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Life Snails, Rye Lane, SE15
Garudio Studiage photo of the week
I had a whole thing worked out for this first bit, featuring a really romantic story that cannot fail to warm your heart, a couple of gags about the new XBox, the best reaction to classrooom criticism you’ll ever see, and the best wrong number text message conversation you will ever see.
And then Wednesday happened, and I sort of lost the appetite for it somewhat. It would be funny to see idiots all over the internet blaming otherwise-blameless fabrics ‘muslins’ for everything were it not so incredibly depressing.
Anyway, onwards with the stuff. Thank heavens for the bank holiday.
*looks outside*
Oh.
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Navesh Chitrakar/Reuters |
The Section Which For Some Of You Will Actually Be Of Some Small Professional Relevance But Which For Others Is Mogadon And Of Which There’s Quite A Lot This Week Sorry:
Twitter!:
- Twitter Adds Lead Generation: What it’s technically done is add Lead Generation Cards, but you (and indeed I) don’t need to know that. This is a very significant innovation, in what has been a whole week of pretty big innovations from Twitter. This means that, in time when it’s rolled out to everyone, brands will be able to pay to have lead generation stuff attached to their tweets. Which means, in practice, that if you see a Tweet from, say, a restaurant talking about an exciting new menu item, if you click on the tweet it could give you the option to get access to a discount or free sample next time you visit. Which is, obviously, also giving said restaurant (potentially) your contact details (email, etc) and the tacit right to contact you about WHATEVER IT WANTS for perpetuity. The potential really is huge, though, and a very big thing indeed. The fundraising applications for charities in particular are huge, as they are for political parties (as pointed out by someone cleverer than me). Watch that space. Yes, that one there.
- Also Adds TV Ad Targeting: This is also HUGE, I tell you. They’ve also added the functionality (which is really clever and not a little spooky) to track what is being advertised on TV where and when, and serve content on Twitter to people tweeting about the programme within which the ad aired. So, to give a THRILLING EXAMPLE, imagine you are at home watching Jeremy Kyle in London; Twitter could know that London viewers were served an advert for the new Danny Dyer film; it could also know that you tweeted about the Jeremy Kyle show during the programme, thus meaning you were an ENGAGED AUDIENCE MEMBER who’d probably seen the ad; it could then serve you a tweet relating to said cinematic masterpiece. Which is amazing really, and if you combine it with the idea above leads to a situation where the Danny Dyer people could tweet discount coupons to users who had probably seen the ad for the film. Or, alternatively and if you’re more dystopian in your futuregazing, a future in which we get served horrifically intrusive contextual adverts based on ANYTHING we do or see. Ho hum.
- Use Twitter to Record TV Shows: In Brazil, at least. I can’t be bothered to explain the tech here – click the link, go on, if you care that much – but by syncing your Twitter account with your Sky account you can record shows by using the hashtag #Skyrec. The mechanic involves RTing content from the Sky feed, which makes it not only technically smart but also a nice, in-built promotion.
- 2-step verification: It’s a security thing. Not that exciting, but if you run a branded account or if you’re concerned about EVIL people thieving your online identity then you should turn it on. Also, this should at last put an end to the ridiculous ‘oh, our account was hacked’ excuse from brands and sportspeople. No, it wasn’t hacked. You just said something you regretted, or tweeted from the wrong account. NO ONE HERE IS FOOLED. Hear that, Sky? DO YOU???
- Charts For Music: You can now see charts of what people are listening to through the Music service. Which is interesting from a media point of view – there’s surely a story in ‘within minutes the leaked Daft Punk album was the most-listened to music across Twitter’, etc. Or maybe it’s not, it’s quite hard to tell right now.
Pinterest Adds More Stuff For Brands Too!: Tell you what, all this extra brand stuff on the internet really is going to make our day-to-day interactions with each other so much BETTER! This is a small-but-big addition to Pinterest which allows brands to attach more information to images they pin – so perhaps info about which particular shop an article of clothing is sold in, fore example.
4sq Search Changes, Now More Like Tripadvisor: Erm, what it says there. Effectively you can now search for stuff near you based on all sorts of parameters – food which it serves, price, how many of your friends have been there (or, perhaps more interestingly for those conducting illicit affairs, places where noone you know has ever checked in), etc. Let’s see if this helps make the service socially acceptable to the mainstream of humanity (it won’t).
An Interview With David Karp The Tumblr Man: So that was a big thing this week. This interview’s from 2009, and is a nice look back. He seems like a nice man, for what it’s worth (nothing at all, fact fans). This is also worth reading – it provides an explanation as to why the deal happened, why it cost so much (CLUE: advertising to The Kids!), and why it might not actually work. Which neatly segues into this rather wonderful piece by The Onion on why branded content really is what we ALL want more of *feeds biscuit to machine*.
Facebook (SADFACE)
- Teens Hate Facebook: This did the rounds a lot this week, under a variety of headings which mostly took the angle that teenagers were deserting The Social Network in droves as they tired of the DRAMA surrounding their interactions on it, and the fact that too many of their older family members were now on it and harshing their buzz (I believe this is how The Kids talk). Actually bothering to read the bloody research, though, shows that teens aren’t actually leaving the site – they are just diversifying their presence across multiple networks. Oh, and the survey was of a MASSIVE and doubtless statistically significant 804 people. Oh (again), and does anyone really believe that all teenagers don’t have secret profiles with aliases which their family members know nothing about?
- Everyone Hates Facebook: Year on year use in the UK is down 9%, say YouGov. My favourite part of this research is this, which I reproduce in full here: The number of UK internet users who have quit social media sites because of social media marketing promotions is up 28 per cent points from April last year.
- Brands Getting Flak For Ad Placement: Heaven forfend that I defend brands on here, but this really isn’t their fault. Hey ho. People have been getting upset about ads for reputable companies showing up on pages containing questionable content and suggesting that the brands should be ASHAMED for advertising on these pages. Which fundamentally misunderstands the way in which advertising online works. Well done, people.
- As a bonus, have some more stats about Facebook (and other platform) usage amongst teens here and here.
Google:
- Creepy Sentient Computers Get Closer: Google can now tell what things are in photos. No, seriously. IT CAN RECOGNISE CATS AND JEWELLERY AND STUFF WITHOUT BEING TOLD. I don’t think anyone is getting as scared / freaked out by this as they perhaps ought to be. OH HELLO NIGHTMARE DYSTOPIAN SURVEILLANCE FUTURE (NB – I am not actually a mad, paranoid conspiracy theorist, although I accept it might read like that sometimes).
- And Closer: Google conversational search lets you talk to the search engine and ask it stuff (the same tech as used in Glass, I imagine). This examination of how it works is impressive, particularly its ability to contextualise questions and remember the sequence of queries and make inferences based on said sequence.
- Google Trends Visualisation: A slightly pointless but hypnotic and compelling ever-shifting visualisation of the top search terms on Google where you are at any given time. This week it makes for slightly depressing reading, in the UK at least.
- Google Knows Everything: This is an internal parody by Microsoft, a company famed for being loving and caring and cuddly. As such it’s scaremongery, but not actually untrue.
OTHER THINGS IT’S NEARLY OVER I PROMISE:
- A Nice, Simple Look at The Internet Of Things: If you’re not 100% sure what all that internet of things stuff is about, you could do worse than read this rather clear explanation. Useful.
- What Amazon Might Do Next: Clue – sell lots and lots of information about our buying habits to third parties. Maybe.
- How Stuff Spreads – Gangnam vs Harlem Shake: This is by a new agency and as such is a piece of linkbait (which I have totally fallen for). In fairness there are some interesting observations there as to some of the qualities which can affect the manner in which a piece of content is shared or otherwise; it totally fails to mention the MASSIVE amounts of cash invested by record companies in promoting Psy’s global earworm, though.
- Why Your Fan Count Doesn’t Matter: A decent presentation by Mat Morrison on what you should be looking at instead of fans on social media (really, we’re still having to talk about this?)
- Bespoke Ballads: By Barclays. Can we all agree that we are bored of the ‘here’s a bespoke thing made JUST FOR YOU by a brand on social media’ thing, please? Please? I know there’s no such thing as a new idea, but it’s been 3 years now and I’m tired.
- Coke Stunt #1: So, so clever – giving teens the opportunity to help each other out by donating battery life to each other via th medium of a little Coke-branded dongle. This is excellent because THEY MADE A REALLY COOL THING. Learn, people.
- Coke Stunt #2: Again, clever – giving the opportunity for people in India and Pakistan to interact with each other thanks to Coke. Taps into the whole ‘teach the world to sing’ schtick which they’ve been doing since forever, as well as the happiness thing. And, if you leave aside the fact that it’s still just a stunt to shill sugarwater, another Basically Decent Thing to do.
- Day Off Generator: This is also very smart indeed; an app for an outdoorsy magazine which works to help fool people you work with into thinking you’re sick when instead you are doing OUTDOOR PURSUITS. What’s cleverest about it is the newsfeed takeover stuff which it does through Facebook (although it does make me question how many people actually go to the hospital with a cold).
- Anti-crack PSA Billboard Thing: The billboard gets eaten by insects to demonstrate the destructive effects of crack. Oh, bum, I totally ruined the surprise. Nontheless, take a look – the execution is very good indeed.
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HAVE A HIPHOP MIX BY SADEAGLE TO SOUNDTRACK THIS NEXT BIT IF YOU LIKE
Other Things I Have Found Interesting This Week, Pt.1:
- A List of Crowdfunding Sites: A useful overview of places on the internet where you can persuade people to give you money so that you can make that model of Chewbacca out of cat hair like you always wanted.
- Justice League Families: Very cute and pleasingly whimsical illustrations of superheroes with their kids. Nice illustrations for a child’s bedroom, perhaps. Just a suggestion.
- The Perceptive Radio: I really, really like this. Very clever project by Mudlark (who have made some really good stuff in the past) and the BBC, to create a radio which can take data about the environment around it (relating to location, say, and local weather) and then modify the content dependent on that data. In the test example, they created a radio play in which details changed depending on whether the listener was, say, somewhere where it was raining or not. This is kind of like the benign flipside of some of the Twitter/Google stuff up there – imagine the possibilities in terms of bespoke storytelling you might explore with this stuff. Plug in the internet of things idea and it becomes really, really interesting. Or maybe it just becomes horrible – maybe your fridge will tell your radio that it doesn’t have any Coke in it, and then the people on the Archers will start ostentatiously DRINKING Coke really loud to make you want it and then you will go out and buy some and OH GOD IT’S ALL GOING TO BE HORRIBLE ISN’T IT? *cries*
- Make 360 Degree Videos On iPhones: What it says there <—–. Quite a cool looking little toy, although due to the endless reports about kids being ruined by exposure to pr0n on the radio this morning, I can only think of this in bongo terms. Thanks, radio!
- Add Clippy To Your Website: Remember Clippy? He was fun, wasn’t he? Well now you can bring back the 90s EVEN MORE with this excellent little pointless webhack which allows you to add Clippy (or any of his helpful chums) to your website. I don’t think I can stress enough how much I want someone to combine this with the farting scroll hack from a few weeks ago in a massive, blaze-of-glory IT’S MY LAST DAY act of idiocy. Please?
- 90s Island: Speaking of 90s revivalism (SEAMLESS SEGUE KLAXON), this is a website promoting a (doubtless dreadful) novel all about the era. However bad the book looks (and I can’t stress enough that it looks really, really bad), the website’s a spot-on parody of bad early web design.
- ReverseGif: Leaving aside the tedious non-issue of the pronunciation of the bloody word, this is a cute (and pointless) little tool which allows you to reverse the animation of any gif; amusing results, particularly when you take stuff of people eating.
- A Great Collection of Behind-the-Scenes Film Shots: I’ve just realised how horrifically inconsistent my capitalisation is. Sorry about that. Anyway, some cast and crew shots from a whole load of films. The one of Joe Pesci and Macauley Culkin is weirdly chilling.
- University of Reddit: So apparently this has existed for a few years now. WHO KNEW? Perhaps my ignorance of it is due to the fact that I don’t move in the same glorious, rarefied circles as its graduates. Perhaps. There’s some really esoteric knowledge on here, in any case, if you fancy having a root around. I’ll let you know how I get on with Shamanism 101.
- Taxheaven: A nice website to accompany a petition against tax havens, made by Torchbox.
- Odd Digital Art Project #1: The Pirate Cinema takes frames from the most popular files being downloaded on torrent sites and streams a collage of them, formed out of the choices of entertainment being made by the faceless and unknowing mob. There’s an interview with the creator at the link; his observation about how much the project has taught him about the aesthetic similarities between pr0n and mainstream media is sort of chilling in a casual, throwaway fashion.
- Odd Digital Art Project #2: A clever music remix-y website to accompany Haroon Mirza’s current installation at the Lisson. Move the images around to affect the composition, and upload your own in collaborative fashion.
- The Pentagram Bikini: Know any female goths who like sunbathing? They might like this, then (NB – Web Curios accepts no responsibility if in fact they really don’t like it at all).
- Typewriter Robots: Jeremy Mayer makes robots out of old junk and they are really rather cool.
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“Marilyn Monroe at Philippe Halsman’s Studio” (1959), by Philippe Halsman/Magnum |
Other Things I Have Found Interesting This Week, Pt.2:
- Dumbsto.re: This is really good. A mobile app development platform which allows you to code for non-smartphones. There’s not a whole lot there at the moment, but the potential is huge – there’ a weather app and a directions app, and if you start thinking about the potential to develop tools to enable people without internet access to take advantage of online information then it gets very exciting indeed. Charities working in the developing world should definitely take a look.
- Nazi Hunter Alan: I don’t know why this exists, but am quite glad it does. I don’t think Alan is real, but the music on his website is strangely soothing.
- Time Magazine’s Top Websites of 2013: Not quite sure as to the criteria by which they select these, but there are a few interesting ones, and it’s nice to see This Is My Jam getting a bit of big media love.
- Google Earth Faces: There’s a lot of interesting stuff being done around machine facial recognition at the moment; this project uses that tech to look at Google Maps and pull out faces from cityscapes, natural geography and the like, with pleasing results.
- CloudParty: Remember Second Life? IT WAS GOING TO BE HUGE (until all of a sudden it wasn’t). There are still a lot of people who use it, though, with their funny avatars and virtual marriages and real-life affairs and STUFF. Anyway, CloudParty seems to be like SL, except browser-based. I’m only mentioning it because they are running a $1000 virtual art prize, of which more details here, and frankly I reckon there will be about 3 entries so you’ve got a pretty decent chance of winning if you’re into that sort of thing.
- I Love Your Work: My favourite webarty thing of the week, this project has collected over 2,000 ten-second video clips recorded by adult film actresses over a 10-day period. The footage is available to watch, for a fee – each day ten ‘tickets’ are sold to access the video, for $10. No more. It’s not pr0n, although it might feature some; it’s a lot more interesting than that. Watch the trailer-type video on the website; it really is very good.
- Visiting The Shot Locations of Album Covers: No more, no less. Lovely little project.
- Nothing But A Movie: A superb piece of storytelling merging comic art, animation and sound to excellent effect. In particular the audio is brillant. Takes 5 mins, do take a look.
- More Interactive Storytelling: Another nice piece of digital work, showing how you can use video in slightly more creative ways online to improve interactivity, enrich content and just narrate a bit better. Sadly this example’s about the US healthcare system and not exactly scintillating, but it’s worth a couple of minutes’ play just to get the ideas behind it.
- A Deflatable Sex Cube: Surely one of you will want to buy this, won’t you? SFW, just so you know.
The Circus of Tumblrs:
- Sexts From Marxists: Combining the dialectic with come-to-bed-eyes.
- Mansplained Marxist: A look at some of the sexist things said to one particular female academic. With Gifs.
- Baguette Me Nots: I don’t really understand what’s going on here, but there appear to be a reasonable number of moderately famous people (Matthew Broderick!) posing with bits of French bread. Whatever makes them happy, I guess.
- Web2Hell: Some of the more egregious taglines of digital ‘businesses’ in the Web 2.0 era.
- Des Hommes Et Des Chatons: A Tumblr of attractive men and cats. Oh, and it’s French too. I’m sure there are some of you for whom this will probably be the best thing on here this week, so ENJOY.
- Eagles That Look Like Arsene Wenger: Yes, really, there are LOTS of them.
Games! Free Games! To PLAY!:
- Cardboard Box Assembler: So obviously this sounds like the worst game ever, but let me reassure you that the amount of time you will spend actually assembling cardboard boxes is in fact very small, and instead you’ll play a very clever braintwisty 3d puzzler instead, which has elements of Fez.
- Canon: A very small, very simple, very hard music/rhythm game. You will hate it, but it will compel you to play it.
- You Must Escape: Atmospheric and scary and based around echolocation and trying to find your way in the dark. Play with the lights out for extra effect (at nighttime. It won’t really work if the lights are off but it’s broad daylight, OBVIOUSLY).
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Image by Denis Darzacq |
LONG THINGS OF QUALITY AND DISTINCTION:
- On Music Cloning and Spamming on iTunes and Beyond: A brilliant exploration of how people game the system on music sites and get you to listen to dreadful knock-off covers rather than the real thing. On which point, you really, really need to hear this example of someone scamming Macklemore’s Thrift Shop. Personally prefer it to the oiginal.
- On Consent and Acceptable Behaviour: Very smart piece in the Atlantic about the degree to which certain sexual behaviour should or shouldn’t be acceptable, even between consenting adults. Particularly pertinent in the UK in the light of all the Spanner Trust stuff. Obviously this is not about whether you’re into this stuff or not – it’s about whether people who are should ever be stopped from doing it.
- Benji Lanyado’s Startup Blog: Benji Lanyado is doing a startup, and blogging about it. Interesting even if you’re not in that sort of space; doubly so, I would imagine, if you are.
- Prospect on Farage: A really good profile of omnipresent grinning jackanapes Nigel Farage by novelist Edward Docx in Prospect. Makes me almost feel sorry for Nigel, almost, nearly. Certainly shines a spotlight on the unique horror that is being a professional politician.
- Street Children: Not a happy read, this one, but worth reading; a look into the plight of street kids worldwide. The pictures will make you sad, in particular.
- On Cats and Japan and the Internet: An incredibly in-depth look at the internet’s obsession with cats, and the peculiar manner in which in Japan they appear to be used as a mask behind which their owners can hide. It certainly does seem that many of the owners of YouTube’s most famous felines are little more than life support systems for their more famous pets.
- Looking Back at Biggie: I was never that into hiphop when Biggie was…er…big, and even now I’m not a huge fan, but this piece is an awesome slice of oral history, piecing together quotes from those close to him across his career to paint a very vivid picture of a talented artist and the odd soap opera that surrounded him and his death.
- The Best Thing About Poker You Will Ever Read: Speaking of oral histories…this one pieces together the tales of the main players in 2003’s World Series of Poker, widely credited as the event which took the game to the masses like never before. It’s a truly incredible tale, featuring as it does the story of an unknown amateur who went from having $39 to his name to winning $2.5million. You don’t even have to understand poker (although it will help) to enjoy it. Get a cup of tea, this is filmic.
- The Women Who Painted Pinups: A fascinating look back at the life stories of the women who invented the American pin-up as we remember it. Also, loads of great illustrations.
- Visiting A Competitive Scrabble Tournament: If you liked Spellbound, you’ll love this. The weird, weird world of the people who are PROPERLY good at Scrabble. Contains far more allegations of cheating than I would have expected.
- Why The New Star Trek Film Is Crap: An exhaustive and completely spoiler-ish examination of every single thing (and there are LOTS) that is wrong with the new Star Trek film.
- American Assassinations For Dummies: Mark Ames is one of my favourite journalists, and this is some sterling reporting for NSFWCorp. Particularly pertinent given the recent debates in the US about drone use, this is a slightly scary investigation into the fact that the CIA has been assassinating people around the world for years. Proper journalism, done well.
- Playing In A Band Noone Likes: Finally, the poignant story of a man deciding to call his band quite because noone liked them. They weren’t dreadful, apparently, just unlovable. An interesting look at when perseverance in the face of adversity just isn’t viable any more; sometimes, giving up is the only option. POSITIVITY! Anyway, you can hear them here.
NOW, FINALLY, MOVING PICTURES AND SOUNDS!:
1) First up, 60 seconds of animated brilliance in the form of the aptly-named Aliens In 60 Seconds which is…er…the film, Aliens, condensed into a 60-second animation. Cute, and makes me want to play it as a videogame:
2) Bit more of a sombre tone for the next one, which is a remarkable video made using 600+pinhole cameras and a lot of painstaking effort. This is London Grammar with ‘Wasting My Young Years’:
3) This is a gorgeous animation about a sad-eyed robot escaping a factory. It is called Obsolete:
4) If you have ever been a little boy, this video will make you regress hugely. This is basically what you wanted car chases with your toys to be like, and they NEVER WEAR and so childhood was always fundamentally disappointing. No matter – this is awesome, you should watch it:
5) I don’t know who’s responsible for this or what it’s about other than that it features a lot of melted icecream and that it unsettled me to an extent that I now want to inflict that on you too:
6) Hiphop slot this week is here more to illustrate quality than because I think the song is anything special. The track’s by a guy called Lyrican, and it’s a bit generic-UK-scene overall, but the guest verses from Web Curios favourite Harry Shotta really are impressive:
7) I haven’t featured anything by High 5 Collective for a while now, but they are still churning out brilliant, filmic videos for other artists’ songs. Am slightly amazed that they’ve not been picked up to make something a bit bigger. In any case, this is their short film (music video seems a bit reductive) for Tokimonsta’s song ‘Go With It’:
8) Ai Wei Wei is, it would appear, not only a legendary visual artist and political campaigner but also a musician. This is the obviously hugely allegorical and political video for his new song ‘Dumbass’ – I’m not sure I quite ‘get’ Chinese rock music, but I applaud the man’s creativity:
9) Finally, we have out-and-proud gay rapper Nicky da B, with his video for the song ‘Go Loko’. It’s…well…it’s certainly memorable, and I don’t think I’m likely to have cause to write the phrase ‘bum kaleidoscope’ again any time soon. WATCH:
That’s it for now
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