Following on from my earlier post, it has been announced by Google that this morning issue was due to simple human error. When importing the malware list from StopBadware.org, someone accidentally included ‘/’ as one of the URLs and added every website.
Google’s VP of Search Products Marissa Mayer gave the following explanation:
If you did a Google search between 6:30 a.m. PST and 7:25 a.m. PST this morning, you likely saw that the message “This site may harm your computer” accompanied each and every search result. This was clearly an error, and we are very sorry for the inconvenience caused to our users.
What happened? Very simply, human error. Google flags search results with the message “This site may harm your computer” if the site is known to install malicious software in the background or otherwise surreptitiously. We do this to protect our users against visiting sites that could harm their computers. We work with a non-profit called StopBadware.org to get our list of URLs. StopBadware carefully researches each consumer complaint to decide fairly whether that URL belongs on the list. Since each case needs to be individually researched, this list is maintained by humans, not algorithms.
We periodically receive updates to that list and received one such update to release on the site this morning. Unfortunately (and here’s the human error), the URL of ‘/’ was mistakenly checked in as a value to the file and ‘/’ expands to all URLs. Fortunately, our on-call site reliability team found the problem quickly and reverted the file. Since we push these updates in a staggered and rolling fashion, the errors began appearing between 6:27 a.m. and 6:40 a.m. and began disappearing between 7:10 and 7:25 a.m., so the duration of the problem for any particular user was approximately 40 minutes.
Thanks to our team for their quick work in finding this. And again, our apologies to any of you who were inconvenienced this morning, and to site owners whose pages were incorrectly labelled. We will carefully investigate this incident and put more robust file checks in place to prevent it from happening again.
Thanks for your understanding.
Posted by Marissa Mayer, VP, Search Products & User Experience
I guess everyone makes mistakes ;)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
'Human Error' to blame for Google Issue
New Compare the Meerkat Ad
I posted about the first ad a little time ago, and was extremely excited to find out this morning that there is a second ad out now. Unfortunately I can't seem to find it available to embed, so you'll have to check it out here.
All-in-all, this campaign is simply brilliant. Considering a fairly flooded UK market, for comparision websites, this campaign has thrust CompareTheMarket.com straight to the top of everyone's minds. It's fun and quirky, but above all it's complete. Here we have a perfect example of a campaign that integrates a seriously heavy weight suite of marketing tools and manages to utilise each to their maximum effectiveness.
Compare The Meerkats is centered around a viral concept. It is the new Cadbury's Gorilla. The campaign has a host of digital executions including a microsite, youtube clips, facebook page and a fantastic twitter feed (this is particularly good with personalised messages and regular updates).
The people behind this are CTM, and I think they deserve a serious pat on the back - this is one of my campaigns of the year for sure!
This site may harm your computer
It would seem that Google screwed up earlier. For a brief period of time the search engine showed almost every site on the net as “may harm your computer”. Twitter conversations indicate that this was a global incident but only lasted about 20 minutes.
Just have to wait and see why Google says it happened.Friday, January 30, 2009
10 Years of Digital Advertising
With it's 10th birthday on the way, Cybercom (The Digital Marketing People) have put together their "10 key digital events that have been instrumental in shaping a decade of advertising and have left a lasting effect, which will continue to influence the next decade of advertising."
This is a fantastic collection of all those digital moments that have shaped the world wide web as we know it now. Difficult job though trying to chose 10 things out of 10 years. I can definitely think of one or two that I think should have made it - YouTube (in it's entirity), Blogging, Socila Media in general etc. Drop a comment on the blog and let them know what else they missed!
Lenovo Ad
Immature, perhaps. Childish, almost certainly. Funny, absolutely. This had me in stiches. Unfortunately the sad truth is that this is one of the most unlikely situations I think an advertising agency has ever come up with. I feel safe saying that it could never happen. Ah well.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
Google Maps Street View
One of the funniest things on the net is Google Street View. I love the amount of people who have been caught, seemingly unaware, while in the middle of some activity that is either unlawful or out-and-out embarrassing!
I'm not entirely sure what's happening at '8 sampsonia way, pittsburgh, allegheny, pennsylvania 15212' but something tells me these guys don't have a lot of friends.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
The Goatee Saver
I found this over on Only Dead Fish (thanks Neil). This is flippin' hilarious. I thought the first guy was CGI - doesn't he look odd?
Email Data Visualisation
I'm a geek. I freely admit it. I'm also really into Social Media in all its forms - Blogging, Social Networking, Micro-blogging etc. etc. I also have a professional interest in the convergance of data, and how the meaning of data is rapidly becoming more accessible to AI systems (admittedly simple AI systems such as webbots and spiders).
So when I saw this, I loved it!
Christopher Baker analysed over 60,000 emails sent and received since 1998 to understand the "social network" created by his correspondance. Further to this, he decided the best way to represent the dats was visually:
"Like many people, I have archived all of my email with the hope of someday revisiting my past. I am interested in revealing the innumerable relationships between me, my schoolmates, work-mates, friends and family. This could not readily be accomplished by reading each of my 60,000 emails one-by-one. Instead, I created My Map, a relational map and alternative self portrait. My Map is a piece of custom designed software capable of rendering the relationships between myself and individuals in my address book by examining the TO:, FROM:, and CC: fields of every email in my email archive. The intensity of the relationship is determined by the intensity of the line. My Map allows me to explore different relational groupings and periods of time, revealing the temporal ebbs and flows in various relationships. In this way, My Map is a veritable self-portrait, a reflection of my associations and a way to locate myself."
- Christopher Baker
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Obama is Web 2.0
I posted before about the digital elements that Barack Obama brought to his election campaign. I posted before about the amount of money spent on Social Media. For some people the question still seems to be hanging out there, is that all electioneering or does he really understand what Social Media means?
If it's any indication of Obama's personal beliefs and opinion, here are two word clouds of his two most important speeches to date.
Winning Election Speech
Inauguration Speech
Monday, January 26, 2009
Facebook now double MySpace's membership
Considering that only 6 months ago Facebook and MySpace were at roughly the same number of members, it begs the question, how has facebook managed to double it's membership in such a short space of time. A report released by TechCrunch (citing ComScore data) shows Facebook with 222 million in December compared with 125 million for MySpace. On top of this, Facebook also counted nearly twice the number of page views, with 80 billion in December compared with MySpace's 43 billion.
The main reason given by MySpace for it's slow down in membership growth is due to a strategic shift in overall company strategy. MySpcae has said, "[it's now] laser focused on building a sustainable global business which we measure by profits and revenue -- not just eyeballs."
Further to that, MySpace added that it "continues to dominate the U.S. market -- where the bulk of online advertising revenues reside -- both in terms of monetization and user engagement with more than 76 million unique users and a 40% spike in engagement year over year."
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Personal Supercomputing
There's been a lot of articles all over the net in the last 6 months about the power that the new Cell Processor (from the PS3) offers and the potential that have when linked in paralle clusters. I read one particular article where several MIT students linked 16 PS3's to form their own Supercomputer because they couldn't get enough time on the campus system. So surely the time when we'll all have supercomputers in our homes isn't far away?
Well, with NVidia's new “Tesla personal supercomputer” you can now have the serious digital horsepowerof a supercomputer at home. The beast delivers cluster computing performance and up to 250 times faster computing then a standard top of the range PC. The Tesla is powered by 4 GPU’s, each with 240 processing cores (that 4x240=960 cores working in parallel) based on the NVidia’s CUDA architecture, delivering a gigantic maximum performance of nearly 4 Teraflops!
Here are some more of its specs:
- Massively-parallel many-core architecture
- 3 or 4 Tesla C1060 Computing Processors with 4GB of dedicated memory per GPU
- 2.33 GHz+ Quad-core AMD Phenom or Opteron, — OR — Quad-core Intel Core 2 or Xeon
- Minimum system memory: 12 GB for 3 Tesla C1060s and 16 GB for 4 Tesla C1060s (at least 4GB per Tesla C1060)
- 12GB+ system memory (at least 4GB per Tesla C1060)
- 240 scalar processor cores per GPU
- Integer, single-precision and double-precision floating point operations
- Hardware Thread Execution Manager enables thousands of concurrent threads per GPU
- Parallel shared memory enables processor cores to collaborate on shared information at local cache performance
- Ultra-fast GPU memory access with 102 GB/s peak bandwidth per GPU
- IEEE 754 single-precision and double-precision floating point
- Each Tesla C1060 GPU delivers 933 GFlops Single Precision and 78 GFlops Double Precision performance
The only bad news is that you'll need to spend about $10,000 to pick up one of these monsters. If I had the money I so would!
The 'Magic Wall'
I'm not sure if or where you watched coverage of the 2008 US elections but if you saw CNN's 'Magic Wall' at any stage I imagine you were pretty impressed.
The system was created and installed by Perceptive Pixel, who have designed and developed an interface that allows a user to interact with their information in a way no one has achieved with a commercial, available product.
Sure the system retails at $100k but lets face it, there are plenty of companies just like CNN who would be willing to pay this. This type of technology would be perfectly suited to corporate lobbys as information touchpoints and net access points. Imagine interactive maps that could utilise Google Street View style visualisations at various points around themeparks or shopping centres.
Enough said, check out the video....
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Bit of a redesign
I've been thinking about moving my blog to a dedicated hosting package and getting a 'proper' domain in place. In doing that though it makes most sense to also do a redev of the site (something else I wanted to do for a long time), but I don't have the time to do any of that now.
So instead I thought I do a bit of a change to the colour scheme.
Let me know what you think.
This is how it did look...
Mad Men Returns
Ok, ok, it may be the absolutely pre-digital era but by God it's good tv. So rejoice, Mad Men is returning.
In absolutely brilliant news, creator Matthew Weiner is reported to have just signed a fat seven-figure deal for two more seasons. As far as I have been able to find out, Weiner (who previously wrote for the Sopranos) signed up to do the show for feck all when it was originally selected for production. Thankfully that particular deal was only for two years, and now that the show is proven we will hopefully see further investment in all areas of production and creation.
So the only remaining question is, what'll happen with Peggy and Pete?
Friday, January 23, 2009
Financial Webisodes
Three Drunk Monkeys in Sydney are changing the way banks speak to customers by using internet video to give advise about the current financial climate. With a somewhat 'Australian' outlook, the ads are a little 'tongue in cheek' but also contain essential financial information in simple everyday language.
This is the first one:
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Light Lane
If anyone's ever had to cycle a bike around Dublin, you'll know that at the best of times you're taking your life into your own hands. Now imagine you could have a cycle lane everywhere you went. Well here you go.
Ok, fair enough, it's not exactly a cycle lane everywhere you go but it does help to make drivers aware of you as you cycle. Using lasers, the system projects an illuminated bike lane all around you wherever you go. Pretty sweet.
Augmented Reality System
Mobilizy, an Austrian business specialising in smartphones software, has developed a working location-based augmented reality system.
The system, The Wikitude AR Travel Guide, is a mobile travel guide with augmented reality functionality based on Wikipedia and Panoramio. First you search on a 2D map for landmarks in your surroundings, you then use your phone's camera with an augmented reality (AR) view. Basically you see where ever you point the camera, but with an overlaid annotated landscape showing points of interest and their associated information.
Imagine a situation where the digital landscape becomes sellable media, with any building having the potential to sell it's frontage as advertising space. Or perhaps you have your latest campaign running over relevant businesses various premises.
Demonstration video (working real time)
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
A Blogger and PR Exec walk into a bar...
Ok so it wasn't a bar, it was Edelman's offices on Stephens Green, but there were Bloggers and PR types. All in all the format was simple, a member of each camp gave an overview of what each group are all about, and then we had a group Q&A.
So what did we talk about?
The subject that probably took up the most of our time was how to approach Bloggers, from the perspective of a PR agency. In my own opinion I found it somewhat funny that the main piece of information that the PR guys would walk away with was that Bloggers aren't paid for what we do and we therefore generally have no interest in acting as brand representatives for some global corp. Further to this, it is common practise to send journalists and tv/radio types samples/tickets/freebies (etc. etc.) and yet no one ever thinks of doing the same to Bloggers.
Hopefully the PR guys really did walk away with an understanding that to communicate with anyone, Blogger or not, it is best done on a personal level. Isn't that what every ad tries to do - interact with someone as an individual? Why would you do it differently when you're actually trying to communicate with an individual.
There's another session planned for February, drop Damien a comment if you'd like to go. I'd highly recommend it.
On that note - a huge thanks to Damien for organising the whole thing. Bang up job. Cheers to Piaras too for the kind use of the venue.
Search Guru's Required
Are you a Search Genius?
Do you go to sleep and dream about SEO?
Is Google HQ number 2 on your speeddial?
Then perhaps 2009 is about to get a whole lot better for you! Cybercom (The Digital Marketing People) have two positions that need to be filled:
Speaking from my own personal experience (being a current employee), Cybercom is the best job I've ever had (sorry previous employer types). Great people, top clients, a fun environment and never any two days that are the same.
Seriously, if you're into SEO and PPC check out the jobs.
GreenPix Zero Energy Media Wall
This is the GreenPix - Zero Energy Media Wall. A innovative piece of art, architecture, engineering and creativity. The project's aim was to create a sustainable, digital media technology for the curtain wall of Xicui entertainment complex in Beijing, adjacent to the 2008 Olympic Village. Utilising the largest color LED display in the entire world, and a first-of-its-kind photovoltaic system, the building becomes a self-sufficient organic system.
During the day solar energy is collected, and then by night the same energy is used to illuminate the screen.
The project was designed and constructed by Simone Giostra & Partners, New York. The lighting design and installation were done by Arup, in London.
Tuesday, January 20, 2009
2009 Irish Blog Awards - Nominations
The lists have been unveiled and all nominations can now be viewed for the 2009 Blog Awards. In what is, genuinely, a huge surprise I have been nominated for two awards - Best Tech Blog/Blogger and Best New Comer. To be honest, I'm over the moon. I'd be happy just to think that people are willing to read my ramblings, but that people took the time to nominate me, that just blows my mind.
Thank you so much.
Barack Obama's Inauguration
Take a Break
Brilliant - I love when someone takes an existing creative and turns it on its head for their own execution.
The ad won the 2008 Chip Shop Award (in the category ‘Best Work for a Brand You Haven't a Hope of Winning’).
The awards are designed to recognise great ideas. Creative concepts can be submitted for any brand or product, irrespective of whether it's currently on the agency's roster or never likely to be there and because of this, entries don't need to have been printed, placed or broadcast.
via Nick - cheers!
I Want You To Want Me
Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar (who previously gave us We Feel Fine) have come together again for 'I Want You To Want Me'. Commissioned by New York’s Museum of Modern Art for their Design and the Elastic Mind show, 'I Want You To Want Me' aims to show viewers the "reflections of themselves as they glimpse the lives of others".
Cheers to Neil for this one.
Monday, January 19, 2009
Yes, Pecan!
Looking forward to tomorrow's big event I was doing a bit of research and I found several articles about Ben and Jerry's latest flavour 'Yes, Pecan!'.
Described as an 'Inspirational Blend. Amber Waves of Buttery Ice Cream with Roasted Non-Partisan Pecans', 'Yes, Pecan!' is the newest ice-cream flavour from the two guys in Vermont, in obvious celebration of Obama's acceptance catchphrase 'Yes, we can'.
In a interesting addition to the story, during the month of January, for every serving of 'Yes, Pecan!' that is bought Ben and Jerry’s is donating the proceeds to the Common Cause Education Fund. The fund is a nonprofit organisation founded for members of the public to make their voices heard in the political process. The main drives are honest, open and accountable government, as well as encouraging participation in democracy. They also actively fund research, education, and outreach activities.
They have a Facebook page to check out.
Also worth having a quick look at this great Will.I.Am video, a mash-up from Obama's acceptance speech.
Sunday, January 18, 2009
Sweet Parkour Video
Nothing digital about this, but it's amazing none-the-less. Some of these jumps are ridiculously big.
Saturday, January 17, 2009
Rick's Meme
I just read over on Darragh's blog that Rick has just started a meme, and I have to say - I love it. All in all it's a simple, yet brilliant idea.
Basically with the blog awards just around the corner Rick thought that it would be a good idea to post the 5 bloggers whom he hasn't met but would like to, with an aim to doing just that at the awards. Hell, sounds a lot better then going to the awards and seeing people you'd like to talk to, only to return home not having done it.
So here they are, the 5 bloggers I'd love to meet, but haven't:
- Damien Mullay
- Rick O'Shea
- Darragh Doyle
- Nick McGivney (odd as I'm actually working with Nick at the mo)
- Phil O'Kane
Hope I get the chance!
Firefox in Space
Friday, January 16, 2009
The 4 Greatest Chords in Music
I was asked if my earlier post was founf on the Viral Video Chart, to be honest it wasn't. I thought I should check out the chart none-the-less. You should too - loads of great videos. My favourite is number 17, this is awesome!
Durex Balloon Animals
I hope it's not just me, but this is absolutely hilarious. Something about balloon animals in this situation just put me in histerics.
Durex have taken a couple of non-descript balloon animals, obviously made with Durex, and put together a few kama-sutric examples of the birds and bees favourite passtime.
Creative Director, Robert Rugan, dubbed the video kama-balloon-animal-sutra. sating, "When you get the chance to create 'kama-balloon-animal-sutra', everyone involved gets really stoked about pushing the boundaries as much as possible". Director Michael Wharton added, "It's a rare opportunity to actually get to work on a project that is so raw and speaks directly to the very core of the human psyche ... I mean, who doesn't like balloon animals?!"
This really is a great ad, and the tag line...... "Get it on". Fitzgerald+CO, the agency behind the ad, have really done something special here. I definitely think this has staying power.
Thursday, January 15, 2009
Welcome Humans
Looking for Meerkats?
I thought everyone would have seen this but when I brought it up during a conversation at ldinner last night and I was responded to with three blank faces I thought perhaps this still needs to be shared. So, for all you nice people who don't know where to compare meerkats, check it out...
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
The Worth of Sponsorship
I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry
In the last couple of weeks a number of high profile sponsorships and advertising deals have come to light. Michael Phelps will be promoting Mazda (in China) in a deal reported to be worth $1 million. Jerry Seinfeld was in the news with the news that his recent Microsoft television work netted him a cool $10 million.
The biggest deal of them all, however, didn’t make many news stands. Nor did it make the lead man any money. Still, Barack Obama’s constant praise and glorification of his favourite companion, his Blackberry, has been estimated to be worth more then $25 million.
$25 million!
The future leader of the free world has never hidden his love of the Blackberry but in the coming weeks, he’ll finally be forced to give it up. Due to security and legal concerns the newest President of the USA will not be able to continue using the Balckberry.
Barack Obama is quoted as having said, “I’m still clinging to my BlackBerry,” “They’re going to pry it out of my hands.”
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
20 years of The Princess Bride
I don't think anyone could say they dislike The Princess Bride, certainly for me it's a classic movie from my childhood. I can remember going to see it in the cinema, and I can remember loving it. Well, as it turns out there's a new 20th Anniversary DVD boxset available, which features a really cool rotational inversion, or ambigram, on it. I'll be buying it. Thought it was cool/interesting/fun enough to share.
Monday, January 12, 2009
The Next Generation of CGI Human Representation
Consider that this entire film is presented by a CGI person, this is incredible.
Some of Image Metrics’ other CGI projects, which include work on Grand Theft Auto IV, Devil May Cry 4, and a Gnarls Barkley video featuring an anthropomorphic singing heart.
Sunday, January 11, 2009
Bloggers and PR Guys
I was lucky enough to get my name on a list to attend an event I'm really excited about. On the Jan 21st Damien Mullay has organised a get together between a collection of Irish bloggers and a team of PR folk. The event, happening the Edelman offices on Stephen's Green, is a chance for us bloggers to gain a better understanding of what it is PR is trying to achieve, and how it's trying to achieve it, while allowing the PR people to talk to us blog types and find out what it is we do, and why we do it.
Having studied Public Relations myself I think I have a good idea of what Irish PR is doing. However, as a blogger and digital marketer I also know that they're rapidly falling behind the times. PR needs to reinvent itself with a serious amount of time spent focusing on understanding modern social media.
For anyone interested in going along, pop over to Damien's blog and drop him a comment. I'm not sure if all the places are full yet or not, but pop along and have a check.
Sunday Funny - Statoil Ad
I'm not sure if I've ever seen a Statoil ad before, but this is funny stuff. I hope you have a cozy warm Sunday planned!
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries
First I thought it was a cool loader. Then I realised I'd heard the music before; a fantastic piece of jazz from Kenny Dorham. Then the words started and I was blown away. There's no point in me trying to explain the site - just go and have a look!
For other Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries productions, go here.
Facebook Q4 2008 Changes
The following data was gathered through Facebook's advertising management system. As such these are not confirmed actual figures. The actual numbers may be larger, but this is what Facebook says is available for advertising purposes.
- Q4 2008 saw the total population of Facebook going from 100 million users to 138.6 million (a 27.55% increase)
- With 42 million users the US is still the largest segment of Facebook users (282% greater than the next closest country the UK)
- Italy and Romania gained over 400% in new users, however the US led by total population gain at 9 million new users
- Wiith over 25% each of their total population Facebook users, Norway and Canada are way ahead of everyone
- South Africa was the only country to lose population in Q4
- Macedonia and Oman were new additions to Facebook in Q4 2008
Friday, January 9, 2009
The Short History of Marketing
Alexis here in work sent this around the office - it had to be shared.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Opinion or Fact?
On January 26th the New York court system will be asked to judge the case of Cohen vs. Google. You may or may not know who Liskula Cohen is, but I doubt you have any idea what Skanks in NYC is. For all of (us) those who have managed to live their lives without any awareness of the site, let me explain.
The “Blog” site was created on August 21st 2008, and to date has only had 5 posts. All of these posts were posted on August 21st. There’s a picture forming, right.
The “Blog” details the personal life of Liskula Cohen, and her status as a ‘skank’ in New York. According to one of the posts, the site "would have to say that the first place award for 'Skankiest in NYC' would have to go to Liskula Gentile Cohen”. It goes on to say that she is a "psychotic, lying, whoring ... skank.".
Unfortunately for Ms. Cohen the site has had a seriously negative effect on her career. She stated that her current employers "mentioned the blog and expressed concern about my suitability to serve as a spokesperson and representative for the client's products".
As the site is hosted by Google's Blogger service, Cohen is asking the court to order Google to disclose information including the blogger's name, address, telephone number and email. Google’s policy is to not reveal bloggers' identities without a court order.
The difficulty here is that the court must be convinced that the site is defamatory (i.e. based on fact) and not just a statement of opinion. Should the court decide it is opinion, Ms. Cohen will not have any right to the “Bloggers” information.
Cohen, who in the past appeared on the cover of Australian Vogue, alleges in the complaint that the blog has drawn the attention of other people, including a current client. "These people mentioned the blog and expressed concern about my suitability to serve as a spokesperson and representative for the client's products," she alleges.
Interestingly, a Californian court previously held that calling someone a "skank" was not libel as it's not a factual statement.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
When in Japan...
I found this great video from Eric Testroete over at We Made This. It's a collection of 3340 photographs documenting Eric's recent trip to Japan. Great idea and definitely something I'll do on my next holiday. Enjoy.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Dancing Matt a fake!
Well, not quite. Matt Harding speaks at 'The Entertainment Gathering 2008' (11th December 2008) about the continued online accusations that his video's were hoaxes, part of an elaborate viral campaign that was faked.
Nice candid insight into the man that created, what Time magazine called the Best Viral Campaign of 2008, and the New York times called 'an almost perfect piece of internet art'. Speaking about the responses he received he mentions the feeling of connectivity that people found through his video. A connection to the rest of the world.
Monday, January 5, 2009
Concept Japanese Pedestrian Lights
A friend passed on these photos to me of a concept design for pedestrian lights. There was no information with them but I presume this is more fantasy then reality. To the best of my knowledge there are no technologies out there even close to this level of free floating capability. Unless anyone out there knows better?
Panasonics new Gel Remote (possibly)
Panasonic have released details of new concept remote they have on the development blocks. When unused and sitting idle the remote takes on a gel-like, non-rigid form. However, when the remote is activated or picked up, it becomes fully rigid just like a 'normal' remote control.
Personally I'm unsure of the advantages this is proposed to give but it looks kinda cool. Something I'd have imagined sitting around in Minority Report or iRobot.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
New Heineken ad
Someone said to me over Christmas, all the best ads are for beers and spirits because they can't show the product really being used, it's more about the benefits of having the product. I know what they meant, and I can agree on principle that the limiting factor of consumption is a driving force to have especially creative and off-the-wall concepts but truth be told, I think any agency or brand that approach an advertising campaign with the notion of mundane or a gp-with-what-works attitude, deserve to fail.
Advertising isn't just about selling. It's just not. Advertising is part of the marketing suite and as such it lends itself to being more then just a sales tool - it builds trust, awareness, identity and character for the brand/product.
At least that's what great advertising does. Thankfully I have just the clip to demonstrate my point...
Friday, January 2, 2009
Top 100 sites for the year ahead
The Guardian have done an amazing job and put together a list of the top 100 websites for the year ahead. They're broken down into the following categories:
- Blogging
- Browsers
- Cartoons
- Create/collaborate
- Gaming
- Geek squad
- Government/public services/politics
- Location, location
- Maps
- Money/finance/ consumer fightback
- Music
- News recommendation
- Offbeat
- Photography
- Physical from virtual
- Reference
- Search
- Social software
- Twitter, and associated
- Video
- Virtual worlds/MMORPGs
- Visualisation
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The Importance of Logos
Check out this great post from Nick McGivney, and while you're at it, check out his blog - it's full of good content and well written articles.
He gives a good general overview of most of the highest profile Social Media platforms that are out there. Important stuff considering that 2009 will be the year of Social Media.
Happy New Year
Happy New Year to all readers and visitors. It's going to be a big year for digital here in Ireland and I am happy to say that I predict a very strong shift of non-digital activities. Social Media is going to be huge - blogging and bloggers will see even more scope for them to impact on the brands and products that drive our economy, and, social platforms will become even more prolific through development of business use.
Unfortunately we are looking at a backdrop of financial uncertainty, and we may well see a lot of smaller struggling businesses hit hard, but regardless, it's going to be an exciting year.
I hope it's a very successful year for all my friends, colleagues, business associates and readers. Have a great one folks!