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Digital Culture Links: August 2nd 2010
Links for July 29th 2010 through August 2nd 2010:
- The Way We Live Now – I Tweet, Therefore I Am [NYTimes.com] – Peggy Orensein muses, in a charmingly disarming way, about the threshold between describing ourselves and purposefully constructing and performing ourselves, when using social media. There’s nothing really new in this short column, but, despite evoking Goffman and citing Turkle, the question is asked in a way which most people will probably relate to.
- Link by Link – WikiLeaks Turns to the News Media to Package the Information [NYTimes.com] – Wikileaks works more closely with traditional news media to make the leaks count: “The four stages of a political movement, as Gandhi told it, were: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” For the whistle-blower Web site WikiLeaks, the release last week of secret field reports on the war in Afghanistan that it obtained from American military sources certainly looked like a victory. Not only did The New York Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel devote hundreds of hours of reporters’ and editors’ time to analyzing and confirming the information in the documents, the three agreed to coordinate publication for last Monday, ensuring there would be blanket news media coverage on at least two continents.”
- A 21st Century Sherlock [Antenna] – Sean Duncan’s reading of the new BBC Sherlock series (which, from the first episode, at least, looks magnificent): “The Holmes and Watson of the 21st century both engage with modern technology, but unlike Rathbone/Bruce also have their inner thought processes represented in manners that remediate popular media. To be a plausible 21st century Holmes, one must be shown as thinking like a 21st century person, within a network of mobile phones, Internet-enabled devices, and even video games.”
- MasterChef website racks up 48m page views [TV Tonight] – Biog ratings = TV + web: “MasterChef Australia wasn’t only a hit on air, but a hit online with bumper results for the show’s official website. Page views for the season reached 48 million, an increase of 32 per cent over last year’s numbers, reports The Australian. Video views rose by 44 per cent this year to 13.1 million, according to data from Omniture. There were 233,000 fans on Facebook.”
- YouTube banned by Russian court [guardian.co.uk] – “Russia’s blogosphere reacted with anger today after a regional court banned YouTube because it carried a single video containing “extremist” content. The court in Komsomolsk-on-Amur in Khabarovsk region in the Russian far east ordered Rosnet, a local internet provider, to block YouTube as well as three online libraries and a website that archives deleted web pages. The regional ban was made because YouTube hosted Russia For Russians, an ultra-nationalist video which was added to the justice ministry’s federal list of banned extremist materials after a separate court decision in Samara region in November. […] The YouTube ruling is likely to be an embarrassment for President Dmitry Medvedev, who recently launched his own channel on the video-sharing site. Other countries that have banned YouTube include China, Pakistan, Turky and Iran.”
Digital Culture Links: July 18th 2010
Links for July 15th 2010 through July 18th 2010:
- As Older Users Join Facebook, Network Grapples With Death [NYTimes.com] – How Facebook does (and doesn’t) deal with death: “For a site the size of Facebook, automation is “key to social media success,” said Josh Bernoff, […] “The way to make this work in cases where machines can’t make decisions is to tap into the members,” he said, pointing to Facebook’s buttons that allow users to flag material they find inappropriate. “One way to automate the ‘Is he dead’ problem is to have a place where people can report it.” That’s just what Facebook does. To memorialize a profile, a family member or friend must fill out a form on the site and provide proof of the death, like a link to an obituary or news article, which a staff member at Facebook will then review. But this option is not well publicized, so many profiles of dead members never are converted to tribute pages. Those people continue to appear on other members’ pages as friend suggestions, or in features like the “reconnect” box …”
- Facebook Breaks All Bit.ly Links, Marks Them as Abusive [Mashable] – For a period of time, all bit.ly links were blocked on Facebook; clicking on them returned a ‘reported as abusive’ page from Facebook. I’m sure this will be resolved relatively quickly, but it does underscore the danger of URL shorteners as platforms (not just Facebook) battle phishing and spam. Blocking a whole domain is overkill, of course, but it’s going to happen and it’s worth asking about the extra burden that one extra (shortened) step brings to the internet at large. (It’s fixed now.)
- New Spice | Study like a scholar, scholar [YouTube] – Definitely my favourite parody of the Old Spice guy so far: “Do you want to be a scholar? Then study at the Harold B. Lee Library. Do your research here, study here, and be a scholar!” I’m on a cart …
- Everything you need to know about the internet [Technology | The Observer] – Nine ‘big picture’ notions about what the internet is and isn’t from John Naughton (Professor of the public understanding of technology at the Open University). Useful as a primer for Web Communications 101.
- The Trouble at Twitter Inc. [Gawker] – Gawker’s rumour-ridden piece suggesting that Evan Williams may be losing the reigns as CEO of Twitter.
- World Vision I Old Spice [YouTube] – Tim Costello from World Vision makes his own Old Spice guy (parody) reply, pitching World Vision as the charity of the future. It’s actually quite funny.
- O’Farrell lays low after Twitter gaffe [ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)] – “New South Wales Opposition Leader Barry O’Farrell is laying low after posting an embarrassing message this morning on the social networking site Twitter. Believing he was sending a private message to journalist Latika Bourke’s Twitter account, Mr O’Farrell opened up on his thoughts about the delay on candidate selection. […] “Deeply off the record – I think the timetable and struggle to get candidates reflects internal poll – pre and post the ranga,” he tweeted, a reference to Prime Minister Julia Gillard.”
Old Spice 2.0 – Day 2
Continuing from yesterday’s post about the impressive Old Spice replies social media campaign, I just wanted to highlight two more examples since they replies have continued into day two of the campaign. The first, a reply to knitmeapony’s request of an answering machine message shows just how clever the script writers are on these clips: the Old Spice guy carefully delivers a clip with can so easily be remixed into any number of customised answering machine replies, with strategic pauses between audio bites of numbers and phrases, making this a really easy clip to remix! Like so:
Or the equivalent for a man’s man’s answering machine:
The other clip which I really liked was to Isaiah Mustafa’s daughter, Hayley, who wondered why the Old Spice man looks so much like her dad:
It’s worth noting that while this clip is public, it’s unlisted, so not visible on the main YouTube channel; initially, it was only found by those who saw the tweet. Having some clips only available via specific media platforms gives Old Spice reply fans even more reason to join all the Old Spice social media forms!
Meanwhile, Marshall Kirkpatrick over at Read Write Web has a look behind the curtain at How the Old Spice Videos Are Being Made; Kirkpatrick gets a certain amount of access to the production team, so it’s worth having a read. Also, Boing Boing note that there’s already been some ‘competition’ for the Old Spice man, but that’s a little generous.
I do wonder if there will be any more of these clips. There are still some gems in the second day’s replies, but they also seem to be running out of steam here and there, repeating their jokes a bit. Perhaps the Old Spice man needs to rest after a job well done, leaving the tantalizing promise of a repeat performance weeks or months down the track?
Update: It’s done; I must ride my jetski/lion into the sunset …
Old Spice 2.0!
When Old Spice is mentioned, if anything comes to mind at all, it’s … old. And not old in a dignified or wise way. That’s all changed for me today, as I’ve just seen evidence that their current marketing campaign is one of the cleverest commercial use of social media I’ve ever seen (thanks to a post from mUmbrella). The story begins with this well-produced, amusing advertisement for Old Spice:
Apparently it won some awards and so forth, but it’s still just a normal tv spot.
Then, today, things started to get interesting on the Old Spice YouTube channel (with links on Twitter, Facebook and even Reddit) as Isaiah Mustafa, in his Old Spice role, started replying to comments from people online. First off, a big media nod to Ellen DeGeneres, and it seemed like there might be a series of carefully scripted replies to recognisable celebrities and media platforms (all amplifying the Old Space brand, of course). But then the Old Spice marketers did something really clever: the replies in the videos shifted aim, towards non-celebrity, ‘ordinary’ internet users who’ve made comments somewhere (YouTube, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, etc) about the Old Spice ads. Suddenly, that netherworld of social media comments, which so often feels like screaming into the wind, brought a deluge of replies from the Old Spice guy. Over one hundred Old Spice replies were uploaded in 24 hours, the vast majority of which are in reply to comments made today. Just as impressive, the writing team have obviously enjoyed their energy drinks, because the scripts were hilarious, endearing, ironic and certainly every single reply is worth watching.
No doubt the most notable Old Spice reply will be one done in reply to jsbeals’s request to pass on his marriage proposal; the story ends well as she apparently said yes! However, what really impressed me is that the masculinity of the Old Spice ads, while driving the marketing pitch, is also deeply ironic (which rather suits the a brand of this vintage), poking particular fun at its own notion of ‘being a man’:
The Old Spice replies are also littered with internet-driven humour, with a particular take on the age old pirates vs ninjas debate, a good poke at stupid YouTube handles in the form of a decent robot joke, an hilarious jab (and brave) jab at 4chan, /b/, and anonymous, and lots of other references to please us all. My favourite quirky video, though, was this seemingly innocuous reply to a tweet that came from Isaiah Mustafa …
and got this reply:
The funny thing, of course, is that Isaiah Mustafa is the guy in the ads, in the bathroom … in a towel (and I guess we know what’s under that towel now: the iPhone from which he’s tweeting to his own account!). Indeed, Mustafa has been a great sport, going along with some very quirky scripts that he’s obviously delivered very quickly. When the boundary between a game, a conversation and an advertising campaign becomes so thin, it’s everyone who wins. Old Spice 2.0 has certainly made me laugh today and I’m sure I’ll be reading about the Old Spice replies in pretty much every news media I go near tomorrow!
Digital Culture Links: July 10th 2010
Links through July 10th 2010:
- Regarding real names in forums [World of Warcraft – English (NA) Forums] – Blizzard backtracks, deciding against mandatory use of real names in their forums – fans applaud.
- RealID and WoW Forums: Classic Identity Design Mistake [Habitat Chronicles] – As Blizzard shift to a ‘real names’ model for their forums, including all official World of Warcraft forums, many folks are unhappy. Blizzard are trying to get some users to be more responsible for their posts, but as Randy Farmer argues Blizzard haven’t learnt from many, many identity-related mistakes in online fora of the past!
- Ridley Scott and YouTube Want You To Film One Day in Your Life [Mashable] – “YouTube has announced a project called Life in a Day, which attempts to document one day, July 24, seen through the camera lens of people around the world. The project will be executive produced by Ridley Scott […] edited by Kevin Macdonald, best known for directing films such as The Last King of Scotland and One Day in September. The film will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival; if your footage makes the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director, and 20 contributors will be selected to attend the premiere. If you’re hoping for financial gain, however, you’ll be disappointed; for this one, glory is your only reward. To contribute to the project, you need to capture July 24, 2010, on camera, and upload the footage to the Life in the Day channel sometime before July 31. As for what your footage should consist of, YouTube (YouTube) wants you to have no limits, to be personal, to film anyone you like…”
- Prank leaves Justin Bieber facing tour of North Korea [BBC News] – LOL: “Justin Bieber’s Twitter page has become the target of an internet joke. A public vote on the Canadian singer’s My World Tour page asked users which country he should tour next, with no restrictions on the nations that could be voted on. This spurred users of imageboard website 4Chan to nominate North Korea, with the vote now turning viral. There are now almost half a million votes to send Bieber to the secretive communist nation. The contest, which ends at 1800 on 7 July, saw North Korea move from 24th to 1st place in less than two days, several thousand votes ahead of Israel.”
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