New Apple TV leaked (and yes we want one)

These leaked images of a full size 50 inch Apple Television (not the hockey puck but a full sized TV using gesture controls for the lounge) arrived in our inbox this morning. From what we can tell you will be able to install TV Channels in the same way you use apps on your iPhone.

You can click the images to see the full size pics.

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Hi-Tec achieves a viral miracle with it’s walking on water doco

So Hi-Tec has come clean by admitting it was the brand behind the “Liquid Mountaineering” documentary, which has attracted over 4 million views.

We’ve seen many a fake viral fall flat in the past; most notably the high profile backfire of Naked’s Witchery viral in early 2009. It’s true you can’t fool a YouTube audience. However, Hi-Tec have made a masterful attempt at tricking YouTubers into thinking a group of european thrill seekers have managed to run on water. Gullible bogans. Lots of people have called it, but many people seem to have been taken in:

… or are they?? Or have CCCP (the dutch ad agency behind this genius) done the sensible thing and flooded the comments board with a load of bollocks to make you put all logical thought to one side and think this is actually real. I sincerely hope these comments are genuine, but  sadly I suspect the most gullible ones are not.

I have to admit it had me going until I saw this shot:

… and the bit with men running on water.

As an agency, we don’t create “viral videos”. We create pieces of content that, given the right ingredients, we hope will achieve viral status.

So I thought it would be worth deconstructing the ingredients of one of the best ‘fake virals’ I’ve seen.

Here’s my learnings from CCCP’s viral miracle.

List of Australian Domain Name Disputes 2002-2009

Since 2002 auDA have been handling disputes over domain names (brands and individuals who believe they have the right to a domain/URL but are not the registered owner). Whilst some disputes appear to be clear cases of cybersquatting, others are just co-incidental making for an interesting debate.

VS
Above: It’s not always cyber squatting. But if it is, auDA is here to save you* 🙂

“GIVE ME BACK MY URL!”
In all about 160 cases are in the system which is not many considering this covers the last seven years. Although it’s a cost effective option (usually between $2000 and $4500 AUD) many companies still use a below the counter/direct approach and simply buy out a domain direct. Having been involved with quite a few of these direct URL ‘transfers’ there are sometimes good reasons to go direct – for instance if you lose the case at auDA, you may end up having to pay a LOT more as a result – so it pays to do your homework first to decide which route will work best.

Some interesting brands in the list below that have used auDAdrp: Facebook, Neilsen, BT, WhitePages, IBM, Telstra, Calvin Klein, Virgin, True Local, Hey Hey it’s Saturday (to name just a few). Current records show that roughly two thirds of cases were won by the complainant.

List of Domain Names that auDA have handled and resolved 2002-2009:

adra.com.au globalcentre.com.au globalcentre.net.au cigarettes.com.au tobacco.com.au discover-tasmania paconsulting.com.au gatekeeper.com.au esat.com.au esat.net.au petsmegastore.com.au singaporeairlines.com.au abebooks.com.au partymob.com.au bluechip.com.au internet.com.au mgm.com.au bt.com.au people.com.au abclearningcentres abclearningcenters quiznos.com.au overture.com.au swin.com.au campertrailerswa unimelb.com.au carecredit.com.au supre.com.au lampeberger.com.au netratings.com.au 13flowers.com.au billiingbureau.com.au justcars.com.au rnbsuperclub.com.au flowerfast.com.au fastflower.com.au jaccuzispas.com.au jaccuzi.com.au premierfire.com.au premierfire.net.au archicad.com.au justcarfinance.com.au bigbanger.com.au luxilon.com.au aru.com.au sellbuyyourself.com.au sellbyyourself.com.au jjdavies.com.au hytorc.com.au startcorp.com.au zte.com.au hia.com.au airtowel.com.au espn.com.au jasham.com.au velocityrewards.com.au migrationsolutions countrykithomes.com.au partymob.com.au truelocal.com.au

truelocal.net.au trulocal.com.au flowersonly.com.au newcars.com.au melways.com.au cairnsskyrail.com.au kurandaskyrail.com.au yellowbook.com.au yellowbook.net.au spiegelau.com.au buyaustralian.com.au whitepage.com.au astonmartin.com.au australianpenthouse.com.au freeparking.com.au pfd.com.au freetv.com.au australianmedicalinstitute advancedmedicalinstitute impotencyanonymous healthservicesformen sydneynewyearseve.com.au seekbusiness.com.au adjustit.com.au adjustit.net.au doteasy.com.au sandisk.com.au napoleonperdis.com.au clubjenna.com.au seekfinance.net.au seekhouse.com.au seekinsurance.com.au seekproperty.com.au seekrealestate.com.au seeksuper.com.au zillow.com.au mapquest.com.au tinaarena.com.au australiantooling.com.au toolingaustralia.com.au autronic.com.au questacon.com.au inventhelpaustralia.com.au jjj.com.au lullabyconceptions.com.au 3mlittmann.com.au littmannstethoscopes wow.com.au princessyachts.com.au googlebay.com.au ecohort.com.au darwindaytours.com.au factoryseconds.com.au gloriajeans.com.au propertysecrets.com.au databank.com.au hmssydney.com.au unitedenergy.com.au greenmobile.com.au barawards.com.au

bartender.com.au netstarit.com.au swarovski.com.au tkl.com.au whitepagesaustralia yellowpagesaustralia aastra.com.au emirates.com.au topfield.com.au topfield-australia.com.au topfield.net.au i-topfield.com.au i-topfield.net.au facebook.com.au clearvision.com.au ivfsunshinecoast.com.au scriptlogic.com.au marinebusiness.com.au channelweb.com.au silvasspitroastcatering justbikeinsurance.com.au freelife.com.au googler.com.au vectorworks.com.au holdenastra.com.au justbikes.com.au insureandgo.com.au perthairport.com.au calvinklein.com.au domuslift.com.au sitecore.com.au sitecore.net.au alphakids.com.au 13cars.com.au (66 domain names) telstraonline.com.au earthmove.com.au 1300homeloan.com.au 1300accountant.com.au 1300electrical.com.au 1300fencing.com.au 1300hampers.com.au 1300plumbing.com.au 1300printing.com.au 1300sparky.com.au 1300weddings.com.au 1800locksmith.com.au engineer.com.au navico.com.au ibuypower.com.au lufthansa.com.au greenerydesign.com.au heyheyitssaturday.com.au heyheyitssaturday.net.au adelaidecasino.com.au transportworkersunion tonysheldon.com.au twunsw.com.au twunsw.net.au wayneforno.com.au perpetualhomeloans

You can do a search here and see who won what and why:
http://www.auda.org.au/audrp/search/

Post by:
~@eunmac

* UPDATE:
Since posting this article I’ve had several people contact me complaining about auDA and its process. One person explained to me that they were told by auDA that their case (their registered business name taken) had been “investigated” and denied even though the domain had not been used in seven years, no trademarks, no business name, noe events etc. This person also claimed to have discovered a direct connection between the board of auDA and the holder of the domain. The following article “auDA a Law unto Themselves” goes into other issues with auDA.

http://www.domainnews.com/en/auda-a-law-unto-themselves.html

Any more stories? Post them in the comments.

Kanye pontificates on the Amnesia blog

You’ve got to love Kanye West, if only for the latest meme he has inspired.

Here he tells us what he thinks of the Amnesia Blog.

@JoelyRighteous

The invisible car… and it’s a Skoda!

No it’s not an amazing bit of new cool technology, it’s just Sara Watson’s art project – and we totally love it!

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1176328/Artists-turns-old-Skoda-Fabia-invisible-car.html

Reminds me of Julian Beever’s 3D chalk work below (here). Maybe Sarah will become the street artist who makes things “invisible”…?

How to spot a Twitter user with a ‘Fake’ Follower Count.

‘They’ have thousands of followers, they adorn themselves with Bio’s which are occasionally obscure but often that of a self proclaimed Guru …and of course you’ve never heard of them before. Should you follow them? Seems reasonable to think that IF they have tons of people following them they MUST be legitimate, right? *cough*. I have been observing various Twitter users for the past three months who offer little value, but do know one thing above all other skills they possess …how to manipulate their follower count to get ahead in Twitter.

We’re following you because… ummm… everyone else is…!

Unfortunately Twitter has no system (yet) for other users to ‘rate’ profiles and in the absence of such a system, credibility is for the most part distinguished by ‘how many followers’ someone has. The people I’m referring to in this post are the Twitter users who have discovered how to artificially increase their follower count. Read on and I’ll show you one of the ways you can spot a ‘manipulator’ simply by looking at the historical growth of their account.

Please note: I’m not in the business of naming people I’ve observed. There are no rules on how to use Twitter so technically speaking these individuals aren’t doing anything wrong per se. I even follow quite a few of them simply to observe behavioural patterns.

He’s not who you think he is:
As an example, one of the most "popular" Twitter users in Australia also happens to be one of Australia’s most infamous convicted spammers. Clearly people aren’t aware of his past when they follow him (he obviously doesn’t advertise this fact on his profile). Ironically as he started his Twitter climb to the top in early December he bragged about how he would accumulate a mass following in Twitter with ease, which of course is not that hard when you see ‘how’ below.

How?
The way this individual and others like him amassed followers so quickly was simply by regularly following as many people as possible (within the limits) and un-following anybody who did not follow back. This keeps the follower-to-following ratio roughly in check.

If you were able to break down the first few thousand followers for these people you would see the large proportion are simply ‘return follows’. I believe that a critical mass is eventually reached (usually above 5,000 followers depending on location) at which point organic follows start to occur. This is because making the top lists in sites like Grader, Twiterholic, Alltop lists etc ensures that a profile with lots of followers are ‘promoted’. Whilst many agree that retweets are the most authentic way of attracting more genuine followers, being on a top 100 list will make sure your follower count continues to rise rapidly regardless of content quality or authenticity.

Recently scripts have appeared in the public domain that auto-follow and un-follow as above. An example of one of a person using scripts is shown in a graph below, and we can see how this particular individual has amassed over 35,000 followers in just a few weeks. I am not providing locations to these tools for obvious reasons.

External Evidence:

– Ash from www.BannerBlog.com conducted an experiment where he manually followed 1000 people and un-followed them all a few days later. The net effect was he gained 350 followers. here

– @AmyIris wrote a python script to mine names from Twitterholic.com and follow/un-follow which produced similar results to the above.

– @danzarrella‘s site www.retweetability.com analyses whether or not a profile offers value based on tweets to retweets over followers. I have tested various people I thought were likely to have been manipulating follower counts and they tended to score lowly in this index. (Note this should not be taken as rule of thumb – highly conversational tweeters will also score low on this index).

How to spot a Twitter Follower Manipulator:
Disclaimer: To be used as a guide only. There are always exceptions when looking at statistical data.

Step 1: Visit http://twittercounter.com
Step 2: Type in the username you want to analyse. Select the three month period to examine.
Step 3: Watch for tell tale signs in their graphs as shown below.

Examples:

Growth profile of a regular Twitter User
Below:

A normal twitter user has the marked pattern of a steady growth. variations are rarely significant.

Below: You can see that even celebrities follow a similar growth curve although a slight "J-curve" is evident. Despite the follower traffic being on a much larger scale the variations are still minor. (Note – @stephenfry’s curve contains several unusual jumps but these have been attributed to large scale UK media coverage).

 

Manipulated Following Pattern:
Below: The following user has a marked number of days where there have been unexplainable spikes. (No evidence of Retweets or any other source explains these spikes in this instance). You can see where the true line of growth has been manipulated by mass following other users. The result is a significant jump in people ‘following back’.

Below: An example of mass manipulation by a Tweeter using scripts to increase their following to incredibly high levels in a very short space of time. These sudden jumps are a characteristic marker of follower manipulation.

Notes:
It is harder to see anomalous jumps in older twitter accounts. There are also exceptions that will cause spikes and jumps, but spikes can usually be attributed easily to a source such as massive retweets, or publicity/media.

Conclusion:
I expect to see an increasing trend in this kind of activity in the coming months as Twitter grows. There are many people who will equate a large following to something they can benefit from. Hopefully as Twitter matures as a platform, it will be harder to manipulate followers. Maybe a rating system would allow people to find great people to follow as an alternative to ‘follower mass’ alone.

Final word:
It’s up to you who you follow, but if you find you’re getting little value from this new breed of "successful" Twitter user, the best advice is to simply ‘un-follow’. You may also want to consider using www.socialtoo.com which has an interesting blacklist feature in development.

This article by @eunmac

Who is Fake Stephen Conroy? Full list of Suspects.

This week the “REAL” Politician, Senator Stephen Conroy acknowledged the “FAKE” Stephen Conroy (http://twitter.com/stephenconroy) via (article on SMH) as “healthy satire” so we thought we would start the cheeky hunt for the person behind the mask. We don’t really want the person ‘outed’ per se as it’s much more fun not knowing, but below is the list of 25 suspects to date:

Name: Fake Stephen Conroy Location: Canberra Bio: I’m a 45 year old politician who’ll do anything to please you, baby. Don’t worry girl, I gots “protection”, and it’ll degrade my performance all night

Firstly, let us pay homage to the Fake Stephen (FSC). He’s actually pretty funny, satirical and most agree that the character is very well written. So… who’s doing the writing? We suspect it’s someone who’s already active on Twitter already – ie; they have two accounts running. At time of posting FSC is only following 69 people so we suspect that the guilty person may be linked to many of these in some way. We trawled various stats, engines and monitored conversations as well as looking through the #nocleanfeed list to come up with the following suspects… 

Update : Although we did discover the real identity of Fake Stephen Conroy during the compilation of the list, we did not include him in there. Unfortunatley the attention appears to have forced his hand  and in fact FSC outed himself a few days ago as Leslie Nasser from Telstra (http://www.linkedin.com/in/leslienassar)

The Suspects behind FST (Fake Stephen Conroy):

	Suspect	Modus Operandi	Suspect Rating
1		DuncanRiley Tipsters think that Duncan is a hot candidate for FSC. That cheeky smile which looks almost identical to FSC’s may hold the key.	9/10
2		Warlach A serious suspect, Warlach has been around long enough to know the tricks. Known to have created fake twitter accts in the past. Is FSC his creation?	9/10
3		FullTimeCasual A new entry on the list but a red hot suspect. His suspicious lack of a photo in his twitter avatar may mean he can slip into the darkness easily if found guilty.	9/10
4		DHughesy We have been informed that this infamous Aussie comedian may be practicing using FSC for some cool new comedy about Twitter. We suspect FSC’s words are too big for Hughsey, but he still makes the list.	8/10
5		BarrySaunders Normally gets highly involved in twitter conversations but not with FSC. Makes him look like a real suspect in this case.	8/10
6		Servantofchaos Respected blogger and Tweeter, possesses a similar sense of humour to FSC. A prime suspect.	8/10
7		TrevorYoung FSC insiders say suspect is based in Melbourne. Trevor Young’s writing skills certainly fit the bill as a PR WARRIOR…	8/10
8		Mspecht Definite candidate for the job and big nocleanfeed enthusiast. No twitter history with FSC makes him a suspect.	7/10
9		Turnbullmalcolm What better way to oust the current government than being the mastermind of the FSC twitter account? Must be a suspect.	8/10
10		Wolfcat Should have been in the list earlier – has been active on Twitter for a while and knows the tricks.	8/10
–		cameronreilly Top 5 Tweeters according to Grader.com, long history in the interwebs and definitely would have no fear of being FSC.	8/10
–		JonoH First person who FSC followed. Must be a prime suspect.	8/10
–		Jimboot One of the more active people in ‘nocleanfeed’ a hot tip to be FSC.	7/10
		renailemay The only published interview with FSC was conducted by the Editor of ZDNet.com.au. This makes him an instant suspect. Is this man the Peter Parker of Twitter? Hmm…	7/10
–		Silkcharm She has her mitts in everything else social so makes the list by default. Very few msgs to FSC makes her a prime suspect.	7/10
–		Jimboot One of the more active people in ‘nocleanfeed’ a hot tip to be FSC.	7/10
–		Trib With a mass of followers and outspoken character, he’s conveniently located in Canberra. Is he the real FSC?	7/10
–		Mspecht Definite candidate for the job and big nocleanfeed enthusiast. No twitter history with FSC makes him a suspect.	7/10
–		JJprojects With 3000+ followers, a twitter junkie, nocleanfilter advocate put JJ high on the suspect list.	6/10
–		Nickhodge Microsoft’s local pin up Twitter Star has a dry earthy wit similar to FSC. Talks to FSC a lot, but could this be a cover?	6/10
–		andrew303 Known to have more than one twitter account, is Australia’s most followed person on Twitter the guilty party?	6/10
–		Stephen Conroy (the real one) The perfect double bluff? You see… he’s not on Twitter, …or is he?	6/10
–		Bronwen Describes herself as combatant, maybe FSC is Bronwen’s side project. No contact with FSC to date – is this an alibi or evidence?	6/10
–		Aramadge News.com.au reporter that may see FSC as an interesting side project for a forthcoming story.	5/10
–		Granleese First person to respond to my request for information and leads about FSC. Makes him an instant suspect.	4/10
–		Mpesce One of the last remaining people with a cross on their avatar’s mouth, is this inventor the real inventor FSC?	4/10
–		Mumbrella Journo Tim Burrowes loves controversy so why not create it himself? Perfect motive with timing similar to launch of his mumbrella blog. Did FSC attract a few extra visitors?	4/10
–		Acatinatree Filmmaker. Active, lots of followers. Has a sense of humour. FSC might just be a side project for her…?	4/10
–		markpollard Strategist, highly active in Twitter, His no fear cheeky sense of humour puts him on the list.	3/10
–		KevinRuddPM He doesn’t use his own Twitter account too much – possibly because he’s so busy running the FSC twitter account.	3/10
–		eunmac As the author of this post, this could just be a diversionary tactic. Maybe I am FSC, or maybe not? Hmmm.	3/10
–		OzDJ Came up as the first suspect when I used a Twitter tool to find similar people to FSC.	3/10
–		Eskimo Sparky Husband, Father, Political impersonator? Is an instigator of prior twitter crimes such as Velociroflcoptersaurus.	3/10
–		Stilgherrian Political, outspoken, but would he send so many tweets to FSC?	3/10
–		Likeomg Social Media Advisor at Amnesia and copywriter. Would certainly possess the skills but may be too occupied by other things.	2/10
		JoelyRighteous Has not been posting much recently. Possibly to distracted by his FSC account?	2/10
		Davidlmorris Very quick to dismiss some of the suspects on the list. Is this the real FSC revealing himself inadvertently?	2/10
		LesleyWhite Conveniently “wishing” she was on the list may make her an outside possibility.	2/10
–		Julian Cole He manages to get his name on every other list so may as well stick him in this one just in case he is FSC…	2/10
–		DanWarne Another journalist for the SMH active on Twitter. Pops up on FSC’s follower list too. Is he just interested , or IS IT HIM?	2/10
–		SpellrUs Claims he should be a suspect. Always struck me as being too much of a nice guy, but you then again, those are the ones you have to watch…	2/10
–		ProBlogger Too busy tweeting tips to be a real suspect, but may be a dark horse in the matter.	1/10
		InJoke There is no chance that InJoke is the real FSC, but they felt that it would help them with the ladies if they made the list. OK good luck with that…	0/10

Breaking Update:
Suspects were seen changing their avatars to that of Stephen Conroy’s – presumably to protect their real identity.

 
Above: View in Tweetdeck as some of the accused changed their avatars.

If you are on the list but you strongly wish to deny that you are not fake @stephenconroy post a comment with your full denial and alibi.

If you really are fake @stephenconroy (and not on the list and would like to be, follow @eunmac on Twitter and DM a message. We will keep it a secret.)

Another Viral marketing campaign waiting to be exposed?

This is doing the rounds via email and also on twitter (here and here). They are really funny (esp if these are genuine posts by a real person)… but is it the same if an agency does it on behalf of a client?

I wrote about ‘fake virals here a month ago – so it will be interesting to see where this ends up.

With all the posts signed as “Craig” we were thinking it might be Craigs List? What do you think is this real or fake????

– @eunmac

Reference: The tweet that started it…

Why TweeterGetter will not and does not work.

The site Tweetergetter.com offers a ‘pyramid-like’ system suggesting that from a single tweet you could net 19,530 followers within 5 degrees of retweet from a single tweet.

In the last 7 days GaryMcCaffreys message has been retweeted over 11,000 times. This Retweet is a “forced” tweet that occurs when a user enter their twitter name and password. The verbatim message below is delivered to your followers with your name inserted at the end of the tweet.

“RT @garymccaffrey has a crazy idea. 19,530 new twitter followers in 30 days? Check it out http://tweetergetter.com/username“

Shown above: RT Data from Retweetist.com on the above retweet: (http://www.retweetist.com/users/garymccaffrey)
Note that the decay has already started in terms of the viral effect with the retweets peaking on Feb 12.

The logic as shown at retweetist.com.

Of course like most pyramid schemes the offer seems logical, but it of course is flawed – the maths require perfect conversion with no dropoff at any stage in order to get close to the numbers shown. No matter how early you jumped in on the chain, the slightest splintering drops users out of the pyramid as quickly as they came in.

The Evidence:
We took a broad sampling of around 30 users who signed up to the scheme early on and tracked their results through http://www.twittercounter.com. Results showed that in most cases the growth was limited to a handful of followers usually around 15-20, nothing like the dozens, hundreds or thousands of followers that tweetergetter suggested was possible. The fact that the curves we see level off very quickly in each case is evidence that the model is not sustainable. If tweetergetter was working, the curve should actually be accelerating upwards fairly quickly, especially with the nature of fast burnout that naturally occurs with tweets which have a very short shelf life. Viral behaviour is normally recognisable as a distinguished ‘J’ curve and indeed the tweetergetter chart above suggests that is what ‘should occur’ “even with conservative estimates”.

Illustrated Samples:
The examples below are a random sample base from some of the 30 that we checked from Feb 11 to today:

Growth of these accounts are provided by TwitterCounter which monitors twitter account growth on a daily basis.

 

 

 

To sample these results for yourself follow the twitter search here then take the user name and append it to the end of the twittercounter url  http://twittercounter.com/ insert_twitter_name

Conclusion:
In a nutshell, the only likely recipient of any mass following is Gary McCaffrey himself (who by default gains a new follower from every transaction). Of course TweeterGetter is essentially an opt-in campaign – so it is simply a case of ‘buyer beware’. It’s up to you if you decide to use the site.

Of course it is also up to you who you might “unfollow” at the end of it all 😉

I’m sure each and every one of you reading this will find many great follows with or without TweeterGetter.
Regards,
@eunmac

Test Yourself: Can you tell which is a 3D image and which is Real?

The real world and virtual world are gradually blurring together. Fooling the human mind into not being able to separate these two worlds is still a challenge because our brains are pretty hard wired to spot incredibly subtle details that allow us to identify the fakes from reality, especially when computer graphics are in motion. At some point in the not too distant future it is likely that we will not be able to tell. Can we really trust what our eyes are telling us?

Spotting the difference is harder with still images. Can you tell which ones of these are real and which are fake*? Answers at the bottom or on rollover.

Take the test: Real or FAKE:
(Answers shown as you rollover image)
*Please click on the image for the original references and sources.

(1)

(2)
(3)

(4)

(5)

(6) 

(7)

(8)

(9)

(10)
 

Want to share how well you did? – Tell us how many you got right in the comments 🙂

Select/ highlight the text between the brackets below for a summary of the answers.
[ 1,2,5,7,8 – REAL
3,4,6,9,10 – FAKE / 3D]

Fake Virals, Social Objects and Naked.

Today I presented at the 6th Annual Future of Digital Advertising for the IAB and AIMIA (#foda09 on Twitter). I talked about a few things, shared some insight on what I thought (hopefully) could help the digital industry further itself this year.

The main body of my preso was on the digital consumer and how brands need reconsider their approach, especially when using social as a tool. I discussed social objects – good ones, bad ones, great ones. I talked about Digital Brand DNA- something that Joe Crump our Razrofish NY Creative Director has pioneered with his ‘Digital Darwinism’ presentations.

In the last year I have come to believe strongly that great digital creative usually contains 7 digital brand genes that Joe Crump identified. See his full preso and video from Cannes (here):

– AUTHENTIC
– ADAPTIVE
– RELEVANT
– TRANSFORMATIVE
– FRESH
– IMMERSIVE
– SOCIAL

OK, so what about that Naked / Witchery Viral? (I’ve embedded their YouTube campaign in case you missed it). It’s clearly a bigger story than I realised (the SMH and Naked have both been in touch with me today as a result). The thing is, I like Naked as an Agency  – I like the way they challenge, stand up, break things, and do things that are counter intuitive. I know the guys well and we’ve worked with them many times on probably 6 or more different clients. In fact they’re one of the best agencies in town to collaborate with especially when it comes to their open approach to digital.

So what’s wrong with the above and why bother raising it, especially in a public forum? Well as you may have gathered my problem is not with Naked at all, it is with fake viral in general. In fairness, Naked were one example of a few I showed. QLD Tourism and Nike were both raised. We have a mountain to climb to be accepted (as advertisers and brands) into the new consumer landscape and these social channels are theirs, not ours. I know that consumers genuinely welcome cool clever intelligent advertising – but I cannot see any evidence that they like being deceived routinely. Comments below the videos often do the talking, especially when the deception is revealed.

Fake Viral for Nike feat Taylor Momsen

I’m a big believer in being able to make mistakes in the search for progress (digital is a tough gig, and there are new things we learn every day so mistakes do happen), but why the same mistake over and over? I also can’t understand why the elements of risk associated with generating negative brand sentiment in consumer channels are not better understood. As I tried to point out today, the 2.5m tweets per day, 915,000 blogs per day are heavily indexed by Google and can quickly produce negative organic search results. Let’s face it – search is very important, especially if you are a digital ROI client. Why would any company want to see their first page of Google results polluted with negative blog posts about their brand? The reality is that the social media sword cuts both ways.

Unfortunately the knock on effect is that negative news like the above often impacts other agencies, especially digital ones. I’ve seen brand managers get nervous when they see things like this in the news and subsequently make rapid judgement that the social medium is too volatile and uncontrollable. Budgets get withdrawn. We all start to lose – and that’s where I have a problem, because we know enough about social now to start doing things differently, and do it right.

What’s the solution?
So here’s the thing – Fake Viral is completely possible, and without deception. There have been some great examples from the US. Here’s one from Coors:

Here’s another ad for Coors, deliberately designed to breed consumer imitations (of which there are many). Great use of Social Object Theory:

Rolling Rock ran a hilarious campaign on Moonvertsing (here) which although potentially controversial produced a great digital response. Again completely Fake but with full disclosure from day one. I could go on, but it’s late and I think you get the picture right?

 

In Conclusion:
There are better, bigger, broader opportunities to engage consumers using social media that can still be authentic, mysterious, realistic. Yes it’s a creative challenge but if we can start to get this right there are big wins for consumers, clients and agencies alike. Naked aren’t the first, and won’t be the last to feel the heat on this issue – but they’re a great agency and will rise above it. I do hope that in the future the industry will adopt some of Joe’s 7 digital brand genes, it’s a good place to start.

@eunmac

The Macbook Wheel

The Onion News Network is reporting that Apple is preparing to release their new product dubbed the ‘Macbook Wheel’. It’s set to revolutionize home computing and make keyboards a thing of the past. Mac fans should get their hands on it within the next three to eighteen months!!

Video Here

Unboxing the new Google 3D Mouse

Last night we came into possession of what we believe to be a beta-release for a new kind of 3D Mouse from Google. Whilst we can’t disclose exactly who gave this (because they work at Google) it certainly raised a few eyebrows in here when we opened the package. We’ve never seen a mouse like this before and has a couple of really WOW features (check out the last image).

EDIT: Just uploaded a quick video (this was right after we took it out of the box).

So our second unboxing in a month (*)… unfortunately we missed the opening of this box initially because it was totally unmarked so we didn’t know what was inside until we saw the mouse through the plastic …at which point we got the camera out. The mouse was well packed with inflated pouch to avoid any damage. 

Confirmed: It is green and has see through bits showing the Google logo.     

Underside: Marked (A) is likely part of the 3D accelerometer. This lets you lift the mouse up an use it pretty much like like a Wii controller (see shot of screen below).

(B) seems to be part of the Wii-like 3D system for when you’re waving it about – yes you can actually see the yellow sensor inside moving as you move your hand.
 

(C) – Appears to be the Biometric reader (nicely branded) and (D) seems to control all the 3D movements but doubles up as a really comfortable ergonomic gel to prevent RSI.

Above: The mouse in action – after the mouse drivers install you get this pretty neat affect as you lift the mouse up; the cursor lifts up and becomes huge, casting a shadow on the desktop. We haven’t figured out what the use for this might be yet but it was fun.

We were a bit disappointed that the mouse is not wireless, but seeing there was no battery compartment it probably needs to get power from somewhere.

Incidentally it’s Google’s tenth birthday, and we know they love a good old joke down under 😉 …Happy Birthday Google, and thanks for the mouse – already put to good use.

Birthday wishes, @ Amnesia.

Top 10 Funny Signs on the Internet

Here it is – the top ten funniest signs in the world according to a special formula (actually we chose them …because we get to see an awful lot of this stuff and these ones made us laugh most).

Perhaps one of the reasons that these signs seem so incredibly amusing is the fact that they are possibly still standing somewhere. Who put them there?  How come nobody pulled them down? The thing is that many people walk straight past signs (see #6) without paying much attention, but others do notice and they love to dump this stuff on the web…

10. MOST DISTURBING SIGN

We’re not sure this is anything more than a joke sign from Korea, but it’s got us all looking around when visiting the restroom.
http://www.flickr.mud.yahoo.com/photos/wili/83732757/in/set-72157594153019201/

9. MOST IRONIC SIGN

http://www.flickr.mud.yahoo.com/photos/sameli/1898511953/
We have a feeling this might have seen a bit of Photoshop love but we still like it. 

8. MOST SCARY SIGN

We’re not going on holiday here.
http://www.flickr.mud.yahoo.com/photos/ekai/457004988/

7. MOST IMPOSSIBLE SIGN

Sign from the future?
http://funnysigns.kitt.net/uploaded_images/funny_sign_08-786248.jpg

6. MOST FAKE SIGN 

(Yes we’re pretty sure this was created for a powerpoint deck from a preso explaining that people don’t read warnings) 

5. MOST OBVIOUS SIGN

(Amnesia bloggers took this off the TV watching cricket last year. Hilarious!)
https://amnesiablog.wordpress.com/2007/01/10/worlds-best-sign-seen-at-cricket-match-england-vs-australia-jan-06/

4. MOST TECHNICAL SIGN

I never knew how deep bottomless was until I saw this. 

3. MOST IRRELIVANT SIGN


I’ll take the fine if there’s a choice.

2. MOST APATHETIC SIGN

Don’t go arguing with them. They’re probably right. 

1. FUNNIEST FOREIGN SIGN TRANSLATION

This sign totally speaks for itself.

Final word:
Signs can be great fun in advertising too. A good illustration of this was the mysterious Obay campaign (here) which made a major splash in Toronto early 2008. The Rolling Rock Moonvertising campaign (here) also caused a big stir in the US…

Massaud Airship Hotel Fake : Manned Cloud likely full of hot air.

Fancy flying around he world in 10 days onboard a luxury flying hotel? Well you may have to wait longer than expected. This story has been floating around the web for about 10 months and has made many mags and press, but time seems to be telling that it looks more like a little publicity stunt for architect Massaud (here).

Web Chinese Whispers? Proving again that some web consumers are willing to adopt, believe and blog things that have very little grounding in fact – and then copy and paste madly, there really is very little to suggest this was any more than a ‘concept’ but the web and press have made it look like this project is really happening. I’m happy to be proved wrong, but I’m betting this is a tall story from Massuad that went a little too far…

Early Daily Mail Story here that fueled many blogs (did they really believe this?):
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-511843/The-flying-hotel-Thunderbird-2-The-700ft-super-airship-gently-float-world.html