How young people REALLY think, live + behave

This is a great presentation from Mobile Youth highlighting how so many brands are getting it horribly wrong when trying to communicate with the youth audience.

mobileYouth.org I am...not interested in mobile marketing

View more presentations or upload your own. (tags: cell student)

As I used to say when I was a teen - 'TOLD!'

Stephen Fry talks about the joys of Twitter

This video shows MWorks favourite, Stephen Fry talking about the benefits of Twitter outside BBC TV Centre, presumably before / after he recorded his interview with Jonathan Ross last Thursday.

I've been following him on Twitter (and he follows me back 'cos he's a nice man, you see) + thoroughly enjoy his little anecdotes + twitpics. Some are saying that @stephenfry has single-handedly propelled the micro-blogging platform into the mainstream, which does feel like a slight exaggeration I have to say. But he's certainly inspired several other celebrities to follow suit, with @wossy (Jonathan Ross himself), @schofe (Philip Schofield!) + even @britneyspears signing up to share their every move with the rest of the world. Actually, thinking about it, the latter was more likely to have been inspired by @barackobama than Stephen Fry. But anyway, I also noticed the other day that all of this celebrity 'tweeting' has resulted in someone somewhere creating a special tool that connects celebrity lovers with their idols, but I can't find that right now, I'm sorry.

FYI - Over the last 12 months, usage of Twitter has increased by a whopping 974% + in the moment that I type, Stephen Fry has a total of 63,634 followers. Makes my 92 sound quite pathetic.

@kirstyshields

A Polar Bear on the Thames?!

I saw this as I cycled over Blackfriars Bridge this morning on my way into the office. I haven't found out why it was there yet, but I'm guessing it's something to do with how climate change is melting polar bears' sea ice habitat.

Having woken up late + then getting a puncture, it provided a little excitement in my otherwise farcical morning. Little did I know that 10 minutes later I would drop my phone down a steep slope to crash into pieces at the bottom. Not a great start to the week, but at least my home isn't melting.

Worldwide Inauguration via Twitter

Flowing Data created this fantastic video to demonstrate the level of buzz surrounding Barack Obama's induguration on Twitter in the lead up, during and after the event which took place at midday on Tuesday 20th Jan.


Not only does this show how this historic event captured the attention of the entire world, but it illustrates the dramatic rise in popularity of the micro-blogging tool. Also, Obama's innovative use of social media in his election campaign + the fact that he himself has 144,000 Twitter followers would only have fuelled these conversations online. Good work. Shame he's not even allowed to send emails now he's President. Oops.

Thanks socialmedia.biz for posting this + for the blog title (which I stole from you!)

Election am-bush...

This ad for Veet may well have been seen by every office worker across the world by now, but if you missed it we wanted to be the first to show you.

It demonstrates a one-off creative opportunity seized perfectly in a nutshell.

Successfully ambushing a huge audience whose minds are tuned in closely to Obama's inauguration, it's a flawless creative combo of timing, relevance and universally amusing innuendo. It also demonstrates how creativity and commercial sense can live very happily together, because as well as people actually getting the joke, the product benefit couldn't be clearer. Ahem.

Twitter Power 150

Based on Todd Andrlik's Power 150 Ranking which featured the top English-language media and marketing blogs in the world, Armando Alves has had a go at creating the Twitter Power 150. How very topical and very handy.

Here's the top 10. See the full list here.

1. PR Squared @TDefren 253.26

2. Web Strategy by Jeremiah @jowyang 243.59

3. PR 2.0 @briansolis 238.85

4. Social Media Explorer @jasonfalls 231.66

5. Groundswell @charleneli 229.72

6. BlogWrite for CEOs @debbieweil 217.25

7. Micro Persuasion @steverubel 215.08

8. Strategic PR @prblog 215.06

9. Jaffe juice @jaffejuice 214.71

10. Online Marketing Blog @leeodden 214.24

GOODNESS GRACIOUS, BIG BALLS ON FIRE!

As the results of the Golden Globes sink in, thoughts turn to our golden-globed friends, collaborators and heroes of the new media world order Big Balls Films (pictured at their xmas lunch) http://www.bigballsfilms.com who are gaining the reputation they deserve after a sensational couple of years creating everything from the mworks reel http://www.mworksww.com/ to Kate Modern www.bebo.com/katemodern Nokia's http://www.somebodyelsesphone.com/ and Oakley's www.bebo.com/conqueringdemons . They are brilliant content creators and innovators and are justifiably lauded in this months SHOTS http://www.shots.net/ good work lads & we look forward to doing more with you in 09. More on this to come....in the meantime enjoy this pic from their xmas do.

BK'S DOUBLE WHOPPER

It doesnt feel very PC today to be talking about a fast food outlet that has amused...but here we go with 2...and they're both from the purist's favourite....Burger King.
Firstly, its their brilliant facebook promotion which puts a whole new spin on their age old need to punt whoppers to us sedantry burgerphiles http://www.whoppersacrifice.com/ its simple enough just ditch ten 'friends' from your facebook (I have 122 to lose so watch out Morgan Spurlock) and you get a free whopper. Genius! taps into the new year need to get rid of unwanted friends and eat more burgers. Big tick against my resolutions.
Secondly, the burger flipping monarch has launched 'Flame' a perfume for men who want to smell like their favourite burger http://uk.truveo.com/Burger-Kings-Flame-Perfume/id/2340013654 now this is a real 'why didn't i think of that?' for years i've been content to go home smelling of lesser brands such as 'kebab, pour homme' and 'eau de saveloy'.
I look forward to the golden arched reponse, hopefully its a McNugget roomspray.

Panasonic creates CES buzz using influencial bloggers

Panasonic recruited a team of influencial tech bloggers to help create buzz online around the products they showcased at this year's CES.

It's great to see that brands are starting to understand that to encourage conversations online around their brand and products, they need to work with those with the most influence and reach. And it seems like brands are feeling more comfortable about relinquishing a certain amount of control too, which is absolutely essential since it's not about 'controlling' conversations online, but kicking them off, fuelling them, listening and contributing. This is something that brands simply MUST get their heads around, because conversations about them are happening online with or without them - this is explained very well here.

For Panasonic this approach resulted in a strong presence across Twitter, various highly regarded tech blogs, forums and other social media environments across this period.

See the 'work' section of the MWorks site to see an example of a similar campaign we ran for Creative and Cultural Skills last year.

The Guardian's Digital Content Blog Newsbucket

Some nice links - shamelessly stolen from guardian.co.uk

• Fake Steve Jobs unloads on real Steve Jobs >> Valleywag
• Social networking still top growth area in online marketing >> Mashable
• Five things Google could do for newspapers >> Wired
• iTunes Plus: Everything you need to know >> CNET
• The (almost) ABC of CES 2009 >> CNET
• The drawbacks of new technology >> BBC
• The BBC should make more effort to engage with Wikipedia >> BBC Common Platform
• Why the internet weakens the authority of the press >> PressThink
• Kara Swisher gets video scoop with Yahoo >> Beet.TV
• CES: Gambling on the gadgets of the future >> Guardian
• How long can Apple stay fresh once it loses its core? >> Guardian
• Video: CES 2009 - Mind Flex >> Guardian
• Video: CES 2009 - Game on! >> Guardian
• Video: CES 2009 - Leaving Las Vegas >> Guardian
• Celebrities on Twitter - plus a few MPs and porn stars >> Guardian
• Peter Mandelson ushers in a virtual New Labour revolution >> Guardian
• Microsoft betting big on 'Touch' >> WSJ
• Look out, Microsoft Surface - the iTable might just trump you >> CrunchGear
• Britney Spears is hiring an online media manager >> TechCrunch
• Warner Music adding social networking to websites >> Reuters

How much Web drama for £1.3 million?

Quite an interesting article on how much web drama (original content) you get for your buck and the differing points of view of various web producers!