Metro Fest

Sometimes I need reminding why I do my job. The pay isn't that great, and there are long hours. However, every now and then I get to go to a GREAT party.

Last night I got to go to the 'Metro Fest' which was an annual party thrown by the newspaper, for their clients.

I was very impressed - they'd decked out SEOne in the style of a festival, with little tents to go inside and sit in together with food halls which were serving festival style food. This included some of the best sausage and mash I've tried for ages. They had Pete Tong and the Cuban brothers playing, and everything was awesome!!














Free drink and free food always helps to make a party great!

Did notice, however, that they invited very few new media people. I think there were only three from my company - literally everyone else was from the offline industry. No representation from the online departments of any of the full service agencies. Pretty narrow minded view, especially since they've only just launched a proper website, more than five years after launching the paper.

Can't teach a dog new tricks. 

Food!

 

Nokia ad in Riga

Cunning idea for an advert: Make the product really big and put it in the middle of the street...
Really works quite well and it had little lights inside so it lit up during the night. Would be difficult to make lots of these. 

Spot Runner

Spot Runner - Welcome to Spot Runner

Awesome idea - bringing Easyjet's business model to TV buying. These guys will probably make lots of money.
Should be good to open up TV ads to smaller businesses, however it will probably mean that there will be huge numbers of really bad adverts.
We already see too many direct response adverts (e.g. for insurance or loans) on television. Intrusive advertising needs to be engaging in order to make sure people continue to accept the idea of watching ads in exchange for free television.
This development will keep the tv ad market alive, but will ultimately hasten the demise of television's current business model. It'll be bad for the advertising industry as a whole - as the cost of a television spot declines, the amount invested in the creative product will also decline.

Riga Trip

Went to Riga for the first time. Really nice city - cheap beer and very friendly. Didn't see too much culture cause I stayed in bars the whole time. That made it more fun to be honest.

Still a quite immature tourist industry means there are many people trying to extort cash rather than taking a more long term approach to the visitors. 

Guardian Unlimited Technology | Technology | Give us back our crown jewels

Guardian Unlimited Technology Technology Give us back our crown jewels

Many good points - I was having this discussion with someone the other day, why aren't OS maps free?

Though doubt there's many good political points to be scored by allowing this. Probably end up with the Lib dems moaning about it and nothing happening

Spore Gameplay Video - Google Video

Spore Gameplay Video - Google Video

Wow. I want this

Ronin

Saw Ronin tonight, a film with Robert Deniro. Usual crime caper - just felt like watching a good robbery film after all the news recently.

I don't think I've seen a film like Ronin before, in terms of innocent bystanders being killed. Most films have both good guys and bad guys studiously avoiding hitting bystanders.

This film had people continously being injured or killed, but without any kind of judgement - bodies just got hit and then fell out of view.

Had seen the film before, but just hadn't noticed. Maybe I'm getting more mature and starting to notice this kind of thing?

CBS News | Star Wars Mailbag: The Sequel | February 4, 2006 16:04:43

CBS News | Star Wars Mailbag: The Sequel | February 4, 2006 16:04:43

Good example of bloggers slagging off a company. Makes a convincing case, but I'm sure there's a Sony side to it

A Prize I'd like to win

Went to Google's officesin Victoria. They weren't as cool as I'd expected. They had a HUGE screen showing off Google Earth, which was cool. Also a big screen showoing everyone's searches. Kind of expected cooler stuff than that, but they've only just moved in and maybe they had more secret cool stuff they're not allowed to show me!

I want one of these prizes - it's a prize from the Economist for the best technlogical innovation in 2000 or 1999. I bet they didn't even go to the awards ceremony.

The only Prize I've been up for I didn't win, it went to a campaign to keep pets away from fireworks. Still can't believe that! 

Guardian Unlimited Business | | Brown boosted by budget surplus

Guardian Unlimited Business Brown boosted by budget surplus

Wonder who's doing Brown's PR - this should be headline news. He should be on the Today programme gloating from the rooftops!?

Natural History museum

Can't believe the number of people we had to fight through to visit the Natural History Museum. There were too many people to be able to see the dinosaurs :-( 

The Observer | Business | Sorrell at war on two fronts as writs fly

The Observer | Business | Sorrell at war on two fronts as writs fly

The Italian case sounds worrying, but more so is the commitment Sorrell tried to make to get the OK! business.

I know some agencies enter into agreements with media owners around guaranteed levels of spend in order to secure discounts, but this agreement seems to be going a little far. It should be fine to use the size of a company to buy stuff on the cheap.

It shouldn't be fine to recommend media properties solely on the basis of potential new business for an agency. Dodgy!

Blogging and Blogs

Comment and opinion from the Times and The Sunday Times - Times Online

Relatively interesting seeing articles about how blogs are going to take over the world on the Times.

Seems to be seome good points on the limitations of blogs. However it doesn't mention the difficulty of finding a good blog. How many people read more than one different blog?

Blogs only really add value for extreme viewpoints or specialist pursuits. You won't find good coverage of UK sumo wrestling in the newspapers, but I'm sure you'd be able to find a blog about it.

But which ones are good? Maybe there's a niche in the market for a good 'blog review site' - I'm on del.ico.us but it doesn't give me the ability to rate sites. Might be possible to rate sites in more sophisticated ways?

I'll have to check out the other versions. We'll see if Google can think of better ways to rank sites.

Wired 14.02: Posts

Wired 14.02: Posts

Yes

Wikipedia

Guardian Unlimited Technology Technology Doctoring the past - Wiki style

The article claims that '3 percent of all webpage visited are Wikipedia pages.' I don't believe that.

Did just check ComScore though - which provides industry figures on internet usage. 3.2 million British people looked at the Wikipedia last month, representing 10% of the online population.

Their monthly visitors have tripled in the last year though they seem to have peaked in November. Maybe the school \ university holidays were a factor?

Our schools are complicit in this university segregation

Guardian Unlimited Guardian daily comment Our schools are complicit in this university segregation

Patronising bloody chip on shoulder private schooled kid.

The scholarship schemes run by the private schools seem to be a cunning plot. The children who come out of these schools are brainwashed into believing that they were saved by the private school. Without private school they would have been swallowed by the hordes of savages that prey on vulnerable 'nice kids' in comprehensive schools.

They seem to have an impression of state school teachers as incompetents who are unable to help any of the children as they try to look after too many idiots.

I think they should change the rules so that anyone who goes through private school should have to meet the full cost of a university education.

MediaGuardian.co.uk | Media | Mark Lawson on Celebrity Big Brother 4

MediaGuardian.co.uk Media Mark Lawson on Celebrity Big Brother 4

Barrymore is a strange choice!

Hopefully not going to do anything funny with the swimming pool in there.

Probably not going to watch it, but Endemol really know how to target the lowest common denominator!

Grafitti

Good graffiti over by Seven Sisters road (just north of my house). Obviously someone's not feeling the new year spirit!

It says: "To all the people that have verbally intimidated me - 'Go Looney, Go P*kz(??), Go Nigger etc.' Have a crap new year for making me mentally ill."

Maybe a new Banksy in the making 

Wikipedia in the news

It's quite impressive that the Wikipedia, an online organisation that only employs a single full time employee, can make it onto the front page of the financial times.

Is this some kind of conspiracy by offline print moguls trying to defend themselves against the new form of publishing that the Wikipedia embodies?

There was not as much prominence given to this article: http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9588_22-5997332.html?part=rss&tag=feed&subj=zdnn

Ah well. Hope the Wikipedia keeps on going, and that it sorts itself out and gets some advertising on there!