Welcome To Washington

Some shots from my wanderings around the Capital of the USA, whilst over visiting the Ogilvy 360 Digital Influence team in DC. (@ogilvypr) Let me know what you think @jamespoulter on twitter.

London Twestival Sells Out… Twits, Texts and Tequila

amiando – LONDON TWESTIVAL – London – Shoreditch Studios – @twestival.

So this week the first 500 tickets for the second London Twestival went on sale, and you guessed it Sold Out. (Kind of give away in the title of the post I Know but come on, you wouldn’t be reading otherwise).

Twestival London is described thus:

On 12 February 2009 100+ cities around the world will be hosting Twestivals which bring together Twitter communities for an evening of fun and to raise money and awareness for charity: water.

Join us by hosting a Twestival in your city, attending an event, or participating online.

The Twestival is organized 100% by volunteers in cities around the world and 100% of the money rais

ed from these events will go directly to supportcharity: water projects.

In September 2008, a group of Twitterers based in London UK decided to organise an event where the local Twitter community could socialize offline; meet the faces behind the avatars, enjoy some entertainment, have a few drinks and tie this in with a food drive and fundraising effort for a local homeless charity.

The bulk of the event was organized in under two weeks, via Twitter and utilized the talents and financial support of the local Twittersphere to make this happen.

Around the world similar stories started appearing of local Twitter communities coming together and taking action for a great cause. Twestival was born out of the idea that if cities were able to collaborate on an international scale, but working from a local level, it could have a spectacular impact.

By rallying together globally, under short timescales, for a single aim on the same day, the Twestival hopes to bring awareness to this global crisis.

Great stuff… All well and good. People who like a thing, get together and chat about that thing and raise some money for a great charity along the way.

However… (and please don’t come down too hard on me for this because, I personally don’t have a problem with it) Why would an online community, one that is largely made up of lots of people connected purely via the internet (at least is my @jamespoulter follow list is anything to go by) want to meet up offline and discuss… what? Exactly. Of course, a networking opportunity. Or a dating chance, or just an option for twitterholics to get out of the house. Either way. Just still seems all a little odd that the unknown little app of a year ago, a truely niché product-come-mainstream is bringing people truely together. I leave that debate to you.

As a way of closing, let me also direct your attention to the ticket facility that twestival are using – namely – amiando .

 

A great online ticket management/event management tool, allowing you to set up an event, sell tickets, post your purchase to Facebook using FacebookConnect. Great tool, easy to use.  So well done. Let me know if you are going. If they release more slots, then I’ll see you there, work out what all the fuss is about…

To blog or not to blog… That’s not the question

As we plunge head first into the new year, us online inhabitants will inevitable take stock of our online habits. In the same way we way up the decision to switch toothpaste brand, or washing powder, our online domains often feel like they need a shake up. If you are like me then you may be feeling nostalgic about ning, or tired of twitter, or unmoved by MovableType, and feeling the need to refresh your blogging habits. But how in the vast wilderness that is the inter-web do we make a decision where to log our thoughts, feelings and news?

Well this week some research from the good folks at Pingdom may be able to help that digital move. By using the Technorati Top 100, they weighed up which blogs used which services, and came up with some great insights…

 

The Top Blog Platforms

I personally, as you can see use WordPress, (WordPress.com Hosted as I’m a cheapskate and refuse to pay yet more hosting fees…) However it seems I am not alone in this amongst the blogging elite, 5 of which use the service, however this sticks WordPress.com blogs way down the list.

It seems far more of the powerbloggers and tweeters of the web use self-hosted WordPress based sites, which is logical for the amount of traffic and content that they host, and due to many being liked to corporate sites. A good point from Ian @technorati illustrates this – 

“We don’t publish stats about it officially but the numbers skew even more strongly towards WordPress as you expand down the long tail. Not a diss on WordPress but I suspect the number of hosting services that support WordPress (and in general support PHP+MySQL) accounts for much of the popularity; folks will opt for whatever is easiest on their ISP arrangement.”

It seems to me that there is no bearing on how popular a blog is due to which service or platform it uses, and that i suppose is the key point. For those of us that trawl the blogosphere day in day out, we are looking for great content, ideas, passions and nuances. Things that sup rise and engage, and hopefully sometimes shock. But there definitely is something to be said for aesthetics, usability and ease on the eye. No-one wants to feel like they are having their frontal cortex gouged out with a blunt spoon just to read about another twitter application, regardless of how cute or clever it is.

Barnardos Childrens Online Ads – Break the Cycle

http://tinyurl.com/56yeu3

Check out the above link to learn about the new Barbardos Campaign

In an interesting use of video and interactivity, this new campaign from Bernardos invites users to “Break The Cycle” of abuse being shown on screen by clicking the stop button on the video, which launches into a full screen, high quality movie when clicked.

Enticing, brutal and provocative, the new campaign seeks to help children be brought out of cycles of antisocial behaviour, drug abuse and poverty.

Some Facts: (Source, YouGov.)

Research conducted by YouGov shows that:

• just under half (49%) of people believe that children are increasingly a danger to each other and adults
• 43% agree something has to be done to protect us from children
• 45% think that children are feral in the way they behave.

A survey conducted amongst Barnardo’s young people – just over half of whom have been in trouble – found that most of them thought that young people get into trouble because of boredom and peer pressure.  

Of the 393 youngsters, aged between 10 and 23:

• 44% said bad behaviour is encouraged when the media portrays their peers as misbehaving
• 84% said young people get into trouble because of boredom
• 88% said having more things to do and places to go might stop young people getting into trouble
• 32% would go to friends for help if they were in trouble.

Shocking stuff really, as is the campaign videos, but well worth a look. From a media sense, this is doing nothing news, but is using something we have already seen in various incarnations, to great effect…

JP 2008