It is BarCamp tomorrow — 9am!
And after weeks of procrastination I have finally finished the presentation. Don’t even know if it will go ahead!
Thanks to all who helped with ideas (or from whom I stole shamelessly):
PS … had to post the pirate pic. It is called Pirate Gavin … and when you see the presentation you will understand why 😉
John Dodds points out that someone over in Honda F1 marketing must be paying attention to global trends.
Launching myearthdream.com, Honda are bringing together an increasing global interest in global warming and environmental issues and employing one of the Internet’s greatest hits of last year — the million dollar homepage.
At this site, you can pledge money to a registered charity (the trust will distribute funds to environmental charities around the world) and in return you can have your name appear on a pixel on the car. There are 600 pixels per car and there are two cars. The cars will be unveiled at the first Grand Prix in Melbourne on 18 March 2007.
The site also has some great tips and tricks for helping the environment. My favourite:
"Give up ironing – Endorse the crumpled look. An iron uses as much energy as a kettle is it really worth it? A great excuse to avoid a household chore!"
While I like this site and the idea behind it, it is a shame that there are a couple of things missing from the execution — a "blog this" function for the site — and a good copy editor.
When I saw this from Greg Verdino via David Armano I knew it was going to be something special. Why? Because I trust their views. I respect their opinions. I know I am not wasting my time.
And as I am reading Citizen Marketers at the moment, this seems to be topical — especially given that the subtitle is "When people are the message". Mojiti allows you to create a narrative overlay to your videos … and also allows others to contribute to this. You WILL need to sign-up, but then you will be able to add your comments to this video.
And while the technology is cool … I particularly love the way that Michael Wesch has pulled together a compelling storyline integrating message and medium. The possibilities that this opens up for digital storytelling and brand engagement/promotion (in particular) is considerable. Of course, this will not be without risks … but then, neither is crossing the road.
Next week, my friend Terry starts a new job. As you will see from his site, should you decide to link through, he is a very talented Flash game developer. Even for those of you who are not keen on playing online games, there is plenty to surprise and delight you. In fact, you may find that you can easily become addicted to his "simple to play, difficult to master"style of game.
Over the last couple of years, Terry has been working to build his site out, generate more traffic and create a game playing community … and he has done so to great success (more still to come I hope). One of the things that differentiates his games and his site is that he builds it for himself first, and for his grandma second. Well, not EXACTLY his grandmother … but ANY grandmother. Really, he wants parents and grandparents to feel comfortable coming to his site to play online games (either for themselves or with their kids).
Terry also listens to feedback. In fact, he asks for it. Then he uses this feedback to improve his site and his game design. Of course, not all feedback is incorporated, and there are exceptions … but the restless approach that he takes to improving his game design and programming is outstanding. I am sure that many of the lessons he has learned on his own site will hold him in good stead for the challenges that await him. Good luck!
Thanks to Karl Long at Experience Curve for the link geoGreeting!
OK … I really need to sleep … but JUST found this over at RoboYouth. It is a great looking little tool called BuzzLogic that seems to be able to map out the level of influence that your posts have on your community. I have not had a chance to look too far into it as yet, but it LOOKS good, SOUNDS interesting, and seems to add a technical dimension to Mr Armano’s famous diagram.
As usual you all may have already known about it. But I never said I was fast!
S.
This evening I got an invitation to play with Fleck. Unfortunately, at the moment it only works with Firefox … but if you DO have Firefox (or want to install it), check out this link.
Following on from yesterday’s post on giving creative feedback creatively, there is a great cartoon on Jon Howard’s livingbrands blog — on how NOT to give creative feedback.
For those who don’t have Firefox, Fleck allows you to leave small notes, bullets and so on on another website. You can also send a link, complete with those comments and notes on the site.
Actually, it strikes me as a GREAT way of providing creative feedback on websites … in a very creative way. Hmmm … wonder if it works with Flash? Might just have to test it out. I am off to leave little comments all over the web … look out, the servant of chaos will be coming to a blog near you (probably your own)!.
S.
We have been wondering when the Google-killer would arise … we always suspected it would be Microsoft … but I never expected it to look like this. Ms Dewey is certainly an unexpected surprise!
John Battelle wrote this up a couple of days ago.
Sure this is not ALL about search, but it is good to see a sexy approach to something that we all take for granted. NOW the challenge is to find all the secret phrases that create unexpected responses.
Oh … and she IS impatient. Don’t keep her waiting.
S.
Perhaps it is my background as an editor, or perhaps it is my interest in words, but this great site on web typography is really a hit with me. I particularly like the explanation of em and en rules … you can probably see my double hyphens scattered throughout this site — they are my version of an em rule. When I first started doing some online editing, we used the double hyphen to denote em rules … and they would be automatically filtered by the typesetting system and replaced with proper em rules — just like this one!
Of course, to do this in typepad means editing the HTML and adding the code. But as I am a little lazy, I simply revert to my old methods.
But whether you are lazy or not, A List Apart is a great site for writers and editors who use the web. Thanks to Russell for the link (sorry Russell I lost the exact page).
Enjoy!
S.
You don’t have to be fancy to have an impact. There is no need to create a new website on the scale of MGM Grand — which is pretty spectacular — if you have a great idea and an effective way to execute it.
That is why I like this. It is a flight simulator that uses Google Maps in realtime. You can select your location from a drop down list, or if you are feeling a little more adventurous, you can grab your coordinates from Google Maps and with a couple of hacks, fly around your own local area.
The cool thing about this is that it showcases the skills of Mark Caswell-Daniels — at a time when he is looking for work … and it has the potential to become viral on a global scale — he has cleverly added locations to the game based on the volume of traffic and its origin.
And if you fly north across the Sydney Harbour Bridge, you can see my office. And on a bad day, you can even fire at it. Hmmm. I think I would prefer flaming blog comments!
S.
Well as the folks over at Simple and Loveable have lamented, there does not seem to be much action in the Web 2.0 world at the moment. It is a shame because I love a new tool to play with.
So imagine how happy I was to find this. It is a way of organising all your favourite web videos. Good fun … thanks to Tara at HorsePigCow.
