RSS
 

Archive for January, 2006

Greenpeace vs. Japan

20 Jan 2006

A stranded whale has been lifted on a truck and was transported to Berlin, Germany. Greenpeace dumped the gigantic mammal right in front of the embassy of Japan to protest against Japan’s policy on whalehunting, claiming the hunt for whales isn’t necessary to do scientific research. Very often you can find stranded (dead) whales on beaches all over the world. Japan however, claims it is in the interest of science that they allow for whales to be hunted. The meat is mostly sold to restaurants for about €300/kg ($362/kilo). Filed under ‘pathetic excuses to go hunting’.

Whales For Japan

More information : Greenpeace (Germany)

 
No Comments

Posted in Campaigns, Ethics

 

Okay, Let’s Bring It On

19 Jan 2006

I’ve merged the entire archive of 2005 to the new blog. I didn’t tweak the dates, so it might seem a little odd to browse the articles now, because they all seem to be posted on just three days. If you want to go back in time and see the originals, I’ll add a link to the 2005 archive in the sidebar on the right later this week.

Too bad I couldn’t take the comments and trackbacks on Haloscan with me to this new blog. I’m not going to post them myself, but since the archive stays accessible, you might come across some overthere. Thanks to all who’ve commented and contributed, I hope you’ll keep it up. Now I can finally trackback automatically myself, something Nathan, Randy & Philipp must have experienced a lot these last few days. Heheh. Sorry about the overload guys, but it’s for a good cause.

Finally it’s all done. It seemed to take ages. For the next few days, I’ll tweak the design some more and maybe post a few articles. Starting Sunday, I’ll be on track again and I’ll be posting like crazy :)

Thanks for visiting. The new RSS Feed is located at http://www.coolmarketingthoughts.com/rss. I’ll add the subscription links for different aggregators later this week but with this URL you should be able to tune in already.

Tomorrow is my second to last exam. Spanish. On Monday is the same Spanish exam, but spoken instead of written. Let’s hope I can do it right, because it’s been a while and it’d be a pity if I had to redo it in August because looking back, apparently things didn’t go that bad at all. I think I’m still in the running for a flawless session. Isn’t that just great?

My new job starts somewhere between January 26th and February 1st. I’ll be working over at i-Merge in Leuven, some 40 minutes by train from my house. That’s still doable. I think I’ll like it there. I hope I can contribute enough to the projects they put me on, but you’ll read that while I’m at it. First Español. Olé!

 
2 Comments

Posted in General

 

Robert Scoble On Linkage And Credits – Blogiarism Series

14 Jan 2006

Together with Jason Schramm from Shiwej, I’ve decided to start a guestblogging series which will run on both our blogs at about the same time.
Today (January 14th, 2006) is the tenth and last interview in this series, and to end in style we feature the famous Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s Tech Evangelist and Geek Blogger.

1. How did you get into blogging?

I was helping plan the 2000 CNET Builder.com Live! Conference and two of the speakers told me that we should think about blogging. They were Dave Winer, http://www.scripting.com, and Dori Smith, http://www.backupbrain.com. They didn’t convince me it was important enough for the conference to worry about (I could only find a couple hundred blogs back then) but they convinced me to write about my experiences behind the scenes.

2. What is your blog’s name, what is it about?

http://scobleizer.wordpress.com is just ‘the Scobleizer’ to most. Microsoft’s Geek Blogger to others. Anyway, it’s about the tech industry and what I am excited about. Often Tablet PCs, SmartPhones, Xbox 360s, and such.

3. Are there any policies you follow when reporting on an issue?

Be smart. I try to have my facts right, and if it’s something that could be explosive I get input from the people directly involved. Often, though, I’ll post something even before that just to show that I’ve seen the issue and I’m paying attention to it. I wrote a whole book, Naked Conversations, http://www.nakedconversations.com, along with Shel Israel, who was a PR guy in Silicon Valley, though, and it talks at length about policies and best practices.

4. What guidelines do you follow when linking to an outside source?

Link early and often. I link to everyone whether they are on our side or not.

5. Do you think you are trustworthy? Why do your readers trust you?

I try to be. Why do they trust me? I am not so arrogant as to believe that they do. A good reader will always get a few opinions on something and check it out for him or herself. That said, I’ve gotten a bit of readership because I’m not afraid to attack my own company when wrong, and praise a competitor when they do something great.

6. Do you think bloggers should be treated as journalists and be privy to the rights and protections that journalists enjoy?

That’s an interesting question. Should bloggers all get back stage passes to concerts? Some bloggers probably deserve that because they’ve gotten a large audience that cares about the band. But other bloggers shouldn’t. I hate entitlements. Just because you blog doesn’t mean you’re a full-fledged journalist who should get free passes to conferences. That said, I believe legal protections given to journalists should be given to bloggers. And, so should the legal consequences if a blogger slanders or libels someone.

Hope that helps!

linkingstartshere

Initiated together with Jason Schramm, this guest blogging series will continue to make people aware of the power of linking and the need to give credit to the people who earn it.
Together, we’re improving the Blogosphere, you can help too if you start linking here !
And be sure to check out Jason’s post here.

Note :

Jason and I are not related but have a common field. Jason writes for the BlogNewsChannel, and takes care of Apple Watch, very surprisingly the Apple section of Nathan’s network.
I sometimes write on Inside Google & Inside Microsoft.

 
No Comments

Posted in Blogiarism, Ethics, Interviews, Thoughts

 

HoutLog : About Non-Profit Communication & Design

14 Jan 2006

HoutLog is a Dutch blog about non-profit communication and design. It covers marketing campaigns from all over the world, often created by very known agencies. HoutLog is definitely worth checking out !

Recently posted :

The first picture is from Childhope Asia Philippines, a campaign that was created by BBDO Guerrero Ortega. The next image is more recent, but clearly based on BBDO’s campaign, and is for the Samu Social de Paris, created by TWBA Paris. Both guerrilla campaings are run in the streets, both are aiming to get people’s attention by doing something remarkable. Indeed, to bust into people’s lives, the only thing left to do is take your campaign to places where they can’t block out the message.

BBDO did something else, based on their campaign. For xmas, they made some interactive e-cards and sent them out. Check out ‘the fireplace‘, ‘gifts‘, ‘santa’s sleigh‘ and ‘the tree‘. Absolutely stunning. BBDO truly is the home of creative masterminds.

Message for the cards : "Over 200.000 children are spending Christmas on the streets. So instead of a gift, we’ve made a donation in your name to Childhope Asia."

Check out [HoutLog] and see more of this ! Bookmark it !

 
No Comments

Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Marketing

 

Kanaal II Viral With Sad Karel

14 Jan 2006

Kanaal II (Eng:Channel two), a Flemish tv station came up with a pretty nice viral campaign to promote its Nights of Entertainment. On the website ‘ditiskarel‘ they focus on the life of Karel, a numb nine to fiver who has no friends, no pets and no life. His favorite color is grey and he’s depressed. He was born in 1972 and according to his factsheet, the only thing he never wants to have to go through again is his last 33 years. Heheh. Karel is looking sad, all the time.

Karel

Karel is looking for tips from visitors of his website. Tips that help him through his boring days and make life more bearable. Yesterday, Friday the 13th, there was a competition where people could send in stories of bad luck that could outbeat his. The winner will be awarded with a special ‘Kanaal II’ kit, probably some movies and gadgets.

On the right hand side in the website, there’s a giant remote pictured, when clicked it takes you to the ‘Kanaal II’ homepage. The ‘bigger picture’ behind this campaign is clearly that if you ‘Need Entertainment’ (slogan Kanaal II) you’ll have to tune in to the tv station to spice up your evening/life.

Check out the hilarious video clip on the website. The catchline : Why the long face?

 
No Comments

Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Interactive, Marketing

 

Search For Things, Buy Them & Map Them

13 Jan 2006

Exciting services seem to boom lately, because here are a few I came across which you should definitely try out. Never knew ’search’ could be so captive.

tailrank

TailRank finds the best content from thousands of blogs so you don’t have to! Unlike other global systems they provide custom ranking specific to the user. They’re able to do this by monitoring the feeds in which you’re interested. TailRank takes into consideration linking behavior, the text off the post, links in common with other users, search relevance, and various other factors for recommendations. TailRank also finds pages from regular websites. Visit TailRank – Movile Version – API – Wiki. – via [Scoble]

iSpecies

iSpecies uses web services to talk to source databases, extract data, and assemble a page for each species. The code makes extensive use of XML. Essentially, each web service returns XML in one form or another, and I use and XSL style sheets to transform the result into HTML. iSpecies queries NCBI using the href="http://eutils.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query/static/eutils_help.html" target="_blank">Entrez Programming Utilities. It uses ESearch to look up a taxon name then, if the name is found, uses ESummary to get basic statistics on what NCBI holds for that taxon. iSpecies then looks up to 5 images on Yahoo, related to your query term. iSpecies then uses a Perl script that screen scrapes Google Scholar, extracts references and identifiers (such as DOIs and PubMed identifiers), then returns the results in RDF.

Check out iSpecies – via [ResearchBuzz]

Blish

Blish is the easiest place to buy or sell digital content. As a buyer, you can purchase ebooks, photos, how-to guides, clipart, music, sound loops, video, design templates, any type of digital content. As a seller, you can post digital content that you own and make money.
At this time, selling on Blish.com is by invitation only. Each item is limited to a 300 MB file size. A list of things you won’t find at Blish is here. Once you’ve paid for your purchase, go to your MyBlish. In your purchase area, there is a download button next to each of your items. Click on the download button to download each item. You may download as much as you want for 7 days. After that, your item will nolonger be downloadable.

Check out Blish – via [GoogleBlogoscoped]

Springdoo

Springdoo is a free service that lets you talk your emails. Anyone can now easily send talking emails in their own voice, without typing. You can Springdoo using your computer and a microphone, or any telephone. Springdoo is a free solution designed for everyone. You do not need any special software or services to record and / or play a Springdoo. Springdoo uses streaming file technology, so there are no file attachments to send in emails and / or download. Because Springdoo is an easy way to record, store and serve audio over the Internet, some people are even using Springdoo to record audio messages that are then placed on websites, chat rooms, dating sites and blogs for anyone to listen to.

Check out Springdoo – via [MarketPlaceMonitor]


WINDS relation browser

This radial geographic relation browser was designed to display complex concept network structures. The demo (static image above) was created in order to demonstrate the visualizations’s further
capabilities – by displaying the CIA world factbook information about countries, continents and oceans (based on the Mondial Database).

Check out the WINDS relation browser – via [GoogleBlogoscoped]

*** Very closely related to this last one is Outfoxed, which uses your network of trusted friends and experts to help you find the good stuff and avoid the bad. (And a lot more, too.)
Outfoxed is for Firefox users only !

The lastest version of Outfoxed features a dynamic flash visualization of your informer network. To get into Outfoxed : it’s best if you are invited by an existing user. If you really don’t know anyone who is already a user, use this link to get auto-invited by Stan.

Outfoxed is a tool to map your social network. You can find the open source info right here.

Have fun checking it out !

 
2 Comments

Posted in 2.0 +, Blogging, Geek, Search, Social Networks, Technology

 

Telenet Digital TV Viral With Frank Bomans

11 Jan 2006

To promote its Digital TV, cable operator Telenet has created a viral campaign that uses the Frank Bomans character from the Flemish soap hit ‘Thuis’ (Eng: ‘At Home’). The purpose of this campaign is to make users aware of the fact that digital tv allows them to program and customize their evening just the way they want it. Using one of Flander’s most iconic soap personalities, Telenet did quite well.

In this viral, Telenet allows you to create a clip where you can choose from a list of over 200 frequently used Flemish first names. If your name isn’t in the list, you can opt for alternatives like ‘buddy, honey, dude ,missy, granny, … (but then in Flemish where they are called : suske, bazeke, bolleke, gast, joenge, makker, maske, moederke and so on). This name or nickname is then humoristically embedded in a scene played on a set from the soap series, where Frank speaks to you personally saying he’s been waiting for you so he could go for a drink, take care of his wife and do other stuff. When you think it’s over, he comes back to wish you a good year. I totally missed this. Apparently it must be around for a while already, but only today I notuced the banner when I logged in on my Telenet account. Rated ‘F’ for funny.

 
No Comments

Posted in Advertising, Campaigns, Interactive, Marketing

 

EgoSurf, A Blogger’s Relief

10 Jan 2006

EgoSurf checks your (and other’s) popularity by seeing how many matches there are when they run a deep search through Google, Yahoo, MSN, del.icio.us and Technorati. You’ll have to click ‘more options’ before you can search all of them, because initially it only checks Google. Then you get ‘ego points’ for matches and you’re offered to subscribe to an RSS feed of the search, so if you should get popular all at once, you’ll be the first the know.

“EgoSurf helps massage the web publishers ego, and thereby maintain the cool equilibrium of the net itself.
EgoSurf may cause happiness."

Good thing is, you can actually use it for brand rating too, although it’s not really scientifically backed up, if you enter a brand’s name and the website url. Very nifty !
Here’s what I came up with for Miel Van Opstal, Coolz0r with this blog’s URL :

EgoSurf1
EgoSurf2

If you want to see this baby work on full throttle, check this link : I search for Coolz0r on all options, and check for links in google.blognewschannel.com, microsoft.blognewschannel.com, blog.coolz0r.com and movil.be/blog. The meter runs red.
Although I must say I don’t even come close to the biggest egos in the top 50 list.

Type in any name and blog URL and have a go. It saves you the time of checking it all one by one and it’s pretty funny. If you’re a bit confused, you can always read the FAQ.

via [MicroPersuasion]

 
No Comments

Posted in Blogging, Blogs, Geek, Search, Tools

 
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »