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.
I’ve seen it before earlier in the year, but I’d forgotten how simply brilliant it is. If you’ve not seen it before you ought to take a peek. It might not be the most creative site ever, but it remains really rather charming…
“The industry has brainwashed us to believe that an experience is the equivalent of gratuitous Flash orgy Websites that pushes technology to it’s limits. Create something bright and shiny—consumers will take the bait and you’ll win an award right? Take a Flash micro site, toss in some viral for good measure, add a pinch of uninformed social media and viola! You’ve got yourself some digital marketing. Research? Who needs it?
Folks, we really need to start understanding what really motivates users. There are literally millions of enthusiasts out there producing quality content in highly search engine friendly formats. Not only is much of their content easier to find on the Web—it’s engaging, relevant, and the people who produce it actually talk back to us. It’s time to wake up. We need to get out in the field and understand people—what motivates them, and why they behave the way they do.”
Amen to that!
Read it here, really please go there and read it, I only copied a small bit to give you a flavour.
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, 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 runs (which is a record). But rumour has it he’s on ‘roids so there’s lots of debate around the legitimacy of the record in the US.
So Ecko has a newsworthy baseball. And in his words he’s going to “democratize the ball”. Basically visitors to http://www.vote756.com can vote for what they want to happen to the ball.
Stick it in a museum
Stick it in a museum with an asterisk on it
Or blast it into space
So far 1.5m votes have been cast. And lots and lots of people are talking about it, online, in the press, on TV, and all the other places that people talk about sports (and marketing and culture).
“He’s stupid. He’s an idiot,” Bonds said. “He spent $750,000 on the ball and that’s what he’s doing with it? What he’s doing is stupid.”
And they go on to say:
Bonds’ issue with Ecko was not that one of the three choices on the 756-ball ballot is sending it to Cooperstown branded with an asterisk, an implication that his record is tainted by alleged steroid use. Bonds merely suggested the guy could have found a better use for three-quarters of a million large.
I’m not so sure. As the guys over on the Fallon Planning Blog rightly point out, $750,000 don’t get you all that much coverage in the US. And the website looks like it costs peanuts.
Based on the number of votes cast, let alone the PR impressions that he’s had across the US (and the wider world). That ball wasn’t such a stupid investment after all… (But as Igor just pointed out to me Mr Ecko could have tried to do something actually good with the money like cure AIDS, which is true also…)
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 one of those ‘integrated midi systems’. Basically it’s an all-in-one music system. Lots of features and easy to use straight out of the box. The sound quality might be a bit rubbish and if it goes wrong you have to bin the whole lot. Plus options to extend it or customise it are limited (there’s no way to open the box, but you could put stickers on it or use input jacks on the back).
Doing something similar to facebook by glueing together lots of Web 2.0 type apps. E.g. a WordPress Blog with Last.fm, Flickr, Twitter, del.icio.us, etc. Is much more like putting together a hi-fi separates system.
Is much harder to get up and running. It takes much longer to plan your system. Sometimes it’ll work great, other times it won’t. And you might need to get help from a geek / expert to get the most out of it. But when it works it’ll be fantastic, and you can swap bits in and out to make sure its future-proof. And you can tinker with it to your heart’s content.
But separates are more geeky. And people do get obsessive. And in hi-fi land, just like web land, some people enjoy the putting together of the system almost more than they enjoy playing it.
Comparing FaceBook to a midi hi-fi is not intended as a slur. It is like a very good midi hi-fi. And just as midi systems are a good way for people to start enjoying music perhaps FaceBook has a similar role…
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 character of the web).
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 otherwise known as the Streetlife DJs. They have over 25 years turntable experience between them, and a blatant disregard for music genres! OK let’s explain…if you think Soulwax meets Coldcut meets Sasha and Digweed you’re in the right ball park…if there is such a place?
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 honesty.
Sign up now (ish) – just a few things to choose to not opt-in to first
Latest News (or sanitised PR gubbins depending on your point of view)
Contact us (well, not ‘us’ exactly, the ‘us’ who wrote this page are part of a completely different department in megacorp inc, your mail will be sent to some kind of automated processing centre and some real person might see it one day, but only after you’ve replied a number of times to tell us that we’re not actually answering the question you asked in the first place)
Fun stuff (or actually it’s just ‘stuff’ if we’re being totally honest)
Loading, please wait (this might take a bit longer than is strictly necessary so we can add some visual tomfoolery, but please wait, we assume you’ve got plenty of time)
I don’t know what’s driving me to become such a cynical digital bitch these days ;-)
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 in there. It’s really tough to pick just one. I could rename the whole thing “The 85 deadly sins of digital” but somehow it loses a certain ring.
Rupert’s comment holds particularly true (and it made me laugh):
I think a new website which includes the features discussed above could do quite well in a retro sort of way. Shouldn’t be hard to find a client anyway.
But for me my winner has to be this:
It’s a Flash movie but for it to start you need to put in your name and then you watch the movie and at the end there’s your name written somewhere IN THE MOVIE!
I can’t remember when I last laughed at a use of capital letters. But I genuinely did at these. I think the caps (and the !) just helped me to visualise the enthusiasm with which someone might present such an idea. There’s no way it’s the worst sin on the list, it’s just my favourite. Nice one Christian – I’ll be in touch about your prize!
A close second is Joe who didn’t leave a URL for me to link to:
Presenting the recently finished TV spot as the brief for the digital campaign.
Honestly it has happened once or twice. Really!
Other notable sins from the comments include: Huge loading times, inappropriate games, bad blogging, pdfs, sound you can’t turn off, me-tooism, social networks, send-to-a-friend, moving / rotating menu items, enter buttons, virtual changing rooms, and more.
Thank you everyone who commented. You’ve kept me amused and entertained over the last couple of weeks. Thank you.
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.
