Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I awoke this morning feeling wonderful – the weather was a bit pony, admittedly, but it was FRIDAY and I had 2 days of pseudo-freedom to look forward to before reapplying the shackles of gainful employment. Things were looking good, webmongs…and then I had an 8:30am conference call which pretty much screwed my day entirely. It’s hard to explain its effect without resorting to cheap hyperbole, so I shan’t try; suffice it to say that it was the psychological equivalent of making a series of small but well-placed papercuts between each of my toes and then taking a saline foot-bath; of flaying the skin from my bones and then rolling across the great Salt Lake Desert.

But! It’s not just about me (it is, actually, but let’s pretend). What’s been going on in the world since we last spoke? Oh, loads of stuff. Old Spice did THE BEST THING ON THE INTERNET EVER – or at least that’s what a bunch of generic media idiots think; real people, on the other hand, remained utterly oblivious to the fact that a man with his shirt off was massaging the egos of a host of people on Twitter. They also remained reluctant to purchase the frankly horrifyingly-scented product in question (though a note to all the PR/marketing gurus/ninjas/mavens (*vomits*) who are running around shouting FAIL! – let’s look at figures in a year’s time and then judge the campaign, eh? And frankly I’m sure that the fine folk at W&K will be crying into their vintage Veuve at Cannes this time next year when they’re hoovering cocaine from the tanned midriff s of teenage models whilst clutching multiple Lions of varying hues).

What else? Paul Gascoigne made a late bid for a post on the UN Security counsel as he demonstrated his peacekeeping skills; The Times revealed the IMMENSE SUCCESS of its paywall policy; the Spanish won a fight; lots more people got a Facebook account; and I went to see this man doing stand-up and fell a bit in love with his genius. But! You don’t care about that! In fact, you probably don’t care about what is to follow either, but no matter. On with the LINKS and INFORMATION and STUFF.

This Is What The iPad Is For – So this week people have mostly been getting really excited about Flipboard for the iPad; a programme which, to quote one of its statements to media, is “a social magazine that brings to life the stories, photos, news and updates being shared across Twitter and Facebook”. So there. This rather excellent blog post by @sandoz explains why you should care; effectively it’s the sharpest social media aggregation tool yet developed, and allows very effective and intuitive organisation of information from Twitter and Facebook into a coherent, thematised stream. Expect to see a web-based app ripping this off in the next month. Oh, and in unrelated news, this is another use for the iPad. A table to eat sushi from.

The Glamorous World of Modelling

Online Is Forever – A wonderful article from the New York Times on why the internet means we never forget. It quotes Borges, which wins immense ponce-points from me, but it also contains some really interesting thoughts on how we (and the way we interact with and store data) will change over time as we come to terms with the fact that memory is now forever. A great adjunct to this presentation which I included last time but which I’m guessing only about 4 of you bothered to look at.

Information! Statistics! Pictures!

• MARVEL at an array of social media usage stats from the BBC
• GAWP at some rather pretty visualisations of the shifting mood of the USA over the course of a day, mapped through Twitter
• DROOL over some Facebook numbers showing how upsettingly ubiquitous the damn platform is
• TREMBLE in the face of 43 slides of stats and info about ‘Next Generation Media’ (no, me neither – mobile and the internet, basically)
• TUMESCE at the thought of an updated with all-new statistics version of the now-infamous “What The F**K Is Social Media NOW” presentation

This article is a slightly technical but actually very useful look at exactly how a brand’s social media presence can directly affect its search engine rankings, and how dirty little marketing and PR scum like us can use that to shill stuff to the public. HUZZAH!

Angelica Paez makes beautiful collages

Fancy Yourself as a SuperHero? – <———that link takes you to the OFFICIAL ONLINE DIRECTORY OF REAL-LIFE SUPERHEROES. Useful should you ever have considered donning tights and fighting crime yourself, if only to check that your idea for a costume hasn’t already been used by someone else.

Cheat Sheat Motherlode – A one-stop-shop for cheat sheets on every geeky / techy subject you can think of, from programing languages to Adobe Photoshop to Google. Useful, even if you’re not the sort of person who spends their evenings trying to programme their RealDoll (apropos which, check out these slightly distressing pictures from the factory. Sometimes – but only sometimes – I am genuinely ashamed of my gender)

A Simple, Clever Idea – Nectar (the people who monitor what you buy at Sainsbury’s so that they can then sell you things more efficiently later, under the guise of giving you GREAT DEALS!) have partnered with Yahoo! to launch a search bar which rewards you with Nectar points each time you use it.  If you can’t beat Google, bribe people with the prospect of discounted yoghurt.

Ken's Control Issues Were Becoming Increasingly Apparent.

Say Goodbye To Your Afternoon – This is the best browser-based MarioKart ripoff you will play all day. FACT.

These Pictures Of Travellers In Ireland Are Lovely

Hm. Bit of an odd selection this week; not sure if I like it or not. Fortunately it’s been an absolutely CRACKING few days for good / odd videos, so sit back, stop pretending to care about your job and WATCH and ENJOY and LAUGH AND CRY AND SMILE AND DANCE AND SING:

1) This is only 40-odd seconds long, but it’s guaranteed to trouble your dreams for much, much longer than that:

2) Werewolves are big at the moment, what with Twilight and True Blood and all manner of other cheap cash-in novels for sexually frustrated teens. Have some hot wolfy action courtesy of Beach House and their oddity of a video for the track “Walk In The Park”:

3) If you like films and animation, this will wow you. If you don’t like either of those two things you should still watch it. 35 films, cryptically alluded to in 2 minutes of beautiful, almost Saul Bass-style animated goodness:

4) The Wave Pictures are a cracking band, and this is a wonderful video made using only books. Erm, and some editing software, and a camera. The song’s called Sweetheart:

5) Favourite video of the week (possibly actually of the past few months) is this effort, produced by a fan for Broken Social Scene’s  ‘Meet Me In The Basement’. The band were so enamoured that they’ve made it the official video for the song. It reminds me of the opening of Watchmen, and is simultaneously brilliant and sad. Just watch it:

6) Finally, this animated short to accompany The Mountain Goats’ ‘No Children’ is a pretty accurate evocation of the feelings elicited by that conference call I mentioned at the top back there. Please listen to the lyrics, they are worth it: