The Joy of Stats…

Whilst checking my lovely new easy-to-read stats package ‘Mint’, I noticed that an old friend and colleague had linked to me. A click later and hey-presto Kief Morris is alive and well. And he’s even said a nice thing or two about me and my wee blog! (But Kief, sorry mate, I ain’t no Design Director. Take a look around, does this site look like it’s been properly designed!) ;)

Thank you stats, thank you links, and thank goodness there’s only a few people visiting the site or I might never have spotted Kief passing through.

Bouncy Balls!

sony bouncy ballsSony Bouncy Balls TV advert. For me this is one of the greatest ads of recent times. Not only is it a thing of great beauty. It’s executed brilliantly. It demonstrates, in a way that everyone can understand, the key product benefit. Oh, and a lovely soundtrack too. [As an aside Veneer by Jose Gonzales is one of my favourite albums of the year so far].

But that’s only half the story…

The other side of what makes this ad so brilliant is the fact that so many people knew about the ad even before it had been edited. The use of Flickr to create buzz around the event of dropping the balls. The releasing of the ‘making of’ documentary before the advert itself.

Very very smart. My hat is off.

Sorrell vs. Murdoch

Interesting Reuters article from a couple of weeks ago. Martin Sorrell talks about how media companies are running scared of the new new media. But perhaps most interesting is his criticism of News Corp’s recent acquisitions.

Continue reading Sorrell vs. Murdoch

Hulger and Skype

hulger phoneNik, one of my co-partners at Poke has, in my opinion, finally nailed a proper useful-use for his Hulger Phones. Although an interesting design statement and a humerous novelty when attached to a mobile, I don’t think anyone would really use them in the longer term. But, they sure beat a crappy headset for VOIP. So a partnership with Skype seems like a winner to me!

Technorati Tags Plugin

I’ve finally got around to getting my head around just how good Technorati is. I knew it was powerful. But not that powerful. So I’ve installed BunnysTechnoratiTags on my blog. Meaning that I can make sure I’m properly hooked up with the ‘rati. (Once you realise you’re becoming a geek is there any way to reverse the process…?).

Presentation Zen

powerpoint logoBill has bullets, Steve has space. Presentation Zen: Gates, Jobs, & the Zen aesthetic – a blog posting about presentation styles that made me laugh out loud. Incredibly insightful and worth a read. Via the ever visitworthy Seth Godin.

Talking Point for Orange

talkingpoint screengrabHere’s a little something I’ve been working on for a good while now TalkingPoint for Orange. It’s a hybrid between a poll and a discussion forum. The objective being to give people a chance to leave their opinions on issues in an interesting and textured fashion. Allowing people to either just register their agreement with a simple, single-click interaction. Or, if they wish, to go further and leave comments.

So far the results are really promising and we’re seeing high levels of interaction and relatively low levels of abuse (which is nice). The team that worked on it have done a great job – and as usual encountered all kinds of interesting ‘features’ in Flash ;-)

Email is distracting – shocker!

Blimey! Discover magazine reports on how email and IM are distracting! Well you don’t say…

But it does make some interesting points about using multiple windows and the distractions it can cause. Much as I love Expose on my Mac it does mean that I keep an inordinate amount of things on the go at any one time. In fact, I should go and finish those 7 emails now…

Which reminds me. I must finish reading Getting Things Done.

iPod Nanos on Tokyo Metro

ipod nanos in tokyoFrom Cult Of Mac Blog – iPod Nanos on Tokyo Metro – This is a great (if a little expensive) promotion. Having said that, this is one of those ads that creates so much residual ‘buzz’ around it that the initial investment is totally worth it. I’ve just finished the excellent book Buzzmarketing: Getting People to Talk About Your Stuff. Hence I’m temporarily obsessed with ‘buzz’. I’ll write a review of the book soon. In the meantime, have a look at the Buzzmarketing.com site.

I’m especially loving the use of photo message QR codes on the back of the dummy Nanos (in case you don’t know these are like barcodes that you photograph with your mobile – all the rage in Japan apparantly).