For those who missed it, the Praga Khan concert at the occasion of the launch of Windows Vista can be seen again in Second Life as of tonight:
- At Miel's place:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Innocence/144/83/23
- Next to the HUMO park with our partner Rambla.be:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Jin%20Ho/119/210/68
Tomorrow night Studio Brussel (Belgian National radio) is going to fool around in Second Life. They were looking for a poor sod with nothing on his hands between 10pm and midnight and ended up with me (thanks Peter).
So tune into StuBru on thursday evening, if you're not fed up with virtual worlds yet :)
Update:
It was a funny experience to be in SL, on the radio, IM through MS and receiving mails with pictures like this:
Since yesterday you can legally download movies and music through BitTorrent. Open up an account on BitTorrent.com and you can download from their catalogue. The inventory is still limited, but growing I assume. The bad news is that what you download is DRM protected, and limited in time for use (30 days).
Not for me though, as you have to work with Windows XP (get lost Mac users) and have to live in the US (get lost rest of the world) :(. The format of delivery is WMV, so I could probably convert it if the DRM does not prevent that.
Apart from these little 'inconveniences' I think they make a crucial mistake in order to really make a difference in the race between online digital content providers. BitTorrent could have been the first service to supply DRM free material thus making a real breakthrough and conquering the market. How do you expect somebody to pay for a movie he or she can only temporarily watch, is not sure it will work on his/her computer, PSP, iPod, etc., and more importantly, material that has 'something in it' that is called 'DRM' which they do not (want to) understand.
At the same time Steve Jobs starts openly promoting DRM free content. Job's next move will be to acquire music rights himself (he does get along well with the Beatles lately) and put their own music out DRM free on the iTunes store. And when that happens ... all the DRM-based suppliers can close their boutique.
Poor BitTorrent ... why did you guys not have the courage.
Since I moved to ONE Agency at the beginning of this year I switched to Mac as a professional laptop. I had Macs at home for years, but my full time life has been dominated by (ugly) PC-laptops.
In spite of my experience with Apple, switching to full time Mac-use does ask an effort. I had grown so deeply into Windows it had taken over part of my brain I think. But I never was so passionate about my laptop as I am now about my MacBook. It looks great, works perfectly, never switch it of, drag it around everywhere, take it out of my bag with pride and even on a Saturday morning it's my lazy-morning companion.
So apart from reading some blogs, what do I do with my MacBook this morning? I install cool gadgets. Check these two out tools that use the Mac's build in motion sensor ... eat your heart out PC geeks :)
iAlertU
What do you do when need to leave behind your laptop in an area that's not 100% safe? Arm the alarm of course. iAlertU is a laptop alarm that will start beeping as soon as somebody touches, moves or tries to use your laptop. It also take a picture of the villain and can send it to any mail address you want (e.g. the FBI).
MacSaber
Totally useless but utterly cool ... turns your Mac into a Star Wars light saber. Move around your laptop and it sounds like you're fighting the evil forces in the office. I should try this next time a customer starts complaining.
Thanks to Peter for the tips (by the way Peter, get a blog so I have something to link to please). This is what Apple is so good at, make people passionate about their products and share experiences.
I'm cultivating my Messenger message (you know, the sentence next to your nick), and I also collected some good ones from other people:
Me
- Got a Life
- Life is live
- Life is a dram
- Life is today (my current message)
Suzy
Why not today! Today is a good day!
Peter
The internet is where men are men, women are men, and children are FBI agents.
Let's kick this Friday of with a charming story of people helping each other (at the risk of sounding cheesy).
As you can read in previous post, Ecto was not really doing the job for me, it simply didn't work. I was in a hotel room in Amsterdam when installing Ecto, with not too much time, so I quickly gave up.
Yesterday evening during the IAB Net Café I was blogging 'live' and when I quickly checked my blog for comments, there was a response from Ine saying Ecto is perfect for her. And surprise surprise, Ine happened to be sitting a few places down the row in that same room. So I pass along my MacBook to her. She franticly starts messing around with my Ecto configuration (for as far as I could see, she had the same problems I did) and 10 minutes later I get my laptop back ... with Ecto running perfectly.
What do you think of that as a story of people helping each other online and in real life? Thanks a lot Ine!
By the way ... this is the first time I hand of my laptop to a woman to have something fixed and it felt kind of weird (ok, call me a male chauvinist pig). So getting it back with everything running was even a more positive experience.
I guess I'll have to get finally get a Flickr account to manage pictures conveniently, because the 'insert from iPhoto still doesn't do it for me. So here's a manually inserted pic from Ine (left) helping out some other people:
Straight from the IAB Net café:
http://iabefficiency.wordpress.com/
We've got a party going on friday, the Bwards!
... and meanwhile I'm testing 'ecto' as a desktop blogging tool, as I will be blogging to two blogs tonight at the IAB Net café, so I need something to do that efficiently. But I'm not really impressed until now. In fact, it's not working :(. Suggestions anyone for a good desktop blogging tool for mac that will work with the new blogger? Preferably something that manages pictures too.
No ski holiday this year, in stead we decided to spend a weekend in London with the family. Michèle (our doughter) absolutely wanted to see the British Museum. The three of us had a great time!
We booked the full trip via Eurostar. The offer great deals on hotels too, and what we saved there I spent on "Leisure Select" tickets, that's business class for leisure travelers. It's really worth it, the train is extremely comfortable and you get good food.
The hotel was situated right next to the British Museum which is another "up and coming" part of London. Great restaurants around the corner (Charlotte street) and ten minutes walking from the West End, Covent Garden, Oxford Street, etc.
This weekend was Chinese New Year so we enjoyed some of that (see picture), and we visited some classics (The Tower of London, Madame Tussauds, Tate Modern, ...).
The PSP thingie called "Passport to London" on the other hand was a disappointment. It's a PSP multimedia guide to London, nicely executed but the content has little more then any cheap paper guide. Nothing is interactive, there's nothing that connects to the internet and the content is kept incredibly general (read useless) so it won't go out of date too fast. Just one example, there are pictures of 20 hotels ... just pictures of the front, nothing more.
Tip, don't buy it!
Take the test, especially if you're looking at new ways of getting in touch with your customers. Apart from contributing to an interesting piece of research, you'll for sure learn something from it.
Check your ecological footprint ... and take action.
I did the test and I'm not scoring very well: 6.8 which is about the average for Belgium. Still driving around too much I guess.
Tx for the tip Ine.
Fancy a safari? Want to know all about marketing and Second Life? Check out secondlifesafaris.org.
A man accused of being a pedofile has been condemned by a judge in my hometown Oudenaarde to "no more internet access". He can no longer have a connection at home, and he can not enter an internet café. What kind of a stupid punishment is that!
Of course the man needs to be punished, but does this sentence actually mean ...
First of all, how is the police ever going to check him not being online. A fixed connection at home, OK that can be traced, but how about a mobile connection? So he can't roam around town with a laptop and pick up a WiFi signal? GPRS-phones are pretty standard these days and the 3G network covers about 95% of the Belgian territory. And how to keep him out of internet cafés worldwide, a tatoo on his forehead maybe?
Then, more importantly, what is "internet"?
So he can't surf the internet, not to download child pornography (obviously) but how about access to an online self help group for the likes of him? And what's up with e-government initiatives or home banking? Can he send and receive e-mail? And can he use Messenger to chat or Skype to talk to friends and family? Can he use Google docs to write a resume so he can get a job. Can he watch digital TV by Telenet or Belgacom which are also IP based systems in some way. And can he send an MMS, which also uses internet technology to send pics from a mobile. Can he use the iTunes store to buy music? Hmmm, can he even make a call to the US, considering that call will most likely go at least partially over IP ...
This sentence comes pretty close to lifetime imprisonment if you ask me. But nobody can ever check whether the door is closed.
It looks like our judges need to learn about what the internet really means today.
Still in 'stealth' mode, so nothing much to see but they are working on it. Belgacom in Second Life.
Tx for the tip Clo.
I found another Belgian initiative in Second Life, a B2B "house" for the Packaging & Converting Essentials (P&CE) portal. Nice place, I wonder whether this will work for them. Go check it out:
http://slurl.com/secondlife/Sede%20di%20Marte/224/59/38
End of last year I had an e-mail conversation with a friend on how we would spend new year's eve. And in Gmail, next to the conversation, I got an ad for an industrial compressor company (in french). As I was not planning to install an inflatable pool on the 31st of December, so I left the ad where it was. The other adds were for an Indian webdesign shop, a DNA test and a marriage proposal for African women. These too I classified as "Advertising SPAM", and started wondering, what the hell are these advertisers doing?
Google, and more and more online advertising solutions, allow the use of keywords to make our ads more relevant for the consumer. In practice however we see that at least half of keyword based ads are totally irrelevant. Either you look for a subject that is so popular the paid results are simply copy of the yellow pages, for unpopular subjects you get a automatically generated add by eBay which has nothing to do with what you're looking for.
Fans of "Behavioral targeting" - presenting ads based on you surfing behavior - want to put an end to this. Visita number of car-sites and then go an buy a book on raising kids and ... you get an add for the latest family car. That's the theory behind this smart form of spam. But judging from Google's performance, not just anybody in this field, I'm afraid we're a long way from this ideal world, if we ever see it.
Individual thoughts and behaviors are not so easily boxed in numbers and statistics. People decide themselves where they direct their attention to, that's why on-demand channels like RSS feeds and podcasts, and how your site performs in search engines is so much more important pseudi-scientific advertising mumbo-jumbo. Make sure all your communication is clear and easily accessible, "web usability" is not something invented by a bunch of freaks but an essential component of your communication strategy. Communicate clearly, no hollow slogans or creativity for the sake of creativity but intelligent creations that trigger the correct ideas with consumers.
Campaigns are great, but they have to fit in a long term program with the objective to engage consumers for your brand. Brands have to take a position, claim a territory or values they can live up to in the long run.
In that way you practice "Natural Behavioural Targeting". Your public discovers your brand in a natural way? They ask the car-freak in the family which model is a good choice, talk to other parents about baby food and read the gadget fan's blog before buying a new smart phone. The natural social behavior of people leads them to the most relevant source of information. And it's up to the brands to feed these sources with relevant and honest information.
Speed control bikini bandits.
At the Consumer Electronics Show Disney announced the launch of a new revolutionary website, and now it's actually live.
No matter your age, you have to go and have a look. Although not the best site ever, Disney has finally moved up the ladder with an engaging site, lot's of video, charming flash animations, games, etc. What bothers me is the clutter. I don't feel comfortable on the site, but of course I'm not the target group. I wonder how my 10 year old daughter will judge it (she's got homework for me tonight :) ).
Loads of entertainment, but if you're looking for Web 2.0 features you're out of luck. Are we moving to a web with HTML/Java Script based 2.0 sites on one hand, and entertaining flash sites on the other hand? I'm waiting for somebody who has the courage to combine both - just give me a call :)
I'm truly proud of this project we are doing with Microsoft for the launch of Vista, and this is why:
The launch in Second Life perfectly illustrates what we mean with "New Marketing" at ONE Agency. The combined team of client and agency have joined the Second Life community to organize something unique and innovative. Rather then buying ourselves into the place, we offer the community a free concert, working together with existing community members, and that should (will) generate a positive vibe for the brand.
Read all the details about the launch on Miel's blog.
Robin Wauters just launched a new blog focusing Web 2.0 in Belgium. Any initiative to promote the 'new' web has my support. Go check it out.
