improbable sameness

Why Customer Service in Social is not Fair (via Conversation Agent)

2011-02-03T13:35:00.001Z

Depending on the organization's karma, not being there may not be an option anymore. However, being more responsive than through normal channels, "DM me your account and we'll take care of things", sets a bad precedent.

via conversationagent.com

Posted via email from BACKWARDS.TV

via The Economist - The Big Mac index: Making a meal of it

2010-07-24T14:24:00.001+01:00

via economist.com

Posted via email from BACKWARDS.TV

Twitter Has A Way To Show Off Your World Cup Allegiances / via @techcrunch

2010-06-10T20:50:00.001+01:00

During the last World Cup in 2006, Twitter had just a few thousands users. Now they have 125 million users sending 65 million tweets a day — and 65% of those users are outside the U.S. As such, they’ve created a special section on twitter.com to highlight this year’s version of the sporting event that brings the world together.

via techcrunch.com

Posted via web from Realtime Cup

ITV readies iPhone streaming in time for World Cup (via Brand Republic) #RealtimeCup

2010-06-09T18:05:00.001+01:00

Football fans will be able to watch live games broadcast on ITV1 and ITV4 as well as access tournament schedule information provided by Red Bee Media's broadcast data services.
The free application, developed with Red Bee Media, will be accessible via the iPhone's web browser and can be displayed as an ITV brand icon on the iPhone desktop.

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Foursquare announces World Cup badges with CNN, tests badge rewards /via VentureBeat

2010-06-09T11:20:00.001+01:00

With CNN, Foursquare is releasing two new World Cup badges: South Africa Explorer and Super Fan. To get the first, you have to visit South Africa to attend the World Cup and check in, or announce your location to your friends, on Foursquare. For the rest of the world, you can earn the Super Fan badge by checking in at World Cup viewing parties. Over 100 venues will be seeded with tips from CNN employees, Mashable reports.

via social.venturebeat.com

Posted via web from Realtime Cup

Univision: live streaming the World Cup with a 'suite of social tools' (via @mashable)

2010-06-08T13:00:00.001+01:00

Univision will also be live streaming every single match for free online at UnivisionFutbol.com. In addition to matches, Univision has updated their suite of social media options with real-time game stats, commentary, player interviews and behind-the-scene exclusives. For anyone looking to get a jump on the games, Univision offers video on match history and player profiles from World Cup legends past and present. While the site is pretty self-explanatory, knowledge of Spanish helps.

via mashable.com

Posted via web from Realtime Cup

Status update as billboard: London likes Makers Mark tube ad [Photo]

2010-06-03T19:24:00.001+01:00

Posted via email from BACKWARDS.TV

McDonald’s Teams With Facebook For “Check-in” Offers / via @MobileMW

2010-05-09T16:47:00.001+01:00

With Facebook ramping up its geolocation efforts to combat pressure from the likes of Gowalla, Foursquare and many others, the company announced today that it’s working with McDonalds to create a campaign to reward customers for “checking in” at locations using Facebook’s new geolocation functionality.

via mobilemarketingwatch.com

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

"Beyond Pathetic" - @jonathansalem on BP's gap between reality and fiction

2010-05-09T12:08:00.001+01:00

BP's problem is that the gap between truth and fiction is so huge, and the stakes are so high when that distance is revealed.
The company’s CEO illustrated this disconnect recently when he said that BP hadn’t done more to prepare for such a disaster because it "seemed inconceivable," after reports surfaced that it had forgone a $500,000 "acoustic trigger" shut-off device required of offshore oil wells operating near Norway and Brazil. Turns out that going "beyond petroleum" didn't warrant another half-million expense.
So where is all the brand equity BP has spent a decade propagating into the cosmos? Gone, I say; worse, it only accentuates the dishonesty at the core of its business. It is going to be harder from now on for analysts to accurately judge its performance, just as media will need to more closely question its statements. Is it possible that those beautiful austere filling stations will serve as visible reminders of disasters and dishonesty to consumers as they drive past?
Think how differently we’d all react if BP had been telling us the truth all along. Instead, as one dim bulber put it, the brand is "beyond pathetic."

via dimbulb.net

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Television is a drug. / via @isilayerol

2010-05-08T14:36:00.001+01:00

via vimeo.com

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Diagram: Dante's internet /via http://72dotsperinch.blogspot.com

2010-04-29T02:33:00.001+01:00

via 72dotsperinch.blogspot.com

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

WSJ Experiments With Location-Based News (via @rww)

2010-04-26T22:14:00.001+01:00

Checking-in at a venue around town with the Foursquare mobile location app could now come with a thought provoking payload: a news link related to the place you're at. The Wall St. Journal announced today that as a part of its new focus on covering New York City, links to Journal stories about various locations will now be offered as tips when Foursquare users check in.

via readwriteweb.com

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Cory Doctorow's email tip: delete everything received whilst on holiday (via Seth Godin)

2010-04-23T12:39:00.001+01:00

And a bonus tip from Cory Doctorow, who gets more email than you and me combined: When you go on vacation, set up an autoreply that says, "I'm on vacation until x/x/2010. When I get back, I'm going to delete all the email that arrived while I was gone, so if this note is important, please send it to me again after that date."

via sethgodin.typepad.com

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Grant McKracken video - It’s the end of mass marketing

2010-04-21T21:57:00.001+01:00

via experiencecurve.com

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

10 Mobile Trends Impacting Consumer Engagement

2010-04-18T13:43:00.001+01:00

via slideshare.net

Missed this presentation at MIPTV last week. But fortunately (or unfortunately?) I'm not stranded in Cannes...

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Excellent short film: PIXELS

2010-04-16T14:44:00.001+01:00

via youtube.com

Very nice... (via @sebrobert)

Posted via web from BACKWARDS.TV

Blogging Is Flirting

2008-07-21T11:08:00.000+01:00

I often talk about social media using real world human interaction as a metaphor, so this kind of makes sense.

Blogging is just people, flirting is just attention, and no person anywhere dislikes attention. I’m not talking about asking your reader out on a date. I’m talking about rewarding them for engaging with your words - with you. The trick with blogging, of course, is that you’ve got to flirt with everyone at once, the old and the new, without being insincere. No one likes a player…but everyone loves a flirt.

Here's the full post: The Wink Wink, Nudge Nudge Method, Or, Blogging Is Flirting

Future of Media video

2008-05-07T13:19:00.000+01:00

I is sponzorin ur runz

2008-04-07T15:00:00.002+01:00

LOLcat, originally uploaded by deliciousmedia.

I updated my sponsorship page with LOLpenguins, but wanted to save my LOLcat mascot somewhere. So here he is.

23032008185

2008-03-28T12:10:00.001Z

Training Photo

2008-03-16T15:14:00.003Z

Uploaded from N95 via Shozu

More running, this time with satellites

2008-03-11T12:32:00.010Z

Another long run last weekend. 16 miles in 2 hours 49 mins.

Only this time I tracked it with Nokia's Sportstracker application that uses the built in GPS on the N95 to measure distance, speed, time, etc.

This is all good. Sportstracker is a free mobile app and an online service which logs your runs, and allows you to look up other peoples routes. Much like Nike+ or Mapmyrun.com (I've been using the latter).

However whilst the phone allows me to export to GPX and KML, the website does not provide the tools to embed the resulting map into my blog, so I have to link to it instead.

Whilst this is a bit lame, it is probably my only complaint about the service. The only other thing missing from the website is a volume of users, the community areas of the site seem a bit empty - probably because no one thinks about Nokia when they think of personal fitness.

Forest fires and matches

2008-03-11T12:31:00.000Z

James Cooper reports from a talk given by Duncan 'the tipping point is toast' Watts:

"Another good analogy was that it makes no difference what sort of match one uses to start a forest fire - if the conditions are right it will spread. It's crazy to spend lots of money on trying to find the perfect match if it's been raining or there has recently been a fire."

Influence equals marketing value

2008-03-07T09:53:00.000Z

Charlene Li:

"Today’s advertising models don’t work on social networking sites – that’s because simply targeting better on profile or social graph details is still the same old media model of CPM and CPC pricing. What’s missing is marketing value based on how valuable I am in the context of my influence."

Excerpt from Charlene's interesting post on the future of social networks

I ran 12.5 miles today

2008-03-02T16:05:00.002Z

Not quite half the distance I have to run in April. Canal + Vic Park + St Catherines + 3 Mills
Find more Runs in London, United Kingdom

Internet media has become social media

2008-02-25T13:21:00.000Z

Clay Shirky, (via John Dodds): "What do businesses need to know: Businesses need to know that the old simplicities of dealing with their customers are disappearing, because customers are now able to coordinate their actions in groups......Now, thanks to social media, customers are part of active groups, groups that form and dissolve quickly in response to people's interests or needs -- most messages in this media flow within social groups, rather than from businesses to individuals."

Your brand website is less relevant than ever before

2008-01-09T17:51:00.000Z

Great post from The Viral Garden on why companies should monitor what consumers are saying about them.

The conversation (still) carries on....

I especially like the Alexa graph that shows the difference in traffic between the site where Jennifer Laycock posted about Panera Bread, and the Panera bread website:

10 Reasons Business Should be Embracing Social Media

2008-01-09T16:19:00.000Z

Slightly cheesy, but worthwhile rembering, from 'The Engaging Brand': 10 Reasons Business Should be Embracing Social Media

David Lynch on iPhone

2008-01-08T11:21:00.001Z

“It’s such a sadness when you think you’ve seen a film in on your fucking telephone.”

Re: Mikontalo Lights preview

2007-12-07T17:29:00.003Z

Here Comes Another Bubble - The Richter Scales

2007-12-07T17:29:00.001Z

A few Good Creative Men

2007-10-31T15:26:00.001Z

Information R/evolution

2007-10-23T19:02:00.001+01:00

Thanks to Robin for pointing this out on Brand Republic (login required). Perfect video if you ever need to explain what tags are for.

The Zune, Widgetised

2007-10-23T11:06:00.000+01:00

According to the New York Times, Microsoft

"is creating a social-networking site, Zune Social, to encourage the sharing of samples of songs online, even for fans who do not own a Zune player. Members of the network will also be able to use a small application on their computers to display which songs they have been listening to, and that information can be posted on certain Web sites outside the network or sent by e-mail to friends."

A bit like any number of existing web-based music applications, then.

Think About It

2007-09-10T18:23:00.000+01:00

Hyundai USA have launched a new website, http://www.thinkaboutit.com/, which is simple, elegant and thought provoking. I like it.

Facebook: shifting mobile internet demographics?

2007-08-10T17:29:00.000+01:00

From the Independent

...the rapidly growing popularity of social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook is having a knock-on effect in the mobile sector. A spokesman for T-Mobile said six months ago the top 20 sites accessed on its network were predominantly news or adult pages and most of its users were males over 40. Yet today the most popular sites are social networking pages, triggering a demographic shift in its user base toward 20- to 30-year olds.

Do you Facebook from your mobile?

Be more like the internet

2007-08-09T23:42:00.000+01:00

via chroma

Recruitment

2007-08-08T14:50:00.000+01:00

I'm getting sick of being regulary phoned, spammed and accosted on LinkedIn about a 'great opportunity' with a 'top digital agency'. At least when it is via LinkedIn it is in direct response to what is essentially a limited version of my CV online. So read with interest Iain Tait's perspective:

At Poke we keep having these odd cyclical conversations about a couple of key senior people we’re trying to hire. We’re looking for entrepreneurial, operationally aware, client facing, creatively minded, inspiring, strategic folk with an interesting set of past experiences - oh and they need to love digital which is our specific bit (simple huh!). The long and short of it is that we’re trying to find creative mini-CEOs. And I don’t think we’re the only ones.

The Infinite Cat Project

2007-08-07T11:33:00.000+01:00

www.infinitecat.com

How should brands appear on facebook?

2007-07-04T14:58:00.001+01:00

I've made a poll on facebook to ask that very question. Click on the image to see the poll results, and read about the background here.

Facebook vs Myspace

2007-05-30T12:16:00.000+01:00

This comment, and others on this page (Facebook registration required), indicate some of the appeal that Facebook has over Myspace:

The only reason I'm on Facebook is because most of the MySpace people are still at MySpace. Once they bring their crap here (hopefully not) I'm out. Same goes for those slideshow apps. If I want to see your pictures, I'll go to your image gallery. Don't show me a slideshow when I go to your profile!

Death of the catchphrase?

2007-05-16T17:05:00.000+01:00

My colleague Marty posted about this rather good piece in Media Guardian. A short excerpt:

"The problem brands face is that consumers effectively have a degree in film studies," agrees Robert Senior, founding partner at Fallon, the agency behind Asda's shift in strategy. "Basically, if a brand or company doesn't have a strong moral compass - which may sound a bit pretentious - then consumers are going to stop trusting you, no matter how fancy your catchphrase is."

See also The International Database of Corporate Commands which the people at Fallon brought to my attention recently (nicely tagged under "Ad Agency Deathwatch").

15 days of fame, and counting...

2007-04-03T18:45:00.000+01:00

Justin wears the camera 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. He says this is for the rest of his life. This is Justin.tv. Meanwhile in the Guardian, Oliver Burkeman provides an overview of other exercises in boredem and banality, including cheddarvision.tv.

Orwellian scenes in Islington

2007-04-02T23:58:00.000+01:00

George Orwell used to live in London. At 27B Canonbury Square, Islington to be precise. Not to far from my place as it happens. Within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move. via Gridskipper

Twitter

2007-03-23T18:35:00.000Z

Now you can know what your friends are doing every few minutes, or read their weird and random thought-fragments, or as Mashable puts it, it's The Evolution of Blogging, Cat Version: There's a public stream, which is a bit like standing at the end of a driving range being hit by golf ball sized thoughts from people you don't know. But I think there is more to it to that, not that I know exactly what it is yet. You can see what I am doing here, but I think I will be lucky to post more than once. There's a more serious discussion about it by Ross Mayfield.

Paris half-marathon

2007-03-21T18:47:00.001Z

I ran half a marathon in Paris the other week. Although the training plan was pretty loose (and some weeks non-existant), the run itself was not that hard for most of the way. I only really started to feel it in the last third of the race, especially between the 15th and 18th kilometre. Then the last few kilometres seemed to take forever, until Angella encouraged me to go a bit faster near the finish, at which point I managed to pick up the pace and it seemed easier all of a sudden. So having run most of the race together with Angella, I finished looking over my shoulder hoping she was behind me. I ended up about 30 seconds ahead of her at 1 hour 55 mins.

Is blogging killing planning?

2007-03-14T22:41:00.001Z

An interesting (rhetorical?) question from adliterate: Is blogging killing planning?

Big media rushing to cash in on MMOs

2007-03-09T04:38:00.000Z

Over in San Francisco, the BBC reports on how millions are being ~~wasted~~ invested into Massively Multiplayer Online Games:

"Five years from now a social networking site without a 3D universe will look like a dinosaur."

Another Gaming CEO:

"You are about to see, and this is happening already in Asia, many different kinds of games that are massively multiplayer and less based on role-playing games... This medium is going to destroy TV - and it's going to happen in short term."

How many times have we heard 'this will destroy TV' before. I'm not holding my breath....

Inaugural Post

2007-03-09T01:50:00.000Z

This blog has been named from a phrase used by Wired in a story about efforts to detect photo manipulation:Adobe Tackles Photo Forgeries