:47:00.003+10:00

Well, not quite intergalactic, but from Mars….and that’s pretty damn cool. It’s been a while any of the space missions have captured my imagination, only this morning I was reading about the “Jules Vern” spacecraft that’s essentially a posh rubbish bin that the astronauts on the International Space Station pile their rubbish into before aiming it at the atmosphere where it’s obliterated by the heat. Alright, I think I’ve mad it sound cooler that it is….cos it’s just a big bin, sorry Esa.

On the other hand, The Mars Phoenix Lander is a far more interesting tale and one that we can follow practically minute by minute because the thing (or some engineer) is tweeting its journey so that us mere Earthlings can follow. One of the latest tweets reads “News of my demise is premature but I appreciate the warm thoughts :-) I plan to last many more weeks before ice & darkness win”, The Mars Phoenix Lander also informed us “Solar panels generate about 2000 watt-hours of energy per sol (down from 3500 in June). So plan is to dig many samples now & then analyze”.

MyTake – What an awesome use of twitter and totally cost-effective – hardly used any taxpayer money. Space missions just don’t get the coverage they used to and this is a very innovative way of allowing people to follow it using a medium that could have been made for it – hey NASA, you didn’t invent Twitter did you? I wonder if CERN are on twitter….. you could just imagine the tweets: ”smashed another proton…..I rock”.

Tikitag, you’re it

2008-09-09T11:37:00.003+10:00

RFID = Radio Frequency ID. I’ll get that out of the way right upfront for those (like me) that didn’t know what it stood for. On to the post, Tikitag is a new Alcatel-Lucent product and the basic premise of it is that you (the consumer) can put RFID tags on a whole host of everyday items that you use to access information on the web, or control functions on your PC. Con - fussed?!?

Think of it a bit like the bar code scanners at the supermarket – you scan your goods and then the check-out displays the price and a bit of information about it. This works in a similar way, only there’s more information and it’s a lot more sophisticated.The example that that company has given so far is a business card, that when placed under an RFID reader (oh, you need one of those too) will pull up social networking information on that person.

MyTake – Still a bit con-fussed…. I think it’s a great idea and when the product out in the wild a bit more, I think we’ll get a better idea of the applications. On the face of it, I think that it could have a lot of uses in the early education space. For example, using cards to interact with a learning game online could be a great idea. But still, show us some more, we’re keen, but still a bit…..

EA plays with iPhone

2008-09-05T13:49:00.004+10:00

As if you needed another reason to buy an iPhone, here’s another one (or three) - you can now get SimCity and Sim3 on you iPhone and Spore will be available on September 7. On top on this, a recent EA press release also reveals that Monopoly, Tiger Woods PGA Tour and Need for Speed Undercover are currently in development.

After giving the mobile phone industry a huge kick up the behind, it looks like the iPhone is finally about to take a take a bite out of the mobile games industry. In my books, that puts everyone on notice. Still though, the annoying thing is the data charges here in Australia – how is this going to make online-gaming appealing? With EA putting a lot of money into developing for the iPhone, who’ll follow next and what titles? A word to EA – please think of a way to bring FIFA to the iPhone.

MyTake – Gaming is surely the next big target area for the boys at Apple and the iPhone is the product to do it on. I remember when the original iPhone first came out and a friend of mine from Gamespot.com.au showed me a very basic racing game – I was totally blown away. A few killer titles, some decent online gaming and we’ll see another market flavoured Apple.

Google's Pet Kangaroo

2008-09-05T11:11:00.003+10:00

When is a Kangaroo not a Kangaroo? When it’s the name of a new start-up venture being courted by Google. Project Kangaroo, as it’s being called, is a new website that will bring TV shows from UK broadcasters the BBC, ITV and Channel 4 together in one place as part of a joint effort between the broadcasters and the Google.

Details are a bit sketchy at the moment, but the website would be partly advertiser-funded with new shows being aired for free featuring adverts, while older shows will be available on some kind of rental program. Of course, the Competition Commission is sniffing around any potential deal like a Kelpie (iconic Australian dog) at BBQ and they’ll probably think of a million reasons why it shouldn’t be allowed to happen, but so far Google are convinced it’s a goer.

MyTake – Google are on a roll aren’t they? While I think that the idea of centralising content is good, I don’t know that a website is the way to go, unless it functions as some kind of virtual TV set. Surely it would make sense for the broadcasters to make their content available (advertiser-funded of course) through a program like iTunes, or in a format that most media players could work with? It’s still early days and I’m not entirely sure what it is, so I’m sure we’ll be seeing more information about it soon. Plus, I don’t think Google has ever launched or got involved with a dud in it’s ten year existence. Oh yeah – Happy 10th Birthday Google!

Pay me, I'm cool

2008-09-04T14:52:00.002+10:00

It’s always paid to be cool – everyone likes you, you’re popular, people want to be like you and be with you. Now it really pays to be cool with the launch of Popcuts, a new music downloads site that actually rewards users the more cool they are.

Popcuts charges users just under a (U.S.) dollar per track, but the cool bit is when other people then purchase the same track(s) as you. Once you have purchased a track and others purchase it afterwards (following you lead if you will) you get rewarded for it like some kind of cool barometer.

In addition, the sooner you buy the track, the greater the reward you get. Essentially, Popcuts gets around 10-20 per cent of the profit with the artists getting to nominate their cut and the rest is then shared out between the fans that buy the tracks with the top-trendsetters taking the lions share.

MyTake – Reports so far show that users have been more likely to get on to the site to search for new artists and music in search of greater rewards, so it’s clearly working. I think that this kind of an idea can help shift more music fans from illegal downloads to legal downloads. Sure, the quality issue is a big factor, but it’s not enough for some. By adding this value-add, or rewards system (and one that clearly taps into the ego of most music fans), purchasing music becomes a cool factor and more interestingly, a social ranking tool.

Talking digital in Melbourne - how far we've come

2008-09-04T12:49:00.005+10:00

I just got back from attending and speaking at the New Media Conference in Melbourne, ran by the team at Frocomm. The whole conference was hosted by Ross Monaghan of Deakin University who had a lot of interesting points to make throughout the conference – especially at the end of day two when he pulled out a number of extremely old magazines (including one that featured one of the first desktop PCs which boasted a whole 4K or RAM) just to demonstrate how far we've come (hence my choice of picture).

A couple of the highlights for me: Laurel Papworth and her presentation on the media revolution, going from web 1.0 through to web 3.0 and the implications of that. Mark Park of Deacons talked about the legal ramifications to be considered when working with new media – ethics, defamation and copyright. And there were a whole host of other speakers including representatives from Fairfax, ABC, Howorth, Edelman and the BrandAide group.

Walter Jennings also gave a very insightful presentation on new media from the CEO point of view. In all, it was a great conference with some very knowledgeable people sharing their insights. I talked about how you can integrate new media into a communications plan based on the principles of listening, planning and participation - with a strong emphasis on the listening part.

MyTake – It was great to see that there's so much passion for the online space and that there are so many people that want to get involved. It still seems that the biggest hurdle is getting the C-suite to recognise the importance of the online. But, with a growing number of people becoming so passionate about the space, it can’t be long before we’re making converts of them all. I’ll leave you with the quote I closed my presentation on, from the CEO of P&G

“The power is with the consumer. Consumers are beginning, in a very real sense, to own our brands and participate in their creation. We need to begin to learn to let it go…”

That'll learn ya!

2008-09-04T12:08:00.004+10:00

Technology is changing the face of education in a fairly dramatic fashion. Most of today’s Uni-goers get the options of streaming lectures, podcasts and vodcasts, plus a whole host of other online tools for them to pick and choose from. But there’s another revolution happening, one that the rest of us can benefit from. Called School of Everything, it’s a kind of social network that helps teachers of all shapes and sizes connect with those that need their services.

Having recently tried to get hold of a local Swedish teacher (to converse with the in-laws) here in Sydney, it was bloody frustrating. I eventually found a leaflet in the Swedish embassy when I managed to make it there before the 12pm closing time….I think you’re getting my point…..This type of service would be incredibly useful.

I’ve not signed-up yet, but I hope they incorporate a lot of feedback into the site – like recommendations for teachers. I’ve also heard that they are going to have a payment system on the site at a later date, allowing you to pay for courses and additional lesions/lectures more easily.

MyTake – It sounds like a pretty great site and the idea of having a number of different teachers and resources in one searchable place is a huge plus. Most people have a list of things that that want to learn but have put-off for years because they either couldn’t find the right teacher, it wasn’t convenient, or it was simply too much of a task to try and sort it out. By combining the best elements of a social network (sharing) with a receptive audience, you’re pretty much hitting the nail on the head when it comes to web 2.0 (proving relevant content).

Chrome up your PC, but not your mac

2008-09-04T09:27:00.004+10:00

Just Another 24 Hours posted on his first experience of chrome. You can read it here.

I am yet to have my first chrome experience, when I tried to download it on my mac last night, they er.... well, they haven't built it yet.....

Facebook - coming to a big screen near you

2008-08-29T14:01:00.004+10:00

If you were to take a guess as to the subject of a Sony/Aaron Sorkin collaboration you’d be forgiven for this it could be about the Iraq war, the Bush presidency perhaps even the life and times of Barack Obama. But, sadly, you’d be wrong. Sorkin has in fact signed-up to write the screenplay for Facebook – The movie.

As a first step, he’s even posted a note on Facebook: “I've just agreed to write a movie for Sony and producer Scott Rudin about how Facebook was invented. I figured a good first step in my preparation would be finding out what Facebook is, so I've started this page….. I honestly don't know how this works, which is why I'm here. If anyone has any questions I'd be happy to answer them as best I can. If anyone has any comments I'm glad to listen. And if anyone has any Facebook stories I think they might be helpful.”

There isn’t any more information about the movie on the group page, but there are already 38 discussion topics, 3,842 members and 432 wall posts. So, it’s being taken seriously.
MyTake – The Facebook story has all the elements of a blockbuster, expect the end. With the story the way it is, it’s sort of like The Empire Strikes back – we were all left hanging until Return of The Jedi put us out of our misery. But seriously, it’s another example of the social media world influencing the offline world to the extent that millions of dollars are about to be spent. The interesting thing here is whether or not they will use Facebook as part of the pre-release process – i.e. sharing information, clips and images. Taking it one step further, will any of the stories included in the discussion board I mention above be used in the actual film….questions, questions….

Wake up and smell the .blogspot, we've got an election to win

2008-08-28T22:13:00.005+10:00

How important are bloggers? Very... at least the (US) Democrats think so. Well, that's not entirely fair, both sides of the US election are coming to the realisation that bloggers have a lot of power when it comes to spreading the campaign message.

At this year's convention, the democrats gave out 120 passes to bloggers with a whole host of extra bloggers sneaking in without passes. Not to be outdone, the Republicans will be giving around 200 bloggers the pat on the back to get the message out at their conference. For the bloggers at the Democratic convention, things get even better with a Blogger's Lounge at their disposal and even some floor passes thrown in for extra measure.

MyTake - Of course bloggers are important, anybody that doesn't think so, wake up and smell the .blogspot. The money that gets pumped into the election from both sides is phenomenal and there are a lot of smart people deciding where to spend that money. If they give the bloggers a lounge, floor passes and 120-200 passes, it's because they believe that these guys are pretty influencial. So.... Smart people think bloggers are so important that they'd spend US election campaign money to influence them. 'Nuff said.

The Digital Campfire at Outside Lands

2008-08-28T11:01:00.004+10:00

At Microsoft, there is a lady by the name of Laura User and she has the job title “Digital innovation manager” and she gets to do some pretty cool stuff. The most recent being something called CrowdFire. The idea is basically this: integrate social networking and technology into a music concert, add the fans and stick the whole thing in a tent. What you get is a central place where concert goers can share photos and videos via social networks, see highlights of the concert, get to the front of the stage without actually being there thanks to live streaming. If that wasn’t enough, Rock God wannabes can try their hand at Rock Band!

Connecting the dots for you, the name CrowdFire comes from the concept of having a “digital campfire” built by the crowd in the middle of the concert. The results of this first effort at San Francisco’s Outside Lands music festival showed that around 100,000 concert goers decided to get involved with the resulting content streamed to TV screens around the concert an online

MyTake – What a great job to have, I think I have to add the word innovation to my job title. This kind of activity just goes to show that social networking is integrated into most of our lives, even areas that we wouldn’t have thought it would be. What was that quote from that movie…"If you build it they will come”…. Well, that’s pretty much what happened, people wanted the facilities and Microsoft gave it to them. I think we are going to be seeing more initiatives like this, but where next – live sport?

You the Ad Man

2008-08-27T11:46:00.003+10:00

If there are those that still doubt the power and value of user-generated content, read on. Based on an Australian idea a website called Supevirals has been set up that encourages the average Joe to submit advertising ideas to some of the world biggest brands.

Sure, on the face of it you might think it’s just those ad boys being lazy (apologies my advertising cousin – I only jest) but it’s actually quite clever. Most brands out there have a number of enthusiasts that would jump at the chance to create something for their favourite brand, this idea taps into that passion.

The idea is now headed to the US with venture capitalists after US$3million to get both investors and advertisers on board. The end product is bound to be top notch as VioCorp are the guys providing the back-end technology, which means the user experience is going to be pain free – thus encouraging more people to take part.

MyTake – SuperSmart! I saw a quote recently from the CEO of P&G and it reads: “The power is with the consumer. Consumers are beginning, in a very real sense, to own our brands and participate in their creation.” I fully agree with that statement and I think that Supervirals is an online manifestation of that belief. I wonder what my first advertising idea will be for, something that I have a lot of Passion for …. James Squire’s, there’s a good one.

Kid clicks

2008-08-26T14:53:00.004+10:00

As a father (and a bit or a worrier at times) of a two year old girl, my concerns for her are that of every other father – health, happiness, education and all the rest of it. But something that I have been thinking and talking about for a while, is how her generation is going to both use and interact with technology.

More often that not, I find myself I conversations with other parents about the importance of keeping up with technology, gaming, the web – you name it. Being a modern parent is tough… Most parents agree that it’s important to stay on top of all the above, but then there are some that don’t and seem to think that it's a ship that’ll pass in the night…cough…

New research from Nielsen Online revealing the top ten the most popular kids sites goes to show that even those of us that think we’re pretty clued-up could learn a thing or two. For example – ever heard of Stardoll.com? Well, it’s a site that was set up by a Finnish woman who wanted to teach kids how to knit dolls clothes, making its money by selling items of virtual clothing for about 50p each. Others in the top ten are more well-known, including ClubPenguin.com, Stardoll.com, Cartoonetwork.co.uk, Lego.com, Nick.com, Bebo.com, bbc.co.uk/schools, RuneScape.com, Frengo.com and FreeOnlineGames.com

MyTake – When I was a kid, my parents couldn’t keep up either. One week it was this type of trainers, this band and this football player…and the next week it’d all change. The worry is that when you add the ever-evolving tastes of kids with the fast-paced nature of the web you’ve got a hell of a job on your hands. Heck, I only just figured out that Diego is Dora’s cousin! Parents are going to have to be more aware of the likes of Nielsen in order to keep up with online tends concerning their kids.

Miss Sister 2008

2008-08-26T11:25:00.002+10:00

Stories about religion and technology don’t come along very often, then right out of the blue, you get two at once. In an attempt to fight the age-old stereotype of the ugly-duckling nun, an Italian priest called Antonio Rungi has announced that he is organising an online beauty pageant for nuns.

Called “Miss Sister 2008”, the contest will be run through Rungi’s blog and will kick-off on 25 September. Would-be contestants need to log-on and fill out a profile form which includes info on them, their life and their work for the church. In addition, they’ll also be required to upload a photo of themselves. A quote used on CNN from the chap organising it reads: "We are not going to parade nuns in bathing suits…but being ugly is not a requirement for becoming a nun. External beauty is gift from God, and we mustn't hide it."

MyTake – Does anybody really know what nuns do anymore? That’s not me saying that nuns don’t do anything, it’s me raising the point that the nuns and Rungi have been thinking about and that probably spawned this idea. He’s going to get his fair share trouble for this, but he’ll also be highlighting to a wider audience the type of work that is being done by nuns around the world. By utilising the wider community on the net, he and the nuns are able to start and sustain a huge number of conversations all across the world – and after all, isn’t this the whole point? The irony is perhaps in his choice of platform, maybe there is a subtler point he’s trying to make…

iWorship

2008-08-26T10:37:00.003+10:00

Recent cut-backs have seen many rural churches close with services cancelled. But in a small Australian town, morning worship has just taken a new twist. Thanks to the use of 3G technology, Glen Waverley Uniting Church is broadcasting its morning worship to a number of smaller rural churches, including one in the small town of Beeac.

Although religion is no stranger to the web and mobile technology, this kind of innovation among rural church communities is pretty rare. At the moment, there is no interaction between the churches due to bandwidth capacity, but they are targeting this as the next hurdle to overcome.

MyTake – I really, really wanted to say that God works in mysterious ways, damn it, I’ve said it! There’s no questioning the passion of these Church-goers, this is clearly a part of their lives that they believe in and are willing to fight for. The question I’d ask – where to next? Facebook, Myspace? Why not, it would be a very cost effective way for them to interact and share content.

Is Obama game?

2008-08-25T12:43:00.002+10:00

The US elections, I just can’t get enough of them. I recently wrote about the Obama camp emailing supporters the name of his running mate as it was announced to the media, and at the weekend I read that supporters were also texted the name, asking them to “spread the word”.

I don’t know what the opposition are doing on the digital space, but it can’t be that much because we don’t hear about it. The Obama camp, on the other hand, is getting its message out there for all the read – see this article on the Washington Post’s website sent to me by my colleague Ed Hoover as an example.

The latest news to come out about an election that is being increasingly fought online, is that activist group “Rock the Vote” has signed a deal with Microsoft to boost interest among young people in the US. Part of this tie-up (and the genius bit) is that they are working with the Xbox Live service to allow its users to take part in a number of polls. Starting on 25 August, Xbox Live users will be able to take part in polls and forums to have their say on their preferred candidates, with feedback and results passed on to the candidates

MyTake – Guess what, young people aren’t watching CNN for the latest campaign announcements. Good news, somebody’s figured that out. Great news, somebody is actually doing something about it! There’s obviously a revenue model in there somewhere – after all, that kind of data is going to be very valuable to both parties. Putting everything else aside, it seems that this election could be about to change the way elections are fought and won – it’s becoming less about spin and more about collaboration, listing and presence. What I mean by presence is actually going to where your audience is – after all, the old fashioned campaign trail is about going to see your audience and telling them your story in person. What's happening online is no different - the Obamas of this world are going online to get a presence in spaces and places where their audiences are. Bloody smart move.

Gold rush

2008-08-25T11:55:00.003+10:00

In entertainment terms, the games industry is still a sprightly youngster, all wide-eyed and full of hope and excitement. But, perhaps a sign if its’ increasing maturity is the fact that almost 500,000 people in developing countries make money by developing “virtual goods” to sell to the more affluent players around the world. According to new research by Manchester University, those developing the “virtual goods” are earning up to $77 per month.

The practice known as gold-farming and is widely condemned by the games industry, but it’s becoming more common as gaming is becoming a more popular pastime. Recent stories about the price of "land" in online virtual worlds like Second Life also seem to back up the theory that online gaming has spawned a number of legitimate and not so legitimate money making schemes.

MyTake – Where there are eyeballs there’s an audience, and where there’s interaction, there’s a market. It’s clear that the games industry is a fertile market for companies of all shapes and sizes – hence Microsoft’s acquisition of Massive. The smaller, less legitimate players involved just goes to demonstrate the importance of the gaming industry and the influence it has on an audience. It’s funny, I was talking to a father of two yesterday about the need to understand technology (and gaming especially) in order to both protect and interact with our children – he completely agreed, even to the point that the modern day parent has to be respected both on and offline.

Frolicking with "frolleagues"

2008-08-19T15:53:00.004+10:00

"Frolleague". Sounds like something out of Lord of the Rings doesn’t it? A “frolleague” is in fact a work colleague that you add as a friend within your social networking activities. The term is becoming so widespread that it’s being considered by the Oxford English Dictionary for inclusion in its next revision.

A recent survey by LinkedIn that canvassed UK users found that around one third of UK users felt they had to add a colleague to their social networking group. Despite this, the number of “frolleagues” being added to members social networking groups is on the increase. Funnily enough, the guys over at LinkedIn think that you should keep your professional and your personal contacts separate to “manage our online reputation as effectively as possible”. I wonder what the guys at Facebook would say...

MyTake – I love the new term, pure tabloid genius and it gives us all something to talk about at the water cooler. I think LinkedIn are wrong if they honestly believe that you should keep your contacts separate. I share contacts across both Facebook and LinkedIn and have many “frolleagues” on both – the whole point of social networking is about sharing, and that includes both our professional and personal thoughts, after all – aren’t all our thoughts personal?

More A-Grade gamers

2008-08-19T13:02:00.002+10:00

I was in a pub at the weekend and they had an old school games machine that had the likes of PacMan and Space Invaders on it. Naturally I went and had a go, as did my mate that I would never have picked as a gamer, let alone someone that’s in to classic games. The embarrassing thing was that he was bloody awesome at it – way better than me – even though (as he confessed) it had been a long time since he played.

He is, of course, yet another victim of the “I’m too old to play video games” culture that has kept many adults away from a whole host of games consoles for decades. Which brings me to the point of this post –another attempt to get people to think about gaming in a different way.

New findings discussed at the Annual Convention of the American Psychological Association in Boston (the home of my favourite beer, Sam Adams) looked at the effect that playing video games has on people. We’ve already heard about the recovery of rehab patients using the Wii, or surgeons improving their hand-eve coordination, but according to psychologist Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University, games are “powerful educational tools and have many effects we might not have expected they could."

MyTake – Surprise, surprise, yet another academic that thinks gaming is a good thing. We have to get over our pre-conceptions about gaming and jump-in. I went to a conference a while back where someone described Facebook as a giant game and I reckon they’re right, the only difference between this and gaming on a console is the negative connotations placed on console gaming by technophobes that refuse to embrace new technology (and probably think that the internet is a bad thing). Jump-in, experience it because in the next two years gaming, social networking, TV, entertainment is all going to be the same thing.

Keen as a Bean

2008-08-18T15:09:00.002+10:00

1905 was the year of the Russian revolution and also saw the premier of the Scarlet Pimpernel at the New Theatre in London. But, more importantly for the purposes of this post, it was the year that Ivy Bean was born.

Now, you’d be forgiven for not knowing who Ivy Bean is, but she may just be the next friend you make as the 102 year old has just joined Facebook, making her the oldest person to join the social network. The social Nanna heard the staff in her care home talking about Facebook and decided to give it ago. Although she’s only got a handful of friends at the moment, I’ll bet she’ll have a lot more after her story has been spreading over the net.

MyTake – I don’t think anyone has an excuse for not getting involved with a social network when the likes of Ivy are taking the plunge. This is lady that was born in an era when the computer wasn’t even a pipe dream and she’s still keen to have a go. As more and more of us jump online and start talking to each other, it can’t be long before the boundaries of gender, race, religion and age become completely irrelevant. Keep on Facebookin’ Ivy!

You've got mail

2008-08-14T14:18:00.002+10:00

For me, Barack Obama represents change on a number of different fronts, but it’s his latest move in the online space that's interesting me. According to an email sent from the senator's campaign manager to Obama’s supporters, the name of the senator’s running mate will be emailed to all those subscribing to the email service, letting them “be the first to know”.

Who knows exactly what “be the first to know” means, but if taken literally, the announcement of one of the biggest pieces of news in one of the most eagerly anticipated elections could be floating round cyberspace before it hits the print or broadcast media – what a thought. This type of thing usually never happens when it comes to such big campaigns, but it demonstrates the forward-thinking nature of the team behind it. They are understanding the power of the medium and using it.

MyTake – I doubt that they will announce such a huge piece of news via email then wait for the rest of the media to find out. I think that they will have a number of well timed embargoes in place for media to run the story as the emails are sent out, if not before. But, what a great move by team Obama. It’s certainly going to get the numbers on that email service up to dizzy heights and create a groundswell of online noise. What was the email address?

Will you....Google me?

2008-08-11T12:46:00.005+10:00

Asking the love of your life to marry you is not an easy task, having done it myself and heard stories from others, a lot of planning and effort goes into a fairly simple question. I must admit, I’ve heard about some highly original ways to ask for your loved one’s hand in marriage, but this beats them all. A US-based software engineer used Google Street view to get his proposal over to his better-half.

Apparently having already attempting it once, this Romeo of software engineering decided to step it up a gear and get creative. So, when his girlfriend (who happens to work at Google) told him that the street view cars would be retaking some pictures near where he worked, he saw his moment and took it – see the picture above, or the original here.

There have been a number of these types of things done during the development of street view, called "Easter Eggs", people find out when and where the cameras are going to be and put on a bit of a show – whether that’s a wedding proposal, a fake fight or something else equally as crazy. Could this be the start of another net-based cultural phenomenon, another meme? Probably.

MyTake – Bravo my man, above and behind, if she hasn’t said yes then she’s crazy! I think that we are going to see more and more “Easter Eggs” as Google street view becomes more widespread – it could even turn into some kind of sport. The other aspect to consider here is the marketing opportunities – we could see a whole host of stunts aimed at promoting a variety of forward thinking brands hat are willing to take a chance.

Six appeal

2008-08-07T11:10:00.002+10:00

Doesn’t this have something to do with Kevin Bacon? Maybe not. A new study by the boys and gals at Microsoft that took at look at over 30 billion instant messages sent in one month during 2006 seems to back up the theory that it takes only six steps to link everyone.

The study found that on average any two people can be linked by seven or less friends. The six theory had been dismissed in recent years as nothing more than an urban myth, but this new research gives it fresh life – could it be so?

MyTake: Ever heard the saying it’s not what you know, it’s who you know? Well, that could be more relevant than you think. The world is increasingly becoming a more connected place with more and more of us jumping online and talking to each other. With such a huge “lab” in which to test the theory, I think the guys at Microsoft might just be on the money with this one.

Back from Europe and brown

2008-08-05T11:55:00.002+10:00

Well, I'm back. Sorry for not posting for ages, but I've been on a month long vacation back to Europe where I managed to pick-up a rather swanky looking tan. But now I'm back and will be back to my usual posting action soon.

Stay tuned

A-Grade gamers

2008-07-02T15:04:00.007+10:00

Nintendo is turning out to be quite the darling of the gaming industry, and to think that only a few years back the majority of the media wee signalling that the end was neigh with poor sales of the GameCube.

But, just like the ugly and unpopular kid at school that turns into the most successful, good looking person from your class – there’s a bit of “In your face!” about what Nintendo has achieved. Granted, they started off battling the likes of SEGA for the gaming crown way back when, but up against the PS1, PS2 and the original Xbox, the brand struggled a bit and lost a fair bit of ground.

But, just as Gloria Gaynor once sang, “and now I’m back”, and they are, in a huge, huge way. The point of this post is not to muse upon the achievements of Nintendo the brand, but to talk about an interesting bit of news about the company’s handheld, the DS. Just as the Wii is making huge inroads away from traditional gaming audiences, so is the DS.

Over the past few weeks I have been reading more and more reports about the DS being used in education. There have been a couple of cases here in Australia where whole classes have been given DS handhelds to help them “warm-up” their brains ahead of the day’s lessons and it’s had some startling results with grades improving across the class. In another report a Junior high school teacher in Japan has used the DS in weekly lessons to teach English.

MyTake – I must have said this a hundred times – gaming is good. The more fun you have, the more you learn and remember. There are also scientific benefits associated with gaming, such as increased hand-eye coordination, faster reactions and so on. Technology is becoming a bigger part of out day-to-day lives and the more we embrace it the better we will become, the more we ignore it the more we are missing out. Ignorance isn’t bliss, it’s boring

Internet sporn

2008-06-26T14:25:00.003+10:00

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

2008-06-26T09:12:00.002+10:00

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!

2008-06-18T17:23:00.003+10:00

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!