Vote Different Mashup Maker Revealed

YouTube has posted an interview with the maker (ParkRidge47) of Vote Different , the mashup that created widespread media interest and controversy in the US. The video has been viewed nearly 3 million times on YouTube and was also shown on network tv. He says that he is now unemployed because of the video, which he did realise would happen if his real name became known.

His advice for making a successful viral video includes having good luck and good timing, and that it doesn't hurt to be funny or provocative. It also helps to articulate something that nobody else has said before. I'm sure that using one of the most successful tv commercials of the '80s in the mashup didn't hurt the cause either.

When asked about the role of YouTube and online video in politics in the future, he suggests that it could have a huge impact and it will be up to the candidates, their supporters and the voters to make the most of the technology.

How important do you think voter (user) generated content will bocome during election campaigns? I tend to think that this first really successful viral video will be just the tip of the iceberg.

I'm sure there are new political videos being made as we speak, inspired by the success of Vote Different. In a democracy, why shouldn't the voters get to have their own say during a political campaign. What are your thoughts?

Look–A–Like

Back In 1987 Swiss contemporary artists Peter Fischli and David Weiss constructed a large and precarious artwork more than 30 metres long. The structure was made out of everyday materials. They artists used fire, water, gravity, and chemistry to create an amazing chain reaction called The Way Things Go.

The whole video of the chain reaction is actually 30 minutes long. I really like this segment where fire is the main feature:

If you don't know of these artists' work, but the work seems quite familiar to you, it's probably because a very similar concept was used in this well known Honda Accord Commercial, Cog.

What do you think of advertising that borrows so heavily from contemporary art like this, or any other field of creativity for that matter? Do you think this is okay, or only if it's done in collaboration with the original creators? In this case, I don't know whether it was done with the consent of the artists or not.

Second Life Brand Map

Nic Mitham from Kzero has taken on the task of creating a map of major brands inhabiting Second Life. One of the comments on his blog points out that it could drive him barmy keeping it up to date. No doubt people in the blogosphere will help keep him informed of new updates.

Do you know of any that aren't on the map yet?

via Adverlab, via Metaversed

UPDATE: Adverlab has just posted a link to a fairly complete list from SL Business Communications Wiki. and some snapshots from the different islands.

Teenage Mutant Hardcore Turtles

Here's an excellent Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Throwdown mashup.

via The Slippery Truffle

Ad Feeder

If you like the idea of viewing your advertising news headlines, opinions and latest creative in one place, you might like to check out The Ad Feed. It's a Popurls style aggregator, but specifically for advertising and marketing junkies.

via Bannerblog

Getting Things Done

I like this simple viral video of traffic in India, and so do nearly 3 million other YouTube visitors.

via ads of the world blogs

YouTube Video Awards Winners

The YouTube Video Awards winners have been announced.

Out of the 7 winners, I've chosen to embed the above video, Kiwi, only because as well has having Australian citizenship, I am in fact also a Kiwi (a New Zealander). For those of you who don't know, Kiwis are flightless birds that are indigenous to New Zealand. The kiwi is a national symbol.

It's quite amazing that because of YouTube, a video made as part of a master's thesis at The School of Visual Arts in NYC has managed to generate 6,656,398 views so far. That's quite an audience for a student film! It's a fantastic thing that YouTube has enabled this to become possible.

Check out the other 6 winners the YouTube community has chosen as the winners.

Nike Wake-Up Call

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Nike is searching for a new agency to handle its interactive work, and that this is a wake-up call for traditional advertising agencies not altogether comfortable with working in the digital realm.

Highly respected agency Weiden + Kennedy has been Nike's lead agency since 1982, but the article suggests that even though the agency has created top-quality work in all other areas, it has been slow to adapt to the web. As the article also maintains, this will certainly not go unnoticed across the advertising industry.

Many traditional (but supposedly integrated) agencies with backgrounds firmly in tv and print have been slow to adapt to the new media environment. It seems that some clients are starting to look at other options.

No doubt Joseph Jaffe will be pleased, as more of the predictions in his book Life after the 30 Second Spot appear to be coming to fruition.

kathy Sierra Death Threats

This is just so sad. Sometimes don't you just feel like humans never fail to disappoint?

Kathy Sierra, a very popular blogger has been receiving very nasty, misogynistic death threats over a sustained period. Her lattest post explains her dire situation right now. She is too terrified to leave her home.

It's just so disappointing that this kind of thing happens so often that we have come to think that it's inevitable when humans are able to communicate anonymously, no matter what the medium.

As Seth Godin says "Isn't it sad that misogyny is so common that there's a word for it"

Made of Japan

Made of Japan is a new site for Onitsuka Tiger. The site shows a hovering shoe made from a mosaic of images. The images link to various Japan related sites. The mosaic shoe changes its colour palette every time a new image is clicked, to reflect the colour palette of the image.

It's a nice simple concept (but not technically simple) and uses existing content in quite an inventive way. However, almost all of the links I followed were blogs by people visiting Japan for one reason or another, rather than Japanese sites. This may be part of the concept, but one blog was by someone visting China, and some blogs didn't seem to relate at all, like this one. Despite these anomalies, I still like the concept.

via Adverblog

Facebook'd

This facebook infomercial spoof was produced for EXPOSED, a variety TV show at the University of Southern California, and not surprisingly it's finding a sizable audience on the web.

via Diablogue, via Adrants

Hammer & Coop Music Video

The funny Hammer & Coop Music Video from Mini is doing pretty well on YouTube so far. To date the video has had 469,144 views. The Hammer & Coop Channel is the number 1 most viewed today, and the number 10 most viewed this week.

Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the music video is much more popular than the previous Hammer & Coop episodes. All of the videos can also be seen on the campaign microsite, where there is also a fun little Action Name Generator.

Guantanamo Cell QuickTime VR

Amnesty International has constructed a highly realistic life size replica of the Guantanamo cell where Australian David Hicks has been languishing for five years. It began its public tour of Australia in Sydney on 19 March.

There is a claustrophobic QuickTime VR of it on this Sydney panorama blog site.

Google Homepage Themes

Google has placed a Select theme link on the personalised homepage. The theme panel allows you to choose from one of six themes for your homepage. I'm sure there will me many other options to follow, surely even customisablle options.

These new theme options may seem like a minor event, but if you follow the thinking a little further down the road, is could lead to much more significant features in the future, such as branded themes. Many publishers around the world already offer this feature to advertisers on their homepages.

via Google Blog

Too Much Twitter

Over the past week or so there has been a lot of chatter about Twitter, so much so that today it went down for a while. Presumably it was a victim of its own exploding popularity.

Just in case you haven't heard, Twitter is a social networking service that lets members tell each other what they are doing and thinking at any given moment in time. It allows users to send messages via phone, instant messaging or on the Twitter website. As Wikipedia states "Fans say they are a good way to keep in touch with busy friends. But some users are starting to feel "too" connected, as they grapple with check-in messages at odd hours, higher cellphone bills and the need to tell acquaintances to stop announcing what they're having for dinner."

For a visual Twitter feast, also check out Twittervision by David Troy, which uses Google Maps to display what Twitter users are up to and where they're Twittering from. It's kind of like watching whispers coming from all over the world.

There is also now a new site called Twitterholic (and Twittering is quite addictive), so you can see who the most popular Twitters are. Twittersearch speaks for itself.

There are already some who are predicting Twitter's "flame-out" by the end of the 2007, but for now, it holds the number 1 search spot on Technorati and is obviously growing very quickly.

Nokia Demos

Here are no less than 3 good, new interactive demos from Nokia. These are of special interest to me, as I worked on an interactive demo of 3G technology for them back in '02. They were a great company to work with.

Things have certainly moved on a lot since then, both in terms of mobile technology and the Flash demos themselves. Back in '02 I seem to remember that Flash MX (6) had been released not long before I started on the project, and it was finally possible to embed video into swf files. 3G technology was not widely available either, and not at all in this country.

Look how far things have come:

Great Pockets

The Internet Walk

The Passenger

Get the Glass

Get the Glass is a new site from agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners and Swedish interactive design shop North Kingdom. This 3D advergame for the latest Got Milk? campaign has a pretty heavy download, but there's plenty to keep users engaged for quite some time.

Good luck getting to that glass of milk. Hmm, I'm thirsty. Think I'll head to the fridge for a nice cool one before I have another go at the digital version. The campaign must be working.

Google Homepage Live TV

CamMap has new widget that enables you to watch live tv from your Google homepage. You can view live updates from CNN and other networks. LabPixies has one as well.

Thanks to Steve Rubel for this one. As he says, this is surely a sign of things to come.

Top 10 Marketing Gaffes

I love this. Here are the top 10 marketing gaffes in the history of American marketing and advertising.

It's hard to believe those CK ads actually got made now, but then again, it was 1995 not 2007. The McDonald's banners are pretty funny – very American Pie.

CK IN2U

FairfaxDigital is reporting that Calvin Klein is attempting to woo Gen Y "technosexuals" (a buzzword trademarked by CK last year) with a new campaign for its new fragrance in2u.

CK president Tom Murray is quoted to have said "We have envisioned this as the first fragrance for the technosexual generation".

The cylindrical white plastic and glass bottles are the creation of New York designer Stephen Burks, and are said to draw inspiration from the iPod.

Along with the fragrance, CK in launching an online social network whateareyouin2.com, which will supposedly function in a similar way to myspace and facebook.

It'll be interesting to see how this all plays out.

Subliminal Apocalypto

You've got to see this subliminal movie magic.

Play the trailer through to the scene with the screaming monkey, pause on the monkey, and then just flick back frame by frame with your arrow key.

The House of Horror

The House of Horror is a scary microsite for Amnesty International, created by JWT, San Juan, Puerto Rico.

The site is treated like a site for a new horror film. It does get the point across. There could be a danger with this kind of approach that by aestheticising the people it aims to help, it actually begins to exploit them in the process.

Human Skateboarding

PES has created this Human Skateboarding video for Sneaux Shoes.

New marketing agency Crayon was tasked with helping to seed the video, and seems to have done a good job at it. According to Vidmeter, as of today it has had a total of 769,997 views.