Mar
2010
Web Curios
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???
