It’s interesting that people are using YouTube as a way of sharing audio. Obviously it’s not designed as an audio sharing site, but it does the job pretty well.
I’m guessing that people are using it this way because:
1. YouTube has a bigger audience than most of the audio sharing sites
2. People know how to upload to YouTube
3. The embedding on YouTube is very very simple (and understood)
But I think generally it’s about familiarity and top-of-mind-ness.
Here’s an example of using YouTube to share audio.
Not really very exciting right?
All it takes is a tiny bit of imagination and a teeny bit of video (on a loop) and all of a sudden your audio enters a whole new freaky dimension…
It follows on from the really nice Cravendale ads that are on TV. You can see them on YouTube here. I’ve always liked them, but this is a rare thing. An online extension that really does extend and build on the creative and allows people to get involved.
It steers clear of lots of the usual traps that people might fall into. And does a lot of things amazingly well:
It’s completely intuitive.
Rather than starting from a point of deep interaction it gets people involved at a very simple level. Put in your name and start moving about. Easy.
Then you can get deeper and deeper into the world (if you fancy it). Get friends in. Edit multiple clips. Etc.
The attention to detail is phenomenal.
The routes through the different interaction paths are nice.
A piece of work I’m genuinely envious of. Nice one. I’m sure it’ll be picking up the odd award or two…
I’m not going to try and sum up the discussion, I can’t, it’s too complicated. But there’s a few things that leapt out at me:
Regardless of what I think about the arguments I can’t help but like David Weinberger. There’s something about his manner and his enthusiasm that just make me warm to him. Keen just comes across as being smug and patronising.
You almost get the impression that he’s playing the cartoon baddy. Look at him. I can’t help but think he’s based his character on Simon Cowell. Black t-shirt, Hollywood-anglo-baddy accent, same haircut…
Playing the web-sceptic, as he does, is not an easy thing to do at a conference like this and there’s a couple of points towards the end where it almost feels like he wants to say “OK OK I’m wrong about some of this stuff, I’m just trying to construct a counter argument to make people think a bit (and selling lost of copies of my book while I’m at it)”.
But people are right to challenge him. A lot of what he says just sounds a bit silly at times. For example, his view that the control and ownership of mass media has historically been for the good of everyone and that it’s ultimately a meritocracy.
Even though it’s long at 50 minutes it’s really well worth a watch. You’ll get to hear plenty of interesting things about authority, media, knowledge, information, power, talent and other such big important things.
The second thought provoking animation of the week…
Watch it. It’s good.
Makes me realise that understanding and appreciating bits and bytes is really important. And maybe one day I’ll be able to apply it to something that makes a difference…
Designed by Xplane, whose work I’ve admired for years, for Shifthappens.
Well not really TV, but it is sort of like TV on the Internet… This time I’ve actually managed to watch myself, so I’m making progress. I didn’t like it, but I did manage to stomach it.
They’ve edited it together so that you get 2 idiots rambling for the price of one. And you know what, I think I managed to talk more than Faris. Which I didn’t think was possible.
Forget about An Inconvenient Truth, it’s all long and boring and stuff. Watch this instead…
To my mind this deserves to have a lot more views than it’s had – so I’m going to make it my mission to get more people to see it. Please blog it or link to it. Visit the clip on YouTube and rate it. Or if you’re a bit geeky Digg it or Stumble it, or whatever you can do.
I really liked the way that it’s really practical, non-preachy, and above all brilliantly funny and watchable.
Put together by Airside and Mother. (The Mother guys have been very modest about the whole thing and even though Poke live upstairs from them we’d not really heard a peep about it). So I’m going to push it for them as it’s really good and it’s for a good cause!
The clip of prisoners doing the Thriller dance has been featured all over the place, in case you missed it, here it is:
But I looked about and found these two which are less impressive from a choreography point of view. But somehow I found them a bit more odd. I think it might be because they’re less ‘cool’ they make you wonder how the whole prisoners dancing thing actually happens and makes it onto YouTube. I can almost imagine people signing up to do the zombie thriller dance. But Jumbo Hot Dog?
I thought it was going to reveal the whole thing is a spoof 1/2 way through. It’s all shot by the same director as the main clips so I’m pretty sure it’s all genuine.
There’s a bunch of things that people who are just getting into digital always seem to propose at some point or another. I guess they’re things that are part of the learning process. Things that a lot of us have done, and hopefully learned from. I’m not suggesting that anyone is stupid for doing any of these things (I’ve done the majority of them at least once). But I’m hopefully going to explain why they’re not good ideas in most cases.
Of course they’re not deadly. And like all ‘rules’ there’s good reasons to break them. But in most instances these things are not good. I’ve left out the new ‘trendy’ things like Google Earth, SecondLife, UGC, etc. I’m saving those for 7 deadly sins of digital 2.0.
In no particular order…
Tamagotchis
They say: “A game where you have to feed this little character to keep them alive, and you give them stuff, and they do stuff”
You say: “You want to create something based on an obsolete early 90s toy that wasn’t actually any fun? And you’re expecting people who don’t give a toss about your brand of fake-cheese-based snacks to go though a bunch of meaningless interactions for no real reward why?”
Why it seems like a good idea: prolonged engagement, a ‘relationship’, the original tamagotchis had a certain amount of Jap-cool
Why it’s not a good idea: they weren’t actually fun then, they’re still not now, if you’ve created one in the past you’ll find that the involvement rate drops off faster than a D’angostini subscription after issue one’s free binder. And it’s been done lots of times before.
Screensavers
They say: “Let’s make a screensaver”
You say: “When was the last time you installed a screensaver? When was the last time you saw a screensaver on someone’s screen?”
Why it seems like a good idea: screensavers were kind of fascinating when we were younger, at the time they were much richer and more visual than most of the web stuff that was around. They were animated, they had flying windows, zooming starfields, even scrolling text! They’re full screen (so they look a bit like a TV). And the idea of something that’s sitting there in the background, hiding, ready to jump up and surprise you when you’re being lazy has some kind of appeal I reckon.
Why it’s not a good idea: screensavers are a product of a byegone era, people don’t like installing stuff, the only time they actually come to life is when you’re not there. And they’re kind of a beacon that says my computer should be off or at least asleep to save power, but I’d rather show off some fancy graphical nonsense.
Interfaces that look like the tops of desks or tables
They say: “We could make it look like the character’s desk, you can click on a file to read it, if you click on the answering machine you can hear a message… And so on…”
You say: “Oh FFS we can bend space and time and create things that redefine the way that the world works, but you want to use a clumsy metaphor that people are going to have to decompile in order to figure out how to get to a bit of information that in some rare case they might actually want. And it’s not extensible. And besides how many people watch youtube videos of their own adverts in the residue at the bottom of a coffee cup? And it’s not accessible… And so on…”
Why it seems like a good idea: its safe and familiar. Everyone understands atoms and physical things. Lots of people don’t understand navigation, menu structures and information architecture. So it’s easier to ignore them and cling to something comfortable and comforting, like a messy desk.
Why it’s a bad idea: Aside from the stuff above it just is, trust me. Perhaps this imagined conversation between me and Ridley Scott makes it clearer:
Me: Hi Ridley, please will you direct a commercial for me, it’s basically a 60 second spot and it goes like this. We open on the first page of a book. There are words on the page, we need to wait for people to read the words. Then a hand turns the page and we move to scene two. It’s the second page of the book.
Ridley: Silence
Me: It looks like an aged book, there are coffee ring stains on page two.
Ridley: Silence
Me: You still there?
Desktop assistants / characters
They say: “You know the Microsoft paperclip, can we…”
You say: “Stop right there sonny, don’t say another word! Nobody likes the paperclip. The only good thing that ever happened to the paperclip was death. Even Bill Gates hates the paperclip.”
Why it seems like a good idea: being helpful is good. Stepping outside of a web-page and having some form of permanence and ongoing relationship makes sense.
Why it’s a bad idea: people don’t like installing things, they want things on their terms, it’s been done a lot and failed a lot no matter what the sales guys for DeskBuddy(tm) tell you.
A virus
They say: “Could we create an actual virus that spreads our message”
You say: “Why not do it in the real world instead – why not just make a branded version of HIV, there’s more people in the offline world that you can infect”
Why it seems like a good idea: massive unstoppable spread of your message.
Why it’s a bad idea: viruses are not a toy, they are really not good, you don’t want your brand to be associated with not good things, unless you work for evilcorp.
A ‘viral’
They say: “We’ve made this film, can you make it a viral”
You say: “I’m just going outside to suck on an exhaust pipe for 30 minutes – if I make it back I’ll stick it on YouTube for you”
Why it seems like a good idea: we’ve all seen ‘viral’ hits, they’re things that everyone has watched, that have been passed around, loved and genuinely become part of the culture of the web. We’ve not all seen the ‘viral’ wasteland, the thousands of clips that sit gathering dust at the bottom of the ‘exploding heads’ category on YouTube. And because most of us only see the good stuff that works we assume it’s easy.
Why it’s a bad idea: because it’s not easy. Now that ‘viral’ has become a dirty nasty industry full of paid for placements and seeding bungs you need to plan for it from the word go. It’s mostly not really about things being viral at all, it’s just about dark media buying.
Starting a list of seven things and not counting how many you’ve got.
I’m going to open this one up for submissions, anyone got any ideas for the 7th deadly sin? Best suggestion wins a book from my library. Seriously I’ll send a good book to you if you come up with the best suggestion – plus happy to replace any of my ones that are rubbish…
This is me presenting “10 Reasons Why Digital is ‘Better’ than Advertising” at the PSFK conference in London. I can’t even bear to hear recordings of my own voice so there’s no way that I’m going to be able to watch this… (I tried watching a few seconds from the middle and I’m absolutely certain that it isn’t me up there).
Especially after I’ve just had this email from Jim:
Hi Iain,
Couldn’t sleep last night and somehow found myself watching your 10 reasons vid on pfsk – you’ll be pleased to know it did the trick and I dropped straight off ;)
