Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I was away.  Now I am back. Try and contain your joy (I know it’s hard, but for Christ’s sakes show some backbone, will you?).

So when we last spoke I was about to go on holiday here – unfortunately, I ended up somewhere that looks a lot more like here. It all went to tits, webmongs, and frankly it’s still a bit raw and painful. Suffice it to say that I will not be buying the US Department of Homeland Security a Christmas card this year.

But! It wasn’t all bad! The World Cup started! And then finished again yesterday, as far as I’m concerned (my own personal message to the Italian team can be seen here, should you care to look). Deutschland uber alles for Sunday, by the way. Even better, Big Brother started again! Eh? Oh. Look, I’m not ashamed – until they finally do that televised version of the Stanford Prison Experiment here in the UK, it’s the only place i can get my fix of legitimised pychological torture. And this year it features a man with no legs and only one eye, who frankly cannot fail to win. You don’t vote out the mutilated squaddie – put the house on him to come first (NB – Web Curios accepts no responsibility for houses lost as a result of gambling) The weather’s nice, that self-indulgent tool won’t be ruining Glastonbury, and a Brit’s in with a chance at Wimbledon! Calloo, callay, o frabjous day, etc etc.

Oh, who am I trying to kid? I totally failed to go on holiday and spent a week slumped in front of the (really, really mediocre) football, dulling my frontal lobes with drink and drugs in an attempt to numb the pain as big salty tears trickled down my cheeks. England could well jam their way to winning the World Cup, forcing me to emigrate. The weather may be nice, but I’m a wageslave officemonkey who’s chained to his desk for hours at a time so I can’t enjoy it. And I’m obviously not at Glastonbury. Modern Life Is Rubbish, and so is the blog this week. Suck it up.

The Obligatory Facebook Thing – Remember all those weeks ago when Facebook announced Open Graph and all the lovely cross-web integration that ushered in? Well now they’ve just announced the next step. All of the information gathered by Open Graph will now be available to Facebook Search – meaning, in (massively over-) simplified terms, that the number of ‘likes’ that a page, group or profile has will impact its position when searched for. The interesting thing is that this will apply to any page on the web enabled with Open Graph – whether it’s on Facebook or not. Which effectively means that Facebook is starting to turn itself into a search engine. Which is big news. I think.

Some Geolocation Stuff – ah, location-based stuff. Still 2010’s most buzzy social media thing. There’s a great article here about Geofencing, which could actually be a really useful addition to Foursqzzzzzzzz (sorry, I’m just really bored of typing that now), etc. Basically it’s technology that will let one set up markers around a particular location, which could allow users to automatically check-in to Foursqzzzzzzzz (sorry, dozed off again) when entering the geofence of a shop, bar, brothel, etc. Additionally it could let you know who’s currently within a particular Geofenced area – useful for finding your friends, or stalking that special someone you’ve had your eye on for weeks but who doesn’t even know you exist despite the anonymous flowers and cakes and nighttime vigils spent pacing naked outside their front door.

Oh, and this is a rather nice mashup of Fousqzzzzzzzz (this isn’t getting any funnier, is it?), Gowalla and Yelp, aggregating comments, checkings and recommendations for all three services on one handy map. Take a look.

They Were Wrong, So We Drowned

After Tate Trumps from a few weeks back, another creative solution from the Tate to get people to enjoy art in a different, digital way

LinkedIn Upgrades Groups – Frankly I’ve always been baffled by how I’m supposed to use LinkedIn for PR purposes (this is probabl;y because I am a crap consultant). These new steps, though, go some way to providing me with a few ideas – Groups on LinkedIn now effectively work in a very similar way to Facebook, with the ability to post content up there through links, to ‘Like’ posts, etc. Generally it’s all been made a lot more social – what with the recent increased Twitter integration it’s an increasingly good place to place content for professional audiences. I think.

Great Ice Cream Promo by Unilever – This is so good I thought it was by Coke when I first saw it. An icrecream vending machine that doles out free ices (Web Curios is still waiting to hear from Haagen Dazs, by the way – pull your fingers out!) to smiley people and automatically posts pictures to Facebook. Lovely.

Feeling Sad? Don’t Know Why? Find A Name For Your Pain Here

Swears=Bad Smells – This little device plugs into your USB port and emits noxious odours every time it detects you posting a BAD WORD. My paymasters are almost certainly considering buying one for me to go with my P45.

Hello Boys

BlipSnips lets you link to any point in a given video. Useful.

Ever Wanted To See The World As A Scorpion Does? – I’m guessing that for the majority of you the answer to that question is ‘No. Of course not. You FREAK’. Fie on you, majority – this website contains videos taken by cameras MOUNTED ON ANIMALS.

Burberry Changes Online Shopping – Great work (again) from Burberry here, as they effectively allow people to shop for their clothes direct from the livestream of their fashion shows. A brilliant, brilliant idea – and a frightening look at how all advertising will work before too long (I think).

ENOUGH OF THIS! TO THE VIDEOS!

1) I’m starting off this week by shilling the work that my esteemed paymasters did at the Cannes PR Lions this week with Improv Everywhere. It’s pretty cool – take a look:

2) This is The Roots and Ice Cube doing “Straight Outta Compton” as a warm-up on the Jimmy Fallon show the other week. A warm up. (oh, while we’re here why not listen to Nina Gordon’s acoustic cover, containing the sweetest-voiced swearing you ever will hear):

3) I give it about a month before these are used in a music video. DANCING ROBOTS!:

4) According to Joe Muggs, this is the greatest UK hiphop video since Roots Manuva’s ‘Witness’. Who am I to disagree? Jammer feat. Boy Better Know – 10 Man Roll:

5) This isn’t new, but I discovered this user’s immense collection of Neutral Milk Hotel bootlegs on YouTube only this week. I love this song.

6) Finally, the most psychedelic thing you will see all week. FACT. Blockhead – The Music Scene