My blog post on new BBC sci-fi drama Outcasts got a pingback from the BBC and a lot of traffic this week. I need to watch more episodes so I can write a bit more about it!
Welcome, BBC’ites. Let me know what you think about the show!
Category Archives: Media & Marketing
Raymond E Feist backlist – thanks, Voyager!
Who says nobody wins online competitions? I entered a competition from Voyager Books, which I learned of via their e-newsletter (sign up here) and last month received a large box of books from the publishers with Raymond E Feist’s entire backlist! Of course, as a loyal fan I already have many of these but there’s a few titles I was missing and it’ll make a great gift… Pics may follow when I’ve finished sorting out boiler issues.
Thanks to Voyager, and do sign up if you’re an SF / Fantasy fans (the next competition will let you win Robin Hobb’s backlist, which I read my way through earlier this year). They also give a bunch of good stuff away via their Twitter handle, but I’ve not had the good fortune to win there…
Augmented reality all over the shop
@tim has a big piece in today’s FT about Augmented Reality and its potential in advertising. In addition to trying out the FT’s AR app, you could also try Intel’s thin laptop app and check out the AR magician on YouTube. The former two require flash, a webcam, printer and miscellaneous plugin. The latter requires flash, headphones and some imagination.
Augmented reality is awesome and full of practical potential – in design, medicine, gaming and no doubt a dozen other fields – but I’m not surprised its kicking off in marketing first. We seem to be a good test bed for this kind of stuff and have a few people willing to take chances on reasonably nascent technologies.
Charlie Stross’ Halting State has a number of interesting applications (Google Maps overlays, WoW overlays, police grid overlays amongst them) and is well worth a read if you’re into the topic (and Sci-Fi).
Best technology blog rating
Apparently, this it the 618th best technology blog on the web. Which seems unlikely. But thanks, Blogged.com marketing director, appreciate the email ;-).
Musicals
I’m off to see the LoTR musical tonight (through, no less, a Lastminute.com 50% discount offer), so was amused by the below viral which was forwarded to me today.
Very fun. Great idea. Well executed.
Update: LoTR musical was ok. A little too camp for LoTR and a little too fantasy adventure for a musical, but some of the songs were pretty strong and the experience as a whole was lots of fun. The staging was very creative, too. I have ordered the CD.
From Shorthand to Broadband
For those of you with an interest in technology, public relations, marketing and the media, my agency, Brands2Life, has done a really interesting piece of research looking at how journalists’ jobs have changed in the 15 or so years the Internet has been around. The headlines on point to journalists across all media types (not just technology or online) working harder and having to manage multimedia content and reader communities — a very different brief to what “traditional” journalism usually entails on a day-to-day basis. You can read the story in depth by downloading the research report from here. There are some graphs up on Flickr if anyone wants them.
The name – “From Shorthand to Broadband” – inspired this video which summarises the development of the media story. Have we got the whole story in? Is there something else you would have included / subbed out?
My personal view? From a business perspective, we’re at a really interesting point; one business model (traditional, ad-sponsored, print and broadcast media) is struggling in the wake of having to share its revenue with the online world, and the online world hasn’t yet developed a business model more substantive than relying on Google adwords. From a consumer perspective, broadband and web technologies are available and accessible to the point where the way everyone interacts with media has changed, whether they realise it or not. Not everyone’s there yet, of course, but where a few years ago you wouldn’t have been that surprised if someone from a different generation didn’t know how to Google something, today I’m having conversations with my mother about Facebook, and helping her organise to deliver a plenary speech at a conference via Skype video conferencing.
From a PR perspective — with journalists having to work differently, is it surprising that PRs will have to as well? Conversations in the industry — even with technology companies traditionally on the edge of new things — indicate how early on we are with this part of the story. A lot has changed since the ‘Martini lunches’ of legend, and even more is set to.
Be interested to hear from people who’ve been in one side and out the other — whilst there’s a lot of “web 2.0” that’s hype, I have a feeling that where we are with “social” media today is a pale, pale precursor to the way we’ll interact online in the future.
Negarakuku
The atmosphere in Malaysia is very weird at the moment. There’s a huge build-up to the country’s 50th Independence day celebrations (Merdeka), but at the same time we’re standing in the wake of a considerable amount of racial and religious tension. The deputy Prime Minister, Najib, called Malaysia in Islamic state… and the government issued a gag order to stop the mainstream media from discussing it. You’d think it would be difficult to come up with something more absurd…
…and then this. A Malaysian student studying in Taiwan made a video parodying the Malaysian national anthem is under investigation by the Malaysian government, who are considering confiscating his passport and prosecuting him for sedition. The video raises controversial issues like – accusations of corruption in the Malaysian police force, referring to the morning Muslim prayers as ‘crowing’, and comments about the way the Malaysian Chinese are discriminated against in Malaysia. I’m afraid its in Hokkien and Malay, but you can view it here if you are interested.
It’s all a bit weird. Needless to say, I’m not impressed with the way Malaysia is handling these things. Fortunately, the Malaysian blogosphere is keeping the discussion going.
Nice blogger relations
Toptable.co.uk followed a trackback to my blog post that referenced them (the other day, talking about Awana), and a day later I received an email with “200 points” to spend with them in thanks. Which is rather nice of them, really. I mean, I don’t know how their points system works but am intrigued…
It’s a good policy. Nice to see some businesses paying attention to trackbacks… If you want 200 div6 points, please link to me. Preferably telling people how awesome I am.
CNN debut
Oh, as I wrote, I made it on to CNN on Monday, talking about this blog, and how it helped me get my job. There’s even a close-up of the site! Don’t think I’m allowed to upload the clip anywhere, but suffice it to say that I was *awesome*… well, I was ok. Alright, I was terrible. Awful. Boo!
(No, really, I was ok. But those muppets are great).
Damo on the BBC
Not me this time, but Damo, erstwhile of BBC World in Bolvia, is currently reporting for BBC World TV, amongst other things. Pretty cool stuff: you can see one of his packages here (for the time being… – WMP required).