Traffic

All right so it's late and I'm slightly drunk (meaning I have to be extra careful about typos) so I'm going to be short here, but I wanted to say I've just taken the time over the weekend to register on Feedburner, which I think is very interesting.

Apparently nobody's really reading (apart from my dad and my flatmate who I've mentioned in some previous post) so it won't matter much if I say I have no subscribers right now. On the other hand, it was fascinating to find out that I've had 35 visitors on my blog today and over two thirds of them were looking for the Nintendo logo. I wrote a series of posts about my favourite brands when I started the blog and was looking for work and it looks like that pays off more in terms of traffic than anything else I've written (not that I have so many pearls of wisdom to share, but it'll come...).

It's just interesting to find out that if I just copy logos and ads of popular brands on my blog, I'll get much more traffic... But then again, I'd rather have fewer people interested in what I have to write than more people just searching stuff on Google Images...

All right then, enough pointless rambling - I have an idea about a series of posts that could be very interesting and could drive traffic - and about ice cream! - let's see how that works out...

Weekend blog surfing selection

A really cool short in a world made of words: link.
(Incidentally, interesting banner – though radical - ad on this page, click the “Boss over your shoulder” button)
(found it here)

A new campaign for Coke Zero in Germany, very cool game and website: www.cokezerogame.de (in German)
Video demo of the game: link

English version coming out soon!
(realised by digital agency North Kingdom in Sweden, they do some amazing work: www.northkingdom.com)

New Lego Indiana Jones Advergame, pretty cool too! The game's actually not that easy.

Vive la France!

I love this new ad for the RATP (Parisian Public Transport Network) sponsoring the 6 Nations rugby tournament! Click to enlarge.

PS: I just realised France miserably lost against England this weekend... but I still love the ad!

Make your album cover meme

In a mini epiphany, I realised that I don't need to be tagged to participate in a meme... (Doh!) After all, it's supposed to self-propagate! I read about this cool meme in Neil's blog.

Instructions to create your album cover:
1. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first article title on the page is the name of your band.
2. www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four words of the very last quote is the title of your album.
3. www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days/
The third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover.
4. Use your graphics program of choice to throw them together, and post the result in www.flickr.com/groups/albumdesigns/

Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/dvorscak/2272702185/

Here's mine!



"The other one snores" a hit album by the talented but unknown (and inexistant) 70's psychedelic rock band Steall Waterfall!!

Chinese Portrait Meme

I'm just getting up to date with reading my blogs and just read Iain's post replying to the 4x4 meme, and then went to revisit Chris Garrett's post on the topic. I really like memes, and since I haven't been tagged for any, I thought I'd take Chris on the idea and start my own! I hope people like the idea!

My blog's Chinese Portrait:

If my blog was an animal, it would be...
A fox. I like the classic ideas around foxes being curious and clever tricksters. I envision something closer Fantastic Mr Fox (one of my favourite books as a kid!) rather than the ones that hang around my neighbourhood's backyards - though I won't exclude them.

If my blog was a colour, it would be...
Red. The colour of revolution and raspberry ice cream! Or it could also be white, because vanilla ice cream is my favourite flavour.

If my blog was a natural phenomenon, it would be...
A shooting star. They can be hard to spot or be all over the night sky and they're gone in a second, but they hold a lot of meaning ("Quick, make a wish!") and leave most of us with a feeling of wonder and happiness.

If my blog was a mythological being, it would be...
Vor, from the Norse mythology: Goddess of curiosity and finding things out. (found that here). I like the idea of my blog being a collection of curiosities and finding things out is what I generally do before writing in it...

If my blog was a famous person, it would be...
Leonardo da Vinci. All right, it's a bit grandiose, but he's the archetypal Renaissance Man. Interested in everything, applied himself to a multitude of things and excelled in almost if not all of them. Excellence isn't there for this blog yet, but the first thing is to strive towards it and Leonardo did.

If my blog was a type of food, it would be...
The pack lunch your mom prepared when you were a kid. It's generally light and what's inside is always a surprise - though not always an agreeable one, but in the end you can reason it's been made with love and care.
____________________________________________________________________

Well, I think the rules are pretty self explanatory, copy the questions onto a post and answer... I guess you can put more questions if you feel inspired, but let's keep it at these 6. And then tag whoever you'd like to see the answers of, let's say at least two!

I'll tag quite a lot of people to start it off:

I'm tagging Chris Garrett, because that's where I got the idea of starting a meme.

I'll tag George - because he's my boss, and I might as well tag John, soon he'll also be my boss!

I'll tag Faris, Neil, Asi, Priyanka and Michelle - because I met them at the BeerSphere last year before Christmas, had a good time talking with them, and like their blogs.

I'll tag Amelia and Nick - because they took the time to meet with me when I was looking for work and gave me good feedback - and I also like their blogs.

I'll tag Ruby - because she recently left a comment on my blog ;o)

I'll tag Will - because he hasn't written a post in a while and maybe this will inspire him a bit.

All right that's all folks! Let's see if it propagates!

French Penguin

It's apparently a bit old, but I hadn't seen this ad and loved it, it appealed to my French side ;o)

Geeky news

A friend of mine just showed me this pretty cool little freeware called Compendium. I've just installed it and started playing around with it, it's really cool!

In the words of the creators: "Compendium is a software tool providing a flexible visual interface for managing the connections between information and ideas."

You can do things like this:



My friend is using it a lot for work, but he's also using it to map out information for the Vampire the Requiem campaign we're playing these days (a role playing game - not computer games, pen and paper type - I like it because we play with lots of twisted political intrigues). Work wise for me, I can see it being interesting to map out research information and marketing campaign ideas...

And to round off this post of completely geeky news, I've seen and held the new MacBook Air - it looks cool! But I think I'd rather wait for the next generation... Well anyway, I can't afford one right now, so it's a moot point.

Where the sun don't shine ... but still light comes out of it!

This new Greenpeace ad has been brought to my attention today, probably one of the weirdest I've seen... All in all strange, even more that I watched it without the sound the first time and missed the punch line - but a bit funny as well. What do you think?

The Great Football Giveaway

This is an amazingly inspiring project and a very moving video. The idea is simple: "No kid should be denied the chance to kick a ball about. It ’s one of life’s most simple pleasures." The project is to give away 3000 footballs to kids in Africa, it costs £10 - I just gave them two balls, go and give one out!

read more | digg story



I read about it first from Neil's blog.

Goodies

I've just received the first Matter Box, it's all very exciting! It's like Christmas here! I think it's a great idea and judging by the reaction of my nearby colleagues, there will be a lot more matter boxes going to iris next time round. Someone has already snatched up the Nintendo Wii wristband; the Sony Bravia Play-Doh will go to my Friend Alex who has some kind of addiction to plasticine and who's coming over for dinner this evening; there's the SonyEricsson Music Monster that we did at iris last year; and a few other things I have yet to go through...