I do this more often than I recognise. I used to find it very rewarding working with and teaching people who knew much less then me, and it made me think about what it was I was actually teaching them.

Working with the interweb is … just easy for me now. Mac, PC, Linux, HTML/CSS bugs, open source, doc types, user agents, bit-rates, it all makes sense to me.

So when I found these video posted by Google (via penn-olson), I was reminded that the world is full of people who know much less than I assume.

It is no surprise that Google are the people behind this PR / awareness stunt, they are battling to get into the Browser market, and, more importantly, they are aiming to deliver A LOT of media and services through the browser moving forward, to the point of which, the Chrome OS will feel a lot more like a browser than a traditional OS like Windows.

Here’s the spiffy little ‘info-mercial’ they knocked-up to help all those people unable to distinguish a website from a piece of software. (Do they really think any of them will find it ??)

So anyway….  nice of them to help everybody out…  – but, i doubt we will all be so keen to lose our desktops as Google hope…

In the meantime, be sure and choose the right browser for your needs…

*cough* Firefox FTW !

Everyone will have their own take on this, but I see, Tv, internet and mobile as the three core platforms.
And in the last few years, we’ve seen the rise social media.

Social Media

I guess you could say that gaming presents a significant platform (XBox, Playstation Wii), but I wont, not today.

Its been happening for a while, Sky Tv will provide your internet, Orange will also give you a web connection, at home and mobile. Things have been converging for a while. Now it’s happening in the experience too – TV, web and mobile all share the same content, you decide what to consume and how.

Now, one of my current projects actively address’s the old ‘core’ three, mobile, tv and web, but im having issues convincing them that we need to place as much, if not more, focus on social media.

I wasnt sure myself, but ive found a couple of resources that have helped build a picture for me;

Socialnomics. This book was sent to me by one of my followers on twitter, there is a story and an idea, but thats another post. The book lays-bare the facts that we need to know to understand the power of social media. After-all if they can make someone President of the United States, it might have some power.

Next, I found this site. The slide and video below are from that site. They allude to this – we can measure the impact of social media, and therefore it is valid as a channel/platform.
(The slides are in-depth and not necessarily good for everyone, but they are correct. )

Social Media ROI by @brandbuilder from Kipp Bodnar on Vimeo.

Whats happening is new. Brands are communicating with customers in an entirely new way. And that’s all that matters.

The communication drives the change or solution that you need, be it greater revenues, smaller costs, better CRM or launching a new business.

The way you interact with customers through social media provides them with a personal service unlike anything they have had before.

And, importantly, the best thing about social media is – it finds the user/customer.

That’s why its as much of a channel as the long established TV, or the emerging mobile world. And to those who say social media and the internet are the same, let me make that assumption. They will be left behind.

Social media find its own users, by referral, by commenting, by subscribing, by becoming a fan, and much more. But you still have to get into the game, its not the same as having a website, or even a blog.

Video via the Socialnomics website.

Understand the power of social media before you write it off. It’s responsible the for USA having the first non-caucasian president. ever.

This is nothing odd, as ive watched most of the ASP events this year in the exact same way.

But in the corner of my eye for the last 5 days has been the little Hurley/Facebook logo from the corner, announcing that the expression session is going to be live on Facebook.

Curiosity got the better of me and I had to go check it out.

Hurley Logo

It turns out Hurley are pretty on-it in terms of Social Media and Networking…. and the Facebook site is just beginning.

http://www.facebook.com/Hurley

http://www.twitter.com/hurleylive

http://apps.facebook.com/hurleypro/?_fb_fromhash=4f8acfc4f79855cede6e234f91dca3f4

Between the event site, the fan pages, the live event on Facebook, and live updates via Twitter, there is plenty of info out there.

And the most interesting part is how Facebook has become a broadcast and event partner, standing side-by-side with Hurley to present the event. Considering the event winner’s purse was set at $105,000 – ensuring it set a new record – thats quite a big event to be hanging-out with, especially at home in Southern California.

Facebook is really storming-ahead, the lite.facebook site, the @replies functionality, its not Twitter that should be worried – its the market-place as we know it.

They are breaking new ground. We’ll watch as they advance..

Side-note;

If your really keen to get a varied social-media account of the Trestles event, you should check-out the Hobgoods – these guys have also got a good grasp on the Social Media world.

http://www.blog.thegoodss.com/hobgoods-227/

http://twitter.com/hobgoods

http://vimeo.com/user723842

and.. the ASP has a Youtube channel you can get the videos from…  here’s the Expression Session highlights.

A mere two years later, and I can barely go online without video being an intrinsic part of the daily web experience.

Despite the web being flooded with video content these days, its still easy carve it all up into different kinds. I’ll give that a go below.

First of all, there’s the copyrighted stuff that has been ported to the web -Hulu (which we cant get in the UK, but is like the iPlayer for the US networks), BBC iPlayer and 4OD.

Then you can get live TV and freeview channels on Zattoo.

After the copyrighted stuff we move into a whole new realm, and this is where it gets fun. These are all the sites that allow the syndication and placing of content, a selection of example can be seen below. They come in different shapes and sizes, and mean different things to different people.

Joost

Joost pushes all sorts of content through its site – mostly i dont get a lot out of the selection, but there is some licensed stuff.

Current

Current is a real digital TV channel, and its web content is blended between the TV stuff and the web-only bits. Its mostly news, movies, music and culture, but there is a good selection, including the Viewer Created stuff.

Youtube

What can we say – the original ‘broadcast yourself channel’ the good the bad and the ugly.

Vimeo

Vimeo is the Youtube for designers and creatives… slightly less popular, but nicely done and with good content generally.

Retrocycling Robot from Challenge Your World on Vimeo.

TED

The variety of informative content here is unsurpassed. All videos are talks given to live audiences and relayed to the web. Science, technology, art, culture and more. Superb stuff.

The Onion

Nobody beats The Onion. I think they invented satire. Even before the web-video period these guys rocked. Now its all in moving images.

Advocacy Group Decries PETA’s Inhumane Treatment Of Women

http://www.purepwnage.com

Projects like Pure Pwnage are sprouting up everywhere. The web-based sit-com/reality/weirdness is now being pushed to network TV. Can you say chicken and egg ?

Google video

The home of serious chunks of info. A huge selection and typical Google freedom. I love it solely as it hosts Zeitgeist.

Now, along with all these sites are the application based platforms. Enter Boxee, AppleTv etc… These apps do a selection of extra functions that appeal to users – connect to Online sites such as Youtube, Flickr NetFlix, Pandora, even the Apple movie trailer collection. They also allow you to browse your local machine and load content that you have lying around, and you can do all of this from your armchair, using a remote control.

These are just a selection of the video/content sites that offer a landscape of content, if you look hard there are hundreds more in the vein of comedy, movies, gaming, technology etc…  and we didnt even talk about Vodcasting…  and did i mention live event streams like the ASP World tour events ?.

In a nutshell, along with torrent’s, this is why I dont watch TV anymore. You can pick and choose whatever you want to view, and for the most part totally avoid advertising.

I never really fitted the artist mold, but I loved the various methods and technologies I encountered whilst learning about media and the creation of various forms of art.

That is why I took to the web so quickly and easily. It was instantly rewarding, accessible and relatively cost-free (more-so now).

For many long years a war has been waged against the common internet user. But you might not know anything about it. Let me help.

Be a Pirate !!!

The internet used to be a place of freedom, expression and ideas – all being exchanged and improved-upon. This was the ideas behind the original Hyper Text Mark-up Language as invented by Tim Berners-Lee – a web where users could add, edit and remove the content of any document they were browsing.

The internet Mr Berners-Lee conceived and built was based upon the first international network of computers (inter-net) called the Arpanet, where information was king – the very idea being that you could readily exchange, copy and swap information freely and easily, anywhere on the network.

As things have progressed, things have obviously changed, a world wide web where everyone has the power to edit is problematic when your not solely involved in a research project with other scientists, thus the web as we know it today with sites and pages we ‘view’ exists. And this is what many know to the be whole truth.

Rarely do we question the authorities that regulate and organise the systems and structures within which with exist. And therein lies the problem.

Simply because something is put on the internet does not make it a crime – we all free to share and distribute any and all information we deem fit. But there are people working for lobby organisations and legal departments that are drawing rings around what is and is not legal in the online world. And this has never happened before, so how do we know what is right and wrong ?

Steal this film

‘Steal this film‘ is an important piece of public-domain media that aims to demystify the culture of Peer-to-peer file sharing and to a lesser extent tells the story fo the famous torrent search engine The Pirate Bay.

Get the Part 1 torrent file

Get the Part 2 torrent file

The Green Party have also joined the foray of debate by putting this site together to let their policies be known – http://iwouldntsteal.net/

as well as this short video;

There is also a superb documentary piece called Good Copy Bad Copy – that is worth watching.

It is fairly large and long, but highly worth while. See the full-size version on the website here – http://www.goodcopybadcopy.net/.

Ben Southall wins

Being appointed to holder of the ‘Best Job in the World’ has drawn a fair bit of attention. And rightly so.

Yesterday, his Afritrex site recived 16,000 pageviews…  the day before it was in single figures.

A Twitter search on his name reveals a torrent of tweets..

http://twitter.com/#search?q=ben%20southall

A Google search on his name reveals almost every news agency running a story and his name.

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=ben+southall&btnG=Google+Search&meta=&aq=f&oq= (Good to see Afritrex.com at #2)

The news sites include;

New York Daily News

The Times

The Telegraph

The Daily Mail

U.tv

news.com.au

CNN

Professional Fundraising

TVNZ

Canada.com

Tradingmarkets.com

PR-inside.com

Yahoo

The Huffington Post

and many many more…. infact there are now 174,000 results on Google for “Ben Southal”…

I hope the servers hold-up…. 

Well, ive been very busy, as you can imagine. Lost of things to tell you about, but lets start with something fun.

My Day -

My Day 28 October 2008 from swinhoe on Vimeo.

This was a short one-day project shot and edited in 24 hours.

So, apart from that, im currently very busy down at BDP Media, and have been for some time.

Im also still working closely with Leon/C6/Dotmasters crew on the work and site/pubishing of the art theyre producing.

Keeping a hand in with Mad Dog as we love them so much, and they have a new book out, Whistler – its number ten !.

Also, been running around a fair bit, Amsterdam, Prague, Beadnell, Exeter… all good. Even a day out with Steve in London.

My last post being May, its only fair to tell you about the summer – Dads 60th went-off well, and a spent most of July catching decent size wave on the north-east coast. Nothing stupid, but we had it head-high for a week or so…  following that it was back to the grind in the smoke.

Ok, more from me later, i really am going to try and keep this more up-to-date.. should be easier once i pick-up my new toy later today..

Oh yeah, and this happened….

The world became a slightly better place with the election of Barack Obama..

Well, he’s damn funny.  And hes recently caught the attention of the web via his comedy shorts featureing Pearl, his collaborator, Adam McKay’s 2 year old daughter.

3 million views in a week tells us so.

Go check his shorts here at Funny or die, McKays site to showcase his comedy shorts.

The Landlord

Good cop, Baby cop

rockin…

I usually manage to get down to the Boardmasters event, and last year we were covering the event with Thinkology/Culture as certified press. But obviously being nailed to a desk in London does’nt make that easy.

Happily the WQS events in the Basque end of France start on monday.. im going to be there. Watch out for the snaps over at WPSurf.

More later.

bp