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It's the death of the NME classifieds as we know it...

While we're at it, here's some more things to look at over the course of a poorly received monday. I hear the sequel, tuesday, is in planning stages as we speak. Hope they sort out the plot line cos I can't make head or tail of todays storyline.

The Hype Machine

Extra, extra, read all about it...

Quick one this, given the lateness of the hour and the volume of the work, but just want to drop a note to self about the new FT.com online campaign. Nice to see a tightly integrated concept worked out across B2C and B2B. Go to their media site for some nice reasons as to why you should advertise on FT.co. The main consumer facing campaign site is here and is very simple but very effective way to demonstrate what seperates FT from the rabble.

The microsite is equally good, with a simple cityscape used as a means to demonstrate their global news coverage. Live feeds into the site keep it all relevant and dynamic.

Internet made simple - lesson 7 "searching the internet"

Nice squidoo here

Whatever happened to....

...blue pepsi?

Cleaning up the community...

My one, and only, Ajax development was for a B2B client looking to replace their aging and user unfriendly customer systems with something far more easier to install and maintain. Our solution was cheaper, easier to maintain (despite the initial learning curve) and most importantly, offered the chance for a far better user experience. This is key, as it encourages use and therefore cuts down on users having to resort to phone, mail, veiled threats to get a relatively simple task done.

Here's a link to the latest "Click" on the Beeb. It's all about business adoption of Web 2.0 technologies, which to be honest has been very swift. I'll watch it and write some more later.

Can you guess what it is yet?

1Off is a new "guide" site offering both professional and user submitted reviews of the best of the nations urban districts. Want to know where to get the best kebab on a friday night (sw6, New Kings Road in case you were wandering), or who serves the finest Bloody Mary in Norwich (no, I don't know either).

All well and good, but it's also a site dedicated to the fineries of BMW's spanking new 1 Series, which brings me to my main point. I've sat in many a brainstorm where this very thing has been discussed as a means to bring about interaction with consumers outside of the usual banner - microsite - call to action. "We want something Web 2.0" is bandied about, and the natural assumption is to look for user generated content as a means to engagment. But does it work, and is it more effective than sponsorship / community advertising?

Landrover tried the same thing with their "Go Beyond" website, offering a platform for the adventurers amongst us to share our stories of derring do. The problem, however, is that it relies on people to be bothered to engage in these things in the first place, when they may already be talking about them elsewhere, either via their own blog, or on their numerous community pages (myspace / facebook / linked in).

Back to 1off, and it's not bad. These things always rely on critical mass, eg more real people contributing that paid for contributions, and there's certainly many more entries on the site than there was last week. Writers have the opportunity to become "ambassadors", which is a nice idea, but a horrible marketing term let loose in the consumer space. (If I hear one more reference to "brand ambassadors" I think I'll reach for my escape pod pronto).

I'll add to this post later, once I've done a bit more researching into how to successfully tackle integrating community sites into the marketing mix. In the meantime - discuss.

Be polite and play nicely...

I'll write this up properly later, but in short it's a call for a set of guidelines for bloggers to abide by. A response to an ongoing bout of flame wars and online bullying that may be hard to enforce but seems to be sorely needed.

Article here

Together we stand, divided we're nothing...

Not had time to go through this properly yet, but slashdot have highlighted a great article from Datamotion on the top ten open source innovators. If, like me, you have a penchant to drive up and down the M1/M6 every other weekend, you may have heard a brilliant program on Radio 4 as part of their excellent "In Business" series, looking at how open source was opening up new business models, where the application was just the beginning of the customer relationship, and not the be all and end all.

Hot or not...

Hyperhappen have referred to Social Meter in their latest posting. Nice little site that tells you now well your site is performing on a social scale via links. The higher the score, the greater your popularity.

I should know about these things, but to be honest I've got my days full right now. Hamleys on a wet monday, half term holidays, two kids asking if you'll shell out on things they want but don't really need. Brrrr.....

Where would we be without standards?

Quick post this, but important nonetheless. One pager offering a list of standard metrics for online media, so you can not only impress your friends, but also work out if your campaign has any way by which it can be measured like for like. Now, before you all scream out "isnt this obvious?", I should add that I've recently started working for an offline agency. Just the other day someone asked me to decipher a web log and explain the difference between a "visit" and a "unique visit".

Just found an even more comprehensive link here, so now there's no excuses...

The rule of thumb - if your mum don't know, then you should assume most people don't.

Million different channels and there's nothing on...

And here's another...

Gimme shelter....

Heard a great program on the ever venerable Radio 4 the other night that should be required listening for anyone working in marketing. "In Business" makes the fortnightly drive back from the north on a sunday night very bearable. The other week they had a program about the rise of "not for profit" organisations, and how lessons learnt from the business world were being adopted as a means to bring real social change not only overseas but in the poorer, disenfranchised areas of the UK. Download the program from the bbc website here or, better still, subscribe to the podcast and make it a part of your listening pleasure.

On a related matter, take a look at this round up of how .org's are adopting online as a means to enable them to better serve their goals. The number one choice, Kiva.org, uses microfinance as a means to gather donors together to sponsor business development in the developing world. Simple idea, very focussed, and by all means very effective.

See, it's not all about selling people things they don't really need! Back to the pet food then...

I remember when all this was just fields...

Great post and link from both Seth Gecko on a post from Chris Salic about an old back issue of Internet World (i'm tired now) with a round up of the best of the internet from 1994 and predictions for 1995.

The US was always a good five or so years ahead of the game with the internet and looking at the commercial possibilities from the get go. Free local calls made dial up access available to everyone, with most people paying a flat subscription fee every month for unlimited access, developing the channel to something akin to radio or tv. The success of early startups such as Craig's Lists also found a way to utilise the channel in a meaningful way to everyone (house hunting, dating, online gaming, news / content aggregation and spam / scams).

One prediction that jumped out at me was this one "There will be a concerted effort by the U.S. Congress to regulate content on the Internet." This never really transpired, but it pertinent now given recent rumblings from US government that they may impose tax legislation onto virtual currency, doing away with the "commerce without borders" ethos of the web as we've come to love and know it.

The last supper (spam again...)

Christmas binge over, I wasnt that surprised to see that Little Chef is about to go the way of the sit down Wimpy and close its doors. The word is that its lack of evolvement in its offering has made it increasingly irrelevant given todays perceived desire for healthier lifestyles. Which is strange given latest projections for overweight / obesity published by the HSE, indicating that there's nothing more we'd like than to tuck into a plate of over priced, fatty food with a sprig of limp lettuce to make you feel better about what you're about to do to yourself.

Some brands don't need to evolve. Coke (and Pepsi) famously tried to tamper with their winning formula, and look where that got them (Malcolm Gladwell has a nice piece about this very thing in his "Blink" tome which is worth looking at for those with a penchant for product testing getting off to the wrong start). Other brands, however, become topics of public and political debate, fast food in particular, and see themselves having to evolve their product line to accomodate notions of what's right or wrong for us (there's always the off button, but people seem to forget this all to easily).

Can't concentrate too hard today, as the kids have just declared war on each other (again) and the seemingly innocuous task of designing a film poster has spiralled into a hate campaign though the language of scrawls.

Well done to everyone...

Quick on this, given I'm preoccupied with a post about Xmas that needs thinking out before I write it down, but noteworthy all the same. Two news stories jumped out at me today that affirmed my previous post about the pervasiveness and mass acceptance of You Tube and the like as a means of expression and communication.

First up - Social networks top Google search
Nice piece of reporting from the BBC looking at the popularity of community sites across the web, and their predominance of the annual round up of Google's searches of 2006. Compare this with their 2005 Google Zeitgest (how do you pronounce that? stevie t, any ideas?) and you can see the dramatic shift away from P2P, online music and World of Warcraft towards a who's who of "social computing" including wikipedia, bebo, video and MySpace.

Second up - We've all won the Time "Person of the year 2006"!
I knew I was under consideration, but I never expected us all to win. Anyways, hop along to the Time website here to get the full rundown, and at the same time go out, buy the magazine, and frame it (or send copies to relatives, although no doubt they'll be doing the same). Still, their point is noteworthy as it signifies the importance of user contributed content to the media mix. The role of user footage in breaking news stories is now absolutely crucial to news networks in getting under the skin of events as they happen, and the emergence of personal video blogs (search for serving US troops in Iraq) can offer far more insight than a 15 second bulletin on the nightly news.

Squeeze my nunchucks till the juice runs down my leg...

So, that stuff about Steven Seagal? Turns out the pony tailed avenger has a side line as a blues man with his band Thunderbox! He's touring his new album "Mojo Priest" and hits the UK in the new year, including a stint at the hallowed Fairfield Hall in Croydon (straight after a long run of the "Nutcracker Suite" - how appropriate!)
Many dates, many opportunities to right wrongs, beat up local drug dealers and teach the good fight through the power of twelve bars and E7, A7, D7 chord progressions. Croydon council are scrapping their ASBO program for 10 days either side of the 21st Jan as the local hooligans run for the cover of Purley Way and it's warren of super stores, sofa shops and DIY leather centres.

Right, the campaign to rebrand Channel Five as "the home of Steven Seagal" starts here.

Presentation done proper

I'm rubbish at reading instructions, hence my difficulties in understanding what "Squidoo" and "Lenses" are all about. Duh. This blog started out as a "lens", until I realised that what I wanted wasnt a simple list of useful things, but rather a running commentary about things I come across that could prove useful in the future. Well, this one is a cracker - "Best presentations ever".

If, like me, part of your job is to "sell in" other peoples brilliant work (and sometimes my own) then you soon understand how mediocre presentations can not only kill a great piece of thinking, but can damage your client relationships. Part of the battle is to show passion, interest and knowledge in your client, what they're trying to achieve, and how you think your agency's inisight can meet these challenges. The other part is "getting the puppets out" and giving them a good show to boot. You've asked you're client over, so you should at the very least show them a good time.

There are some great examples of well thought out and appropriate presentations in this list, from Martin Luther Kings stirring call to understanding and common unity, Malcom Gladwells "no slides" Blink presentation through to Steve Jobs introducing the world to a new computer called the Apple Mac (whatver happened to that?). I'm no fan of Ken Livingstone, but he once silenced a room of enraged critics by explaining the problems of local government with the politics of whose job it is to change the light bulbs in the street lamps outside your house.

I'm rambling now. Bit hungover having been at a wonderful party last night that included one dead goldfish (blender error), a resignation, an arrest, loud singing, dwarf porn and a very giggly conversation about what the hell Steve Seagal is doing in Croydon these days (something to do with pregnant 16 year olds, according to one of my companions).

Ooh look, it's nearly lunchtime!

How green is your avatar?

These puns are getting out of control. Regardless, today was a funny old day, beginning with a bit of an outburst and ending in a fit of giggles (accompanied by bad French impressions using poor but appropriate french). The turning point of the day (where things that seemed bad become things that were just there) was this article, looking at the ecological impact of Second Life, and whether virtual people burn up more electricity (and release more CO2 gas into the atmosphere) than real people. At first I wandered how much time these people have on their hands to be coming up with this stuff. By the end of it I wandered if "grndhse07" really needed to be around considering the damage he/she/it was doing to the real world.

Still, it's those damn cows that are the real culprits. Bovine boom boxes, each and everyone of them!

Look in the box

I've been catching up on the latest series of The Apprentice USA (god bless TV Drive). It's a great series, defying all the traditional perceptions you could have of reality tv and their usefulness to the viewing public other than as an arena of mawkish ridicule. What's interesting for me about this show is that many of the tasks involve some kind of marketing project, under much stricter timings than even we usually work under.

The task this week was to create a DIY clinic for Home Depot, the largest home improvement chain in the USA. If you havent seen them before, its where somebody demos a product and tries to engage customers to spend more money on something they didn't know they needed until they tipped up at the store. One team (Net Worth) decided to have a show and tell on how easy it was to construct a mobile kitchen island (i never knew what they were until I saw it, but they're a bit like this). It looked kind of ok (if you like that sort of thing), but despite the fact that the team weren't really into the task, the concept itself was complicated to understand, took forever to demonstrate, and didn't invite or allow for any kind of audience participation. Whatever, the team went along with it and eventually lost the task.

The other team (Magna Corp), was led by Craig, a quiet guy and very different to the rest of the candidates in that his day job was as a part time fireman, as opposed to a corporate lawyer or real estate developer. His suggestion was that they show people how to build a box that could be used to store toys. The team were very unimpressed, saying the idea lacked creativity and saw no opportunity to deliver something that would have the punters in awe at their marketing acumen. Whatever, the team went along with and eventually won the task. Here's why...

• Building a box is something we can all do with a bit of guidance. The demonstration was actually more of a workshop, and people readily joined in once they got over their initial fear of constructing something from a few slabs of wood and some screws and hinges.

• The box is just a box until you get it back to your house and personalise it. Then it becomes a piece of furniture and part of your home. Much of the audience had children with them and they were shown that with some paint and a bit of imagination the boxes could be customised until their hearts content. The kids duly joined in and much painting, hand printing and stencilling commenced, to the delight of the parents who started thinking really hard about how much they could do with something like this in their home.

• Finally, they called the boring old "box" and much more fancy "trunk", giving an otherwise fairly utilitarian piece of wood some warmth and personality.

The team leader was duly recognised as a bit of a visionary, but the criticism of him was fair. He wasn't able to communicate to the rest of the team that a simple box can be a great way to get customers to engage with the team and in turn Home Depot's brand.

Thanks a lot...

Found this on YouTube, a nice film where a guy went around and asked people what they were thankful for. The reason for sticking it down here isn't so much because of the video itself, but for the fact that people seemed willing to engage in its making when asked to respond to the question "What are you thankful for?". A sign, maybe, that YouTube has entered into the modern consciousness not just as something they read about, but something they actively engage in as a participant to the film making process.

Need a lie down now.