Hill+Knowlton Strategies

I was sick last week. Not actually physically sick (not in the Exorcist way, at least), but certainly ill. It sucked (another word that I’ve just discovered should not be combined with a Google search with the safe settings turned off), and was also a real shame as there were some proper internet gems which I was ITCHING to write about for your pleasure. I didn’t, though – instead I sat on the couch and felt sorry for myself and played Limbo, which is brilliant.

This probably doesn’t need to be reiterated, but Toy Story 3 is also brilliant. In the unlikely event that anyone from the American Department of Homeland Security is reading this (and given that this is now the second time I’ve linked to that website, there’s every possibility that they are WATCHING MY EVERY MOVE), then here’s a tip; leave off using music to break prisoners at Guantanamo, and instead commission Pixar to create a tearjerking animated short designed to persuade those pesky terrormongers of the error of their ways. You can have that for free.

There’s a whole raft of stuff to get through this week, some of it even quite good, so I’m not going to bother writing any more of this bit as I know noone really reads it anyway.

There’s a really, really obvious joke about the demise of Google Wave that I can’t be bothered to make – Fortunately the fine folk at Speed Communications collated all the other examples of risible humour for me. Not much that needs to be said on this – people simply decided that they didn’t need Wave, and that it didn’t necessarily deliver anything new or helpful. Kudos, though, to Google for admitting that this one simply didn’t work – you try, you occasionally fail, no big deal. Well, other people try; my general attitude is a bit more like Homer’s (no, the other Homer).

This is not the only thing in this week's Web Curios which may haunt your nightmares

Another Week, Another Foursquare Promo – After Domino’s jumped on the bandwagon the other week, this time it’s the other US behemoth of the dough-and-cheese world, Pizza Hut, which has set up a Foursquare deal. The mechanic appears to be the same, and is tied-in to purchase which I am increasingly thinking is the smartest way for retail brands to use the service. Of course, the success of these campaigns outside of the preposterous social media bubble depends on how many people actually use Foursquare. Actual figures are hard to come by for the UK, but I’ve heard the phrase ‘5,000 active users in London’ repeated quite a lot. Hm. Anyway, this is quite an interesting post on why Foursquare might be more Second Life than Facebook. NB – can I just point out that I think location-based services are going to be big, and mainstream and all; I’m just not convinced that it will be Foursquare that makes them so. I’m not an expert or anything, though, so don’t quote me on that. Please. Really.

Fflick Does Movie Reviews From Twitter – This was everywhere yesterday, but is worth chucking up as an example of a cute idea, well executed; it trawls Twitter for conversations about films, scrapes the data, and re-presents it as a sort of aggregated online sentiment for each title, allowing you to see what people think about any given film. That was a frankly appalling explanation – sorry, I’m a bit distracted today and – oh look! A shrimp on a treadmill!

Get Rid Of People You Don’t Want To Follow Any More On Twitter By Feeding Them To A Tiger – Not literally. That would be illegal, and (for most of us, at least) logistically problematic.

I Mean This With All My Heart

Here’s Another Facebook Search Tool – Having had a cursory play around with it, I think it works better than the slightly creepier YourOpenBook.

Turn The Tube Into A Game – I got rather excited about this when I saw it the other day. Chromarama is effectively a project which will turb tube journeys made with an Oyster Card into, as far as I can tell, some sort of team-based territorial battle with players competing to OWN LONDON. Part art project, part pervasive urban game, this looks like it could be a lot of fun, and a less all-consuming, borderline psychotic version of Street Wars.

A Geeky-But-Useful Thread On THE SECRET TRICKS OF GOOGLE

12 Things That Could Change The World Forever – This is simply wonderful. An article from a recent issue of Scientific American on events that could prove epoch-defining should they occur, repurposed for the web with added interactivity. Whether or not you care about the topics illustrated in the piece – and if you don’t, frankly, you’re a moron – it’s worth looking at purely from an information design perspective; it’s one of the most impressive examples of rich content creation I’ve seen in a long time.

Building New York's MOMA

Found Comics – Making sequential art from random photos grabbed from Flickr.

All The Reasons You Will Ever Need Not To Get A Chinese Character Tattoo

As A Final Point, Why The Word ‘Digital’ Is Increasingly Otiose

And now, what is increasingly looking like being all the videos in all the world. Brace yourselves, we’re going in (oh, and as an aside, I read a piece of research this morning which actually contained the phrase: “Television is a universally important medium of video consumption”. I was ASTOUNDED, I tell you):

1) I’m getting this out of the way now. Mouth Eyes. Frankly I’m saying nothing else – you can probably tell from the still below whether or not this is going to mess with your head. Be warned – this artist appears again a little further down:

2) On a less nightmare-inducing note, The Flower is a lovely animated short about why marijuana should in fact be legalised:

3) This video for the track ‘Ritalin’ by the band Dancing Pigeons is the most compelling reason I’ve yet seen for getting your hands on a flamethrower:

4) Mikill Pain’s a bit of an oddity on the UK hiphop scene, but no less compelling for it. Very, very British, and all the better for it:

5) Speaking of British, my mate Adam did that 24-hour mixtape thing the other week, which I linked to. One of the songs from that is now up on YouTube, and not only is it a thing of wonder but it also features the legend that is Chilly Gonzales, who’s one of the most incredible musicians I’ve ever been lucky enough to see live. Watch:

6) In fact, have Gonzales’ latest video for his track “I Am Europe”:

7) Up until this week I had never heard of the Icelandic band who are confusingly named FM Belfast. This song’s a cracker, though – Underwear:

8 ) This one for Flying Lotus’s Mmm Hmm is just odd. Cool looking, but odd:

9) Flylashes. False eyelashes made from the legs of dead flies. I know. You can check out more of the artists’ work here, should you be so inclined. Jessica Harrison, in the unlikely event you’re reading this I would really like to meet you, if only to ask “Why?”: