Culture
The Mind of Herbert Clunkerdunk
Watch now. Absolute genius new-ish comedy on the BBC. Has the whiff of a cult classic. It’s like The Young Ones crossed with the Mighty Boosh made by people who loved Vine. It feels like what the world needs right now.
Long Read – The New Propaganda
Long and very bleak but very important piece from The Guardian: Information Trap. My jaw was dropped for most of it. This blew my mind. In the case of the vote to leave the EU, Borwick, who seems to approach such challenges like a Rubik’s…
Road
Brick Lane, London E1. Love the Birmingham phone number. No idea why.
Breakfast Beer and Bingo
I’ve known the wonderful Mr Bingo for many many years. In fact, this morning, he announced that the freelancing he did for Poke was his first proper creative gig (after working at Size?). Anyway, I bumped into him on Friday – he was…
Slack: Work This Way
Great piece in The Guardian this morning by @jemimakiss. It’s all about Slack and the culture behind the company. Reading through the piece it struck me how similar the cultures of Advertising Agencies and Tech Start-Ups are. And how…
Working differently at W+K London
We’ve just started something that I’m rather proud of (note: this is specifically a thing we’re trialling in the London office of Wieden+Kennedy). A couple of weeks ago we announced a bunch of changes to the way we work, some of the most…
808 The Movie
This looks totally epic! (In a muso-nerd fashion). The joy of seeing a ‘mature’ Soulsonic Force knocking out Planet Rock brought a massive smile to my face. Not sure when we’ll get to see it. 808 played at Sheffield Doc Fest earlier this…
Advertising Has Grown a Penis on its Face
I did a talk the other day at Here London. I had a truly lovely time. The other speakers were all – without exception – amazing, talented, interesting and passionate. I felt spectacularly un-worthy. I whanged-on about what I reckon might…
Einstein on Life
There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle. ~ Albert Einstein I’m not normally a quote person, I can never remember the buggers. But got sent this in an…
David Chang on Creative Direction
Well not exactly. But there’s many parallels in his talk about achieving deliciousness in the kitchen. All you have to do is replace the odd word here and there, and he could be talking about what it’s like to work in a decent agency: what…
Asylum center phonecard party
This is what it sounds like when you help a group of Asylum Seekers DJ with the tracks from their phones. This Phonecard Party initiated by Recyclart in Brussels is wonderful. And the writeup here gives lots more detail: Asylum center…
Teach Your Kids to Crush Pregnant Animals
I saw this ad on telly today and was totally blown away. My first reaction was “wooooah, that looks awesome” (in the voice of my inner 6 year old). Then my inner Daily Mail reader kicked in and was all like “oh my god, teaching kids to…
10 minutes with John Maeda
John Maeda is the Fortune Cookie it says. I had no desire to snap him in half and extract his wisdom on a piece of roughly typed paper. But I did figure it’d be a chance to meet an interesting guy and ask him a question in a strange…
The UNICEF Tap Project
I’d never seen the full case study of this amazing campaign before. It’s just great. Probably old news to many of you. But still brilliant.
The Single Most Brilliant Single Web Page in Recent Memory
Artist David Horvitz has a load of really great things on site site. Really do go and have a poke about it’s great. The best bit is a page of things called FOR YOU… It’s a list by the artist of “THINGS FOR SALE THAT I WILL MAIL YOU” For…
Boo hoo. I missed Rider Spoke.
I’m a little gutted. I just got the programme for the Brighton Festival and got all excited when I saw that Blast Theory’s location based cycling thingy Rider Spoke is coming to Brighton for a weekend! Woo hoo! Then I called up to try and…
A Dream Come True (and it’s Only Monday)
I’ve always wanted to see a safe fall out of a window (like in the cartoons). This morning as I was walking down Commercial Street I saw a safe lying on the pavement! I don’t think it can have fallen out of a window. And the pallet sitting…
The Rise of The Ad Man 2.0
[I’ve written this post once already. I got to the end of it just as someone phoned me up. I picked up the phone. Fumbled it. And dropped it on my laptop which duly crashed in a spectacular fashion. The second revision is slightly shorter…
Techno Viking in Oil – Painting Internet Memes
This guy paints scenes from Internet memes. He used to paint scenes from video games. But he’s moved on. You can buy them at Etsy. Unfortunately Techno Viking has sold out, or else it would be mine right now. Thanks Jonathan for the
If I Was 17 Again
Pissing Contests
I seem to be witnessing more and more intellectual pissing competitions these days. And it’s not just in planner-land, although that’s where I’ve witnessed some of the ‘best’ ones. I’ve seen a few good technical ones, and even designers…
Employment Exchanges
I was watching Control the other night (which I thoroughly enjoyed) and Ian Curtis works in the Employment Exchange. I don’t know why, but I really liked the term Employment Exchange. It just sounds so much more two-sided than ‘Job…
The Art of Sneaker Cleaning and Sneaker Cleaning Products
I’ve veered into silliness with trainers a few times, going out of my way to find them, spending too much money on them and hoarding them badly. I’ve always known that I wasn’t a real sneakerhead though. And I had that confirmed to me when…
What is a Charticle?
I was reading a piece in the New York Times about goings-on at Gawker when I came across this quote from Choire Sicha (the outgoing managing editor as far as I can tell): “I don’t want to write a top 10 list in my life, ever. I don’t want…
Powerpoint Karaoke
All this Pecha Kucha stuff is starting to get a bit dreary. The idea of PowerPoint Karaoke seems a lot more random and challenging. Basic idea is: people stick real presentations ‘in a hat’, then presenters get allocated a random…
Loving Love
I popped in to see the chaps at Love in Manchester today. I don’t normally just turn up in strange towns and nip round to see people, but I got nice email from them yesterday as I was on the train (completely out of the blue), so it felt…
The Omelette Bomb
My trip to Manchester was made awesome by witnessing ‘The Omelette Bomb’ – a piece of extreme Teppanyaki showboating the likes of which I’ve never seen before… Thank goodness I had my camera with me
A Postcard From Manchester
I’m in Manchester doing some work. It’s good for me to get back to ‘the north’ from time to time. Last time I was actually in Manchester everyone had really baggy jeans (like 28-inch bottoms), Madchester t-shirts and curtain haircuts. I…
Hot “New” Dance Step
Forget jumpstyle. This is the hot new dance step (well it was hot and new in 1930)… Check the user ‘GoodOldDays‘ for loads of great vintage videos. There’s some amazing stuff in there.
Understanding Art for Geeks
Very funny Flickr set by Paulthewineguy. Number 43 had me ROFLMAO. Thanks metafilter.…
Dancing man wearing a horse mask cooks wild mushrooms
Last night I was moaning about having one of those days. This morning I’ve seen a dancing man wearing a horse mask cook wild mushrooms. Everything suddenly seems different.
McDonalds’ Freakout
I’ve got no clue what’s going on… Comment is all pure guesswork. If you can clarify please do… Is this an ad from Japan? Is this a really mentalist remix of an ad from Japan (it really gets going about 2/3 the way in)? This really does…
One Of Those Days…
I’m sure everyone has those days. But I proper feel like I’ve just had one. I’m not sure why I feel that way. I just do. I’ve had a couple of good meetings. In fact a couple of really good meetings. And some pretty good news too. I’ve just…
Tutortainment or Entertorials
Connected to the entertaining demos post the other day. I love the way that these Photoshop Tutorials manage to tell a story of marital breakdown and infidelity through a bunch of nerdy design-tip-screencasts. I was laughing out loud at…
What The World Needs Now
Is thing-a-day 2! Get over the winter blues and commit to creating something every day in February. I’m going to do it. It’s just what I need to force me into some mindless creativity for a month. Inspired by a an idea by Ze Frank, so how…
Facebook and ‘The Man’
This article from the Guardian seemed to be the most visible thing on the Internet round these parts yesterday: With friends like these… by Tom Hodgkinson Facebook has 59 million users – and 2 million new ones join each week. But you won’t…
A Chuckle and Some Music for Friday
Chuckle: From the excellent: http://xkcd.com And if you want some music for the weekend, this 3.5 hour mix from Pixel in Amsterdam by James Holden is quite superb. For me he’s quite the musical hero at the moment.…
Youth Trend Watch: Hardstyle, Hardjump & Jumpstyle
This started out being a silly moment in techno post. But it’s grown into something far more important. Something that trend watchers and marketeers around the world have to pay heed to. It started with this clip from Malaysia: A few…
The Simpsons on ‘The End of Print’
The Simpsons destroy traditional media as only the Simpsons could. Thx to Amanda at PSFK for the link.
Write Like a Email Scammer Day – 06.02.08
Following on from last year’s ‘Speak Like a Pirate Day’. I’m proposing that the world embark upon a ‘Write Like an Email Scammer Day’. I was motivated to propose this course of action resulting from a recently inbounded email communication…
The Rise of the Idiots
Dan Ashcroft on Idiots (from the post-retro-ironic-futuristic Nathan Barley). “They use the word cool, it is their favourite word… Thinking is rubbish and rubbish isn’t cool… Stuff and shit is cool…” See the rest here. Still painfully…
Stockhausen’s Helicopters
One of the things I’m trying to do differently this year (not a resolution as such) is to avoid reading the trashy free papers that come as part of the commuting package. I’m pretty sure their particular brand of reporting-lite has…
Great Interview
I just read an interview with Kurt Vonnegut. He was such a dude. And so very very smart. There’s a short ‘edited highlights’ version on Tim Ferriss’ blog (he’s the author of The 4-Hour Work Week), where I came across it. If you want the…
Facebook Group – How Much Would You Cost?
I’m trying to figure out the value of a whole person (on Facebook). It seems that everyone’s talking about how we’re all being sold off bit by bit. So why not all flog ourselves whole to the highest bidder. Come along join in. Sell…
Making Good Shit Stick Is Tough
Don’t get me wrong. I love the meritocratic world of the web. Good stuff floats, average stuff gets suspended in the sea of mediocrity and bad stuff sinks without trace. And that’s the way it ought to be. It used to be really easy. Back in…
Does Starbucks Community = Actual Community?
I’ve got a theory. Actually calling it a theory is over playing it. It’s more like a suspicion, or maybe an inkling. Whichever of the two fits best. I’ve been into a few different branches of Starbucks recently and noticed that they’ve all…
Why I Love Abel and Cole
We’ve been getting organic boxes from Abel and Cole. Apparently it’s the done thing when you’re greenish and in your mid-30s. But in the couple of months we’ve been using them we’ve not ever really managed to finish a box. So we end up…
WTF WWF – Massive Paper Plane and Boat Project
Here’s the short version of the story: With the WWF we’re building a massive paper plane and massive paper boat. We’re then going to fly / sail them (somehow) to the Houses of Parliament. If you sign up to the online petition your name…
Saving the World One Design at a Time
Ben’s blog is always great. But here’s a bit of greatness that you should make a special effort to read: I’m a designer, use me better – it’s Ben’s presentation from the Applied Green conference. It’s just dead good. It shows that…
Lolcatz vs Post Secret
A mashup so good I almost burped pure joy. For lots more visit: http://lolsecretz.blogspot.com/ Of course for it to make any sense at all you need to know about Post Secret and Lolcatz…
BBC Four on Comics
I’ve been watching BBC Four’s Comics Britannia season and enjoying it very much. I just caught the end of a show narrated by Ewan McGregor about The Broons, you’re unlikely to have heard of them (or Oor Wullie for that matter) if you’re…
Silly Moments in Techno
Techno clubs aren’t normally renowned for their sense of humour. But here’s a couple of moments where things go a little funny. A rather odd reaction to a rather odd track called Heater by Samin at the Outhouse Festival. And this from the…
Police Bluecasting
I got bluetoothed yesterday at Euston Station. It was O2 sending me a TV ad to watch on my phone. A boring and mildly depressing use of technology. But it reminded me of this, much more ‘interesting’, use of bluetooth that I’d read about…
Researchers Hip 2 Da Kidz
This from today’s ‘The London Paper’: Yup that’s about the size of it… And entries to the Tiddlywinks championships have been down this year, researchers blame YouTube.…
Super Supermarkets
Normally I’m a bit hurried or hassled going around the supermarket, but on Saturday I decided to have a bit of a wander and look around the shelves to see what caught my eye. I even bought some of the things I thought were interesting…
I Love Unlikely Internet Heroes
I always feel a bit lame blogging stuff that’s been on BoingBoing, but I couldn’t resist Ronald Jenkees. Read their post for more details.
I’ve seen the future of Marketing 2.0 and it’s rubbish (but don’t worry, it’s in Beta)
[Please note: none of the brands mentioned here have ever done anything like this (as far as I know), it’s a purely fictional story of an imagined future from my slightly fuddled brain] Imagine if last night everyone who worked in the…
A Whole New Mind – Brilliant Book
I read a book yesterday in one sitting. Well a couple of sittings if you include changes in mode of transport from bus to train. It’s very rare that I do that. It’s also very rare that I find a ‘business’ book that grips me like this one…
Making Do
The most excellent Giles who is the creator of the most excellent Edward Monkton posted a link in the comments section of the Bonfire of the Brands post. But it’s such an excellent link that I thought I had to float it to the top. Robert…
Hugh MacLeod’s On Fire
Well not literally, although he could be. Although if he was he’d probably have Twittered about it. Visit http://www.gapingvoid.com/ for his latest bout of back-of-business-card cartoonism. One that made me do a super-chuckle:…
Bonfire of the Brands – Book Soon
I was chatting to someone the other day about whatever had happened to Neil Boorman’s book – Bonfire of the Brands. As I understand it, it’s the process and results of his self-inflicted experiment to give up all branded stuff…
Overheard – Quote of the Day
I share a table with 2 techy types – I’m not going to name names ;-) This morning overheard a great little snippet from a conversation about how it’s difficult to get back into ‘code’ after a long weekend. Yeah, the human brain wasn’t…
Brighton Prejudice
From tonight’s Eastenders on BBC1: “You’ve got great taste, You’re cute, You live in Brighton, I’m sorry, you’ve got to be homosexual” Hang on a mo… That’s a bit of a leap isn’t it… ;-)
Are You A Synthesizer?
Yet another great post from the Logic + Emotion blog. I’ve been meaning to post this for a couple of weeks. But been struggling to find anything to say anything about it. I think that’s because it’s such a good post. It’s all about the…
Zombie Walk
I’m not normally a big fan of flashmob type things, I find the whole pointlessness kind of depressing. But this sounds like a bit more fun. It’s got entertainment at the end of it, and I’m sure you’d get to meet some interesting Zombie…
Dress Codes Gone Mad
I love the phrase ‘Dress to Impress’ it makes me immediately understand that this is not a club for me. But the addition of no ‘branded shirts’ is great. I’m sure that Naomi Klein would be overjoyed that her whole No Logo philosophy has…
PSFK Conference in LA
If you’re lucky enough to be in or around LA on the 18th September you could do a lot worse than head to the PSFK conference. It looks like a great line up with lots of good stuff on… http://www.psfk.com/psfk-conference-los-angeles
The Image of Joy Division
Lots of stories around this weekend about the sad death of Tony Wilson. It also span off lots of stories about bands that he’d been involved with and that time in Manchester. This story in the Observer caught my interest: Closer to the…
Brighton Pride
I went to Pride in Brighton on Saturday. And it was great. The weather was good and gays and straights were out in huge numbers having fun. Struck me how nice it was to have an event that was founded in people just wanting to celebrate…
Shift Happens – Watch This Video
The second thought provoking animation of the week… Watch it. It’s good. Makes me realise that understanding and appreciating bits and bytes is really important. And maybe one day I’ll be able to apply it to something that makes a…
Great Climate Change Video
Forget about An Inconvenient Truth, it’s all long and boring and stuff. Watch this instead… To my mind this deserves to have a lot more views than it’s had – so I’m going to make it my mission to get more people to see it. Please blog it…
Prison Dancing
The clip of prisoners doing the Thriller dance has been featured all over the place, in case you missed it, here it is: But I looked about and found these two which are less impressive from a choreography point of view. But somehow I found…
No Cameras!
On the bus this morning I spotted this guy taking photos of some police people pulling over a motorbike. After what looked like a brief ‘You can’t take photos here’ telling off, the policewoman started to check what the guy had been taking…
What I learned from ‘We Love Technology’
&tI promised to write some more about We Love Technology 2007, but I’m not going to write that much about the content of the talks. There are much better bloggers out there doing that kind…
Mutton Dressed as Lamb
You can change the typeface and give it some trendy force justified alignment. But it’s still the same rubbish tacky tshirt as before…
Sometimes Titles Just Spoil Things
I didn’t really know how to title this post, if I’d given it an obvious title it’ll spoil the film… If you like what the film is suggesting have a look at this, it’s something that we can do in the UK.
Smiley Semantics
I posted this a couple of weeks ago and commented on how I found it a big unsettling. Then this morning I think I twigged as to one of the reasons why I found it so odd. It’s this sign that I walk past every morning on the way to work…
Likemind in Brighton
Curtis and I are hosting a LikeMind coffee morning in Brighton on the 20th July. Come along, get free coffee, meet some people, chat some stuff. If you’re not from Brighton but know someone who lives there let them know. Kicks off at 8.00…
No Smoking!
The UK is awash with No Smoking signs. If I was a conspiracy theorist I’d suspect that some government cronies had got the contract for the signage, they must be raking it in ;-) The only good one I’ve seen so far is this one outside a…
Twitter Serendipity
I was looking at Dan’s Twitter feed earlier and I saw that he’d noted (whilst at Glastonbury) that the Klaxons sounded like, as I think he put it: “a bag of cats”. I went back to try and find the tweet as I agreed with it so wholeheartedly…
Bike Rescue – Business Genius
In stark contrast to the Rail Network’s shunning of cyclists. London based Climatecars do something really great that recognises that cyclists sometimes need help getting places. Maybe you’ve got a puncture, or maybe it’s just raining…
Adam Crowe – How Ants Do It
I love this. Adam, thank you for such a concise and brilliant analysis of FaceBook: Adam Crowe » Blog Archive » How Ants Do It [By the way I am on Facebook now. But I don’t like it. I find it all a bit yucky. I’ll post my thoughts on why…
Awesome Blog
It’s not that often that I just link to a blog and say that it’s just really great. But that’s exactly what I’m about to do. http://www.ohmythatsawesome.com/ It’s just a blog where the bloggers write about really cool consumer products…
Big Second Life In My First Life
Last night I went for a quick drink in the T-Bar near work. When I got there I noticed that someone was ‘doing’ Second Life massive on the wall. It was quite odd being the same size as the animated characters who were all doing some messed…
I Consume Therefore I Care
Those ‘I am not a plastic bag’ bags really make me sad. When they launched in the UK and created a consumer frenzy I was a bit upset. Now I read about their launch in the US I’m getting even more upset. I think it’s such a shame that the…
Sad but Inevitable
I saw this on Hoxton Square yesterday: It’s a sort of postbox ‘art project’ where people can put in messages (or whatever) that other people can take out. I’ve zoomed in on their manifesto: Quite sweet really. You could imagine it working…
My SpecialBike
I picked up my custom recycled bike from the guys at Specialbike last night. Unfortunately the gods decided to unleash one of the biggest thunderstorms in the universe immediately after picking it up so we got soaked. But I still love it!…
Interesting 2007 – My Thoughts
My review: Interesting2007 = FunTed 350 smart blogger types in a room watching some of the best (and most random) presentations I’ve ever seen. Whatever I say or show, someone else is going to do it better. Best places to look for more…
Trains and Bikes
Inside the brain of a rail company… Right, there’s this massive cycle ride from London to Brighton, we’ve known about it for ages, it happens every year. What should we do about it? Hmmm… Loads of cyclists are going to ride a long way from…
The 2012 Mashup Olympics
Thanks Cookie. Update: Weds 13th – the video is ‘unavailable’. “This video is no longer available due to a copyright claim by London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games Limited”. They aren’t liking mashups then
Back From Holiday!
Had a lovely holiday. Nice quiet island in Greece. Sleeping lots. Just taking it very easy. Lovely. Photo below is from a lovely little restaurant in a nearby village. The slightly bonkers chef was parading round this creation proclaiming…
My Favourite Company
Specialbike is a company in Brighton that takes old bikes and turns them into new bikes. Kind of like ‘Pimp My Cycle’ (the bike above used to be a knackered old Peugeot racer). You can tell them exactly what you want your dream bike to be…
Waitrose Cycle Trailers
When I saw this poster I thought. Wow that’s cool, Waitrose are doing something good. But then my inner cynic kicked in. I started thinking: “I’m sure not many people ever take them up on the offer”. “I bet they’ve only got one”. “I bet…
Rail Replacement Replacement
I stayed in London with friends on Friday night and tried to get the train back home to Brighton on Saturday. I knew there were ‘engineering works’ which meant that I’d have to brave the ‘rail replacement services’ (a euphemism for a…
User Generated Signage
I deliberated about posting this because of the very bad language in one of the photos. So if you’re easily offended stop reading and leave the page now… Then I reconsidered when I realised that there’s actually an interesting point in…
The Daddy of All Secret Clubs…
Following the post about secret clubs, posters like this have just started going up for Secret Sundaze (one of the original new wave of oudoor / warehouse parties). It doesn’t get much more secret than that. If you’re smart you might be…
Now That’s Segmentation…
Absolutely stunning. This leaked segmentation doc (allegedly from Phones4U) is one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while. Certainly the funniest marketing segmentation anyway. Includes such highlights as: Flashing Blades: blokes…
Online Drama – Prom Queen
I didn’t really know where to start with this one. Prom Queen is a new 80 episode Internet-only drama. Here’s the facts: Each episode is just over 2 minutes long and features pre and post-roll ads – a couple of seconds pre and about 10…
Bill Banned This Photo
Doesn’t that look like the most amazing sandwich you ever saw? Take it from me, it’s an amazing sandwich from an amazing shop. Bill’s in Brighton (there’s a branch in Lewes too but I’ve never been to that one. If you’re ever in the area…
Babycham Trainers – A Brand Extension Too Far?
That’ll be a yes then
Everybody Loves a Secret
Secrets are cool. Every single party in London now seems to be held in a secret venue (even though you can buy tickets at Ticketmaster).
Haters Extreme
One of the best and most inspirational bloggers around, Kathy Sierra, has been rightly scared and upset by a bunch of vile stuff that’s been written about her online. She has an amazing blog and a network of incredibly strong supporters…
I Like MOMA
This is the second time I’ve said I don’t want to blog about what I had for breakfast. But in a roundabout way I’m doing it again… This morning I stopped at a little stand called MOMA at London Bridge (I have to admit the first time I saw…
YouTube is An Insult
It struck me the other day that “You Tube” is actually a Scottish insult. If you don’t believe me here’s an article from 2003 that lists ‘tube’ as an offical insult: Scotland on Sunday – Put this in your Paisley briefcase, ya wido
ZeFrank on Waves
I liked this. I’ve been thinking about the notion of ‘surfing’ a bit recently, and this just felt good
This Makes Me So Happy
Over at Pink Air Jeffre talks about the ‘kick off’ meeting. The dreaded meeting after the business has been won. The thrill of the chase has gone. The hunt is over. And the carcuss is rotting before your eyes… In his account of the first…
Joost on the Mac
Joost for the Mac got properly launched on Saturday (well into public beta anyway), so like a good little nerd I rushed off and downloaded it straightaway. First impressions… Very slick piece of software Very intuitive Video quality is…
Commuting Made Me Do It…
My name is Iain. I’ve only done Sudoku once. But I think I sort of enjoyed it… Commuting has something to be said for it. You get a block of time that you can use to do stuff. I think I could learn something from giving myself blocks of…
I Got My First Haters…
I knew it would happen someday. It was only a matter of time. But I’ve got my first haters! Sam and Highly Miffed are upset about the post and subsequent comments around on the Youth Marketing conference that I didn’t like. See their…
Can you get more funner than the funnest?
I was bitching to Asi about how I think ‘fun’ is a rubbish word and massively overused in terms of describing interactive stuff: A ‘fun’ way to do your tax return, a ‘fun’ quiz for pet-owners, a ‘fun’ way of exploring genocide. It’s just…
Google Australia Puts People on the Map, Nice.
Damn Google being able to use their own technology to be able to do something really really cool. Google Australia is celebrating Australia Day 2007 by photographing Sydney Harbour from the air, and we want to make sure as many of us as…
Better than Tufte
Everyone always bangs on about Tufte and his books about displaying information. And yes, they’re very nice books. But I’ve got a new heroine: Jessica Hagy and her Indexed blog. Never have so few well-chosen lines on so few index cards…
WikiHow Wow
Do you want to see the real face of user generated content? Or at least what happens when you open a geeky Wiki to the world. Well, you end up with… How to Make a Starship Enterprise Out of a Floppy Disk How to Make SIM Card Earrings How…
Blog Recruitment Rules, OK…
Buzz and me with our new ‘mystery’ creative director A follow up to the Poke Seeking Creative Director post… In short, rather than doing normal job advertising, or going through recruitment consultants, I wrote a ‘job ad’, then Nik and I…
Media Organisations of the Future
Faris has a good write up of a presentation by Simon Waldman of the Guardian: What is a media company? I saw the same presentation (or a version of it) at a Microsoft day late last year. And I have to say I thought he put forward a really…
Layers of History
On the way to work I noticed these vintage (1997) Orbital posters advertising the track they did for the move The Saint. I quite liked the fact that it had been buried behind something that had just been demolished. It’s like excavating…
Second Life Sex
An interesting perspective on sex in Second Life: The ins and outs of a Second sex Life | The Register Written from the perspective of someone who seems to understand and enjoy ‘cybersex‘, this article explains the limitations and problems…
Naming Babies the 21st Century Way
On my way to work this morning I was pondering the notion of Googlability. I’m quite lucky that both of my names are spelled in odd ways, it means that there aren’t that many Iain Tait‘s out there. Apart from Dr Iain Tait at the University…
Campaign Against Real Life
Funny and nicely produced spoof of the Dove Evolution thing. Can be found at Campaignagainstreallife.com. (Note: I was being a fool last night and accidentally posted this as ‘campaign for real life’ – thanks to Richard for the correction…
More MySpace Scrawlings
I don’t know what it is about Shoreditch. But there seems to be someone who loves writing things on walls about social networking
My Top Stuff of 2006
I’ve been thinking about doing a post on stuff I’ve liked in 2006, if you’ve got a blog it seems like you have to. But I didn’t know what to put in it or how to organise it. But I got re-inspired by The Design Conspiracy annual (a thing of…
Age Coins
I was in Holland on Monday and I had a very nice time. One of the odd little things that caught my eye were Age Coins. I’ve never seen these before and thought they were a lovely, simple solution to a problem. Vending machines are a really…
Powder Your Nose in Style
I like this. A luxury private washroom on Oxford Street. Brilliantly named WC1 (well I liked it anyway!). A glamorous urban sanctuary, WC1 is the world’s first one-million-pound powder room. It has been designed with impeccable hygiene and…
Tie Die Tee
Friend and sometime collaborator Mr Bingo sent me news of his latest t-shirts. I particularly liked this one: I think it’s because I spent 2 hours with a bunch of ‘suits’ yesterday. And it really made me feel very grateful that I don’t…
Strings of Life
A few reasons to post this clip: It’s one of the greatest techno records of all time. It shows the value of experimentation, and how a ‘mistake’ can create something incredible. When he talks about the making of the track you realise that…
One Laptop Per Child
I’ve not paid much attention to the development of the One Laptop Per Child project recently. But looking at it again, it’s truly one of the most inspiring projects around right now. Their aims are really interesting: The MIT Media Lab has…
I Love Second Life
Someone mentioned to me that they were surprised by how much I hate Second Life, so I probably need to put the record straight. I don’t hate Second Life. In fact I love Second Life – above you can see my alter ego Taito Dahlstrom wearing…
When Things are Broken it’s Bad
I was sitting upstairs on a bus last week and the CCTV screen was broken. A blue screen with ‘no signal’ on it. As well as a couple of tags and a sticker with another tag on it. It made me feel really unsafe. More unsafe than if the…
Tea for 2.0
Teabuddy.com (our social web app for managing tea-making and preferences) has come to the boil again. It’s one of those odd sleeper projects. We did it ages ago and at first it got picked up by Wired, then a bit later by The Guardian. Now…
The Geekiest T-Shirt Ever?
I’ve seen a lot of geeky t-shirts in my time. But this one is pretty much the king of the nerd-castle, awesome… (As you might have spotted, I’m struggling a bit with blogging at the moment. A combination of lack of time plus a general…
Are Chavs the New Mods?
Are chavs the new mods? It was a thought that entered my head in Brighton a couple of weeks ago. Sure the scooters have changed. And in retrospect the mods’ fashion was way cooler. But the attitude and the lifestyle aren’t all that…
The Value of Experimentation
I agree with Russell when it comes to the value of experimentation and play. Asi also brought it up in relation to the video-fronted search engine I mentioned yesterday. I’m all for play and doing new stuff. But there is a degree of…
Amen to That
This is a long video clip. 18 mins in total. And it might bore you if you’re not a music geek. It’s all about how a 6 second drum loop from the B-Side of a single by The Winston Brothers, released in 1969, has become a cornerstone of…
Nerd Recruitment
Saw this recruitment ad on the MediaTemple site. It made me chuckle. In case you’re interested (and are a ‘picked last in gym’ kind of nerd it links here. Incidentally, if you run your own website and are looking for hosting that can…
One Day in History
I liked this idea about capturing a day in history through blogs: ‘One Day in History’ is a one off opportunity for you to join in a mass blog for the national record. We want as many people as possible to record a ‘blog’ diary which will…
Participation Inequality
Participation Inequality: Lurkers vs. Contributors in Internet Communities. Jakob Nielsen’s piece on the split between lurkers, synthesisers and creators. He puts it at a 90-9-1 rule. But has some other interesting examples, like blogging…
Nice Pret
I know Pret a Manger are part owned by McHorrors so I shouldn’t go there. But me and Nik just went in to one and ordered a coffee, and the man gave us them for free. He said: “it’s Friday afternoon, these are on the house”. So, because…
Uh-oh Flashmobbing’s Back
And this time around, thanks to YouTube, you can witness it from multiple angles! I always thought that flashmobbing was a bit twee and a bit “aren’t we all wacky”, and I still have reservations. But, if I’m being honest, it looks a bit…
Masculine Man
I’ve been pondering issues around this whole Carnival of the Modern Man thing. And one thing that sticks in my head is that the word masculine almost conjours up an image of the exact opposite in my mind. The only people I can picture in…
Advertising to Man in Captivity
Toilet media. I’m sure at a point it seems like a good idea: You get 99% (I’m guessing) accuracy in gender targetting People aren’t just rushing past Blokes don’t know where to look when urinating next to other blokes, so give them an ad…
Modern Man
I’m taking part in the Carnival of Modern Man over the next couple of weeks (because I was asked). It’s an interesting project by the PSFK guys and I thought it would be good to stretch out my blogging muscles a little bit. So you might…
Shoes on Wires
I’d always wondered why you often see shoes hanging over overhead cables. I saw loads of them in the Lanes in Brighton at the weekend. Wikipedia has the answer (as always). But this time I’m not convinced about any of their stories, or any…
Email is for old people
At least that’s what teenagers think, read more at Arstechnica: Teens: E-mail is for old people
YouTube Haters
Asi who writes the excellent No Man’s Blog left a comment yesterday about the fact that slating YouTube is very much the in-thing to do right now. And he left me a link or two. Having read a bit more around the topic it seems to be shaping…
Netflix Prize
This must be one of the most blogged about stories of the last week. But I’m going to do it anyway because I think it’s really interesting and it spans the worlds of geekery and marketing perfectly… Netflix are offering $1,000,000 to…
South Bank Show Podcasts
I’m highlighting these podcasts because watched the South Bank Show on Sunday night for the first time in ages. Specifically because Irvine Welsh was supposed to be taking Melvin Bragg around bits of Edinburgh. I lived in Muirhouse where…
Help me find someone
Not in a Where’s Wally kind of way! I need to find someone for a project I’m working on. It’s a type of person I’ve not really worked with before. A kind of person that I don’t know where to find and how to reach them. So maybe, just…
Fizzy Web
I had a meeting with a prospective client yesterday (I hope she doesn’t mind me posting this, I am keeping it anonymous). And in our conversation she said that she wanted their site to be ‘fizzy’, at first I almost laughed, then as we…
I love London (a little bit)
Some of you may have seen my ‘I love London’ blog – an experiment to try to get me to love living in London a bit more. And whether having a blog that makes me look out for good things would help me to see good things. After a strong start…
Alpine Entertainers
Here’s a little something from my holidays. Some photos of promotional posters from the finest entertainers that South Tyrol has to offer… Alpine Entertainers – a photoset on Flickr You see, these guys look like fun. They all look like…
Hackney vs Nike
Saw this outisde a shop the other day and thought it looked like an interesting story. A bit of Googling later and it turns out that Hackeny council have sued Nike for ripping off their logo. What a funny old word it is… Guaridan Unlimited…
MySpace Murder Foiled
I’m sure this is going to get a lot of coverage: MySpace Murder Plot Foiled – September 14, 2006 And I’m not going to bang on about it too much, but it reminds me of a conversation that I’ve had with a few people recently about online…
Home Cooking…
After mulling over Steal this Film as mentioned previously I’m still not any surer about where I stand. There’s one frame from the movie that keeps flashing back into my mind though: Of course it’s not the same as digitisation and…
Stunned by Fuerzabruta
Last night I saw the best thing ever: FUERZABRUTA. It’s hard to describe what it is. Part acrobatics, part dance, part light and sound show. I’m not sure that it’s possible to describe it properly. It’s just a massive sensory overload…
Steal this film
Following on from the Darknet post the other day, here’s some more on piracy in Sweden (and beyond). This 30 minute film gives a view of the P2P landscape (and especially the ‘bust’ on PirateBay – a major bittorrent site). Visit the Steal…
A Conversation on Participation
“Why don’t we let people get involved. Give them a way to upload their short movies / photographs / demo-tracks / homages to our product / ideas / knitting patterns / kazoo melodies / etc. They can win prizes.” “Would you do it?” “What do…
Big Chill Human Snail Race
Here’s a little clip I made of the Human Snail Race at the Big Chill festival this year. Someone showed me the ‘Silent Movie Mode’ on my digital camera and it became quite a hit (it puts stuff in black and white and speeds it up a bit)…
Yoga Today – Karma Rich Video Podcasting
Yoga Today – Start each day with a new Yoga lesson (for free). That sounds nice doesn’t it… If you’re using a PC you can get the lessons in HD, if you’re on a Mac they’re in lower res iTunes format. If only i could figure out a way to rig…
Join the Darknet
The Swedish Pirate Party has launched a service that lets anyone send files or information over the Internet without fear of being monitored or logged. Technically they say, this is called a “darknet”. I could spend a lot of time…
Tony Davidson on Digital Creativity
The above image is blatantly stolen from the excellent DigitalAgency blog. But short of retyping the whole thing I couldn’t think of any other way of doing it. It’s from the D&AD Student Annual, written by Tony Davidson (Creative Director…
Clerks 2 – A socially networked film
The Social Customer Manifesto: Silent Bob Speaks I liked Clerks when I first saw it. I liked its low-budgetness, especially the fact that the store in the film had a broken shutter (to hide the fact that the only time they could afford to…
Channel4Radio.com
Channel4Radio.com is a new Channel 4 venture offering a range of podcasts. Some of them look pretty good. They’ve got a series of 30 daily downloads from the Edinburgh festival, which is nice. Plus Richard and Judy’s Audiobook Club! But…
Roll Over
I think this will be my last word on the Agency.com Subway thing. But I’m never one to say never… I got a nice mail from Tom at Agency (he of “Roll Big” fame). The gist of the mail was: They’ve been reacting to things as they unfold (and…
Personality DNA
This is great, from the same people who brought you Buzzvote and Riffs, (see below). Hats off to ATTAP (All things to all people), they’ve made some really nice online things, some of the best things I’ve seen in a while. Keep up the good…
Thumbs up for Riffs
Riffs: Your Social Recommender – Ratings, Rants, Raves, and Reviews It’s like “hot-or-not”, but applied to everything in the world. A really simple ratings engine for life, the universe, and everything else. Nicely put together and has…
WhenWeRollWeRollBig.com
A response from the Agency.com camp regarding the Subway video. It’s basically saying: “we did it, we got people talking, that’s the whole point”. I’m sure the debate will rage on around whether this is just a good piece of…
Gamers vs Avatars
Great online gallery of gamers alongside the avatars that they use to represent themselves. The fact the commentary is in German kind of adds to it in a strange way. Tip: click the images to move on to the next pair. Via We Make Money Not…
Very Smart Casual
Smart casual is one of my most despised terms ever. What could make it worse? How about turning it into ‘Very Smart Casual’. Ouch. But I suppose being given the alternative choice of ‘Dress to Express’ is a nice touch. So it’s chinos with…
My New Blog Experiment
I Love London Actually I don’t. That’s the whole point. Me and London haven’t been getting along all that well recently. So I thought I’d try a little experiement. To see if blogging about great things in London can inspire me to think…
Photonotes
Nik’s set up a group called ‘Boast it Notes‘ on Flickr. It’s simple really. I don’t think I should even stoop to the level of explaining it. It came about after he set up a group on Flickr called ‘Street Style’ now it’s got 63 members and…
A Pot of Infogold
Online developments – a photoset on Flickr Lynette does an amazing, amazing job of collating astounding facts, figures and quotes about what’s going on in the digital world. Subscribe to her Flickr RSS feed and you’ll be much better…
Social Notworking
This makes me want to weep. Wal-Mart’s ‘Hub’ for teens that allows them to ‘express their individuality’ (and win cool stuff!). Ths writeup in AdAge highlights most of the issues… Advertising Age – Wal-Mart Tries to Be MySpace — Seriously…
BT luvs Bebo
TechCrunch report: Bebo Shuns $550 Million Acquisition Offer San Francisco based social network Bebo, which recently raised $15 millionfrom Benchmark Capital, rejected a £300 million ($552 million)acquisition offer from British Telecom…
Mentos Do Good
Mentos Turns Coke/Mentos Geysers Into Video Contest – this article says it as well as I could, so I’m not going to repeat it. But I suppose you need to know what it is, so here’s a quick summary. Put Mentos in Coke. Booooooosh. Quite…
Fail Fast, Fail Cheap
Ged’s comment reminded me of a great quote that someone once made in my presence. I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them. But I can’t, sorry. It was someone VC-like from around the time that I was working at First…
Broken iPods. What to do?
I’ve got 2 x 4th gen ipods at home, both with knackered hard drives. My inner environmentalist says that I can’t throw them away. But getting them fixed will cost £150 quid each. Which just isn’t worth it considering they’re old and…
We’re fucked
OK, not totally. But this is an interesting development. A startup that will take your designs and turn them into coded web pages by outsourcing it to cheap places around the world (returning your pages within 5 days). Prices from $150. If…
Sadness
There’s only one thing that I can think about at the moment. I went to my first funeral yesterday. My good friend Oliver Padfield died from cancer when I was away on holiday. He was only a few weeks older than me. He leaves behind a wife…
Thomas Pink iShirt
Who’d have thought it. Thomas Pink bring out a shirt which holds your iPod in a concealed pocket, has Oyster card cuffs, and routes cables neatly. I almost wished I had to wear a suit to work. For about a nano-second. Thomas Pink: Commuter…
A MacBerry?
It’s an interesting, but at the same time perhaps terrifying, rumour. Macworld UK – Rumour: Apple and RIM plan iPod wireless? Legions of perma-connected white-earphoned zombies giving complete and undivided attention to a device with the…
Genuine Marketing Gimmicks – An Oxymoron?
Sorry few posts. Hectic week. Going holiday Friday. Lots to do… I’ve started to use Radio 4 as my alarm clock. I didn’t think it would work. But people talking, gently, as they do on R4, is quite a nice way to wake up. You get kind of…
2000 Bricks
Brian kindly left a comment pointing to 2000 Bricks, a project not 1000 miles away from 1000 Paintings. There’s an interesting graph on his site that shows activity on 1000 Paintings has changed over time. He calls it the Short Tail. I’m…
Social Networks = New Media
Nice piece about Social Networks and audience/users as ‘cultural products’. GigaOM : » Social Networks are the New Media Robert Young talks a lot of sense about how self expression is key to peoples use of these sites. And there’s a nice…
Bonfire Of The Brands
Neil Boorman (ex-editor of ex-Sleazenation, Shorditch Twat and other titles I’m sure) is writing a book called: Bonfire Of The Brands As part of his experience he’s burning all of his branded goods in a big bonfire as part of re-evaluating…
Is better better?
Seth Godin talks about the difference between trying to be better and trying to be different: Seth’s Blog: In search of better I’ve puzzled over this one for a bit, and the trouble I have is that better is always better. Wheras different…
Making Friends in 2006
So this is how people are making friends nowadays. This MySpace friend recruitment drive was spotted in a tunnel in Shoreditch on my way to work. Also spotted this in the same tunnel, it’s becoming quite a little creative hotspot… Graffiti…
PSFK: Chris Anderson on Longtail
Worth reading this short interview with Chris Anderson, Lord of the Longtail. PSFK: Interview With Chris Anderson, Longtailier My favourite quote: Finally, are we going to see the Longtail effect on Chris Anderson and his book? ;) Many…
We Feel Fine
It’s taken me a while to put together this post. It’s been sitting in my drafts folder since early last week, and in the meantime lots of you have probably seen wefeelfine.org. I’ll try to summarise why I think it’s such an important site…
How hip hop changed
Modern hip hop videos don’t look like this… Thought it was interesting as a social snapshot of the early 80s in New York. Plus there’s some great fashions and urban landscapes in there.
Nobody Reads Ads
I just read this Guest Essay from the 2004 Gunn Report by Fred & Farid. There’s some really interesting stuff in there. I particularly like the way that they talk about consumers: The marketing strategy talks to the consumers; but we are…
More on Participation
Following on from the earlier post about people participating in communities I thought this post contained some great stats: The 1% Rule: Charting citizen participation. Points to the fact that 1% of Yahoo! Group members start groups and…
Online Community Motivations and Reputations
Faris left this rather good link about motivations for contributing to online communities to in the comments. I’m not going to summarise it here. But there’s a couple of thoughts I had about how this might change in the future… It’s…
New stuff for old
David Seah : The Joy of the New Old Thing – Interesting post on the fact that there’s certain things in life where simply replacing old for new gives you a disproportionately more joyous experience. You don’t always have to upgrade
Happy is good
Me- Happy in Goa In her, always smart but never overwhelming style Kathy Sierra writes about angry negative people being bad for your brain. There’s a lot of detail and science in there, but it is really worth a read. I first read the…
Stephen Colbert – Amazing Video
There’s been lots of stuff in the press about this address from a Whitehouse dinner. Stepen Colbert gives one of the funniest and most cutting speeches I’ve ever heard. Absolutely ripping into George W. – who’s sitting right next to him…
Help Me Create a Del.icio.us Network
A new feature of del.icio.us is the ability to create your own networks. It’s a replacement for the slightly confusing inbox feature. I’d love to create a little network of like-minded people so I can keep in touch with the hot stuff that…
Longtail Recommendations
Supersmart Ged (who I know from Yahoo!) pointed me to the longtail recommendations engine on last.fm. I’d been to the page but I’d never noticed the slider: have a play, it’s really good (you might need to be a user to access it). It’s a…
User Generated Content
Well this is the reality of it. This lovingly crafted piece of home-made UK hip-hop has spawned absolutely loads of mashups / remixes / re-edits. Just shows there’s nowt as queer as folk eh. Oh, and just to prove that entrepreneurialism is…
New MacBook Pro
I’m very lucky. I got a new computer. It’s a shiny new Intel-based MacBook Pro. I have to say I’ve not noticed that I’m getting more work done in a shorter period of time. But I’m sure I will eventually, perhaps. My favourite feature is…
That’s not very nice…
Spotted this on the wall of Weiden & Kennedy’s London office. Not sure I agree 100%…
First Download Only No.1
I know I’m a day late, but forgive me, I’ve been away. The BBC write about how history was made on Sunday: Crazy by Gnarls Barkley went into the UK charts at number 1. Even though it’s not even available in physical shops yet. It’s one of…
Constant Partial Attention
Interesting article about always being on. It doesn’t say anything massively new really, but I think it neatly crystalises some of the big issues. Not having full concentration on any one thing at a time is something that I’ve been moaning…
Big Companies Do Nice Stuff
I’ve had two good experiences today. Both nice things that companies have done. So in the spirit of helping to spread good stuff I’m going to talk about them. First I’m going to praise O2. I’ve had some relatively poor experiences with…
Videos From the Googleplex
Google have released a heap of videos from their internal archives: In addition to helping distribute content from across the world, Google would like to share videos featuring our company. Some great stuff in there, especially the…
Fashion Vs Style Vs Pop Video
Compare and contrast: French Connection’s new advert is not a million miles away from this pop video from last year (damn, that song is really really bad!). Thanks to Emil for the tip – came up in an IM conversation about originality in…
Google Image Hoo Ha
BBC news reports on this rather odd story from the US. A judge in the States has ruled that Google have violated the copyright of Perfect 10 magazine (a high end ‘adult’ title). The violation results from the fact that Google shows…
Why youth heart myspace
I get why MySpace is popular, but I don’t get why it should be 30 million people popular. So I was happy to read this article by Danah Boyd at the American Association for the Advancement of Science. It’s a rough transcript of a really…
I read a book!
OK, OK, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I managed to read a book. I can read, and I like reading. But so often I start with great intentions; I order a book from Amazon (or heaven forbid pick one up in a real bookshop). I tuck into it with…
Tate Online | Net Art
Tate Online | Net Art – once again I’m probably about 5 years behind the curve. But nice to see that the Tate are doing a series of Net Art projects. I’m only a day late on discovering The Dumpster – a project to visualise the romantic (or…
Viral Promotion
Saw this on iamcal.com. threadless are doing a secret sale – buy 3 or more shirts and enter the code ‘tenbucks87’ at the checkout and you’ll get them for $10 each. you have until feb 25th – tell everyone you know A really nice example of a…
Flipping the Funnel
Flipping the Funnel (ebook) – as ususal Seth writes in a way that makes you think, “duh, of course, who didn’t know that”, but then you realise that you didn’t, and he’s just implanted something new and brilliant in your brain. A really…
Islam is OK sticker
Saw a couple of these stickers around the place on my way to work this morning. Nice to see a bit of non-extremism in the hood.…
Going Underground
Is it really possible to overlay music onto the London Underground map? Each line representing a genre, giving proximity and intersections real meanings? Sounds bloody impossible to me. But someone’s given it a red-hot go. Nice work –…
Evil Google logo
When I’m tired and not feeling on top form I can never really be bothered to look at stuff online. The one site that always cheers me up a bit is Boing Boing, you’ll never fail to find something interesting, odd, funny or inspiring. I’m…
BBC report on UK gamers from 6-65
From Boing Boing: BBC report on UK gamers from 6-65 – contains some amazing figures. “59% of 6 to 65 year olds in the UK are gamers. In total there are 26.5 million gamers in the UK. The average age of a UK gamer is 28 years old, and the…
Dance Dance in the Classroom
Boing Boing: Dance Dance Revolution at 765 schools – story about the fact that in the US they’re now using Xboxes with dance mats to help kids get less fat. If it helps I suppose it can’t be a bad thing. Can it?
The Postal Service vs Apple
I like the The Postal Service a lot. Their album is great. I also like Apple a lot. Their products are great. As has been well documented the latest Apple Intel Ad looks a lot like the video for “Such Great Heights” by the aforementioned…
Techno Faux-Pas
Whilst browsing in Micro Anvika today I was looking at the plethora of digital music players, ranging from the gorgeously designed to the truly horrible. When out of the corner of my eye I saw one particular piece of gadgetary. I thought…
dumb, crass, stupid, sexist lavazza
Interesting thoughts on complaining via buzz tracking. Russell doesn’t like the Lavazza posters with busty women on them (russell davies: dumb, crass, stupid, sexist lavazza). I think the image, as a photograph, is middle-shelf…
Digital Newspapers
Have I been living with my head in the sand? A bit, probably. But I spotted these today. Printouts of newspapers. The Times, in the morning. in New York. Looks like it’s just been squirted off a laser printer. No bulky shipping, no big…
Slow Down Week
Slow Down Week – damn, it’s this week! That’s the 15-21st Jan. I’m so slow that I’ve missed the first bit of it. And this is a very busy week for me, maybe I should use this as a way of enforcing slowdown extreme. Slow Down Week is all…
Sorry for the silence…
Sorry there’s been a few weeks of blank. I was away on holiday in Goa. I left my mobile behind. I didn’t check my email for a couple of weeks, in fact I didn’t touch a computer. It was nice. The man in the photo isn’t me. I don’t know who…
broken leon (not really)
Following on from my dirty BP ad post last week, was interesting to see another debate around the tiny little things that make all the difference. russell davies: broken leon (not really). Which in turn references a dissection of the book…
justcurio.us
justcurio.us // strangers helping strangers – I don’t know if I’d just missed this. But it’s a great site. You can ask a question and people will answer, but you need to answer somone else’s question first. Done in a really simple and…
Camera Fun
Had some fun with my new camera on Sunday. Found that if you set it to a really high shutter speed you can take some almost decent snaps out of a moving car window. Visit this photo set to see what my cab ride from London Bridge to Tulse…
BP Dirty Irony
Saw this ad for BP on the stairs down to liverpool st station. Ironically the sign talking about clean energy is the dirtiest poster I’ve seen in ages. Oh the sweet irony. Honestly though. When you see the state of it you really can’t take…
PodDater.com
Oh my word. The world has come to this: PodDater.com it’s like one of those late night TV dating shows. But you get to choose whose profiles you see, in your own time, on your iPod. Now where did I put that clip of Cheryl… “I’m 24 and into…
Levi’s Antidote
Levi’s Antidote is, in its own words: “…a living, growing snapshot of what people are thinking and doing across Europe.” Now, as the guys at SMLXL so rightly point out, this is theoretically a great idea. A campaign that supports…
BlockJam
I was checking out a BoingBoing post on LED puzzle blocks which look pretty awesome in themselves. But there’s a footnote that links to a Sony project called BlockJam which just blew me away. (Check the video of the prototype). It’s a…
Intersting Instalations
Intersting instalations by Rafael Lozano-Hemmer. I’m always interested in public space instalations – this guy’s latest project in the East Midlands looks to be really impressive. For a start he claims to be using the world’s most powerful…
Sorrell vs. Murdoch
Interesting Reuters article from a couple of weeks ago. Martin Sorrell talks about how media companies are running scared of the new new media. But perhaps most interesting is his criticism of News Corp’s recent acquisitions.…
Account Planning School Of The Web
All round smart guy, planning dude and greasy spoon fan Russell Davies has set up the Account Planning School Of The Web – IMHO a properly wired idea. He’s putting effort in, and helping people out, but at the same time potentially getting…
Talking Point for Orange
Here’s a little something I’ve been working on for a good while now TalkingPoint for Orange. It’s a hybrid between a poll and a discussion forum. The objective being to give people a chance to leave their opinions on issues in an…
Email is distracting – shocker!
Blimey! Discover magazine reports on how email and IM are distracting! Well you don’t say… But it does make some interesting points about using multiple windows and the distractions it can cause. Much as I love Expose on my Mac it does…
Growing pains for social bookmarking?
Broadband Stars – Covering the social media revolution: Growing pains ahead for social bookmarking? Interesting comment on the growth of web 2.0 apps and how the democratisation of them may ultimately lead to problems. Also refers to the…
The best thing about Web 2.0
Creating Passionate Users: The best thing about Web 2.0 – As per normal Kathy Sierra makes some amazingly valid points over on one of my favourite blogs. Isn’t it bugging when you read articles that express what you’re thinking so much…
Web 2.0 (obviously)
If anything is hot right now it’s web2.0 – it’s starting to feel like mantra for a massive new bubble that’s swelling as I type… Some people might say it’s a lot of fuss about nothing, and that there’s essentially nothing new in web2.0…