Why did you get Facebook? Twitter? Hell, why did you get MySpace? It was probably to keep in touch with friends, old and new, or maybe to remind yourself of the glorious summer days gone by and the great nights out that prolonged the turning of a new day; an extensive photo album that documented the highs and lows of life well lived. We took to the social networks to share, to become part of a wider community… and to play FarmVille.
I have heard a couple of things that have baffled me this week. Firstly, thieves stole over a quarter of Canada’s $30 million maple syrup reserves. Why so much syrup? What kind of world are we living in where a country feels the need to stockpile that much liquid sugar? And allow it to be stolen? For Canadians, I guess it’s the equivalent of the Queen being kidnapped. And two, Apple’s rumoured iPad mini. As hard as I try, I’m struggling to make sense of it all.
48 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute. To say that’s a lot is an understatement - mind you, it’s probably a figure which won’t surprise most regular Internet users. But more important than upload is download, who is watching all this video?
So Samsung’s tablet isn’t a rip-off of Apple’s iPad because Apple is far cooler than Samsung. Pretty solid argument I’m sure you’ll agree. Not sure who came out of that better? Apple may have lost the case, but the brand damage sustained by Samsung will surely make this a shallow victory.
So the Olympic Torch passed through sleepy Henley this morning. A chance to glimpse man’s oldest achievement - fire. But not before man’s second greatest achievement rolled by, shameless advertising. Now, we’re all in this advertising business together, but even I find it hard to warm to the hype guys from the Samsung and Coca-Cola buses pass by, with their huge tunes and big afros. It’s 9:20am buddy, take those bloody sunglasses off, this ain’t Ibiza.
The plan was to stage the largest trading seminar ever seen in London. With the biggest names in the industry including Richard Farleigh, Lex van Dam and City AM’s own Allister Heath, Cafecreate developed a strong strategy to help generate a buzz around this ambitious event. The result?
For centuries, man has longed to fly and land safely on earth, unaided, into a massive pile of cardboard boxes. Today Gary Connery, becomes that man… hopefully.
A world record attempt of epic proportions, miles better than that odd fellow from the White Stripes whose apparently going to break the record for the most amount of metaphors used in one tour. This one is actually exciting, and the man behind it deserves all the credit that comes his way.
So you’ve managed to stay off Facebook, and you’re not really sure of the purpose of Twitter. No biggie, there’s plenty of other sites for you to browse on the Internet. Except there’s not. More and more websites now require you to sign up using your Twitter or Facebook login details, or as it affectionately known, your personal information.
The question that continues to be the root of hundreds of debates, is what does this mean for your privacy? Well, for a start, more and more people know more and more about you, and they are loving that data. But are you worried, and do you care? Of course not, there’s a bank, police file or weird stalker that already knows pretty much everything about you anyway.
So this weekend, I found myself in Shoreditch. Previously I never considered myself cool enough to grace this part of LDN, but curiosity took ahold and I set off to experience the alternative parts of E1.
There’s definitely a look that comes with hanging out in this part of town; short trousers, boat shoes with no socks, glasses with fake lenses and vintage (charity) clothing. And the must have accessory? A huge camera. Everybody’s a photographer here and they take photos of anything and everything. I went to a pub and two guys literally just sat taking photos out of the window. But I digress, the interesting thing is that it’s a community; a odd dressing community, but a community nonetheless.
But don’t call them ads.
Via Business Insider:
In a 2010 interview with the Los Angeles Times, Tumblr CEO and founder David Karp said, “We’re pretty opposed to advertising. It really turns our stomachs.”
How times have changed. Karp announced at Ad Age’s Digital Conference that on May 2, Tumblr will start offering advertisers the ability to buy an ad unit on Tumblr Radar, which highlights the site’s top posts and gets approximately 120,000 impressions a day.
“I was probably being an idiot then,” Karp said of his earlier renunciation of all advertising. His conversion is relatively recent—on April 12 he told Ad Age that advertising was “a complete last resort.”
Tumblr spokesperson Katharine Barna added that the real estate being offered to advertisers was “not an ‘ad unit’ per se, but a package of native promotion for the Tumblr post ― the most essential and versatile piece of our network.”
Last week Advertising Age interviewed Karp and asked a basic question: “Can the Company Be a Business Without Traditional Advertising?”
This can be done well, and if anyone can do it, it’s Tumblr.
To say that Sport Relief is a huge charity whose work has done undeniably great things for the world is an understatement. To say that Cafécreate can collectively run a mile with ease is not.
