A deep dive into digital marketing

Shake it up baby

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Flash

A good friend of mine just sent this advert for Wii that’s running on YouTube. Check it out. And more here on Adrants blog.

First blush, wow how the heck did they do this. Second look, ahh it’s one big flash file.

Next thought, very cool they made it look like a YouTube page, I wonder if it all works. Drat it doesn’t. So points for keeping the traditional functionality look but a ding for not actually making it work.

Still kudos for the work and to Google/YouTube for letting them do it.

I’m shocked (by my iphone power adaptor)

Posted by Chris under Apple, Technology, iPhone, online retail

Apple has just issues a safety recall for the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter. According to the site they have “determined that under certain conditions the new ultracompact Apple USB power adapter’s metal prongs can break off and remain in a power outlet, creating a risk of electric shock.  We have received reports of detached blades involving a very small percentage of the adapters sold, but no injuries have been reported.”

The ultracompact USB power adapters were supplied with every iPhone 3G sold in the following countries, and may also have been purchased separately as an accessory:

Meanwhile they say only use the USB charger on your computer.

However help is on the way.

The Exchange Process

Replacement adapters will be available starting Friday, October 10, 2008.

There are two ways to exchange your current ultracompact Apple USB power adapter for a new, redesigned adapter.

• Order a replacement adapter via the web. These replacement adapters will ship within three weeks of your order, starting on Friday, October 10.
• Exchange your adapter at an Apple Retail Store starting on October 10.

ctrl-alt-delete on parallels

Posted by Chris under Apple, Parallels

Just launched parallels and got the screen wanting me to enter ctrl-alt-delete, how’s that I’m on a mac. Well a quick Google shows that to type Control-Alt-Delete on a Macbook Pro to login to Windows within Parallels, just hold down the Control and Option keys, then hold down the fn key, and press the Delete key.

And wahla I’m in! A further note that fn-Delete sends a forward delete (removes characters to the right of the cursor), as opposed to the delete key, which actually sends a backward delete (removes characters to the left of the cursor).

Thanks MacOSX Hints!

Dog Pile – yes another post on the new Twitter update

Posted by Chris under Browsers, Community, Social Networking, Technology, Twitter

Yesterday Twitter made an update to their web interface. Can I say thanks Ajax!

Biggies are moved the tabs to the right, updates refreshed via Ajax (yep much faster loading) and a slightly tweaked UI.

The UI has been cleaned up a bit and made the star and reply swoosh beside every update into hover state items.

Find out more, check out your own twitter page or read their blog here.

I like it but I’ll still be using the web app’s for the most part as I wrote about here.

Digital Ethnography – a reminder

Posted by Chris under CNMS08, Community, Research, Social Networking, trends

I’m pretty sure you’ve seen these video already, which are from, Dr. Michael Wesch, Assistant Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Digital Ethnography at Kansas State University.

The below video was played at CNMS08 as part of a presentation from Constance M. Yowell, of the
John D. & Katherine T. MacArthur Foundation, which reminded me, maybe some people haven’t seen it.

The video  summarizes in a great video form what students face, do, act, etc.

You can follow his blog here and YouTube channel here. He’s got a lot of great content on both but check out his YouTube channel for some of the student videos as well, good insight on today’s Millenials

Little Britain (USA?)

Posted by Chris under Uncategorized

Friends know that I’ve been a big fan of Little Britian since I first saw it in the UK, then BBC America and finally got the full season on DVD. Now Matt and David are bringing it to the USA via HBO. hmm ok so I was a nay sayer about the Office (US version) which has turned out pretty well.

The guys do a fantatic job of a parody and skewer of British culture and life, can they bring this to the US? Well some of the characters have traveled over which is fantastic, but I’m not sure how Vicky Pollard will play, maybe she’ll swap her Kappa tracksuit for a Puma one.

So set the Tivo or DVR for Sept. 28th on HBO 9:30 Central. 10:30 Eastern. There’s a groundswell already in the USA but we’ll see if we, across the pond, can take their scathing humor. Which at least for the British Little Britain have been laugh out loud funny.

Good luck Matt and David!

CNMS08

Posted by Chris under Advertising, CNMS08, Chicago, Community, Conference

Tomorrow is the first day of CNMS08 and there’s going to be a lot to take in as the schedule is jam packed. There’s lot’s of great local talent presenting Monday and Tuesday and if you can’t make the full conference you might want to check out the CNMS08 social event tomorrow night from 6-10pm.

I’ll be tweeting the sessions, for as long as the battery lasts, or hopefully I can grab a seat near an outlet. And you can catch it here.

Here’s a link to the PDF of the summit schedule or the PDF itself cnms08_planner_v6

Twitter – via applicaitions

Posted by Chris under Adobe, Air, Technology, Twitter, Uncategorized

In the beginning there was a web browser and Twitter.com But very very quickly as Twitter picked up steam and users there were many other tools for Twitter. These include applications to post to twitter, to read your tweets or even search across twitter.

And my no means is this list fully comprehensive, it’s growing by the week but it’ll give you a start whether you’re an old hand at twitter or a newbie. I personally don’t use twitter.com (the website interface) that much, preferring instead to use a couple of app’s, depending on what platform I’m on. That said I do use the site to follow others, grab individual tweets (e.g.for blog posts) or to update my photo or design.

Applications:
More then comprehensive lists can be found here, here, and here

But to make it easy here are the Applications that I really like. First for computer platform. Now keep in mind I’m on Mac and while I also live in Parallels I’m predominantly working on the Mac, so this is Mac centric (so there).

Twhirl – This was my first go to when I moved away from just using the browser. Built on Adobe Air and now in version 0.8.4, Twhirl is cross platform running on Windows (2000/XP/Vista) and Mac OSX. Twhirl also connects to multiple Twitter, identi.ca, Friendfeed and seesmic accounts, so it’s a bit of all you can eat, which is great.

Two other handy features are the ability to post images to TwitPic, although I tend to do this more on my phone then from my computer, but I do use the built in ability to shorten long URLs (using snurl, twurl or is.gd)
Oh and Twhirl is free

Twitteriffic – I think this is a bit Tomato/Tomato (hear the long “a”) between Twhirl and Twitteriffic but I have friends who swear by it. It also supports multiple Twitter accounts and all of the other things that I mentioned about Twhirl . I think personally it just comes down to which UI you like best.

I should note that I used the paid iPhone version of Twitterifficand love it
Twitteriffic is free with ads or $14.95 for the ad free version.

TweetDeck – My newest Twitter App and the one I’m using the most is TweetDeck which is also built on Adobe Air. I feel like this app is for the graduated, perhaps I dare say sophisticated user of Twitter.

The key thing about TweetDeck is that it “enables users to split their main feed (All Tweets) into topic or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets.” Meaning I have multiple columns (think feeds) based on the kind of tweets, starting with an All Tweets, @ replies and then d (direct) replies.

Next up is a column of key people I follow who’s tweets appear in there, making it easy to see what @russu, @armano, @simplybrad or the various Mad Men characters are up to.

So for now TweetDeck is getting the lions share of my Twittering (at least on the computer).

Hope this helps your tweet stream!

Gates, better than Seinfeld?

Posted by Chris under Advertising, Microsoft, Technology

Just a quick note and then you’ll have to click through to Venture Beat, for their take, on the latest and uncut or long form version of the second spot.

More thoughts on it later but hmm, to quote the old Wendy’s stuff, where’s the beef.

But hey, for the (third) richest man on the planet he can sure carry his acting weight along with Seinfeld. And you can’t buy that with microsoft stock!

or stick around and watch it here.

help I’ve lost my window

Posted by Chris under Adobe, Technology, Twitter

Recently my Twitter client Twhirl, has developed the annoying habit of not being multi-monitor friendly. By this I mean if I have Twhirl running as I switch screen resolution/size and monitor configuration it can go from not appearing at all.

As in the application is running but the app window is no where to be found. What’s a person to do.

Well over at simplehelp.net they explain how easy this is to fix.

The crux of it is:

Right-click (ctrl-click for single mouse-button folks) – or click and hold down the button for a few seconds, the twhirl icon in your Dock. When the menu appears, select Resize windows.

For more detail check out simplehelp.net and thanks guys, my Twhirl is back!