web
iPhone Advertising Hits New Low
There I was reading an article about The Top 5 Myths About Yahoo! on Howstuffworks on my iPhone. I got to the bottom of page one, and clicked ‘read more’ like you do. Then a new page launches and… Holy fuck… It is… Noooooooooo… It can’t…
The Streisand Effect
I learned something new today. The Streisand Effect is what happens when you try and shut something down online and as a result everyone finds out about it and loads more people see it than would have if you’d kept your mouth shut. It’s…
Things to do to escape your computer (or TV)
…hire a bike or roller skates or a boat. Please help by adding to this in the comments. Following on from this weekend’s activities. I’ve been thinking about what a great bunch of things Jason set me to do. All could be done with little…
Earning Eternal Respect In 48 Hours The Twitter Way
I had a fun weekend this weekend. Thanks to a number of things. 1. Weekends are good anyway. 2. The weather was pretty nice. 3. I did normal stuff with Sophie like have nice lunches. Laze around. Drink a bit of wine. Get some chores done…
Scott Wayne Indiana – Nice Web Art
Scott Wayne Indiana sent me a nice email and a couple of links to his sites. The first one is his photo a day project – http://coinop.tumblr.com/. I really like them. That’s one of them above. He also sent a link to 39 Forks which is a…
Do Not Erase The Internet
Spotted this on the whiteboard at the end of the office a few days ago. I’ve not shown the full details as it would be giving away some top secret next level code. Or something like that.…
Bring Back The Webmaster
I’ve no idea what the note above says. But I reckon it’s time we started thinking about Webmasters again. I always wanted to be a Webmaster. It sounds so super powerful and cool. If a little geeky. Anyway the more I think about what we do…
Confidence In Blog Posts Over Time – My Analysis (Slideshare)
Sometimes this is how I feel. And sometimes I can only express myself through presentations ;-)
Political Update Profile Message
Spotted this on the Hype Machine today. I’m not even sure what it means. But it shows just how far political campaigning has become integrated into the fabric of the web. What’s next? Political allegiance verification messages before you…
Crisps and Conversations
I’ve been a bit of a sceptic about interactivity and FMCGs. Most of the time they just create digital litter. Maybe it’s just because I’m a big fan of crisps. But Walkers seem to be doing some peculiarly interesting things around…
The Finest Sweatshirt in the World?
I bought me one of these Nike x Loopwheeler AW77 sweatshirts: From the Nike 1948 store in Shoreditch. I’ve been wearing it for 3 days straight. And I can’t take it off. It truly is the finest sweatshirt I’ve ever owned. I don’t normally…
Comparing Comparisons
All we need now is a bunch of different comparisons of comparison websites and we can compare them too.…
Orange Unlit Tour – Welcome Hedluv
We’re putting on a tour with Orange. It’s part of the whole ‘I am’ thing. The Unlit Tour is about an artist going on the road and creating his own ‘I am’ story as he goes. The tour is going to be ‘made by everyone’. From the people who…
10 Things I Love About Blip.fm
I said I was going to write a megapost on Blip.fm. Here it is. Here’s what Blip say you get out of it on their homepage: And so far it’s really working for me. If you like the sound of it join up here: http://blip.fm/invite/iaintait It’s…
Lovely Web Art – Harm van den Dorpel
From the beautiful White Rectangle to the strangely captivating Ping Pong this guy has got some really lovely animations and web art in his portfolio. You won’t get it without seeing his styles of animation. You need to go and have a bit…
Capital One – Doing A Good Flickr Thing Very Badly
This is a shame. Capital One did a really cool thing. Or at least it looks like they could have done if they hadn’t banked it up. I noticed on Flickr that I could make a Capital One card. I thought that sounds interesting. It’s probably…
Blip.fm is F**king Awesome
I’ve fallen deeply in love with a web application. I’m going to write a mega-post on why I think that blip.fm is the greatest thing in the known universe. But I don’t have time just now. It’s like the best bits of last.fm, twitter, and…
Twitter Nappies (or Diapers)
Was clearing out my camera and spotted this photo I took in Sainsburys a couple of weeks ago. Now you can watch your kids at nursery from a webcam. It’s the first in the UK according to the ad. Which made me think… It’s only a matter of…
Making A YouTube Band
If you play solo clips from YouTube on the same page at the same time it sounds oddly like a band (kinda). I’ve got a project on the go to try and make an interesting random YouTube band maker. But I need some help. See what it sounds like…
Trancecracker – Old Gold
One of the best things about StumbleUpon is that sometimes it’ll serve up a smashing slice of retro-web pie. Like this chuckleworthy strip called The Trancecracker. Actually, it’s probably only funny if you’ve ever witnessed trancemonkeys…
All Comments Are Not Created Equal
Sometimes blog posts just write themselves. Today I got two comments that obviously resulted from smart, online-aware people seeing what’s been written about a topic on the web. One of them is fantastic. The other one terrible. The…
Love’s Powerpoint Website
I’m gutted. But impressed. And glad. Love have made their new website in Powerpoint: http://www.lovecreative.com/ I’m gutted because I’ve been whanging on about doing a website in PowerPoint for the last couple of years. But impressed…
What Advertising Can Learn From Radiohead
I wasn’t going to blog about the House of Cards video and it’s brilliant integration with Google and the geekosphere. I wasn’t going to blog it because everyone else has. It is bloody brilliant though. Yet another example of how Radiohead…
O2 Bad Web Page
The new O2, we’re out of stock of the 3G iPhone, page is bad. For a number of reasons. The whole upgrade/ordering thing was a farce, but more on that elsewhere… But worst of all is the padlock in the top right hand corner. In my book a…
Webbys 2008
Just got back from the Webbys in New York. We were over there to pick up a People’s Voice for the Orange Never Ending Web Page. There’s evidently no photo of me picking up our Webby, so here’s a picture of Richard from Moo picking up their…
The Orange Balloon Race – Playballoonacy.com
Here’s the start of another major thing that we’ve been working on for Orange for a while now… Registration is now open for the first Balloon Race Across the Internet. Visit: playballoonacy.com Basically we’re going to set off loads of…
Teabuddy Scandal Alert
Ouch. I really want to nip this one in the bud before it gets out of hand… George Parker (who’s work and brutal honesty I admire a great deal) has written a rather fruity post about something that I wasn’t going to comment on. Basically I…
Don’t Count Me (dot com)
Actually when it says pre-Alpha, I think it’s more like pre-vapourware, but this is an open call to all the inventors and brilliant people out there. Will someone please invent a web-hit-deleter. A few times recently (in fact twice today…
ManBabies.com
GET MORE AT ManBabies.com! The new lolcats? Perhaps not, but Manbabies feels like a pretty important moment in internet history. Thanks to Nilesh for the tip.…
10 Things I Learned from Mental Detox Week
If you’ve just arrived here from AdBusters you might also be interested in what I got up to this weekend – I did still use the Internet a little bit – but it’s primarily a bunch of offline stuff that I did started by an online thing… Might…
I’m Chatting at Under The Influence
Iris are putting on an interesting event next week in London. It’s totally free so go and sign up if you like the look of it. It’s called Under the Influence and it’s 20 talks spread around 5 pubs in Borough Market. Each one has a…
The Next Creative Revolution
I liked this thought piece by Nick Law from R/GA. The Next Creative Revolution at Creativity-online. It’s a thoughtful (yet slightly empassioned) piece on the evolution of advertising. For a taster: This, we are told, is integration. For…
The Single Most Brilliant Single Web Page in Recent Memory
Artist David Horvitz has a load of really great things on site site. Really do go and have a poke about it’s great. The best bit is a page of things called FOR YOU… It’s a list by the artist of “THINGS FOR SALE THAT I WILL MAIL YOU” For…
Exactitudes
I’d spotted this exhibition in the press and then stumbled on it totally by accident in Selfridges basement this evening. It’s amazing. It’s a series of photographs of style tribes. They say: Rotterdam-based photographer Ari Versluis and…
Pissing Contests
I seem to be witnessing more and more intellectual pissing competitions these days. And it’s not just in planner-land, although that’s where I’ve witnessed some of the ‘best’ ones. I’ve seen a few good technical ones, and even designers…
4×4 Meme: More About Me
I got tagged by blackbeltjones with the 4×4 meme. So I rolled over and became a part of it. Plus it gives me a chance for some totally self-absorbed and pointless blogging. It looks like this meme has mutated a bit over time, but I’m going…
What is a Charticle?
I was reading a piece in the New York Times about goings-on at Gawker when I came across this quote from Choire Sicha (the outgoing managing editor as far as I can tell): “I don’t want to write a top 10 list in my life, ever. I don’t want…
Advertising Ads
In spite of the heinous typo I love this sign (from a little newsagents just off Brick Lane). I haven’t seen anything that encapsulates quite so wonderfully the problem with a lot of the online advertising that is floating around aimlessly…
Pownce Errors
I’m not convinced that I need Pownce (yet), but I did like their error message: I wonder if they’ve got clearance for the image use? if you’ve got a web business these days you need to have a great error page. I bet most brand…
Last.fm Goes Fulltracktastic
Big news. Last.fm gets full track listening capabilities. As of today, you can play full-length tracks and entire albums for free on the Last.fm website. Something we’ve wanted for years—for people who visit Last.fm to be able to play any…
The Webbys – A Trip Back In Time
Nik’s written a piece on why he likes the Webbys over here. I like the Webbys too. For me they’re the awards that get closest to recognising the important things online (in the English speaking parts of the interwebs anyway). It tends to…
Geometry Wars – Particle Man
This ad for Geometry Wars I liked. It’s almost another kind of entertaining demo, sort of: It makes me smile and chuckle. They’ve also got some bonkers online advertising which I can’t actually find right now. And the website is also…
P-p-p-product D-d-d-demos – The Beardyman Way
I’ve been looking around for interesting product demos recently. We’ve been talking to clients how demos can be both entertaining and informative. A couple of well-known entertaining product demos that spring to mind are Ikea’s Dream…
Write Like a Email Scammer Day – 06.02.08
Following on from last year’s ‘Speak Like a Pirate Day’. I’m proposing that the world embark upon a ‘Write Like an Email Scammer Day’. I was motivated to propose this course of action resulting from a recently inbounded email communication…
The Rise of the Idiots
Dan Ashcroft on Idiots (from the post-retro-ironic-futuristic Nathan Barley). “They use the word cool, it is their favourite word… Thinking is rubbish and rubbish isn’t cool… Stuff and shit is cool…” See the rest here. Still painfully…
Toy Hacking
I’m really excited about the upcoming Toy Hacking workshop. I’m all signed-up and ready to go, but still quite in the dark about what I’ll actually come away from it being able to do. In my fantasy vision I’ll become some kind of mad…
Page Not Found – You Moron
Sometimes when a website is broken it feels like the computer blames you. That’s a bad thing. It’s rarely your fault. I’d been joking about making a 404-page featuring Igor (our head of technology and sys-admin dude) telling off site…
Quote of the Day
A very senior and experienced person in the digital world who is normally a vocal advocate for web 2.0 type stuff and who has multiple blogs just said: “I should do more with things like del.icio.us, but I just don’t like sharing stuff”…
How To Do Digital Planning
I’ve been trying to post something like this for a few months now. But it kept morphing into a badly researched history of planning mixed with a poor how-to guide. And of course I kept veering off into bloody flag-waving about how digital…
3 Killer Blog Posts You Have to Read
http://www.skelliewag.org/ is a great find. I’m really liking it a lot. 25 Headline Formulas That Have Plagued and Blessed Web 2.0 by Skellie is a great article. As is The Top 20 Ways to Come Up With Amazing Ideas. And who could ignore…
The Internet (now in handy book form!)
David McCandless has been doing bits and pieces for Poke as long as Poke’s been around. In fact he’s written lots of the funnier words on the funnier projects that we’ve done. So it’s nice that someone gave him a book deal. And if he can…
The Crimternet
Image pilfered from here. A Dutch teenager has been arrested for allegedly stealing virtual furniture from “rooms” in Habbo Hotel, a 3D social networking website. The BBC cover the story here. It’s slightly more sinister than you might…
Sometimes I Just Want to Cry
Or alternatively just shout really loud bad words in public. This morning I’m not going to cry. I’m going to shout. CAMPAIGN MAGAZINE PARTS THE SEA OF ONES AND ZEROS AND LEADS THE ADLANDERS INTO THE NEW LAND OF OPPORTUNITY. WHERE THERE’S…
Making Good Shit Stick Is Tough
Don’t get me wrong. I love the meritocratic world of the web. Good stuff floats, average stuff gets suspended in the sea of mediocrity and bad stuff sinks without trace. And that’s the way it ought to be. It used to be really easy. Back in…
Never Ending Web Page
Here’s something we just did for Orange. Goodthingsshouldneverend.co.uk It’s one of my favourite things that we’ve done in a while. It’s a never ending webpage. Crammed full of fun stuff and lots of surprises. Some are online, some are…
Tony Wilson and Eva Pascoe on the Internet
Awesome footage. Eva Pascoe (founder of Cyberia and member of the digerati) tells Tony Wilson all about the internet. [Update: Thanks to Steve for the link to the newer better version of the video – nice one mate]
Web 3.0 Doesn’t Sound Like Much Fun
I wasn’t going to post this as it’s not all that enlightening. It’s from a few months ago and is Eric Schmidt (Google CEO) talking about web 3.0 as a bunch of lightweight free distributable micro applications / services. Which is all very…
Investing in Content
Jib Jab – US peddlers of funny animations and stuff (my description not theirs) have just raised another $3m in funding from VCs – in total they’re reported to have raised $6m. Read/Write Web have more on the story. I found myself nodding…
The Changing Nature of Information
By the same guy who did the great thing about Web2.0 in a similar style. Very nice. It’s a really good quick summary of a lot of the things talked about in David Weinberger’s Everything is Miscellaneous.
Why I Love Abel and Cole
We’ve been getting organic boxes from Abel and Cole. Apparently it’s the done thing when you’re greenish and in your mid-30s. But in the couple of months we’ve been using them we’ve not ever really managed to finish a box. So we end up…
The Most Creative Website Ever
I’m doing some pitchy type stuff and ran out of inspiration so I typed into Google “most creative website ever” hoping that I’d find something to inspire me. And I came to this post about the most creative website I’ve seen in a long time…
My Favourite Post in Recent Memory
The Logic+Emotion blog is consistently good. This post about execs not getting ‘new media’ is so spot on it hits the middle of the spot in the middle of the spot at the centre of the bullseye. An extract: “The industry has brainwashed us…
Best ‘Interactive’ Website
I felt some mistrust towards a ‘digital’ awards that had a category for best interactive website. I was almost expecting a ‘best e-brochure’ category… But at least Cock-a-doodle got shortlisted (for best campaign):…
Marc Ecko’s Latest ‘Stunt’
Marc Ecko, he of ‘Tagging Airforce One‘ fame, has come up with another big noisy stunt. He’s bought a baseball for 3/4 million dollars. It’s a controversial baseball. It’s the ball that was hit by some dude (Barry Bonds) who got 756 home…
My Stereo Thoughts On FaceBook
I’ve got lots of thoughts about FaceBook, some positive some negative. And I was trying to come up with a way to encapsulate it all. I sort of think I have, but there might be some holes in my analogy… For me, this is FaceBook: It’s like…
Internet Now Working
Yeah, that’s what they say… I don’t think it’s strictly true though. I always liked with Tim Berners-Lee’s quote about the Internet always being “a little bit broken”. (Read more at The Cluetrain Manifesto – it’s in the bit about the…
Like 2ManyDJs (Only Better)
I’m liking the sounds of the Streetlife DJs a lot today. They’re like a UK version of 2ManyDJs only perhaps a bit more dance-edged, but still with tons of eclecticism. From their Podcast description: Stewart Rowell and Louis Gaston are…
Managing Expectations
I liked this. It’s on the back door of the Oxfam bookshop in Brighton. You kind of get a sense of what’s going to happen if you press the button (not much pretty slowly). Perhaps web interfaces should take a lead out of this kind of…
The 7th Deadly Sin – We Have a Winner!
I’m absolutely flabbergasted at how many comments the 7 Deadly Sins of Digital has had. It’s up to 85 comments and still growing! But I figured it was time to pick my winner for the 7th Deadly Sin. Trouble is, there are so many great ones…
Weinberger vs Keen @ Supernova
Really interesting 50 minute presentation and discussion by David Weinberger (Cluetrain Manifesto, Small Pieces Loosely Joined, Everything is Miscellaneous) and Andrew Keen (Cult of the Amateur). I’m not going to try and sum up the…
The 7th Sin Personified?
I don’t normally like highlighting specific pieces of work and picking on them. But in the context of the 7 Sins of Digital I had to post this. It’s Interflora’s new eBrochure. For starters anything called an eBrochure should be put…
The 7 Deadly Sins of Digital
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…
ToyotaSpace – I Don’t Like This
To me this shows exactly how not to approach bloggers to get them onside. I’ve not put in a link to the site, and I don’t want one back from them. But if you do want to visit the site you can figure out the URL from the text above. Reasons…
They Just Had To… Blend an iPhone
I thought I’d posted the Blendtec ‘Will it blend?’ ads from YouTube before, but it doesn’t look like I did. Anyway I thought they were great, genuinely viral ads. Showing a slightly geeky professor / home shopping channel presenter…
Project Management for Web Geeks
Effective Project Management for Web Geeks Great article about project management. I particularly liked the bit about striking a balance between the science (what you should do) and art (what you need to do) of project management. Meri…
Designer Web Site’s
Cool. A £100. But I’ll write the copy, OK?
Spot the Bull
This is one of my favourite projects of recent times. It ticks all of the boxes that get me excited about the work Poke do. It’s a simple idea, that hasn’t been done before (as far as I can tell). We were basically tasked by Orange to come…
I’ve been TaxiBlogged!
My thing about YogaLadder has been lifted by the London Taxi News: There’s a YogaLadder in My Taxi | London Taxi News I feel special. As I’m now on the TaxiWeb here’s something else taxi related. I saw this parked near Old St yesterday…
Zopa Wins a Webby
I found out yesterday that Zopa won a Webby award. Which made me happy. I’m not normally all that excited about awards. Having been on the judging side a couple of times you start to see how ‘the system’ works. And to be honest I think…
10 Reasons Why Digital is Better Than Advertising – Number 10
Of course there are brilliant people in advertising who ‘get it’ too. And blatantly you don’t have to be a web-obsessed geek to come up with interesting interactive ideas. But naturally it becomes easier to consider this world if you spend…
Webby Awards Vote
This is a shameless attempt to sway voting in this year’s Webby Awards. But being as it’s a People’s Voice vote I guess that’s the name of the game. Everyone else seems to be doing the same. You can vote here. This year Poke have got 2…
Online Drama – Prom Queen
I didn’t really know where to start with this one. Prom Queen is a new 80 episode Internet-only drama. Here’s the facts: Each episode is just over 2 minutes long and features pre and post-roll ads – a couple of seconds pre and about 10…
10 Reasons Why Digital is Better Than Advertising – Number 8
There’s a whole bunch of stuff that makes online audiences great. They’re immediately measurable. You can see how they heard about you. You can see what things they’re searching for in order to find you. If people are talking about you…
Kate Moss for TopShop
A new Poke project (nothing to do with me really): Kate Moss for TopShop. I like the fact it mixes up old style web stuff with flash video and things. It’s all a bit ‘fashion’ for me, but I still quite like it. Plus you know it’s going to…
10 Reasons Why Digital is Better Than Advertising – Number 5
As conventional advertising revenues decline, programme makers have less and less cash to spend. So TV gets more shit, so fewer people watch it so ad revenue goes down again. Conversely the web’s audience is steadily increasing in volume…
Websites and Company Culture
I liked this article: Ryanair vs JetBlue – reflecting company culture – Articles – iQ Content. It sums up how a bunch of factors, some quite subtle, help to reinforce your views of a company on their website.
10 Reasons Why Digital is Better Than Advertising – Number 1
Digital agencies sometimes do advertising. But only a few of them call themselves ‘digital advertising agencies’. This means that we’re given permission to do lots of other things. If you work in advertising you are typically expected to…
10 Reasons Why Digital is Better Than Advertising
Photo borrowed from: http://www.flickr.com/photos/laurelfan/46008873/ I started writing this list of 10 things after I chaired a debate at the D&AD about ‘Consumers In Control’ which basically turned into a mass venting of frustrations…
IMified
Now this sounds good – IMified! I like Instant Messenger. I like the fact that IM clients are lightweight applications that can be accessed anywhere (as long as I’ve got mobile or web access). And the promise of opening up applications so…
Nice Altoids Idea
I think this is really nice. In the swamp of dirty UGC ideas that we have to endure, here’s one that floats to the top, like cream, not a turd. It’s got a limited lifespan, but that’s OK. Simple idea, you can leave a valentine’s message on…
Virgin Media Really Sucks
Above you can see the promise made by Virgin Media on their website. Below you can read about my experience and how it differs from the above. I know Virgin Media is new, and I know it’s bound to have teething problems. But there’s only so…
Virgin Media – Customer Control?
Well, Virgin Media launched today with a big old shout: a full wrapper of the Metro and putting Richard Branson in a box in Covent Garden (as only he would do). I like the way they’ve simplified some things, and all their talk of customers…
I’m Not The Only One With Haters
This post over at Russell’s blog entitled: Bugger made me rather depressed. All of the criticisms levelled at Russell are the precise same things that makes his blog so damn good! I’m affectedly bumbling and luvvie in my writing style, I…
Our ‘Secret’ Creative Director
OK. It’s time. I can now finally reveal the all-new 3rd Poke Creative Director (after all the buildup). He’s the guy on the left. His name is Yacco Vijn – pronounce it as Jacko (like Whacko Jacko) Fine – pretty simple, and he claims it’s…
Get a Mac UK
Peepshow is one of my favourite comedies of the last few years, and Mitchell and Webb are inspired choices to play Mac and PC in the UK version of the Get a Mac ads. Apple (UK and Ireland) – Get a Mac – Watch The New Ads
Semacode Update
Blogs are great. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I asked a question about semacodes on websites. Went to bed. Then I woke up and someone’s left me a great answer. It’s like a big huge collective brain that goes on thinking…
Website with Semacode, Why?
Semacodes are pretty cool. The all knowing Wikipedia with it’s dazzling array of cross-links describes a semacode thusly: a URL can be converted into a type of barcode resembling a crossword puzzle, which is called a “tag”. Tags can be…
Venice Project Becomes Joost
The project formerly known as The Venice Project has now turned into Joost. It’s the latest venture from the guys behind Skype and in a nutshell it hopes to do to television what Skype did to telephones. As they put it: ‘taking the best of…
The Dumbness of Crowds
I’ve not linked to Creating Passionate Users for a while. As it’s probably the smartest blog in the entire universe I like to link to something now and again. This post on the misappropriation of ‘the wisdom of crowds’ is a classic…
BBH Wins Lynx Digital Account
An interesting ‘moment’ in online advertising. BBH win Lynx digital account. To my mind Dare have done some really amazing online advertising for Lynx (Feather and Blow to name but two), and I’m really surprised that the account has gone…
My Top Stuff of 2006
I’ve been thinking about doing a post on stuff I’ve liked in 2006, if you’ve got a blog it seems like you have to. But I didn’t know what to put in it or how to organise it. But I got re-inspired by The Design Conspiracy annual (a thing of…
North Kingdom Rule
Check this stunning piece of web stuff for Toyota. It’s not perfect, and there might be better ways of organising and delivering the information, but you can’t deny that the North Kingdom guys are some of the best online craftspeople in
I Love Second Life
Someone mentioned to me that they were surprised by how much I hate Second Life, so I probably need to put the record straight. I don’t hate Second Life. In fact I love Second Life – above you can see my alter ego Taito Dahlstrom wearing…
Tea for 2.0
Teabuddy.com (our social web app for managing tea-making and preferences) has come to the boil again. It’s one of those odd sleeper projects. We did it ages ago and at first it got picked up by Wired, then a bit later by The Guardian. Now…
Poke: Seeking Creative Director
Poke are hiring. We’re looking for a new creative director. It’s a nice place to work, or at least I think so. We’re looking for someone quite particular. If you’re interested, or think you know someone who might be, please take a look at…
The Geekiest T-Shirt Ever?
I’ve seen a lot of geeky t-shirts in my time. But this one is pretty much the king of the nerd-castle, awesome… (As you might have spotted, I’m struggling a bit with blogging at the moment. A combination of lack of time plus a general…
Nerd Recruitment
Saw this recruitment ad on the MediaTemple site. It made me chuckle. In case you’re interested (and are a ‘picked last in gym’ kind of nerd it links here. Incidentally, if you run your own website and are looking for hosting that can…
Crackunit is One!
Hooray. This current version of Crackunit has made it to the age of one. That’s more than any of the other versions did… I was thinking about the history of Crackunit and my blogging and I couldn’t remember how long I’d had the domain for…
YouTube Haters
Asi who writes the excellent No Man’s Blog left a comment yesterday about the fact that slating YouTube is very much the in-thing to do right now. And he left me a link or two. Having read a bit more around the topic it seems to be shaping…
Organic Blog
Not a blog about stuff with no pesticides. Stuff about the web agency Organic. Actually they might be pesticide free too, in fact they probably are. They’ve got a nice blog: Three Minds @ Organic. A smart blog with interesting things in…
YouTube Value on TechCrunch
Even though their site has issues with it’s error messages (see below), it’s undoubtedly worth quite a lot of money. This article on TechCrunch has a good top line discussion on how much it might be worth and outlines the big challenges…
Fizzy Web
I had a meeting with a prospective client yesterday (I hope she doesn’t mind me posting this, I am keeping it anonymous). And in our conversation she said that she wanted their site to be ‘fizzy’, at first I almost laughed, then as we…
Zopa Interview
Tom from Zopa said some nice things about Poke and did an email interview with me about the new Zopa site (which will soon be live, fingers crossed). It appeared in their monthly email newsletter. You can read it here if you like: This…
Disintermediating Citizen-Media Podcasts
It had to happen really. Web 1.0 had it’s own bullshit generator, now Web 2.0 gets one too: Emptybottle.org – The Web 2.0 Bullshit Generator I also find some perverse pleasure in the web 2.0 buzzphrase generator.
New Design
Stan Lee suggested that maybe I should consider a new web 2.0 logo, and pointed me in the direction of the Web 2.0 logo generator. What do you reckon?…
Roll Over
I think this will be my last word on the Agency.com Subway thing. But I’m never one to say never… I got a nice mail from Tom at Agency (he of “Roll Big” fame). The gist of the mail was: They’ve been reacting to things as they unfold (and…
WhenWeRollWeRollBig.com
A response from the Agency.com camp regarding the Subway video. It’s basically saying: “we did it, we got people talking, that’s the whole point”. I’m sure the debate will rage on around whether this is just a good piece of…
Agency.com ‘viral’ pitch video
OK, I’m going to give credit where it’s due: hats off to Agency.com for nailing their colours to the mast (in a very public way) and for using web stuff to talk about web stuff. Credit over. Maybe it’s just a cultural thing. But this video…
Companies get 2.0ed
The YayHooray community get all over redesigning big corporations in the style of web 2.0. It’s all over Digg and del.icio.us, so you might have seen it already. But it is pretty funny (if you’re a design geek). All the cliches are there…
More Viral Stuff
Faris from Naked talks about the fact that viral ‘just is’. Also uses the nice ‘real world viral’ example (oh, hang on, that’s just a virus isn’t it?) of the 118 vests. Also mentions a foul Coke example of labelling videos as ‘viral 1…
Trial By Blog
As I’ve mentioned before, we’re working with Zopa at the moment to do a redesign of their website. It’s a great company and a great project. I was in a meeting last week when Dave from Zopa said “Oh, I’ve stuck some of the designs on the…
Dell Blog
I’m a bit behind on this one but Dell have started a corporate blog. It’s getting very mixed coverage: Good(ish): Scobleizer – Tech Geek Blogger » Four little links say volumes at Dell site Pretty bad: Micro Persuasion: Dell Starts…
How hot is the bottom of your laptop?
Don’t know if this is true or false: Cooking Breakfast On A Macbook. You see this kind of thing faked all the time. Like the guys cooking an egg between 2 mobiles. This seems to be getting picked up all over the place though. The…
Where I work is OK
Poke have just been rated the top Digital Agency in the UK by Revolution Magazine. Actually more importantly we weren’t rated by the magazine, but by clients (as reported in Revolution Magazine). This is the second time in 2 years that…
BT luvs Bebo
TechCrunch report: Bebo Shuns $550 Million Acquisition Offer San Francisco based social network Bebo, which recently raised $15 millionfrom Benchmark Capital, rejected a £300 million ($552 million)acquisition offer from British Telecom…
Yahoo! Podcast Mystery
I’ve got no idea how this happened. But I noticed that Yahoo! Podcasts were starting to send people to Crackunit. So I traced the link back and found this page: iain tait | crackunit.com – Episode Page on Yahoo! Podcasts It looks like I’ve…
Flock Irony
Actually I’m not quite sure if it is irony. But it felt a bit like a kind of irony. I’m using my favourite thing of the day, Flock, to blog about my new favourite thing of the day, Flock. It’s basically a version of Firefox that’s been…
Gerffrye Museum
Domestic Archaeology at the Geffrye – I pass by this odd little museum every day on the way to work, or at least I have for the past few months since I’ve been in my new flat. I rarely look at it. And have never been in. But now I’m going…
Fail Fast, Fail Cheap
Ged’s comment reminded me of a great quote that someone once made in my presence. I wish I could remember who said it so I could credit them. But I can’t, sorry. It was someone VC-like from around the time that I was working at First…
We’re fucked
OK, not totally. But this is an interesting development. A startup that will take your designs and turn them into coded web pages by outsourcing it to cheap places around the world (returning your pages within 5 days). Prices from $150. If…
Jealous Animals
Jealous Animals. I’m not quite sure why I love this site so much. But I do. It’s a really simple little site. Hardly a transformational opportunity to engage the user. It doesn’t rely on the normal whiz bang of a lot of web suff. It’s just…
Garfield (not the cat) on Cyber Lions
Although I would be interested to see what Garfield the cat would have to say about Cannes. Anyway. You’d expect a geek like me to talk about the web being a “transformational opportunity to engage the user”. But when someone from…
Reflecting on Reflections
As Cal rightly says, reflections are going to end up as the blink tag of web 2.0 (or perhaps one of them). I started using Keynote instead of Powerpoint and was excited to find that it had a automatic reflection generator. I got bored of…
So much good stuff…
I should be going to work right now. But I keep finding amazing things that I feel the urge to share… Following on from ‘convert your website into a pattern’, here comes ‘what does your website sound like’. A site that turns your website…
Netvibes Rocks – Harder
Netvibes (my favourite Web 2.0 personal homepage maker) has just added a whole raft of brand new features and enhancements. The most significant of which is a whole new ‘community site’: eco.netvibes.com It’s like a feed directory, but it…
Web Dogma
It’s been a while since I’ve read Boxes and Arrows, it’s a very good collaborative blog about information architechture and related jiggery pokery. One thing caught my eye today: Dogmas Are Meant to be Broken: An Interview with Eric Reiss…
We Feel Fine
It’s taken me a while to put together this post. It’s been sitting in my drafts folder since early last week, and in the meantime lots of you have probably seen wefeelfine.org. I’ll try to summarise why I think it’s such an important site…
Interview With Me
Piers asked me a few probing questions about Poke‘s Webby winners. I answered them as best I could. Hope it all makes sense. Seemed to at the time of writing. Inspiration From IF! : Interview With Iain Tait, Poke
Teabuddy – Still on the Boil
Teabuddy.com – Poke‘s solution to teamaking shirkers in the workplace, got a mention in Saturday’s Guardian Magazine. Looks like they’ve just lifted the quotes from an earlier Wired interview that Nik and I did. I still love the fact that…
Webby Awards
This year’s Webby Award winners have just been announced. And I’m chuffed to say that Poke have managed to bag a couple. One for Talking Point for Orange, and a People’s Voice for Feed Me Better for Jamie Oliver. I’m personally really…
More on Ziki
After posting about Ziki a couple of days ago I got this email (Severine, I hope you don’t mind me posting this): Hi Iain I’m Severine from Ziki. Just wanted to thank you for signing up! Thanks also for your post about Ziki :-) I didn’t…
Animated Gifs
I love animated gifs. They’re wonderful things. 10 years ago you couldn’t really have animation on the web without them. So I was glad to read on we make money not art, that someone’s put together a show in SF that celebrates the art of…
Ugly Design Works
This is an interesting debate. I think I might not share it with some of my colleagues for fear of inciting a mini-riot Ugly Design Works… Most Web Designers Miss the Point. I do think there’s some truth in it though (eBay anyone?). It…
Ziki – Social Networking Plus
I think this is an interesting new service. But I’m still not 100% sure. They describe themselves like this: Ziki connects people, businesses and groups based on who they are, what they’re interested in and what they’re looking for…
Flickr Mashups
I’m pretty sure I’m way behind the curve on these (as per usual). But here’s a couple of amazing uses of the Flickr API (if you don’t know what an API is, this might help. Or then again, it might leave you baffled). Tagnautica – A really…
Feedburner – RSS + nice touches
I’m now going to attempt a cunning blog maneuver, I’m going to try and join two recent posts together (admittedly in a bit of a clumsy way). Feedburner is a really cool service for bloggers or web site owners. It allows you to make your…
RSS what?
According to a report from Marketing Sherpa: Currently at least 75 million consumers and businesspeople in the USA and UK use RSS on a regular basis. However, depending on which study’s stats you believe, only 17-32% of RSS users actually…
Smart Error Page – Odeo
You know those pages that come up when a web page has moved, or you’ve typed the address in wrong? (For the technically minded they’re called 404 errors, but you don’t really need to know that unless you’re in the business). You don’t see…
Diablogue: Life takes….
Diablogue (a new find on the blog trail; thanks Russell) pointed me in the direction of a new online Visa campaign produced by AKQA. Life Takes Visa As the Diablogue guys say there’s some sweet moments in there. But I can’t help but feel…
Google Image Hoo Ha
BBC news reports on this rather odd story from the US. A judge in the States has ruled that Google have violated the copyright of Perfect 10 magazine (a high end ‘adult’ title). The violation results from the fact that Google shows…
Guns ‘R’ Us
Psssst. Wanna buy some guns? A brand new microsite by Poke. The film’s been done by Mother. We’re trying to get it seen by as many people as we can. So we’ve put together a microsite and have done some interesting distribution stuff…
A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0
I almost feel like I know the guy in the empty seat, or certainly someone cast from the same mold. Zeldman writes about the state of the web. A List Apart: Articles: Web 3.0. But ours is a medium in which, more often than not, big teams…
Mobile Marketing
Yesterday I spoke at the Mobile Marketing 2005 conference. I actually quite enjoyed it which surprised me. It was a tricky old thing. From speaking to lots of people later it’s obvious that there’s a lot of different levels of knowledge…
Honda Element Game
i really like this site. The Element and Friends Web Site – 2006 Honda Element Yes it’s for a car and yes it’s a game (2 thing that I’d normally not get at all excited about). But it’s really charming. The tone of voice and style are…
Yahoo gets Flickrd
Business 2.0 – The Flickrization of Yahoo. It’s a long article, but makes for interesting reading about how social software is begining to spill over into many aspects of Yahoo!s business. One point that they make that particuarly…
Levi’s Antidote
Levi’s Antidote is, in its own words: “…a living, growing snapshot of what people are thinking and doing across Europe.” Now, as the guys at SMLXL so rightly point out, this is theoretically a great idea. A campaign that supports…
Google Analytics
Google Analytics – Google offers free web stats through its new service. Based on the popular Urchin software this is a great way for site owners to get detailed site analytics (for free!). I still like my simple to read Mint stats too…
Account Planning School Of The Web
All round smart guy, planning dude and greasy spoon fan Russell Davies has set up the Account Planning School Of The Web – IMHO a properly wired idea. He’s putting effort in, and helping people out, but at the same time potentially getting…
43 – The Magic Number
Well there’s 43 Things which I’m a huge fan of – a community based around ambitions and things we’d like to do, genius. And really nicely done. Then there’s 43 Places – a community rooted in the places that we’ve visited (or would like to…
PC Magazine: Top 101 Web Sites
PC Magazine: Top 101 Web Sites – really annoying laid out. But a good reminder of some of the best sites out there, and you might even discover one or two new ones. I did.
BugMeNot.com
After running around excitedly telling everyone how much I love BugMeNot, someone told me I’m way behind the curve on this one. I was slightly crestfallen for about a nanosecond, then I remembered that I’d just found one of the most useful…
Growing pains for social bookmarking?
Broadband Stars – Covering the social media revolution: Growing pains ahead for social bookmarking? Interesting comment on the growth of web 2.0 apps and how the democratisation of them may ultimately lead to problems. Also refers to the…
The best thing about Web 2.0
Creating Passionate Users: The best thing about Web 2.0 – As per normal Kathy Sierra makes some amazingly valid points over on one of my favourite blogs. Isn’t it bugging when you read articles that express what you’re thinking so much…
Web 2.0 (obviously)
If anything is hot right now it’s web2.0 – it’s starting to feel like mantra for a massive new bubble that’s swelling as I type… Some people might say it’s a lot of fuss about nothing, and that there’s essentially nothing new in web2.0…