Will Francis

In a charity shop recently I overheard a conversation involving a scruffy internet-phobic man in his fifties, whose ambivelence towards modernity clearly extended to hot water and shower gel. He said that trying to wade through the abyss of crap on the internet was like trying to find a needle in a haystack. I desperately wanted to sidle up to him and suggest that if every piece of hay in that haystack had just one string of metadata, perhaps ‘title=”hay”’, and the needle also contained just one string of metadata, let’s say ‘title=”needle”’, you would be able to locate it within a matter of nanoseconds.

‘About an hour ago’ Vodafone UK’s corporate Twitter account sent out the message “@VodafoneUK: is fed up of dirty homo’s and is going after beaver”. They deleted the tweet shortly afterwards and have spent the last hour sending out a constant stream of apologies insisting that they weren’t hacked but that a member of staff breached protocol and sent out the message. My money is on a member of staff who’s just been sacked or a cheeky intern on their last day.

The question this raises is whether companies will start to attach more value to - and become more protective of - their social media accounts which despite being an increasingly potent communication channel are still very much the domain of junior staff, interns and anyone willing to roll their sleeves up.

Yes, really. In a live TV news interview from his office floor, Martin Lakos of Australian bank Macquarie happily gives some well-delivered thoughts on economical issues whilst unbeknownst to him a fellow banker coyly switches between his email inbox and photos of nude and partially nude ladies.

I mean, who hasn’t? Nothing wrong with that, right? Just not when there’s a sodding news crew behind you!!! I think he realises this just as the news piece ends. Poor guy, must be pretty embarrassed.
Ah well, at least a whole office of bankers now have something to laugh about. Makes a nice change :)

Ok, so I’m a geek, I came to terms with the unavoidable fact around about the same time that it became cool to be a geek. Until then I soldered bits of old radios together and kept a diary in the form of C64 code (stored on a cassette tape!) in the clandestine safety of my bedroom. Now those facts are the sort of things I’m happy to boast to the world about. And I have a soundtrack as powerful as Sequoia. Here are my top tracks to write PHP ‘for’ loops to:

So the amazing guys at BBH in London and Domani in New York made the MySpace Fan Video app as part of the second phase of MySpace UK’s Music campaign. You have to see these videos with your face in. I guarantee laughs all round. Just go to myspace.com/fanvideo and enjoy :)

Here are a couple of screenshots. To see my videos themselves click here.

1. Its success will rely on the apps that developers make for it.
They’ve been given the SDK so many are hard at work to have apps out for the March launch. If the iPhone’s history is anything to go by there will be some mindblowing applications. Only then will potential buyers see the device’s true potential.
Also, Adobe are upping the pressure on Apple to adopt Flash support which would open up a lot of content to users.

2. It will take at least another version to become a must-have, game-changing product.
Again, this draws partly on experience with the iPhone. With Apple’s revolutionary mobile telephone, it took annual revisions based on what users were clamouring for, and what hackers were building into custom firmware, to arrive at the 3G and 3GS. I predict the inclusion of a camera in the next iteration as frankly I was amazed that the iPad wasn’t launched with one. Some might say that holding back such features is a cynical strategy on Apple’s part to sell more units to an avid fanbase who’ll happily fork out for every new version.

See you in the queue on launch day ;)

Twitter have just switched on the ability to display trending topics from a range of locations (or keep it Worldwide)

Countries: Brazil, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, United Kingdom, United States.

Cities: Atlanta, Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Dallas-Ft. Worth, Houston, London, Los Angeles, New York City, Philadelphia, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, São Paulo, Washington, D.C.

Nice to see non-US locations included at launch, though doesn’t this start to dissipate the global conversation, one of the phenomena which makes Twitter so amazing?

twentyfourbit:

The Manchester District Music Archive has uncovered the first ever known Smiths live review (see below), from the City Fun fanzine, of the second Smiths gig ever (and first with their classic lineup) at Manchester’s Manhattan Sound. You could pull any number of quotes from this fascinating artifact for Smiths fans and music nerds historians to enjoy, but my personal favorite is this bit at the end, which refers to the band’s 23-year-old frontman: “If the boy’s head is anything to go by, The Smiths are going to be B-I-G.” Well played, indeed.

Check out this awesome document below, via Manchester District Music Archive, and for more info on this show, as well as a brilliant archive of Smiths live info, visit Passions Just Like Mine. (Thanks for the tip, George!)

via twentyfourbit

all-thats-interesting:

The Beatles in 1957. George Harrison is 14, John Lennon is 16, and Paul McCartney is 15.

via all-thats-interesting