Hill+Knowlton Strategies

You! Yes, you! Welcome, once again (presuming that you’ve been here before – if you’ve stumbled across this whilst searching for pornography then I apologise in advance for the lack of nudity but offer you a sincere first-timers’ welcome) to Web Curios.

God, that was a desperately poor intro. Sorry. What can I say? It’s Friday afternoon, and I’ve spent the entire week feeling a bit hungover under the weather. Not to mention the impact on my mood that this has had. It’s hard sometimes being a webmong (as you will well know). Nonetheless, I am putting my personal feelings of exhaustion and ennui to one side to bring you another selection of stuff I found online this week that one or two of you could conceivably find moderately interesting.

(It should be apparent by now that I am not a salesman).

We begin, this week, with a video – If you do nothing else here this week, watch this. It’s 5 minutes long, and is by far and away the best description I have yet seen of how virality works. Ignore the scaremongering undertones, and just think about how the meme below spreads. Oh, and for the non-geeks among you, a quick explanation of what 4chan is – you know all the stuff that features on those lists of the ‘biggest viral sensations EVER’? Stuff like RickRolling, the Numa Numa kid, Chocolate Rain and YouTube Porn Day? They all start at 4chan (WARNING – that link is direct to 4chan; the landing page is safe but I take no responsibility for what you might find beyond that (clue: porn and swearing)). It’s…just mental, really. Anyway, the video….

Oh Nestle… – Other ’social media gurus/mavens/experts/(insert meaningless title of your choice)’ will do this at length over the next few hours / days, but it doesn’t take a genius to work out that the tone of Nestle’s reponses to comments on their Facebook page probably didn’t do them any favours… Of course, as my esteemed colleague Dan Leach pointed out, it could all be very clever work by Greenpeace…

EDIT: @Malbonster just pointed me in this direction – Nestle’s share price over the past 5 days. Spot where today is on that graph…

Twitter Announces @anywhere – Ok, so what this is (massively simplified) is Twitter’s next step in terms of integrating itself with other, 3rd party websites. The TechCrunch piece linked to in the title is a decent overview (and this is a shorter one)- what it doesn’t seemingly touch on, though, is the potential implications for the development of a ‘universal’ online identity. Could this be a first step into the creation of a one login / username culture, integrated across all platforms? The BBC’s announcement yesterday of greater integration with both Facebook and Twitter would suggest it could be…Oh, and at the same time Twitter also declared that it wanted to be ‘A Force For Good’. Isn’t that nice? And…er…haven’t we heard that before somewhere?

I WANT THIS TABLE IN OUR OFFICES. IN THE UNLIKELY EVENT THAT SOMEONE IMPORTANT IS READING THIS, CAN YOU MAKE IT HAPPEN PLEASE? THANKS.

Can I have the whisky too, please? Kthxbai.

The Times is set to introduce its Paywall in the next few weeks – Will be fascinating to see what happens (clue: it won’t be an increase in traffic) and how other big media players respond.

What a magazine on the iPad might look like - Women’s digital magazine Viv put together this shiny demo, showcasing how their content might work on an iPad. My first thoughts? Content for people who really enjoyed Sin City but who don’t actually like reading very much.

An iPhone app that lets you create virtual balloon animals! – If this doesn’t make you smile just a little bit then you are dead to me. Seriously.

A Few Nice PR / Marketing Case Studies

• Skittles for Valentine’s Day – Part of the ongoing trend in giving people real-life (cool) stuff in exchange for engagement with brands on social media (see also the Marmarati)
• Burger King’s Whopper Face – Your face, on a burger, in Brazil. Genius.
• Heineken Italy – Been everywhere this week, and rightly so)
• (NB – 2 of the above came courtesy of @webkitten, for which thanks are due.)

A Wonderful Collection of Social Media Infographics – useful, courtesy of Michael Schulz whose personal website is also very nicely designed.

CANNONBALL KITTY

I can haz projectile

And, to finish (I know, I know, tldr), this week’s video selection:

1)Losers – ‘Flush’ feat Riz MC & Envy: Great track, great video and Envy is set to be huge this year (obviously if she isn’t then I never said that)

2) I went to see this lot on Tuesday. Great gig, though I did actually cause someone to leave the venue towards the end. In the unlikely event that you ever read this: sorry, Annoying Pair of Girls, but you were really getting on my tits:

3) The Internet of Things: how the planet is developing a central nervous system. 5 minutes of frankly insane futurology here from IBM:

4) Finally, a music video of near-Gaga levels of insanity. WHY THE SELLOTAPE???

Afternoon, world (note the hubris – ‘afternoon, handful of bored webmongs’ would almost certainly be more accurate). Once again, Web Curios (no movement on the title situation as yet) comes to you on a Thursday, due to my once more taking solace in the comfort of the 4-day week. I used to have a permanent 4-day week in my old job. It was amazing (the 4-day week, not the job; the job was a bit pony), and I miss it very much. I think that going back to a 4-day week would make me much happier and more productive.

ARE YOU READING THIS, BOSSMAN RICHARD MILLER? Eh? Oh. *sulks*

Ahem. Anyway, without further ado, to business!

A Smart Perspective On BBC Cuts – The big story of the week, at least amongst generic media types in the UK (yes, yes, like me), has been over the BBC Strategy Review, published on Tuesday, which recommended a whole raft of cuts to the Corporation’s output to cut costs – most notably the axing of BBC 6Music and the BBC Asian Network, as well as a scaling back of non-programme related content on the BBC website as a whole. Lots has been written on this already, but the above blog post by Adrian Hon is a thought-provoking summary of why the ’savings’ in terms of BBC Online are a nonsense.

Foursquare Partners with Vodafone UK – not massive news, but interesting as an example of how savvy Foursquare are being in linking up with media partners. This is exactly the sort of deal that (they hope) will take them from being the current darling of the early-adopter set to something that normal people know, like and use on a regular basis.

‘Dr’ Neil ‘Foxy’ Fox IN A PAIR OF GOLDEN PANTS - promoting Prostate UK’s Pants in the Park fundraising run:

A minor celebrity wearing humiliating underwear, yesterday.

The US Air Force’s ‘Rules of Engagement’ for Blogging – You know that people are taking digital seriously when the US Air Force starts publishing guidelines for its employees as to when they should / shouldn’t respond to blogs or forum comments on the organisation. What’s even more surprising is how measured and sensible the recommendations are – all organisations should have something similar if they are engaging with audiences online. FACT.

Probably the Coolest iPhone App To Date – watch for yourself. Turn your iPhone into an audio looping system. Almost inevitably this will end up with you turning into an annoying git who believes themselves to be the saviour of UK beatmaking – but that’s not the technology’s fault, it’s YOU. Or you could turn out to be the next Beardyman, which would be good.

The Best Website Takeover Animation Yet – there have been lots of these over the past year (most notably this one for Nintendo), but the latest (for a US brand of chips and salsa) is particularly good. Wonderful way to add an extra layer of interest to your online videos.

World Bank Launches Alternate Reality Game – I’ve been saying for years that Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) – basically a fancy way of saying big, interactive stories – are going to be huge. I’ve continually been proved wrong, with a few notable exceptions. Nontheless, Evoke – just launched, commissioned by the World Bank Institute and built by legendary game designer Jane McGonigal, the game is designed to “help empower young people all over the world, and especially young people in Africa, to come up with creative solutions to our most urgent social problems”. This is part of a trend that I think we will see more of in the coming years – people, including Governments, increasingly trying to use fun as an agent of educational and behavioural change. Although hopefully not like this

A few videos to finish…

1) Tokyo Glow – just a gorgous film / animation of Tokyo by night

2) Song of the Week – in honour of the gig I am not going to tomorrow, here’s Madvillain (MF Doom & Madlib) with Strange Ways

3) This has been all over the place this week – a gorgeous Olivo Barbieri-inspired video of a day in New York which looks like it’s been recreated in miniature. Just watch it:

4) Finally a plug for the new spoken word show by the amazingly talented Polar Bear – he’s doing a whole film in spoken word. Hard to explain, but check out the below and, if you like it, take a punt on the tickets. You won’t be disappointed.