Online Journalism by the NYT done well. Example 1

This is brilliant. I love it, I really do. I won’t even try and describe it, so just go and have a play with it… here

Wannabe furniture..

Love this simple concept…

Why we have got online advertising so spectacularly wrong

Quick – name four fantastic, emotionally resonant, culturally significant and successful interactive advertising campaigns from the past year.

Struggling? Well, Randall Rothenberg seems to think we are, and at his excellent I, A Bee, he puts a compelling case for re-appraising how we approach online advertising, moving away from a DM obsessed search for accountability to embracing a more creatively led approach to interactive advertising. It’s a long article, but well worth the read. Something which does come up, and something that seems prevalent in a lot of recent thinking, is the incorporating of technological experts into the creative process. In short, how can you create a great online campaign, or killer piece of execution without someone with the technological nouse to understand the possibilities available involved in the creative process. The same point was made in the fascinating New York Times article, where the company’s web and coding team were moved and interspersed amongst the journalistic team forcing both to co-collaborate on projects to pretty amazing effects.

So yeah, read.

Kaws

For all you Art Fags out there….

House Music All Night Long

Emotive was born at the SoBar’s first birthday party in Summer 2003, where founders Ashley Wilson and Steve Luke played a 3 hour set outside in the sunshine. Since then we have hosted many successful parties with guests including DJ Spen, Quentin Harris, Aaron Ross, Paul Trouble Anderson, Neil Pierce and Phil Asher to name but a few. As DJ’s we have played at the Ministry of Sound for Soul Heaven, Canvas at the massive 2006 MAW party, The Cross in London, in San Francisco for this year’s Summer Music Conference and all across the South of England. The Emotive sound is focused on soulful house, created and developed in New York City at clubs like Shelter and Body & Soul…

SoBar August 2007

Loads of amazing DJ sets to listen to and download…

Word of the Day for Friday, February 6, 2009

erstwhile \URST-hwahyl\, adjective, adverb;
Also used as an adverb, meaning formerly.:
former
Before I move, I will tell off my erstwhile friends.
by 1569, from Middle English erest “soonest, earliest” + while.

London Graffiti, 1980s to early 90s, with remix of Dizzy Rascal

Clay Shirkly on group action getting faster..

Was lucky enough to see him speak the other day… and the lovely people at madebymany have put together a great summary of the talk itself. Thanks

We have a video of his talk at the ICA which I hope to post up at some point in the near future.

Social character extensions

We’ve been talking to clients for sometime about the power of Twitter and other social channels in creating intimacy around brands inherent or associative passion points. Something that’s particularly relevant for entertainment brands – where character extensions and back stories can come to life to maintain engagement and develop deeper more immersive narratives between (and possibly even during) on air/line shows.

If you were following Man Men’s @Don_Draper on Twitter last year it turns out it was actually Paul Isakson conducting a research project on doing exactly that. At first AMC had the profiles pulled from Twitter, then probably realizing they were getting free advertising and potentially facing a firestorm of online backlash, they let them go back up. However when Paul gave the profile over to AMC, despite being handed an active and essentially free dialogue with a large group of fans (who when finding out it was Paul still wanted @Don_Drapper to live on) they promptly did nothing with it.

The point isn’t so much the issues of authenticity and control – although those are obviously huge (and for another time) – but the fact that whilst followers of @Don_Draper probably feel let down by AMC, the other characters profiles, run by fans, have been thriving ever since. If brands are to jump in, whether through choice or through circumstance, they need to be committed to an ongoing approach. If they are not and are just in it for the life of a campaign they had better be clear about that up front and have an exit strategy that doesn’t leave those who were engaged feeling cold.

@betty_draper
@bettydraper
@Sally_Draper
@bertramcooper
@peggyolson
@bud_melman

On other Mad Men stuff – a great clip from Seth Godins blog on what comes first – product or marketing.

@acotterill
@mindsharesocial

Bio Mapping

Saw Russel Davis speak about this at the Howies ‘Do’ Lectures. Lovely idea which tags areas of a map with emotional arousal – achieved by having sensors attached to volunteers skin as they travel around. The idea is to create a global emotions map, where geographical location and emotional arousal are linked and catalogued.

Have a look