Volkswagen don't make shopping carts, but if they did...

This 'Fast Lane' campaign is an extension on last year's Volkswagen Fun Theory idea (Piano Stairs etc), but this time it's all about speed.



It's pretty good, and puts VW in a 'Carlsberg' position - instead of 'Carlsberg don't do X, but it they did...' you get 'Here's X, and Volkswagen have just added a fun twist to it...'

Other films - Lift, and Slide

Cameron & Zuckerberg YouTube webchat

On the official 10 Downing Street YouTube Channel



They discussed the initiative for the UK government to save money by letting voters discuss issues on Facebook rather than on a site made by the government.

More info at the BBC News site

Levi's Urban Regeneration

This is a really interesting project. Levi's are investing in Braddock, PA, to try to help regenerate the town.

A set of films, in partnership with IFC and Sundance, explain the project.



"When the steel mills closed in Braddock, PA, they left behind a dwindling population living in near apocalyptic circumstances. Now, a new generation of urban pioneers has come with a mission- to create a new frontier from the ashes of the once vibrant town."

Follow the HTC Columbia Tour de France team on Google Maps

This is an excellent use of Google Maps for the Tour de France.

Each of the members of the HTC Columbia team (including British cyclist Mark Cavedish) has been GPS-ed up, and their movements are being tracked on Google Maps. Presumably the connection is that HTC make the Google Android phones.

You can see the whole teams, or individual cyclists.

You can also follow the team on twitter

Excellent stuff!

Twitter Earlybird - sponsored offers

New today is twitter Earlybird - an account that will re-tweet offers from 'select advertisers' (dread phrase!) that they have already posted.

It was only announced 13 hours ago; already the account has 10,000 followers.

I'd love to know the business model behind this - I'd guess that they will charge a flat fee for re-tweeting in the first place, then some sort per click fee for each click that the link gets, and a per follower fee for each follower the client gets as a result of the re-tweet.

More info (not on the business model) here on the official twitter support page.

Very smart.

Also - click here for my post from January 2009 on how to monetise twitter

OK Go memory sticks

How cute are these OK Go memory sticks?

OK Go have created a memory stick for each of the dates on their recent US tour.

E.g.

"OK Go - USB Flash Drive Live Concert Rochester 4/24

This USB Flash Drive comes loaded with the live concert recording of the bands performance at The University of Rochester in Rochester, NY.

It also comes loaded with the bands latest album "Of The Blue Colour Of The Sky" as well as the videos for WTF and both versions of This Too Shall Pass."

They sold each stick straight after the gig, and also online. Each sells for $20.

They have also now produces an end of tour retrospective USB -


"The complete contents of the drive are as follows:

Our May 7th Electric Set from the beautiful sounding House of Blues in Boston, MA
Our May 24th Acoustic Set from Ex’pression College in Emeryville, CA
Our album, Of the Blue Colour of the Sky
The first three videos from our latest album
An exclusive tour photo gallery with shots of the boys backstage, on the bus, and everywhere in between…
An exclusive thank-you video from the band"

Each sells for $25 - but it's sold out already.

The success of twitter spam

Spam has been a problem on twitter ever since it started to get popular. Spammers reason that if you provide an enticing tweet with a link then lots of people are likely to click on it, and once you're on their site you can sell them PPC (porn, pills, casinos) or put spyware on your computer in the way that email spammers do.

Spammers typically use words that are currently in the trending topics - lots of people click on these to see why the topics are trending.

This is a good example from the weekend:


A company has set up multiple accounts, like Chrystal56467, & Sheila76259, all posting the same link. No, I haven't clicked on it.

It's through Bit.ly, so anyone can see the traffic stats -

This link has had nearly 60,000 clicks since June 29th.


Twitter or Bit.ly should do something to stop this!

The greatest ever unsolicited product endorsement?

I love this letter from today's FT - written by Jordan Sekulow, Attorney and Director of International Operations, American Center for Law & Justice, Washington, DC, US (you get a better class of letter writer at the FT)

"Sir, After reading Jonathan Margolis’s review of the new Olympus Stylus Tough camera in How to Spend It (Travel Unravelled, May 15), I immediately went online and ordered it for my recent trip to South Africa and Zimbabwe.

In South Africa, the camera performed excellently in the rapidly changing conditions of World Cup venues from temperate Rustenburg to rainy Cape Town. The versatility of the camera is impressive.

After being tossed around in luggage and drenched during a World Cup match, the camera performed excellently in formal meetings with Zimbabwe’s government leaders in Harare. Whether I was taking photos at a game or tossing the camera to a colleague to snap a quick photo with prime minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the camera’s performance was superb.

You need not be a professional photographer to use the camera and the settings are easy to operate. Yet, after seeing the 14-megapixel images the camera produces, people may not believe an amateur took them with a point and shoot.

This camera is a must-have for business travellers who find themselves in photo-necessary situations inside and outside of boardrooms. I’ve already got my camera charged and ready for an upcoming trip to Bermuda."

If I were in the market for a new camera (which I'm not), I know which one I'd buy. The people at Olympus must feel very happy!

How to piss off your fans

Last week I wrote about Arcade Fire's album promotion - pre-order the album, and get advanced access to buy tickets for a secret gig.

I thought that it was a great idea - in fact it was a terrible idea, because not all of the people who pre-ordered got this advanced access; it was done on a lottery basis.

Hence this post on the British Sea Power forum:

"[...] For anyone who pre-ordered the album, they would be entered into a draw and certain purchasers would receive a link with a passcode enabling them to enter the pre-sale for tickets for the gig (why they couldn't just let everyone who pre-ordered the album have the link and passcode I can't quite understand...)

So I pre-ordered the album and a few days ago I was informed that I had been 'unlucky' in the draw and would not receive the pre-sale link for tickets.

However, they would send me another email with the link for the general sale at 9am on July 2. It wasn't indicated whether I would have any advantage because I had pre-ordered the album. I didn't receive this email - but a friend (who hadn't purchased the album) somehow had, and forwarded me the link for tickets.

When I went on the ticket site at just before 9am today, the ticket purchasing page was still black. At 9am precisely, I managed to get through OK and clicked to buy but was asked for a passcode. It wouldn't let me purchase tickets without one. Was this passcode included in the email I didn't receive? Who knows. But when I went back 5 mins later the passcode box had disappeared! By then of course it had sold out.

What an utter shambles. I feel distinctly conned."

(& 8 posts follow this one).

What a shambles. What a disaster.

The gig is on at the Hackney Empire, which holds over 1,300, so if more than 650 pre-ordered the album then yes, there would be a problem. However it's a nice problem to have, so try to re-schedule the gig (which remember people are paying for) in a bigger venue rather than to antagonise the fans like this. Remember too, that they were putting other tickets on general sale, so there is really no excuse for it.

Embeddable album by Francis And The Lights

This is pretty good!

Click on any track to play it -



(Click on the link on the 'Embed This' link on the bottom right hand side to get the embed code for yourself)

More info at DigitalMusicNews:

"The fresh concept, billed as the "world's first HTML5 embeddable album," was actually designed by Muxtape founder Justin Ouellette (nice comeback). The Flash-free concoction bundles an album stream, videos, and iTunes purchase links into one next-gen release. The concept was built with iOS4 in mind, and therefore also plays nice with the iPad and iPhone. "

Vodafone content widget

This is a content widget produced by the London company Open for Vodafone, and placed on the McLaren F1 site and other places.



It allows Vodafone to stream it's F1 content including videos into different sites, and can be customised to show the content that you want.

It's also shareable, through Gigya, and as it's a standard ad size it's one of the new ad / content units that Unanimis is selling.

8-bit Twilight Eclipse choose your own adventure game

This is excellent - an 8-bit version of the Twilight Eclipse story, playable using YouTube annotations.

Start here:



Totally unofficial as far as I know, but at 800,000 views in 3 days it's the sort of thing that should have been officially commissioned.

Credits -

Created by The Station

Written, Directed and Executive Produced by Benny & Rafi Fine

Animation and Music by Doctor Octoroc

Additional Writing by Phil Haney