Innovative Arcade Fire

Arcade Fire have been consistently innovative in the way they have approached marketing. They had a Terry Gilliam directed live show, succesfully promoted the 'Suburbs' on Twitter and for their previous album had this great website. Their latest offering, as if you and everyone else in the world hadn't already seen it, is a personalised online video. It is not only great to see a band trying something new, but it is also a fantastic piece of advertising for Chrome, which I have resisted downloading for months... until now.

Go to the site for the full experience.

The Unplug Challenge

This interactive piece from the New York Times tells the stories of readers who volunteered to unplug themselves from technology. Along with the continuing debate over whether connection makes us stupid, and the questioning of Facebook's future, this is a hot topic at the moment. For more links check our last article on the subject.

What the F**K is Social Media Now?

There are no shortage of videos, presentations and the latest bandwagon, "infographics", showing how massive the internet is. The "What the..." series was one of the first though, and is still the best. Here is the latest installment, including such unbelievable numbers as:
- 500bn minutres spent on Facebook per month (150bn last year)
- 24 hours of video uploaded per minute to youtube (double last year)
- 1/3 women aged 18-34 check Facebook immediately upon waking up

View more presentations from Marta Kagan.

Microsoft all the way

Its been a while since our last post but holidays are over and we are back to it. First off we have been noticing a lot of niche web cultures leaking into the mainstream. Alongside a slew of recent articles digging into the online message board 4chan, we noticed this recent video from Microsoft, featuring Yosemitebear of Double-Rainbow fame. Although there's a risk that a big brand involving itself will be viewed with cynicism, so far the response seems to have been good. Microsoft have certainly come a long way since their last unintentional viral hit.

Constant Creation- Friday Memes

Two internet memes have spring up this week, and they are both great examples of how rapidly the internet will jump onto an idea and start changing it and remixing it. First there was this brilliant news clip, which has not only been given the obligatory autotune treatment but has also been played by an orchester, all within 2 weeks.

Second is the slew of Youtube, Twitter, Ebay movies parodying the forthcoming "The Social Network". Remixes happen for any movie, but the combination of it being both a movie and about an online site seems to have captured the online communities imagination. It is a timely reminder of the speed and creativity of the online community.
Enjoy the videos- good Friday afternoon viewing.

The Original


Youtube came next


Twitter


And my favourite- Ebay


And if I have piqued your interest in memes then have a look at Know Your Meme, and go to the excellent Kitten Camp.

Converse Paper Head

This idea from Converse allows you to create a paper head of yourself. Why? Who the hell cares. I was hoping it would as good as this though, which it seems to be a copy of. It is part of their summer campaign which also included this video.

Best of the week

Here is some of the coolest stuff we have seen this week.

Yogi Bear - A lesson in the need for pretesting?
New Yorker Mashups- A lesson that anything can be mashed up. NewYorker cartoons with Kanye west Tweets. (we still like this too)
Chalkbot 2?- Cycling across America to "beat the biggest douche of all, Cancer"
Parkour plus Ladders- Need I say more?
Old Spice- Not as new as it looks- A history of old spice advertising
Remember Me- Using RFID chips to tell the story of charity products
Ritalin- Music video + Fire + slo mo = awesome
Weeplaces - Map your Foursquare check-ins

Movies go social

Twitter was once a mystery to almost everyone, and contained little but inane updates and "overshare". However it is now used for any number of things, though most seem to revolve around Justin Bieber. One unpredictable use has been reviews. #MusicMonday, #Followfriday and also movies. And it is for that reason that Fflick is such a great idea. It scans tweets from all your Twitter friends and finds any mentions of films. You can then browse through by movie (Inception). It works because it is grabbing reviews which people were already writing, and organising them in a more logical way. This seems to make a lot more sense than taking people away from their social network to write reviews on a different platform.

The after-hours Athlete

Love this new work from Droga5 for Puma. The creative is pretty good, and the strategy is spot on too. The reframing of "athletes" as everyday people who train at night, eat kebabs but are just as passionate as traditional sportsmen is great. Sports brands have appealed to amateurs before of course, but there is something nice about the articulation, and the move away from traditional sports. Watch the video.

Real Life Gaming

RACER DEMO 0.1 - video game mashup from sputnic
The real world is a great place to play, and this home-made and distinctly lo-fi creation from Malte Jehmlich is a great example. He has taken a webcam, cardboard and an RC car and created something awesome. Here are a few more real life games we like- feel free to add your own in the comments.

Virtusphere - Huge hamster balls let you run around as you play virtual reality games
Roombas - Real Life Pac Man
Conspiracy for Good - Espionage, chase and surveillance in East London
Human Avatar - Transforming an unlucky man into a tattooed Avatar