Wimbledon Live on YouTube with Rolex

This year YouTube are showing Wimbledon live for the first time, sponsored by Rolex.

Update - you can't actually see the games live - but you do see highlights afterwards.  Boo.

Embedding doesn't work for some reason, but you can watch it here.

This is great because Wimbledon is a classic 'at the office' event, where the action takes place during the day, and also if you visit YouTube to see a video, you get an alert bar at the top of the screen to tell you that Wimbledon is on.

More background at the YouTube blog

Ripe for Disruption - June 2013

I love the phrase 'ripe for disruption'.  Digital people and MBAs use it a lot, to describe industries that they think are staid, rooted in old practices and technologies, and the sort of industries that new entrants could come into and really shake up, in the way that Amazon did with bookselling (& now other retailing) and Expedia and others did with travel.  It often leads to businesses that can be described as 'Kickstarter for T-shirts', 'airbnb for retail property' or 'Netflix for beer'.  In fact I think it would be a great title for Armando Iannucci's proposed series about silicon valley.

So what do people think is ripe for disruption at the moment?

This list is based on things I've found since the start of the year:

Cable TV

Communication agencies

Data security

Door locks

Education

Flower delivery

Home cooking

Hunting and Fishing supplies

Legal industry

Mail services

Medical records

Music business

Ordering taxis

Payroll services

Photographers

Prisons

Real estate

Sanitary towels

Terrestrial radio

Textbooks

... & there's a whole list on this Quora post

I agree that a lot of these are going to be disrupted very soon (& some are already) - but it's fun seeing the list like this, and also to debate the pros and cons in each case.

Geordie Shore on Snapchat

I've written about Snapchat before - about how it's quite hard to see how brands can use the 'disappearing pictures' aspect of the service.  Now it's been announced that the MTV UK show Geordie Shore is going to be sending some pictures (presumably semi naked ones of the stars) as part of a promo for the new series.

I think it's a really good fit.  You can imagine the characters using Snapchat, and it's right for the audience, many of whom presumably already use it.

(I've followed them - and am slightly nervously waiting to see what I get sent)

More here

Update - Asos has joined Snapchat too:

Er, hello @Snapchat! Yeah, we’re totally on there… and we have some secrets to spill. Get following ‘ASOSFashion'
— ASOS (@ASOS) July 3, 2013

Brands using Instagram Video

Yesterday Instagram announced that users could make videos on Instagram - and immediately released it to people at a new version of the app.

Here's the launch video -


& here are some examples of brands using it

(I don't think these can be embedded, but let me know if there's a way to do it)

Instagram’s first video

Nike

(Plus one more from Neymar at the final of the Confederations Cup)

Brooks Brothers - How to tie a bow tie

Burberry

Victoria's Secret

Starbucks

Red Bull

Playboy

General Electric

Lexus

Michael Kors

Jamie Oliver

Foo Fighters

Instagram celebrity dog (!) Digby Van Winkle

Photographer Cole Rise

& the first film, Jobs The Movie, (16th July)

DieselReboot

Spotted by @xavi_izaguirre on Brick Lane at the weekend, the url dieselreboot.tumblr.com is a site seeking inspiration from Diesel fans.


Fans upload what inspires them (although according to the ts & cs it can't be copyrighted work) and then it goes on the site, presumably after some moderation time.

See it here

Looks good, I think, and it seems that brands have no problem with creating short term (ish) urls for their projects (see also Jay-Z's MagnaCarterHolyGrail.com) instead of tying everything back to the main parent URL.

Apparently it's created by Nichola Formichetti - see his own Tumblr here

Will be interesting to see how this develops, and whether Diesel do learn from their users.

Jay-Z and Samsung

Samsung owners are going to get their hands on the new Jay-Z album first, thanks to a massive (eight figure) deal signed earlier this month.

You can see the Samsung Galaxy logo on the official album site www.magnacarterholygrail.com

Clearly the album will be immediately uploaded to torrent sites, YouTube etc - but it gives Samsung an element of cool and lots of buzz, and gives Jay-Z a guaranteed amount of money for the music.

"People will be able to download the album with a free app that's coming to the Play store on June 24th, which promises an "unprecedented inside look into the album" with "personal stories and inspiration." The description immediately conjures to mind his book Decoded, which breaks down the lyrics and thoughts that went into the rapper's biggest hits. We'll have to wait until the app is released next week to see exactly what's inside, but the new project's website contains a behind-the-scenes video of the Brooklyn MC in the studio with frequent collaborators Pharrell Williams, Timbaland, and Swizz Beatz. '99 Problems' mastermind Rick Rubin nods along from a sofa, eyes closed and barefoot."

More info

A new ad for MySpace

I'm not sure what to think of this...


...except that I bet they're all on Tumblr.  & Twitter

The music is Mallrats (La La La) by The Orwells - full video here

There are also two cut-down versions here & here

More here

The Prism Charts re-designed

Last week information was leaked to show that the US government was tracking people over a number of web services, including Google, Facebook & Skype (all of whom deny their own knowledge of & involvement in it)

What ever the original charts showed, the design was pretty horrible, and now a designer has created a presentation with new versions of the slides, below.

Dear NSA, let me take care of your slides. from Emiland

It's brilliant marketing for him and his services - and it's had just over 500,000 views in only two days.

Plus - someone's done a fake presentation Prism's pitch for funding:

PRISM seed-stage Investor Deck from David Coallier

(in other redesign news, see this site imagining what would happen if Jony Ive got his hands on classic bits of design, in the same way has he has with the Apple OS - e.g. The Dark Side of The Moon album cover)

Skittles - Smash The Rainbow

Nice use of annotations!



If the annotations don't work, see the original here

Facebook Trailer for Kiss Me First by Lottie Moggach

This is a very good (and very freaky) app for Kiss Me First, the first novel by Lottie Moggach.

I won't spoil it for you, but have a go here.  You need to connect to Facebook, but it won't spam your contacts or post on your feed.

Very well done!

Pub Loo Shocker for THINK!

THINK!, the UK Department of Transport's anti drink driving campaign has produced this new ad.

It's similar in many ways to other stunt or prank videos on YouTube but what I think is interesting is that they're upfront (in the press release anyway) about the people in it being actors:

"The agency took over a pub in London and placed a fake mirror of similar size and shape to a car windscreen in the men's toilets. The agency team then propelled a human mannequin through the fake glass of the mirror, shocking the unsuspecting punters, played by actors, using the toilets. The incident included accompanying, specially-designed sound effects, which brought to life the full horror of a road accident."

I think that the audience are pretty forgiving of this and this will prevent the 'fake' comments that this LG video got.

See it, Shop it - new Facebook shopping technology from Isobar

SeeItShopIt Demo from Isobar on Vimeo.

SeeItShopIt is a new technology that lets companies share product catalogues on Facebook, and lets customers look at and buy the products.

It was developed by colleagues in glue Isobar, and is now being used by three clients, with more to follow.

You can see how it works yourself by sharing some of the pictures from Littlewoods here, (pick the option to just share to yourself on Facebook if you're just doing this to see the technology) and then you can see the products well presented in your newsfeed.

It works on desktop, mobile and tablet.

See more information here.