We on the internet hate our comeuppance

Well, who’d have thought it would come to this.

The internet’s influence on the entertainment media is obviously huge, but never has it been felt in quite such a personal way as this. I am talking of course about the writers strike in LA. They want royalties from internet downloads, and they’re holding all our favourite shows to ransom. Now i’ve always taken the internet with a pinch of salt – there were no tears from me when Metallica killed Napster. But the prospect of no new 24, Prison Break or Family Guy in 2008 is a bitter, bitter pill to swallow.

I can see the logic – writers get nothing for download sales, which can’t be fair. Profits for these sales are pittance, but it’s about drawing a line. Five years down the line this is going to be big numbers, and unless they make a stand now they’re going to suffer later. On the other hand in ten years time we’ll all have worked out how to get our content online illegally and for free. If they’re striking over the legal stuff, who knows what’s going to go happen when it’s not only the studios but the consumers ripping them off?

This sucks. The internet used to be all fun and games, and now it might kill all my favourite shows! The internet led me to believe i could have it all – fast easy video and great programming whenever i wanted. Just another false prophet. This coupled with the TV-links fellow getting arrested, and there’s only one conclusion to be reached…

 The internet is serious business.

Radiohead sales figures come to light

In early October Radiohead released their latest album ‘In Rainbows’ online, with the added benefit to fans of being able to pay whatever they thought was reasonable for the download. Well initial stats are beginning to trickle in and the results are surprising. Wired report the average amount paid was somewhere between £2.50 and £4, whilst yahoo report 62% of purchasers chose to pay the minimum amount. I offer up two interpretations on my humble platter.

Interpretation 1:

The British public are penny pinching thieves who, granted anonymity would steal from their own children, and those who paid anything over the minimum did so only because Thom Yorke’s lazy eye makes them nervous.

Interpretation 2:

The figures reflect the fact that people are sick of paying as much as they have had to for music – especially the ones savvy enough to download it who will doubtless know how to get it for free elsewhere.

What do we think, O blogosphere?

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One left behind

Lloyds advert – ‘For the Journey’, the one in which everyone on the platform gets on the cute CGI Lloyds train.

…or do they?!

Eagle-eyed viewers will notice one person doesn’t get on the train when it leaves. I don’t need to list the reasons why this is confusing because once you see it you wont be able to sleep for trying to understand.

Why?!

Any comments explaining or giving possible reasons will be met with open weeping and gratitude.

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The Viewtiful People

I want an LG viewty.

5MP camera – fully touch screen, and 120fps video.

There are two things stopping me. One is that Orange have me in shackles for another few months, the second is the name. I know it sounds petty, but i’ve been hunting around all my local shops and every time a shop assistant refrains from giggling i die a little inside. LG have an alternate, more traditional name – the LG KU990, but i am reminded of the ‘adult’ covers for the Harry Potter books – am i that desperate to cover my shame?! Plus the conversation is bound to follow this sort of line:

“Hi, i’m after a phone.”
“Yes sir! Any specific model?”
“Yes, it’s the, umm… k..u..99…0.”
“AH! – THE VIEWTY!!“

Thanks a bunch LG, you’re lucky your phone is so nice.

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Taking the time to really let customers know you’ve screwed them

All technology breaks, that’s something we’ve come to terms with. The best technology, when it does break, goes silent and is dead. Tech that does this you know is good, because clearly the developers didn’t really plan on it breaking at all, and made no provisions. You can imagine the developers horrified face, his brain struggling to comprehend that his amazing technology “broke?! it broke?! There are no contingency plans… not for something like this…” and it makes you feel a little better – you didn’t buy a crappy product, you were just unlucky!

Now take a converse and more recent example, the Xbox 360, synonymous with self-destruction. You may have heard of the red ring of death – a nicely ominous red LED display that, upon the Xbox being fried, replaces the soothing green. It is not exactly a boost to my confidence that Microsoft saw fit to spend as much time and money on this feature as they did, and it’s hard to place any credit on their pleas of confusion at the breakdown figures when they implemented such an extravagant display just to let you know it’s ruined.

Moral of the story is: if you’re technology has any kind of graphic, sound or laser show to let you know it’s screwed, the manufacturers were clearly planning on a lot of down-time.

On the plus side, this may make you feel a little better next time you see the blue screen of death – Microsoft’s way of telling you in under a second and in unreadable writing that your motherboard has more or less gone to hell.

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Too much viral?

We’re all familiar with viral marketing – ads that are interesting or unusual in some sense are dispersed like spores into the web and it is left to viewers to do the sharing and the spreading. But can an ad be too viral? It seems to me that if you hear about an ad through word of mouth before you actually get sent it online then you’ve missed out on half the fun. For an ad to be viral it has to be unusual – for example the cadburys gorilla or the Sony Bravia claymation rabbits – both unusual and interesting ads, but in both cases i heard about them through word of mouth before i got the classic “check out this ad, see attachment” email. Hearing, “its in America somewhere and all these rabbits run around and make a whale and they really did all of it!” surely takes away from the experience i would have had if the ad had been shoved unannounced in my face.

Hence i deduce there is a balance to the be struck – an ad must be entertaining enough to become viral, without being so good that it makes the jump from being worth linking people to, to worth telling them about with our old-fashioned mouths, upon which impact is lost.

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What is a WEI?

WEI is the term i use to refer to a “Web-Enabled Individual.” Strictly of course this could refer to just about anyone with a computer, but i use it to refer to the slightly more select group of new media consumers – the ones who really do feel a little more enabled by the New Web. I’m a WEI, and if you’re reading this you probably are too. It’s a blanket term for the thronging mass of users out there who want web content readily available and fast-streaming. We are the Web elite, puffed-up on our own new technology, the hopeless nerds coming to terms with the fact that the internet is suddenly cool…

We are the WEIs.

And we were using Amazon way before you.

Brand awareness does not equal sales.

Talking with a friend (iainmcdonald.net) over a few pints the other night we came to discussing the recent range of o2 television adverts. In case you’re living under a rock these are the truly epic CGI adverts with beautiful people standing in fields watching huge bubbles fly around enriching their lives in abstract ways. By all accounts these adverts are poor and show o2 to be unimaginative and intimidatingly high budget. (Compare to Orange, who have convinced the nation they are everyone’s bohemian friend)

At this point my friend deploys the classic, “Ah, but look! we’re all talking about it, so they’ve already succeeded!” He is right of course in a sense – a terrible ad can do more for brand awareness than even the slickest of productions. But whilst i will remember the o2 ads for years to come, these will all be years in which i make a conscious decision to stay well clear of o2 and all their products. Brand awareness is just awareness at the end of the day, and does not entail a positive response.

I look forward to comments offering figures that prove me completely wrong on this subject.

Two easy steps to creating an unusable website

Lord knows it’s hard work creating an excellent user-interface for your website, and as a Web-Enabled Individual (WEI) you know if something requires hard work you must be doing it wrong. With this in mind pay heed to these great tips on how to make your company’s website irretrievably poor.

Step 1 – Toolbars are for tools

Nobody is going to think you’re cutting edge with all your links clearly laid out along the top of the homepage. why not scatter them randomly? Customers love the Easter-egg-hunt layout, it makes the link all the more gratifying when you do find it! And in case you’re wondering what to put in place of the toolbar, why not a big advert! Now i don’t want to name any names, but here’s a link to the BT homepage. BT.com

Step 2 – Flash is just as cool as it sounds

The best websites have loading times, but that’s not all flash gives you! Fusty traditionalists will tell you to “use Flash conservatively” but can you really argue with beautiful sliding menus, slightly animated video and zoom in features? Thanks to Flash buttons can now be smaller than ever, and right-clicking is rendered useless. Plus, it always helps to have to install software in order to view your website, keeps out the riffraff.