As well as indulging in “Pimp My Hyde” at lunchtime (decking Tom out in ridiculous clothing for the afternoon), we’ve been taking part in typography Friday this afternoon.
This is a nice Flickr group where you post up your typography every Friday. Simple.
This week I went pretty simple with an easy pixel font, but presented in pink post-it notes against a light-up wall we’ve got at the end of one of our benches.
I could post-rationalise it with talk about the medium that’s written on being used to write, but I think that might be a bit self indulgent. Anyways, here it is:
I’ve been into anlalogue photography for the last year or so, messing around with a Holga, Diana F+ and more recently a Seagull and Lubitel. I think the charm’s in the unpredictability of using the cameras, and also in the way each distorts the image (the latter two cameras do this a bit less than the former two).
An aspect of analogue photography that has pretty much disappeared now is instant film. Polaroid used to produce this, but stopped in 2008 because few people were buying it.
A group of Polaroid photographers have taken it upon themselves to resurrect the production of instant film; The Impossible Project are setting about restarting the manufacture of new types of instant film in a factory in the Netherlands.
However, production seems to have hit a snag, and “an unexpected surprise of impossibility within production occured on the weekend of February 6th”. The Impossible Project haven’t really said much more than that, apart from moving their press conference announcing their product launch back to the tail-end of March.
So, will instant film be available again soon, or will we start to see analogue photography fade away?
I took this. Down the Social with the Diana and a fisheye lense.
What will it mean for Facebook? Well, there’ll probably be the compulsory whinge period whilst people get used to it, before everyone forgets how it used to be (check out my comment in MediaWeek in 2008 – it’s at the bottom of the page). Then there’ll be the changes that need to happen to apps and pages if they’ve been developed for a 760px wide tab.
Update: These updates will happen in February 2010.
In the mean time, here’s some pics (via PC INpact of course):
Facebook’s set to go through a few changes again over the coming months, so I thought I’d detail some of the plans for anyone with a presence on the social network.
Depending on whether you have a Profile, Page or App, there are some points worth bearing in mind in order to maintain or augment some of the functionality of your activity.
1. The user interface is getting a redesign. There’s going to be a left hand column through which users can navigate their feed, events, photos, games, apps etc. This’ll take up about 25% of the screen on the left, and gives app owners the opportunity to get a shortcut permanently on a user’s homepage.
However, app and page owners will have to rethink some of their functionality. This new column will replace where users currently have their “boxes” – so you’ll no longer be able to include app functionality or content here. In addition, it means that application tabs on profiles will now be about a third narrower (instead of 760px wide, they’ll be 520px wide). Of course, this means if your app or page makes full use of the 760px wide tab at the moment, it may well need a redesign.
Canvas pages (where users make use of a full application) are unaffected.
Timescale for implementation: Late ‘09 early ‘10
2. Facebook are going to implement Open Graph API (nice name…). Any website will be able to install a Fan widget, which will let visitors “fan” the site. This means you’ll be able to have a Facebook presence without having a Page on Facebook. You’ll then be able to publish stories to fans through the widget.
Timescale for implementation: Early ‘10
3. Facebook app owners should be getting access to their users’ email addresses (previously you’ve had to message users through Facebook’s inbox). It’s unclear how you’ll be able to email users (will it be through Facebook or through your own platforms?) but this has the potential to expand a brand’s eCRM activity. As with eCRM though, you’ll need to plan a decent strategy with reasonable frequencies, timings and messaging etc.
Timescale for implementation: November ‘09 (!)
4. More analytics. The insight tool’s going to be expanded to include more activity (such as feed distribution, which shows how many people saw the social actions your page/app generated) and also be given an accesible API. This should be great as you’ll be able to pull the data from your insight tool into other areas. The potential’s big here, especially for agencies to integrate into reporting software.
Timescale for implementation: Late ‘09 early ‘10
5. This is already implemented, but Facebook pages can now publish updates to specific regions and languages. There’s now an “Everyone” button next to “Share”; click on it and you’ll be able to customise your audience.
They’ve had some really good photo-related campaigns recently, and I thougth I’d start with the Olympus Stories of the Eye. For this campaign, Alice Dellal, Lovefoxxx, Miquita Oliver and Daisy Lowe were given a PEN camera to capture their daily lives. Also, Vice users were invited to submit their images for the scenesters to pick their favourites.
It is/was a partnership, so it sits up there on Vice and is pretty cool.
A more recent campaign I’ve seen on Vice is Getty Image’s lost/found where you make a Flickr set of 10 images, and ping it over to Getty. They have a look, and if they like it, they’ll add it to their library. Presumably they’ll then sort out licensing with you and ask what control you want over your work.
What I like about lost/found is that it gives you a way of getting your images onto Getty (beyond the usual review process), whilst creating a feed of the submissions. Unfortunately, the Getty photo pool on Flickr is disabled. Surely this would be a great way of getting the images together and creating a focus for the campaign.
Nevermind.
In both cases, what works about the campaigns is that they’re using an existing site and inviting users to take part, rather than creating something new and driving traffic to it. They also give something of value; for Olympus it’s entertainment from relevant celebs, whilst for Getty it’s the chance for photographers to distribute their work and get paid for it.
Enough is enough. We’re starting the campaign against Twitter Litter.
Over the last six months or so, more and more third party services are popping up that integrate with Twitter that force the user to tweet when they use them. This leaves users with a decision; use the service and tweet, or don’t use it at all.
What this means for the community is that it is sometimes bombarded with irritating posts about what piercing, Harry Potter character or M&M colour you are.
Most people use Twitter to have conversations with others about things they’re mutually interested in. They don’t use it to see the results of inane quizzes or games, similar to those that have littered Facebook since the advent of applications. Unfortunately, unlike in Facebook, there is no overarching policy towards these services and no option to block them.
The lack of a third option (to use the service but not be forced to tweet) on some of these services is a situation that needs to be redressed. Allow users to use these services without forcing them to spam their followers.
From an advertising point of view, brands should not Litter Twitter in this way. The key for successful social communications is understanding the space and adding value, not devaluing the service by creating spam. And good practice is to always make sure any interaction is opt-in, rather than opt-out.
If you think people and services shouldn’t Litter Twitter, sign our petition; also let us know your thoughts and feelings in the comment section of this blog post. If you would like to help spread the word of the campaign then we have created a badge for your blog. Whatever you do though, don’t Litter Twitter.
Alongside David Cameron’s Twitter Twat moment in the trending topic today were three seemingly disparate entries; M&Ms, Harry Potter and “What Piercing Are”.
On closer inspection, these turn out to be caused by automated messages from the service fun140. They’re generated by quizzes with themes like “what colour M&M are you?”, “what piercing are you?” and “which Harry Potter character are you?”.
As with several other twitter services, you sign up, do your thing (in this case the quiz), and all your followers get a message about it. Which, providing it’s opt-in, is alright for directory services (such as WeFollow) where you’re likely to do this only a few times (or even once) and the service may be of interest to your followers.
However, what colour M&M or kind of piercing you are might not be that interesting. It also might get a bit irritating after a few people you’re following have tweeted it. In fact, you might be contributing to the Twitter Litter.
As Sam’s mentioned before, Twitter Litter is created by canny people creating a meme that spreads, but doesn’t have a value for the community. For me, this is what fun140 is creating and unfortunately, it’s making Twitter a little bit more like Facebook.
Now, I like Facebook, but it’s full of spammy applications that tell me which of the Sex and the City girls my friends are like. Is this the future for Twitter, and will users put up with it?
David Bowie’s going to be rereleasing his tune “Space Oddity” to mark the 40th anniversary of the moon landings (as you do).
But it’s not just any old rerelease. Instead, it’s a digital remix edition.
Not digital remix in god awful techno nineties way, or even in a filthy dubstep style, but in a way that gives fans the ability to remix the seminal song. You’ll get eight stems to mess about with, so be careful, and don’t ruin the legend.
What’s interesting here is Bowie following in the footsteps of Radiohead (whose Nude and Reckoner remix competitions generated loads of entries and buzz) as well as Jay Z (whose a capella Black Album spawned Danger Mouse’s amazing Grey Album).
This kind of activity obviously works on two levels; you sell more music and you generate more buzz. It’d be great to see more of it, but then again, there are some awful remixes out there…
If you can’t wait to mess around with a Bowie classic, check out the amazing Flight of the Concorde’s series one take on the pop spaceman:
Another artist at the Willoughby Windows Project is Gaia, who produces work both for the street and for galleries.
A lot of Gaia’s work is large scale illustration, with line drawings representing natural subjects like animals and earth children. These are then either wheatpasted on buildings or included in installations or 2D work, and some work is on a massive scale.
What’s great about it are the stunning monochrome images of nature, reminiscent of a bygone era, set against urban landscapes and decay. Check out the Gaia links after the jump.
