What are the issues facing the media industry? Starcom to host industry-first debate

Tomorrow, Starcom (our sister agency) will host an industry debate among media buyers and planners in what it believes to be an industry-first event, bringing agencies and media professionals together with leading spokespeople to discuss key issues facing the media industry.

Tim Burrowes, founder of leading online media and marketing publication, mUmBRELLA, will join Starcom MediaVest Group Sydney Managing Director Bob Goodge to debate major events that are shaping the media industry.

In what is sure to be an entertaining and insightful event held at The Lord Nelson Hotel in The Rocks, the social media team at Amnesia Razorfish will share the debate via a Live blog and Twitter feed during the night.

You can find the live blog here

Starcom’s Future of Media

and follow the tweets via #starcomfom

The event will open with a discussion about major events that are shaping the industry.

This will be followed by an open debate moderated by Starcom executives where everybody will be encouraged to have their say. The event is expected to attract agency executives, clients, media students and all levels of media people working in the industry, bringing professionals together in a productive socialenvironment designed to give all voices equal share. 

So if you haven’t registered to attend the event (there’s still time by registering here), but want to hear what Tim and Bob, as well as other senior media and agency figures think will shape the media and agency environment, join in and watch us report it live.

And, if you have any questions you want us to pose to either Tim or Bob, just ask them in the comments field!

~ Karalee Evans, Social Strategy Manager

Kitty criminal – the viral story of CatBinLady

“I was walking home from work and saw this cat wander out in front of me. I don’t know what came over me, but I suddenly thought it would be funny to put it in the wheelie bin, which was right beside me.”

Happens to the best of us, eh? This is how 45 year old Mary Bale from Coventry in the UK described the bizarre lapse of judgement that has catapulted her to global interweb fame in the space of a few days.

Lola the cat’s owner, Darryl Mann, heard her piteous yowling inside the wheelie bin outside his home fifteen hours later. Unluckily for Mrs Bale, her random act of kitty cruelty was captured on Darryl’s security cameras and promptly uploaded to YouTube by his wife, Stephanie. It wasn’t long before the resourcefulness of crowds tracked her down, and now she’s news from the Washington Post to the Sydney Morning Herald.

Her name, address, manager’s phone number have been posted online; there are at least 8 Facebook pages denouncing her villainy (not counting ‘Death to Mary Bale’, removed by Facebook). The Sun newspaper in the UK has published a Flash whack-a-mole game (renamed Whack-cat-woman) allowing users to smack Mary’s wicked head as it pops out of wheelie bins.

Back on YouTube there’s a video entitled ‘Cruel Cat Dumps Woman In Bin (Revenge of Cat)’ in which the tables are turned – a man in a Sylvester the Cat suit dumps an old lady in a wheelie bin.

Mary’s even got a fake twitter account in her name, CatBinLady, which has her tweeting pathological random acts of weirdness as she goes through her day: “Just kicked the head off next door’s gnome. For a joke. Who’s laughing now though? Not me. Not me.”

In short – she’s gone VIRAL! In just days.

While notorious Mary is barricaded at home, pilloried by the world’s media, menaced by crowds outside her house and expecting to lose her job, you’ll be pleased to hear that Lola has recovered from her ordeal purrrfectly.

High School Kids build amazing car capable of 444mpg

Very inspiring story about some high school students who took a car worth $2500 and rebuilt the outer shell using a heatgun wire mesh and a 3M product (used to shrinkwrap windows). The new lightweight skin massively reducing the cars weight. At 25mph the car runs at an impressive 444mpg. Full story at Geek.com (here)

 

AdNews Vs B&T Vs Campaign Brief Vs Inspiration Room Vs Mumbrella

Disclaimer before I begin: This article is intended to provide a basic snapshot of trending data as supplied by publically available sources or supplied by the source, it is not an in depth analysis relating stats against the quality of publisher content, audience, engagement. etc. Secondly the stats are limited to the specific parent sites, and do not take into account sister sites or network sites from each of the publishers (eg: Campaign brief / BestAdsOnTV).

The back story:
This is the third time I’ve posted statistical information on specific advertising industry publishers. The last time it stirred up a few debates in the comments with the Australian Audit Bureau weighing in to argue for greater standards of measurement within the industry. There was additional discussion over the audience and whether international traffic should be counted, and the quality of reach attained by each publication.

5 sites and a look at Traffic Vs Search Vs Social

Looking a little deeper, digitally speaking:
As well as just traffic stats the team here also had a quick look at Social share of voice (SOV) and Organic Search (SEO). The results are pretty interesting.

Size – does it matter?
As the ad industry and digital matures we are moving closer to an ‘effectiveness model’ versus the older ‘reach and frequency model’ (esp’ in relation to measuring digital) so one could argue that the volume stats here are less relevant than they seem. My own opinion is that the volume information is only one part of the story but regardless of volumes the trending data is valuable and at the very least should allow each publisher to better its digital strategy in the future. One thing is for sure, each publisher has substantial year on year digital growth so well done to them all.

Enough! Let’s begin!

The future of the mobile UI is behind a velvet curtain

I have seen concepts from this company before (more about this below) and they always seem to be taking different approaches to the rest of the world.

The Astonishing Tribe (TAT) has yet again showcased a UI they call Velvet – pull out a widget or Google Maps query, and a sheet of your desired result waves with the virtual wind, before stretching out flat for you to more comfortably interact with.

This is what TAT has to say about the Tablet UIs out there and why they are different:

On one hand we have companies that scale phone UIs to tablets. On the other hand we have companies offering the full blown desktop experience scaled down to tablet size. We believe that both of these approaches will result in crippled user experiences. For example, the tablet form factor is perfect for media consumption and this could be manifested in the UI. TAT recognizes tablets as a radically different type of device – personal and mobile yet powerful and creative. We are now on a quest to design fantastic UIs that are optimized for this device space.

Here is the Velvet UI in action

As I said before these guys have some pretty awesome, yet radical ideas – check this augmented reality ID out – TAT augmented ID

I have an Android phone and I have been looking for a decent home screen and I really hope this little beauty will hit the market at some time soon – TAT Home

These guys are definitely someone to look out for in the future – if you want to learn more about them, check out their blog

@maniac13

More DJing goodness coming your way

Yesterday I showed you the future of the DJ mixpult here and today we are getting blown away by this multitouch-enabled rig by a guy called Gregory Kaufman.

It employs a gesture-based interface that lets you spin the virtual turntables and use a variety of taps and finger swipes to replicate the main functions of a regular DJ deck.

It is even big enough so 2 DJs can play at the same time.

check out the video

just awesome – @maniac13

Torrent Town?

If you were the owners of a big, shady, money earning torrent site – what would you do with all that potentially ill-gotten cash?

Buy yourself a small town in Russia, obviously.

View Larger Map

This is exactly what torrent and P2P news site TorrentFreak announced that the large file-sharing facilitator TorrentReactor had done. TorrentReactor claimed to have made the purchase, and that with their financial backing, the quality of life in the township of Gar would improve for its 300+ citizens. Not only that, I’m sure they’d be trying to carve out a file-sharing haven for themselves – though whether this would work under Russian law, I’m not certain.

As it turns out though, the town has not yet been purchased. This may have begun as a prank, however it looks like it will end well – for the people of Gar at least. You see, they’re actually interested in the possible investment. TorrentReactor claimed to have bought and renamed the place for approximately $164,000 AUD and the ambitious folk in Gar are keen to see that cash. Apparently all that’s needed is approval from the President.

Apparently they can’t rename the town, but the folks over at TorrentReactor now feel “obligated to help” in some fashion or another, which can only be a good thing. Whether they buy it or not remains to be seen.

As amusing as this idea initially was, I’m not sure how I feel about the idea of organisations purchasing towns outright – I worry about what it means for the future. How about you? Or… do you know of any instances where it’s happened before? If so, has it been beneficial, or is this a downward spiral?

~@tali3sin

The coolest DJ board in the world!

I have a few mates that are DJing and I tell you right now, they would love one of these little screens.

A clear sheet of glass that beams out video from your computer and accepts touch inputs in return, the Token concept has been designed by a guy called Rodrigo from Chile. We know it uses a rear projector for its video, Emulator for Traktor Pro as the DJ software, but not much else.

But let the video talk for itself.

simply awesome!

@maniac13

The Machinarium Pirate Amnesty

Amanita Design, the independent Czech game developers behind the fantastic little point-and-click adventure game Machinarium are offering pirates a chance to redeem themselves if they didn’t pay for the game the first time around as they hold a “pirate amnesty sale” offering the game for just $US5.

Machinarium was released in October 2009 with critical acclaim but without any form of DRM – something that many seem to have taken advantage of. Amanita claim that from feedback they have gathered, they believe that only 5-15% of people playing the game actually paid for it. A crying shame, too as it really is a funny, endearing and puzzling little game. $20 is totally worth it and $5 is a steal.

Amanita are quick to add, on their site, that they don’t think that people buying it now necessarily pirated it, so don’t feel like you’re being judged.

It’s an awesome little game that you really should check out if you still have room in your heart for whimsy. The promo image on the site is also fantastic. I hear it’s a bit familiar to some people but I wouldn’t know anything about that.

My experience with the new Seagate Momentus XT

When I first heard about the Momentus XT I was thrilled and after doing a bit more research (and because I could afford it) I decided to get me one of those.

Of course it wasn’t available in Australia so I had to ask a favour from a friend in the US. I bought it, he shipped it, I got it, done.

After installing Windows 7 on my machine it had been running a hell lot faster already than when it had Vista on it, but I was still eager to see how this hdd will improve it.

So what makes the Momentus XT special?

It is part old fashioned hard rive with spinning platters (fast spinning ones at 7200 rpm) and part SSD (superfast, no moving parts)

So the way this hard drive works is to monitor which files and programs you are using the most and once it established that it puts those on the 4GB of SSD it has available for faster access.

My Laptop is nothing special and already over 3 years old (Core2Duo 1.83Ghz, 2GB RAM), but the speed increase I got through this new hdd is simple awesome.

so here are some numbers:

Task	old hdd	1st time	2nd time	3rd time	4th time
startup *	2min	1min 32sec	59sec	37sec	37sec
hybernate	1min 50sec	23sec	22sec	22sec	22sec
resume *	1min 55sec	27sec	27sec	28sec	27sec
Photoshop	45sec	19sec	6.6sec	4.2sec	4.3sec
Powerpoint	20sec	6sec	4sec	2sec	2sec

* this includes startup, login and opening an explorer window

As you can see especially on the software tests, the times improved the more I used the program and then went static after the 4th time and stayed fast.

I am not a professional lab that does these tests all day long, I just had my Android phone stop watch, so you will have to take these results with a grain of salt.

In Australia you can get them from about $160 – check here

My overall experience with this hard drive was very positive and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a speed improvement on their machine.

@maniac13

Internet Filter Issue stirs up the conversation.

Here’s a couple of graphs from Twitter Stream Graphs showing the trending hashtags #nocleanfeed and #openinternet. The reason for the noise is the announcement from @joehockey that the Libs will ditch the Internet Filter if elected.

#Nocleanfeed peaks around 8.45pm implying it is the term used more readily by the faster influencers. #openinternet peaking at 10pm

SMSlingshot

WOW

SMSlingshot is an autonom working device, equipped with a high frequency radio, hacked arduino board, laser and batteries. Text messages can be typed on a phone-sized wooden keypad which is integrated in an also wooden slingshot. After the message is finished, the user can aim on a media facade and send/shoot the message straight to the targeted point. It will then appear as a coloured splash with the message written within. The text message will also be real-time twittered – just in case.

@handypearce

Only in New Zealand

I stumbled across these nutty sports whilst doing some work for our client, Tourism New Zealand. Thought I’d share them:

1) Pomparkour Ladder Sport
This sport is either invented by V energy or just used in it’s latest campaign, but it’s still pretty cool.

2) High speed barefoot long boarding … on a freeway!

These guys are just nuts. Spot the guy with no shoes on.

handypearce

They’re coming to you real soon. Creepy Robots.

The Telenoid R1 Robot makes its first video appearance below. Compared with Casper the Ghost gone wrong, “Kill it with Fire” seems a fairly apt comment from YouTuber ThePeacemakerGer. Read more here at the Daily Mail:

Tony Vs Julia Vs The Double Rainbow effect

The one thing that is clear to me in this election is that both Julia and Tony have missed out on the “Double Rainbow”. Google data confirms what most of us could have guessed, the “Double Rainbow” leads them both in consumer search volume by a mile.

Firstly in case you had your internet cut off and have no idea what the Double Rainbow is, here’s the original and below the ‘KnowYourMeme” recap posted July9:

Now I realise that on the surface Hungrybear9562’s video has very little to do with policies, politics, politicians and elections but the fact is that Double Rainbow’s organic success contains classic social ingredients that could have been utilised as part of a social strategy by either candidate. Firstly the Double Rainbow is a fantastic Social Object: It transcends the medium it is shot in and as such is able to enter conversations with ease; it is highly portable ; it is capable of shifting it’s form ; it is loved not just by individuals but also mainstream media; it is discoverable ; and behind the insanity of it all it oozes positivity and we cannot help fall in love with its authenticity.

Ultimately the Double Rainbow is digital content worth sharing.
At the moment we are still waiting for something digital worth sharing from either candidate…

This does not means that Julia should sing herself a Double Rainbow MashUp, or that Tony should recruit HungryBear9562 to campaign to lobby on his behalf. No, they don’t need a viral campaign. However what they could do is think more clearly about how their social content can organically enter conversations. Failed attempts to push content such as http://twitter.com/JuliaGillard/status/20093782545 offer little if nothing for a consumer to see, love and share. As yet, neither have attempted to enter any conversation in Twitter using simple objects such as ‘asking a question’ and following up with @replies. It’s a tough job to spot what they like, what inspires them and what’s beyond the policy and the message. There’s no Double Rainbow, there’s not even a dash of colour.

But I live in hope that things can change quickly so just for fun I will make a prediction: The first person out of @JuliaGillard and @TonyAbbottMHR to ‘tweet an opinion on the Double Rainbow YouTube clip’ will win the election. ***If you can’t be the object then share one***. Now I wonder…

~ @eunmac

Microsoft’s answer to Google Street View

The issue: traversing a busy urban street in a 360-degree photographic bubble can be disorienting, especially when searching for a specific address or business

The solution: Microsoft Street Slide, developed by MS Research. Zoom out of your panoramic bubble and the street is presented as a dynamic, multi-perspective "strip" giving you an instant visual summary of the surroundings.

Supposedly Microsoft is already working on taking Street Slide mobile with an iPhone port, and probably a version for the upcoming Windows Phone 7 series.

Unfortunately, don’t expect this to be released anytime soon as the team has only processed about 2400 panoramas so far covering just 4 kilometers of streets.

Watch the video and you will be impressed.

@maniac13

The future of the 3D TV – throw away your glasses

For everyone who might have missed it, Sony showed off a prototype of their glasses free 360 degree display, called Raymodeler 3D.

This is pretty cool and I can see myself having one of those (in a bigger version) in my living room

It doesn’t only display pictures, it is also interactive and reacts to hand gestures.

I reckon it would be pretty cool to show off your products at exhibitions.

found here

@maniac13