Blog

Google have teamed up with Motion Theory to create a 90 second “evolution of the browser” short to promote Chrome, the excellent Windows-only (boooooo) internet browser. And it’s very good. The immediate comparison to draw is with Apple’s iPod commercials – with the catchy soundtrack by some up-and-coming indie artist teaming with a bold colour palette to create that feel good factor.

But Google manage to go one better, and use the criticism that they’re engineers and not designers to their advantage – this is engaging, but informative too! You can see the software benefits throughout the short – private browsing, multi-process stability (and it’s “sad tab”), the omnibox, the minimal interface. When was the last time you saw an iPod advert showing any product functionality?

Derek and Greg have been flat out grafting on a new site for Anchor Squirty Cream, which has gone live today. Part of the site is a user-generated area that allows you to create your own art using a custom fruit and cream toolset we’ve designed, which can then be uploaded to the gallery.

Whilst the toolset is great to use, what’s much more fun is the chance to get down, dirty and altogether messy by bringing it into the real world. We’ve asked some friends of ours to show us how it can be done, and already have a few art classics reinterpreted in the medium of squirty cream and fruit. Sunflowers (shown above) is a personal favourite, but now we’re asking everyone in the real world to muck in I’m hoping someone out there decides to go a little MS Escher on us …

Now, we all like to work hard, but we don’t tend to take it out on our hardware. But on my travels today I came across someone who has managed, through 8 years of hardcore keyboard pounding, to scratch the letters of his M and N keys, and almost wear away his Alt key completely!

I suggest we all put 20p in and buy him a new 104-keyed bashpad.

News coming over from the US suggests that TV advertisers are beginning to fight back in their battle against the PVR, with Tivo announcing they’re selling “banner space” targeted at those people who fast-forward through the advertising breaks on their pre-recorded programs.

You might remember the tech community guffawing when CEO of Turner Broadcasting said “anytime you skip a commercial you’re actually stealing the programming” back in 2002, and it’s surprising it’s taken those involved so long to get their act together. These targeted commercials are relevant to the media and context they’re being found, with smart “skipping ads” executions no doubt being fired around the brainstorming sessions of the modern day Sterling Coopers of the world.

In this new media landscape, the power of advertising on TV is nowhere near as strong as it once was, but it’s interesting to see they’re not willing to give up the ghost just yet. Like Jurassic Park, the dinosaurs might well be making a comeback …

In a previous life I was a counter jockey in a independent record shop. Before I started there, I was a huge fan of Electroclash music, and not much else – I’d been a bit of a BritPop kid, but had discovered the Manchester club scene and now listened to nothing but noisy/shouty dance records made by people in Shoreditch. And then I started working in the shop with a group of people, all who had their different backgrounds, their unique tastes, their personal music histories, and through this I became exposed to all manner of new music. And after 3 years I left with a broader knowledge of music than I could ever have imagined.

So what’s this got to do with the price of fish? Well yesterday, myself and Dan headed down to our first Measurement Camp, a London-based monthly meet-up of people interested in tracking social media activity. And I couldn’t help but think back to my days in the record shop. I think most of the strength from the event comes from the disparate backgrounds of those attending – PR types, digital nerds, market research companies, search engine optimisation people, analytical data-fiends – all coming from their specialist areas to the fertile ground of social media, and bringing their own tried and trusted tools & techniques to be shared around.

Case in point? “Net Promoter Score” is a measurement beloved of clients, which aims to track how word of mouth is allowing positive customer satisfaction to spread. And combined with a digital approach to tracking popularity on social networks (Facebook fans, Twitter comments, blog posts) this can show whether a product’s postive messaging is “dripping down” from the creators and experts to the family and friend level. An approach which combines the best of different worlds.

And it’s interesting to hear the deep-rooted issues in areas which you might only dip in and out of during your day job. A SEO expert told me that “Linking up search and social media is the way forward thinking companies are going, and social media can help me create a footprint I know Google are gearing their algorithms towards”. These nuggets of insight are  probably all over the internet, if you go searching for them. But to get them from sitting opposite 5 new faces from 5 different fields is a perfect chance to expose yourself to fresh thinking.

See you all next month. I’ll bring my iPod.

More great shots like the one above at @hyku’s Flickr page – looks like that massive lens was worth lugging over from the US!

I want some of these.. genius !

OK, it’s time to come clean. My name is Kevin and I organised Manchester’s first flash mob. Good God, it feels great to get that off my chest!

So why am I coming clean about this, 9 years after the original stunt? Well, since it’s inception, flash mobbing has grown in both ambition and popularity, and as one of the original anarchists I’ve always kept an eye on it’s development. It’s ambition and scope has blossomed in the long term, with creative executions far exceeding anything that could have been imagined by it’s founding fathers (witness Improv Everywhere’s “Best Game Ever” for irrefutable proof). And in the popularity stakes, you can’t have turned on your TV in the past few months without seeing T-Mobile’s perfectly orchestrated “impromptu” dance show (with 10 million YouTube views and counting), and that’s without mentioning the 14,000 fans who signed up to partake in a recreation of the stunt, bringing Liverpool St Station to a standstill back in February.

And this brings us to today, and specifically Trident’s new viral. The idea? Get 100 girls to dance to a Beyonce record in Piccadilly Circus. To the untrained eye, an altogether similar execution, but so far from the mark as to be criminal. T-Mobile understood that flash mobbing can be more than a publicity stunt – their smart move was in that they knew how everyone would react on seeing the action take place: they’d whip out their phone, make a call, capture video to send to friends, take a photo for Facebook. And in that, the brand becomes an integral part of the idea.

For Trident? Well, they’re giving away some Beyonce tickets. Need I say more?

The public domain is exactly that – once you say something, it’s out there, and you’d better believe people are ready to find it. Case in point? @omgamandaa updated her Twitter stream asking for help in tracking down a place to download Adventureland, a new Miramax comedy. Miramax dropped her a Tweet back gently asking her to take the moral high ground, and tagging the FBI into the conversation. And after she decided to call off the torrent-hunt, they proceeded to offer Amanda two free tickets to see the movie at her local cinema.

This is great example of a brand using social media properly, not being afraid to tackle a thorny subject and winning fans online. Good work.

I just saw this brilliant piece of advertising from BMW in the US.  Now I know you don’t usually expect a digital agency to be extolling the virtues of ‘traditional’ media but if its good and its effective then it always gets a thumbs up from us. (While we are on this subject there is a great post over at Russell Davies about people harping on about the death of certain industries)

Anway, this ad made me smile… it’s not subtle but then that’s the American way… enjoy…

Outside Line are looking for a LAMP developer to join our team in Exmouth Market, London. We need someone who is obsessed with producing efficient code, fast queries and well-structured applications. We use the Codeigniter and Zend frameworks, but appreciate you might have experience with another MVC set-up. Bonus points will be awarded, (in order of importance) for any experience in internationalisation/localisation, server administration and putting the milk in before the teabag/water. We ideally want someone with agency experience looking to step up to a bigger league and make their mark.

You’ll be working with extremely talented designers and developers, and me, at a top UK agency on projects for clients such as Queen, Paul McCartney, Oasis, Cravendale, the BRITs and Diesel. You’ll be joining a tight knit studio that love producing exciting content for the web, (with a bit of table football and Gears of War on the side).

Salary will be dependent on experience and is negotiable. No remote workers, people who can’t work in the UK or recruitment agencies. If you are interested, email your CV and code examples to bens@outsideline.co.uk.