How 100 People on Twitter Looks

A cracking visualisation, which makes me feel kind of popular.



From Rubbishcorp.

The Lilyest Hobo

I stole this from Thriftstore XL. It rules. It's a mash up of Lily Allen's 'Not Fair' and the them tune from The Littlest Hobo.



For more mashups, have a word with Mr Ryan Fitzgibbon. He'll sort you out.

Google Street View Astronaut

The Google Streetview guy has become an astronaut for the day to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the moon landings.

Here he is in close up, flying around Hackney.

The Social Networking Watch

All those little Social Networking icons are pretty cool aren't they. So wear them. It's geeky but cool.



It's by Normal Watches from Joe Rockhead. And it's only $17.98!

Stolen from Switched on Set.

Buy Andrew Flintoff's Pedalo on ebay!

Thanks to Europe's 15th best blogger, Nick, who has also blogged about the Sure Men Sport Andrew Flintoff viral, I am now aware that you can buy the pedalo in the viral on ebay!



Happy bidding!

1 person doesn't like this

Google Reader's trying to get all sociable, and has started telling you how many people 'like' a given story.

I don't like this feature, even more so given the example below, which suggests that '1 person likes' the story that over 1,000 employees at Allied Carpets are set to lose their jobs following the chain's collapse. Unless it's the MD of Carpet Right.


Oh no wait, you can actually see the name, profile and other shared items of the person. In this case, he seems to like Lube, Commodore 64s and pictures of Joey Barton and Ashley Cole's bottoms. Seriously.

Sure Men Sport Andrew Flintoff Ashes Viral

A great, funny and topical viral for The Ashes from Sure Men Sport.

Andrew Flintoff has just announced that the current England versus Australia series, The Ashes, will be his final test series. Flintoff, who also plays for Lancashire, is the sort of sporting character that only cricket can produce, fabled as much for his drunken celebrations when England won the Ashes in 2005 as for his achievements with the bat and ball.

During the 2007 Worl Cup, he was rescued from the sea after taking a pedalo out late at night while drunk in St Lucia. He was stripped of the England vice-captaincy and dropped from the next match.

This viral celebrates the pedalo incident and plays on the healthy rivalry between England and Australia, which has been the subject of several stunts this summer.



Richard Branson caused a stir down under when he beamed a message to Australia captain Ricky Ponting onto Sydney Harbour Bridge, reading 'Good Luck Ricky. You'll need it. Dickyx'.



I put the Andrew Flintoff viral on Let's Be Havin' You as well as it's sporty, but thought it was worth sticking on here as I want to disseminate it a bit further.

For good measure, here's Flintoff's apology for the pedalo incident.



And his drunken post-victory party interview.

Coronation Street and Stonehenge on Google Street View

Nice little stunt - it'll be interesting to see the results.

Here's the Google Street View car driving up Coronation Street, which is of course a fictional street from a long-running British soap opera.



Here's the other Google vehicle, the Google Street View Trike, popping round Stonehenge.

Edward Monkton Google Mail Greetings

'Spread a little happiness' - get yours here: www.edwardmonktongreetings.co.uk/

Am I the only one who doesn't think Morgan Stanley's kid will change the world?

Thankfully, it appears not.

Suw Charman-Anderson of Strange Attractor wrote this afternoon of the statistical flimsiness of the piece, which was part of my concern.



Charman-Anderson, who like me applauds the sentiment but not necessarily the rigour, saliently points out:

This is one teen describing his experience. It is not a reliable description of all teens’ attitudes and behaviours, yet both Morgan Stanley and the media seem to be treating it as if Robson has Spoken The One Great Truth.

There is barely a number in the whole of the research note, which weakens any sort of 'data'. Furthermore, as far as can be gleaned from the media reports, it seems to be taken from an unspecified sized sample of an unspecified cross-section of one 15 year-old's circle of friends and acquaintances.

It takes a certain type of 15 year-old to get an internship at Morgan Stanley, and you'd expect such a type to have reasonably like-minded friends. Was the report circulated as a questionnaire? Did the intern himself project his own habits forward?

It would be easy for me to be suspicious of research that goes against my instincts. It wasn't so much the headline that Twitter has not gained traction amongst teens. My own feelings on Twitter are for another post, but suffice to say I feel it will retreat back towards the sort of usage that originally saw its popularity rise - factors like networking, link sharing and website promotion rather than celebrity snooping.

Far more troubling was the suggestion that teens "may watch no television for weeks"(who can go that long without Hollyoaks?), that "the majority of teenagers I speak to have Virgin Media as their provider" (aside from University students, how many teens make these decisions?), that more teenagers are reading The Sun since it dropped to 20p, and that most teenagers have never bought a CD. Really?

Additionally, a lot has been made of the inference that the way teenagers behave is critical because they will grow up and shape the future media behavioural landscape. I have attempted to find the piece I read about teenagers not holding the key, but actually mothers being more important, as they have less time to spend and only stick with things that are truly useful or efficient. Thankfully David Cushman gave me assurance that I wasn't dreaming it:



Others, like Catherine Gee, see teenagers as less relevant than other age groups, a debate that could go on and on.



There are things to be learnt from the research, particularly if we can find out more about the sample demographic and how much depth was actually covered. In the meantime it's worth noting that financial services titans the size of Morgan Stanley will take potentially the musings of an individual 15 year-old as PR-worthy research.

UPDATE: This doesn't add much, but made me chuckle:

Trust my username and password to a business that can't spell business?

That's what morefollowers.net has managed to get thousands of Twitter users to do.

I'm very circumspect about handing out my details willy nilly, even to useful sites with genuine value. The number of API-based tools for Twitter means we are all pretty casual about whacking our username and password into something tweeted by someone we follow. I suspect this is how so many accounts get hacked.



Now I've trotted out posts riddled with spelling errors in the past, largely because I type like a cack-handed five year-old. Putting together a site that is entirely dependent on word-of-mouth, however, and can generate no more trust than can be gleaned from the landing page, and not proof reading the content of said landing page, seems foolhardy.

A lot of people use Twitter socially or casually, but it is increasingly a business tool. Business, that is, not 'buisness', as MoreFollowers.Net would have it. Also, MoreFollowers.Net, 'of course' is two words. Just saying. Two spelling mistakes in a four sentence landing page isn't particularly stunning though.

Amazingly, they've managed to sign 23 people up to their 'VIP' package. Out of 23,000 'hits', that's still a lot of unusually trusting people. 13,000 users have registered their details with these people too. Amazing what blind momentum can achieve.

I'll stick to getting followers organically, I think.

Bing vs Google - A Direct Comparison

Hot on the heels of Twoogle is this. I shall call it Boogle. They've just called it Bing vs Google.



Nice idea - it shows how different the natural listings are on each engine - the search above is for Car Insurance, and the AA have two of the top three natural listings on Bing, but don't make Google's first page.

It's also interesting how Google squidges itself into the window so as to accomodate all the results, including the sponsored listings down the side. Bing fails to do this, which shows naivety in terms of the business purpose of the site - making money.

Hat tip to Rubbishcorp.

Daim Bar - Second Daim Around - How to ruin a great idea through Social Media

Daim Bar are apparently looking for a 90s Pop Act to revive for their new campaign. But the onus is on the retro acts to submit themselves for consideration. A wicked idea.

I only just read about this on Digital Spy, but it turns our I'm a bit late on in the proceedings. I say proceedings, this has not taken off as it could.

How Cleopatra would sell you Daim bars

For reasons I won't go into, I feel qualified to pull this apart. I'm not doing this maliciously, like I say I think it's a great idea, but largely out of professional curiosity. I have no axe to grind with the agency that seems to be behind it, Golin Harris, and can only dream of achieving what they have as an agency. I am also highly conscious that this appears to be a campaign with zero media budget.

The campaign has had exposure on The Sun's website, on Digital Spy today and Daim has over 50,000 fans in various guises on Facebook, so it has the chance to gain traction. It hasn't. If you aren't in control of your brand's pages on sites like Facebook, you're missing a valuable communication tool.

The fans exist on Facebook - they need to be tapped into

The Second Daim Around Facebook fan page consequently has just 507 fans. They did, at least, get the vanity url. Admittedly a second page encouraging people to vote for Kavanagh has 106 fans. I suspect there's a degree of crossover.

There is no presence for the campaign on Twitter. Three people have mentioned 'Second Daim Around' on Twitter. They are: a lady who works for Golin Harris; a gentleman who works for Golin Harris; and a member of Cleopatra.

Second Daim Around is not trending

It's easy to get a bit of a following on Twitter for a brand. Everyone has a quick look when they get a new follower, and wonders why that follower might have chosen them. If you follow people who have tweeted about, for example, Daim/Dime bars, appalling 90s acts like MN8, Ultimate Kaos and the like (from my rudimentary research, Dr Alban AND Haddaway are recording a track together right now. They'd have been up for it, and people are talking about them), they'll look into what you're promoting. Start a conversation, a natural one, and draw them in. They'll tell their friends. It's more interesting than what they had for lunch.

The You Tube channel is not a Daim channel, it's the agency's, Golin Harris. It costs nothing to set up a You Tube channel and change the background. I know for I have done this for a client who had no budget for this aspect of the campaign.

The agency's You Tube channel

Again, You Tube is an easy way to give your brand an identity, another home, and another means of actually communicating with the audience who want to know. Whack a few comments on videos of the bands you're targeting, and start the chain.

As a consequence of this lack of networking, there has not been much of an uptake from the acts that have been targeted. Cleopatra and Kavanagh were the subjects of the Digital Spy and Sun stories respectively, but aside from that the agency have been publicly scratching around for other names, including trying to solicit Mr Motivator's involvement via Twitter. Mr Motivator has already enjoyed a retro renaissance on GMTV.

Lacking Motivation

I will give you the names, and backgrounds, of the acts.

Ray Pohill. From 2 Point 4 Children. I literally have never seen this guy before in my life. And I watched the show. It absolutely honks of desperation, and looks suspiciously like it was filmed in someone's swanky office.



Sicknote from London's Burning. Seriously. I remember the character's name, I would not know him if I fell over him.



Kavanagh, who is the sort of name I bring out when I think of this kind of thing, so fair play. He is literally all over it. He is still gigging.



Rowetta, who was on X Factor a couple of years back despite the fact that she had already had a career as a member of the Happy Mondays, has an audition on the Facebook page but not on You Tube. It's a shame because it was filmed outside a pub, edited on a camcorder and features a dog eating loads of Daim bars. It gets my vote.

Last, but by no means least, Cleopatra. They could have conducted the campaign on their own. They have posted mock-ups of how they'd look in an ad (see above), videos of other acts endorsing their candidacy (including S Club, Lil' Chris and Big Brovaz), and been active on Twitter and Facebook stirring up support. It's a shame nobody knows what for.



'Vote for Cleopatra' the video involves them apparently showing their backsides to the audience in a provincial club, possibly Pulse in Cardiff. It has had 50 views. I was probably 3 of them. Kavanagh is knocking on the 350 mark, but it was linked to by The Sun, so that is not a good total.

One of the reasons I'm so disappointed, apart from the chance to see a load of 90s acts revived, is that this has been proved to be achievable. Take Vanilla Ice.



Virgin Mobile in Australia took it upon themselves to apologise for past indiscretions in music, starting with Vanilla Ice. Right Music Wrongs was the campaign and, although it had media spend attached, the viral and PR element was where the real value was achieved, culminating in an actual new tour for Vanilla Ice off the back of his renewed popularity, and Australia's most viewed viral film ever.

The Right Music Wrongs campaign was a winner in the Titanium and Integrated Lions at Cannes.

Hula Hoops Golden Hoop Film Awards

Having been forced to watch Coronation Street, I just stumbled across the new Hula Hoops ad, soundtracked by the Village People's YMCA. It features two hands dancing to the song with Hula Hoops as eyes and little hats on. Standard irreverent ad fare really, but it's amusing.

While looking for the ad itself, I found that Hula Hoops are running a UGC competition on HulaHoops.com, offering a trip to Hollywood for the winning Finger Puppet film. I didn't notice this in the TV creative, and didn't find any PPC ads, although they may go live another time. They are number one in natural search, but there are quite a few ads for the larger variety of Hula Hoops knocking about.



The ad only aired today, and there are already (mildly suspiciously) a number of efforts on the site. There is also a resource of backgrounds and sound effects and music available, and the whole site is in a Hollywood-stylee, which works well and looks slick.

I saw a presentation last week that highlighted an amazing Doritos campaign that was a big winner in Cannes recently, and I've also been impressed by Pringles of late, and Monster Munch a while back. It's all making me quite hungry.

Meerkat Puppet Theatre

They just keep on coming. Back to basics on the Meerkat vs Market confusion.

Twoogle - A Nice Idea

Want to search Twitter and Google at the same time? Twoogle it.



I Twoogled Virgilio Anderson and it showed the merits of real-time search vs Google. The top result on Google is a vacant domain name, while all the latest musings about Virgilio and why he took Richard Herring's Facebook vanity url are popping up on the left hand side in the Twitter feed, which also automatically updates.

Try Twoogle here.

Aleksandr The Meerkat Interviewed by The Sun

The latest instalment from the Compare The Meerkat dynasty, with Aleksandr discussing Social Networking with an interviewer from The Sun. Apparently he prefers Twitter.