Guinness Viral: Yet Another Reason Why I love The Interweb

Some dude made his own Guiness Ad. It's fucking great and Guinness hate it.


*

Of course Diageo are up in arms about it, even protesting to YouTube's owner Rupert M. to have the film pulled, stamped out, destroyed, eradicated, disregarded, wiped out, Exterminated blah blah blah it never happened.
Brand Republic gives the full story with humorous quoted reactions and press release clippings etcetera.

Did nobody learn from the Diet Coke and Mentos thing? Are any of the brands out there even tuned into what's going on? Surely this is a good thing after all no PR is bad PR. Of course they did, but my feeling is that they still feel that they have to be seen to try to stamp this sort of thing out, even if their digital strategist is wiping the pleasure stains from their pants and realising that somebody just did a years' worth of work for them.

This is the best damn Ad I've seen for Guinness in a long time; and it didn't come from a overpaid ad agency who's happy to spank a few million smackers on, "the most expensive ad of all time". This is real, humorous, appealing and engages me more than half an idea sexed up by exotic locations, ACE associated photographic direction and ego-massaged Ad-creatives sitting on deck chairs in some Argentinian backwater.

I'm getting myself into a larger argument here regarding democratisation of media, the pros and cons of often badly made UGC versus a well though out, paid for and professionally executed idea, but hey there's time for structured debate later: this was just supposed to be a rant aimed at championing the little man (and the naked chick being spit-roasted) over the Agency.

Well done Deschatz. Now grow some backbone and repost the video on your youTube channel.



*Obligatory message: Please comment if this video doesn't appear, it means it's been stamped out. I encourage you to copy it, and repost it in any way you can. selah.

Some Thinking on Film Online

Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie,
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply
Cottleston Cottleston Cottleston Pie.

- A.A. Milne

I was musing on the bus...

With the recent bonkers exponential increase in bandwidth and computing power we are able to deliver ever higher resolutions of both pre-recorded and live video to browser and mobile platforms alike. For me, the challenge here is to reconcile a traditional comprehension of the linear nature of a narrative with the web-like presentation structure inherent to interactive content delivery. Finding a vernacular for communicating interactive ideas through the medium of film, while presenting that film in a non-linear structure is the key to building on the strengths of two traditionally very different disciplines.

Currently the the most engaging online content for me falls into either Interactive Film, or Live Broadcast.

The Live Event

With digital content now ubiquitous and increasingly being given away for free (Radiohead, Guilbert & George et-cetera), the future for engaging content creation lies with granting access to the real world; the live event or physical experience.

It is far more engaging prospect to interact with the real world, in real time; than it is to play with pre-recorded time. Browser based interfaces; served up to desktop or mobile platforms can provide a window on another location in the real world, unfolding incomprehensible distances away at precisely the same moment in time. The advent of streaming video, increasingly accessible by both mobile handsets as well as desktop browsers can grant users access to snap of reality happening else where at any given moment. This prospect is truly an exciting one; from creating synchronous online/real world events through to full augmentation of the digital and physical landscapes.

This engaging prospect has enormous potential for future facing brands, who want to peel off the billboard and have a presence in the real world; actually playing a part in peoples lives. For most people: seeing is believing; yet experience is meaningful.


Interactive Films

While I think that Live events have the premium of authenticity attached to them, the fact is that they will always be based in the real world. For fantasy, adventure and a sprinkle of cinematic action, the online interactive film is the future.

Looping film clips, narratives which fold back on themselves, taking captured information and crafting it into a well written, entertaining plot while not getting lost in what can grow to be a huge matrix of overlapping video clips is a big challenge. Producing effective, entertaining interactive films requires a synergy from the start of a project between ideas, technical understanding and creative direction. Thinking through a user-navigated plot falls very much into the same disciplines required for game design. At the same time, shooting film for interactive presentation is a very technically demanding process; requiring directorial input which is as much at home behind a camera as understanding the constraints involved in designing with Adobe Flash or whatever the next platform will be.

What does all this mean?

A new approach is most definitely needed; harnessing relevant thinking constructs from the both the world of film production and and interactive design. There is no textbook to learn from, no perfect agency or production company model; only the knowledge granted us through experience in this new cutting edge discipline. In order to continually push the boundaries of what is possible, it is essential that we feed this knowledge back into the ideas mix; allowing for rubber band conceptual thinking which can bind together the most relevant skills from film making, design and interactive production. In this landscape there is no space for the old fashioned attitudes of the big production companies who like to be briefed into making a film, then left to their own devices while a director works his magic. Old advertising boundaries between ideas people and people who make things are suddenly shown for the fallacy they always were, with technical skill and understanding now as important as the ability to turn an idea flip-side-upside down during concept development.

There are increasingly a new breed of thinkers who are directors, directors who are post-production monkeys, designers who are programmers and programmers who have a passion for wrapping a brand around an idea before hammering the idea into a site and the site into a piece of effective digital outdoor work. This can make digital a very confusing place to be at the moment. Unfortunately we’ve inherited many of the older adverland ideas about what job positions fit which descriptions... that’s something that I think is slowly starting to change and I think that this trend is set to continue. So; breaking the mold is good, even if it feels awkward. The aim, of course, is to become master of all trades, jack of none... I remain Jack.

Facebook Hope

Facebook Hope, originally uploaded by donshades.

Maybe There is hope. Interestingly after my recent blog post relating to useless face-book related time wasting crap, I get this popup. Maybe the data-mining conspirators are right after all... Facebook is Watching...

This Shit Winds Me Up

this winds me up, originally uploaded by donshades.

I'm not fun. I don't take digital happy pills (I'm told the real-world ones are better), I don't have a "kind of eye" - I use real ones, I already drive in the real world, I don't like poker because I'm shit at it, I'm not superhero (contrary to popular belief, tho I'm pretty quick on the draw in 2nd life), I don't have time to take a movie quiz, I am me and cannot be compared to others - it's pointless, I don't consider some friends as "top friends" and others as "not top friends" - all my friends are tops in my book, I "Live it up" just about every night of the week, I don't want to "share the love", I'm not fun and don't want a fun wall, I'm not lovable, I don't want to be nominated for anything, I don't like taking uncalculated risks ... shall I go on?

The Beginning of The End For Web 2.0

This week's rant finally broke after a conversation with Flo last week regarding the amount of utter bollocks up on web 2.0 sites such as the Tube, the rampant and often hysterical misuse of the humble yet much overrated inverted comma, and an email from Yasmin regarding corporate sponsorship of live music.

Where do I start?

It is clear that the novelty factor surrounding video on the interweb is wearing off, and I for one am starting to get very worn down by all of the user generated rubbish which cloggs up an otherwise fantastic medium.

YouTube? YouShit I say; for the majority of the clips that you find are poorly shot, badly compressed and contain little of worth in terms of the value in their content. Last Week saw the Tube announce an increase in their upload limit from 100MB to 1GB. Tech talk aside, this looks to me like a desperate attempt to raise the perception of their site from the MacDonalds of video on the web to coming on Burger King status. While this might work in the short term, those of us in the know have been far more interested in more future facing services like Joost, Hulu, Stage 6, Vimeo etc for quite some time and it'll take more than a full fat option on a dying dog to temp us away from our rising stars.

But the trend only starts here.

Web 2.0 has, unfortunately, become just another excuse for people to upload more rubbish onto the interweb, dream up new services (often missing the point of UGC) and all too often simply repackage dynamic services in a new wrapper to sell back to the clients who already paid for it all the first time round. Even worse, is the recent growth in well executed bad ideas.

For example - the nice guys at Twitter sent out a news letter with a great new service called Foamee. Just another I owe you a pint dot com. I really see no point in this sort of business at all. If you owe somebody a pint, or more importantly if somebody owes you a pint then go and reclaim it; don't blog about it via a twitter based web2.0 mash up plugin type text message. Here you start to miss the point of the owed pint in question: a reason to meet up, share banter, stories and communicate in that 80% of the way digital communication currently prohibits.

Then there was Jott. This is a web based dictation service which only costs you as much as the call that you make to the automated response system, when then charges you a for a text message back telling you what you just spoke into the other end of the telephone. All rather silly if you ask me. Call me old fashioned, but I prefer to carry a note book for the thinks I need to remember, and text twitter just to show off to everyone in my web 2.0 sphere of influence what a rock and roll life I have.

And so we return once again to these reoccurring themes of:

1. Being swamped with data, a Tube that's far too crowded with mobile phone videos of happy slapping incidents and no way to filter the good from the bad, or ugly.

2. Digital Pioneers, who face the future alone, as opposed to cashing in on the now. The innovate, they push the boundaries of what we can do with the technology, however they are still branded as Geeks.

3. Finding the great idea; at the center of a project which effectively combines the thinking of Geeks, Freaks and Future Thinkers and then makes it work.

So, web 2.0? Web 3.0? or a Really Useful quagmire of good, bad and ugly? Something has to change; and I for one hope that this change comes in the form of a shared feeling of responsibility. Now the novelty has worn off we need to take command of our ideas. When a client says "I want a face book application", we need to look them square in the eyes and ask them why they want a facebook application. Will it really help their image? Is it really right for their brand? Or are they just jumping onto a bandwagon that is running out of steam.

Twitter Poem (hiphop)

My iPod doesn't work and my jeans are sodden.
What is this dreadful ratrace for - the point I've forgotten

Busses now in great supply but none that i need.
I run this race for money it's all about greed.

29, 25 or 2-5-3. I live life by numbers: come see what i see.

On the number 2 now bad breath and sweat,
inner anger rising because everybody's wet.

So i txt my little twitter-feed a rhyme about this time.
I hope that others feel-my-pain, not taking my loss to be their gain.

Nearly at dare now this nightmare's near an end.
Fuck me this awfull bus journey's driven me round the bend.

So one more thing to say to you next time you're in a fuss. think you back to this-day thank Fuck you didn't bus.

yeah init

Some Thinking I Did A While Ago

I Found my old little black book while moving house. No Poems this time but here's where I left off the last time I was keeping notes in it:

8 - 9 - 2004
On the Tube,
Approaching Solone Square

What is the nature of the evidential link between technology (specifically optical technologies) and self perception?

-As optical technologies and imaging techniques develop, thus the resulting feedback helps us redefine the way we see ourselves.

Eg;

invention of the x-ray image made our inner skeletal structure universally accessible. It made the concept of interlocking bones far more palpable.

Invention of the lens enabled short sighted folk to experience a world in focus.

How do Virtual Reality and 3Dimensional Avatar based games, role-plays and worlds alter the way I see myself? Is there more to the term "Residual Self-Image"; than a throwaway line in Wachowski's The Matrix?

23 - 9 - 2004
On the Tube,
Approaching Uxbridge
-So just what is this relation between what we see, and the way we see it or how we see it? Reading Blow Up; here's a good passage:

"Visual and Cognitive ergonomics are the tacit processes through which the aesthetic transformation of our perception and our subsequent cognition of the physical world and it's changing nature, affects the way a particular set of stimuli is perceived and cognized"

-Neidich, W : Blow Up - Photography, cinema, and the Brain.

I think this could boil down to the simple example of a man who has never seen in focus suddenly being given corrective lenses. He will experience a perceptive renaissance in how he experiences the world around him, based solely on his new-found aesthetic reappraisal of what he sees.

Is it taking this silly example too far if I then question the reality its self as being only that tacit interpretation of Neidich's particular set of stimuli in the first place? Here we return to the classic tree falling silently in a forest if nobody is there to hear the sound.

end note - this is getting a little silly; these days I'm interested in the techno-perceptive link, not tinpot attempts at post modern philosophical playtimes. Next:

In the future

Will search be search? Surely the system will know you better than you know yourself and the information you crave will find it's way to you before you even go looking for it.

Flo makes an interesting point; that everything, every discreet piece of data (the time for debating the philosophy behind what we could constitute as a 'discreet piece of data' is not one to be debated at this time) will have it's own ip address. The mind starts to buckle imagining this concept and so we are forced to again reverse the role of cognitive data searching.

I am drowning in emails, yet my email application only lets me search for emails "sent from", "sent to" and, "subject containing". What if I want to search my email for a keyword I wrote in a mail to one of my work colleagues last year before summer some time. The technology is there to enable me to run some sort of search; however it has not yet been turned around to read the context within which I am working and present me the data based on second guessing what I need, when.

Web 2.0 - what a waste of time.

I am my Twitter

I am my Facebook Status Update

I am my Flickr Photos

I am a the time wasted updating all of these things.

Current Web 2.0 works reactively, not pro-actively. Humans are proactive in nature and so our favorite Buzz system is in fact contrary to our very being. Web 2.0 is always playing catch up.

I open a browser tab and fire up Facebook. I see the updates from my friends and work mates, however they are all 2 hours behind as I am still at work at quater past 7. I need a system which lets me know what they are up to at any given time, when I glance it.

I need location aware. I need the system to offer me what I want based on proxemics as well as preferences.

I want my favorite bar to remember how many times I have visited it, and to remember that on Fridays I like to drink Mojitos. Why do I wait for service if the bar could know that I was heading there before I walked through the door.

I want ubiquitous technology to enable my lifestyle; to allow me to dig deeper into every second of every day. I want a virtual world to exist under the skin, under the surface of this real palpable world. I want to see through this surface and interact with a world beyond. I don't want to think about this; as a bilingual person dosen't think as they switch languages half way through a conversation.

I want more than 2.0

sombody please ban banner ads

I stopped watching tv regularly a while ago because it got to the stage with a lot of these free channels which popped up on my tv after my flatmate installed one of these digibox things mainly because i get really pissed off by ad breaks every ten f'ing minutes during evening programming now i log onto check my mail and my eyes are offended so often by bad digital ads i mean like ugly ones which surely are designed to offend that i now think that they should all be banned yes we work because people are prepared to pay for them and so digital agencies exist however we also make sites and other digital advertising thingeymajigs so cant somebody ban banner ads and we can focus on building a better digital future please please please you see how tired your eyes become after reading this post which has no punctuation well thats how my eyes feel right now while checking my mail after a long day and tragic session in the pub only to find my mailbox swamped with more advertising than unread mail im sure that some other people must feel like this surely and if not then they can hopefully inform me as to the stupidity of my opinion well

selah

We all Hate McDonalds

A nice Ad:




"I still hate them though." - Ade Rowbotham

Today I am sick. Sick in the body, sick in the mind... and now sick in the soul. My body I can heal with rest, sleep and hot whisky toddies. My mind is difficult to heal, it must be nurtured and cared for as a young newly germinated seedling if I am not to burn up and become more ashes left at the bottom of Advertising's relentless bonfire. My soul suffers a long sickness of surrounding. London. Such a rat-race as this exists in few places on Earth. The dizzy heights of modern society is to be found here, amongst the Fitness First rucksacks mounted on suited backs up close and uninvited; invading your personal space like rapists on the tube. A Noise so loud, a shout so meaningless. Here in this jungle of overworked lab-rats there is no silence to find your piece of mind. No space between the words to find subtlety or subtext. Here McDonalds owns everything and all signs point to a fast-food life style where the only winners are those who leave their morals behind and join the un-righteous march of progress.

McDonalds? McShit I say.. Fuck your French fries. I piss on your salad and excreta in your burger you tower of reconstituted waste dressed as lifestyle food. You may be able to afford nice advertising and crafty product photography however nothing you do can conceal in my burning, dull cow eyes the trickery, the burglary, the lies you spread; the lives you corrupt, the taste buds you fool the crimes against mastication committed through ignorance in your name. You want a piece of me? Then it is done - Kitchen knives at Dawn and we'll see who makes the better salad....

A bitter pill to swallow

Order it straight and neck it in one as nobody's going to treat you to a night of cheap thrills or inoffensive pleasure in this place. I continually try to offend, and it is only thanks to society's steadily cankering integrity or self respect that I am beaten to the post every time by nothing more than pulp fiction style shock horror headlines, hammering home to every poor fucker who reads them the inevitable diagnosis of these timely plentiful symptoms.... "We are falling into the abyss ... of the unwell".