Oasis 2.0

The Gallagher brothers don’t strike me as the type of guys who could waste a couple hours on YouTube, stalk ex-girlfriends on Facebook or even book their train tickets online.

But as is so often the case, I appear to have been proven wrong; the brothers have spent the last couple of months dedicating their evenings to building up a loyal following of fans across the internet. With Liam now spreading his musing with 26,000 followers on Twitter, answering his fans questions via YouTube and even on his own Pretty Green community, we could now, after 15 years of drudgery be approaching Oasis 2.0. Cementing their place at the vanguard of modern communication, Noel recently won an NME award for his blogging.

So what next for Britpop’s invasion of social media? Can Space reinvent themselves as the saviours of Friends Reunited or will the long-awaited Dodgy reunion happen in Second Life? One thing is for sure, @damonalbarn needs to watch his back.

Is the Twitterverse too vast?

Brian Solis and the people at Jess3 have put together a map of the Twitterverse.

It’s basically a visualisation of the services and tools that exist around Twitter, from URL shorteners through mobile apps to search and trends.  It’s a good starter for anyone looking for some of the off-the-beaten track apps/services, but also underlines a point I was talking about last week.

One of Twitter’s strengths is its openness.  This allows users or developers to access the service in pretty much any way they can imagine.  But it’s also a bit of a problem for Twitter.  There’s the risk that almost any premium service that they could offer could be replicated by a third party working with Twitter’s API.  This may prove to be an issue for successful monetisation.

Spending your money wisely since 1707 – MPs in fat cats blog

So MPs…

The expenses scandal of the last few weeks is a great vindication of the good old saying “with great power comes great responsibility” and also “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should” (this last one can be applied to so many ill thought out ad campaigns too).

And just like so many other things, this good old Westminster sleaze-fest has been lampooned through a lolcats style blog.

Check it out to see your favourite MPs getting up to their usual japes…

via Jemima Kiss.

Give to get given

Jam has a philosophy that you need to give something back to your audience if you want them to do something for you. This can come in many different formats from once in a lifetime opportunities to simply giving them free stuff.

Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails has obviously been listening to us as together with Jane’s Addiction they have helped raise $850,000 for Eric De La Cruz, a Nine Inch Nails fan being denied a heart transplant.

Whereas most similar causes tug on the heart strings in attempts to raise money this one is giving away a host of amazing prizes such as back stage VIP passes and dinner with the band. Trent’s Twitter account has been key to raising awareness for the cause with constant updates.

Twitter saves lives.

Music heals

The best of both worlds?

Effectively cutting out the time saving aspect of e-mail and the personal touch of a hand written letter, Celery allows you to keep in touch with your dear old gran, without ever having to try and even explain the concept of the internet to her.

The service converts e-mail messages and Tweets to fax and delivers them to your technophobe contacts for a small fee of $14 a month, meaning that you can now add your offline friends to the loop of tipsy Tweeting!

This service presents a huge opportunity for the youth of today; Mail-merged, 140 character thankyou letters to your loved one at Christmas? Yes please.

Day of reckoning

The day is upon us. It’s more important than the World Cup, presidential election and Olympics combined. That’s right it’s i-level’s perfect pitch competition. Six teams made up of i-level staff battle it out in front of the company and 3 special judges to see who is the best at pitching.

Five Jam members have been split into different groups and will go head to head after work tonight at the local colosseum. The prize of winning comes a distant second to the recognition of your peers and the fact you have succeeded in not making a fool of yourself in front of the entire company.

Hopefully we can remain friends after the competition is over. We will let you know the results tomorrow.

Jam in battle

UPDATE: I fear that Sam’s disappointment meant he never shared the results of the Perfect Pitch. Unlucky for Sam it was my team that hauled the mighty trophy from bar to bar that evening.

Better Luck next time – Tom

Down at the lake – Amy Bennett

We’ve got a bit of a thing for tilt-shift at Jam, and Amy Bennett’s work is in the vein.

Amy builds miniature diaromas and then paints them.  The result is a step beyond tilt-shift or photos of miniatures like you find on little people, and is a bit of a nod towards hyperrealism and photorealism (check out Ralph Goings as a good example of this kind of work).

It’s quite cool that there’s a bit of a juxtaposition between painting something that’s an imitation of real life in a hyperrealist style.  And it kind of reminds me of Beetlejuice.

via designboom.

Social drives mobile and mobile drives social

30% of the UK use mobile internet a month (says the IAB) and over the last couple of years, we’ve seen the use of social media on mobiles explode.  For an increasing amount of people, it’s the focus of their mobile web usage and several telcoms brands have run marketing around this.

(source: comScoreM Metric MobiLens Survey ‘07-’08)

However, this changing consumption of social media means that social services have had to change, placing more and more emphasis on quick conversations.  For example, in a bid to keep up with micro-blogging platforms, Facebook has focused on short comments.  Users can now make these about pretty much anything, but the key theme is that most of them are quick thoughts.

In addition, services and mobiles let you upload an increasing variety of content when you’re on the move.  This then sits alongside the more deliberate (often more  polished) content that has been added through web services.  Over the next year, the most successful social platform will be one that seamlessly combines mobile usage and short content with the rich content and contacts we’ve come to expect from online services.

Zander Blom – Traveller of Bad

The Travels of Bad was an exhibition at Rooke gallery in Johennesberg recently featuring multiple installations by Zander Blom.

In his artist’s statement he states that the work is “essentially a satire that looks critically at the influence that exotic cultures and their artefacts have had on the avant-garde system of European visual art from the end of the 19th century onwards”.

I’m just glad that it translates into a room with two drum kits that’s been transported to where the wild things are.

Aside from the physical installation, the exhibition was brought to life and extended through photography (below), a “mini-novella” where the scenes are developed through a written narrative and a 17 track CD.
Rock on.

via thestrangeattractor

The Konami Code

What do Gradius, Tetris and Ninja Turtles have in common with Facebook and Digg?
1. They’ve collectively kept a generation of potential athetes indoors glued to tiny pixelated screens.
2. They all react when you tap in the Konami code:

The Konami Code was first used in the 1985 arcade game Gradius, on the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1986. Entering the code gave gives the player a full set of power-ups, which are normally attained gradually throughout the game.

Since then the Konami Code has been written into dozens of games, and more recently Facebook, Digg and the Google Reader, check them out and see the bizarre outcomes.

I also highly recommend putting in the code at robotacid.com – seems like they’re a big fan of a certain social media agency.

for more uses, check out konamicodesites.com