Monthly Archives: August 2008

Sunning Myself in Mars

Mars24 is a really cool downloadable tool for all you astronomy fanboys and girls out there. It displays the Mars sunclock, a graphical representation of Mars and a readout of the time in 24-hour format, amongst many other cool things.

Captain, set course to Mars....

Captain, set course to Mars....

 

You can also use the program to display a panoramic view of where the Mars Phoenix is currently located, and can adjust it to see north, south, east and west viewpoints. I like the feature that allows you to see the local time for Earthlings and Martians.

I’ll just hook this into my Tom Tom and off I go! 

 

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This Little Nugget Dropped Into My Inbox Last Night…

Lowering The Tone Since 1984!

US Magazine: Lowering The Tone Since 1984!

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Nike + iPod = Breaking Through The Wall

Shockingly, I’m going from an Apple hater to becoming ever more slightly enthusiastic by the day. Being a gadget gal, I’m really impressed with their new Nike + iPod gym venture and even more so, given I’m a member of Virgin Active where they’ve rolled this out in the UK. 

 

Run Forrest Run

Run Forrest Run

Have a look at the site to see how it works and marvel at how much more Apple and Nike will integrate themselves (with your consent, of course) into your day to day life.

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Is Blogging Still Word of Mouth on Steroids?

As part of an initiative that’s just begun at work, I’ve begun to regularly to read and review books related to marketing, the Internet and PR. I’m currently in the midst of reading Naked Conversations by Robert Scoble and Shel Israel and although it was published in mid-2006, it still makes for fascinating and relevant reading.

There’s a very interesting quote in the book from one of the key investors in ICQ, which becomes the book’s main supposition – ‘blogging is word of mouth on steroids’.  There are some great examples in the book of this principle in action, including a chapter on Microsoft. As most of us likely know, Microsoft suffered from a huge image problem in the early 2000s and was most commonly referred to as ‘the Borg’. In 2002, an independent initiative by keen employees within the company led to a huge network of bloggers all working to proactively respond to concerns and attempt to change perceptions within the tech sector that Microsoft was big, bad and evil. This approach lead to some change in the way that people blogged and spoke about Microsoft, which given the nascent nature of blogging at the time, was truly amazing. 

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Stop The CTR Obsession!

I’m continually amazed at the consistent obsession that agencies and clients have about clickthrough rate. CTR, CTR, CTR! Fast becoming the dirtiest acronym in media – or is it?

As agencies increase their digital expertise and consistently educate clients about the importance of digital within the wider communications mix, it’s become all too easy to refer back to the easiest to understand metric – the ubiquitous clickthrough rate. One might argue that this is the most straightforward measure metric to start clients on and helps them understand the basics and build from there. I disagree – we’re missing a big trick and are in danger of oversimplifying a very complicated space by talking to clients in the simplest possible terms, using the simplest possible metric. Continue reading

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Becoming Internet Famous

In my zeal to ‘raise my external profile’ (yes, I realise how completely wanky that sounds – bear with me), I’ve been reading a lot about Internet memes and the ‘Internet Famous‘. We all know about the ‘Leave Britney Alone’ guy, Lolcats and notorious operators like Julia Allison and her Non-Society crew, but what if you want to PR yourself in a credible way that doesn’t involve 100% disclosure?

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I heart Muxtape, but it’s been shut down!

Another case of the shortsighted music industry not looking before they've leapt

Another case of the shortsighted music industry not looking before they've leapt.

This really gets my goat. Muxtape is a great service that lets users create their own virtual mixtape and share with their friends. I’d previously enthused about how great Muxtape was – it completely embodied the often anarchiac DIY ethos of the Internet and fit in with the idea of giving consumers what they wanted, exactly when they wanted it. Now the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) has shut it down.

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Me As A Brand

I recently had my yearly appraisal and while not a hugely exciting event, one of the many objectives I was given really got me thinking. After being told I needed to raise my external profile but not really given any direction on how to do this, I spent a lot of time pondering and looking out for people that were doing it well both in the UK and internationally.

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The future is indeed bright

This is a great way of visually communicating the massive changes in the way the generations communicate and demonstrates how important age is when putting together a communications plan.

How Baby Boomers (45-65 year old Adults with UK marketing speak) communicated:

The Baby Boomer Way of Communication

The Baby Boomer Way of Communication

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Facing my manga

 

Manga Le'Nise

Manga Le'Nise

Face Your Manga is a cool new service for the avatar obsessed. You can create your own avatar for any type of mood, weather or place and pretend to be a Japanese manga action hero, which is brilliant. The company has added a €1.50 fee to download and print, which I’m sure some people will pay, but most of the more computer-savvy people (like me!) will likely find ways around this fee and cut and paste their way to multiple manga avatar happiness.

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