There’s obviously something in the air, maybe the high property prices, but, following Nissan, another car manufacturer has decided that their vehicles are perfect to live in. This time it is Chevy, who are running the ‘Aveo Livin’ Large Campus Challenge‘. I’m late on this as it finished last week, The “AVEO Livin’ Large Challenge” […]
Cheques and Checks
Changing countries brings with it a set of cultural changes that sometimes have you shaking your head.  The last few days it’s been over cheques (or checks if you prefer).  To enable me to be paid directly into a bank account I needed to fill in a form – and provide them Payroll with a […]
Cable troubles
Setting up the new apartment I have had two very different customer service experiences from the facilities suppliers.  On ringing up ConEd, the electricity/gas supplier, they had no problem in changing over the account into my name. Time Warner cable on the other had will do nothing until the previous tenant remembers to cancel their […]
Make a Superbowl Ad
The US’ NFL are runnng a competition this year to have their Superbowl ad created by a fan.  Interestingly, they are not jumping onto the ‘upload your video’ bandwagon but making peotential ad writers turn up and audition in person. (although, given the rules of the pitch, I think they should have allowed video presentations) […]
University Challenge Questions
Dave has picked up on one of the latest questions from University Challenge: “What XML formatted files are used on web sites to provide machine readable content summaries and are often visually marked with an orange box?” In this case the students apparently got the answer correct. However a few weeks ago they asked: “What […]
Timewasters from unusual sources
It’s not just the big brands that need marketing, small ones, organisations, groups, sports all need the marketing love as well. And they’ve all heard the call of the viral, hoping it can be the answer to their prayers. Today I bring you some timewasting games to hurry you through your working day from the […]
IAB – Taking Control of UGC
Bad, bad title. Setting up everyone to believe you can take control of the masses out there. As was acknowledged eventually in the panel conversation, taking control is out of the question but it seems that none of the panel had questioned the title in preparation. Again, this is taken from rapidly scribbled notes. The […]
IAB – Fran Kelly keynote
Frank Kelly is the CEO of Arnold US and has written a book ‘The Breakaway Brand – How Great Brands Stand Out’. However, I found his talk about using interactive to help build brands extremely frustrating, with multiple asides and exclamation marks in my notes as he said something that I disagreed with or just […]
7 days in a Nissan Sentra
Nissan have been runing some interesting commercials this week, to promote the new (I assume it is new) Nissan Sentra. Marc Horowitz has blogged his story – it was last week – and explains the rules. I must live 7 straight days out of my Sentra. I am free to come and go from the […]
IAB – Total Communications Planning
Today, I spent some time at the IAB ‘Agency Summit’ which looked at interactive advertising. I took notes of a few of the sessions, the first being a look at Total Communications Planning. The panel comprised of: Bob DeSena, Managing Partner – Director of Active Engagement, Mediaedge:cia Louis Jones, EVP, Managing Director, Media Contacts Maria […]
New Software
I’ve changed over the software, imported the posts and managed to get most of the links working in the same way. I think I’ve sorted out the feeds by following the relevant instructions, but not too sure. So added an upgrade entry into the old ones.  All I need to do is upgrade the style […]
Rugby and Roulette
A couple of virals for Friday – both UK based. The first is from the Rugby Football Union, not your usual source of viral videos, with a short funny encouraging you to go out and play rugby. If you are a cat fan, this may not be your cup of tea. The second is from […]
Moving House and Moving Blogs
I’ve finally got my living arrangements sorted out and will be moving into a more permament apartment in New York. Which means packing up my London flat, putting most into storage and shipping the rest across. I’m moving out of the rented room up on 181st St into my own little apartment up the Upper […]
Life is short…make it Eventful
Today, I had the good fortune to listen to Jordon Glazier, the CEO of eventful, talk about his service. They say time flies ont he web but I was surprised that the service was only 1 year old as I it feels like I’ve been aware of it for much longer. That said, I use […]
Halloween Time Virals
A couple of ‘virals’ have come through the mailing list over the last few days. The first, from Capri-sun, is fun, but found in a very confusing site. It ‘supports’ the new drink made from Blood Oranges and is claled Guffy the Ghost. Use you mouse, click a lot, kill lots of pumpkin headed vampires […]
Firefox 2 Released
Firefox 2 was released yesterday…it looks slightly different but still works wonderfully. They’ve fixed the thing that most annoyed me and you can now set it so that it remembers the tabs you closed with and re-opens them all on start-up, which is a great little feature for me. The only issue I’ve seen to […]
Training for Typos
I’ve typing up a presentation for the last few days that required the use of the word ‘colour’ in the American form ‘color’ And now I find myself typing ‘your’ as ‘yor’.
Normal Service Resumed
My webhost turned off the service due to my a complaint about my domain being used for spamming. It’s been used once, but a while ago, but still, they shut down access and removed all permissions from anything that actually did anything. IT seems to be back OK and so do some comments that never […]
Withnail and I – 20th anniversary
It’s the 20th anniversary of Withnail and I and to celebrate there is a new special edition of the DVD coming out. To support the release comes the mandatory website and viral game. Using a version of the memory game, you have to serve Withnail an increasing longer drinks list until he falls down drunk […]
When is a blog not a blog?
when it’s a post. Tom beat me to writing about this. After reading a couple of papers* about the ‘One Day In History‘ initiative, I noticed the trend to use the word ‘blog’ as meaning a single posting/entry onto a website which is also known as a blog. This mistake is not new, I’ve noticed […]