Tag Archives: Web

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BenDunne.com – viral marketing or careless execution?

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Since spotting tweets about the suspect ads on BenDunne.com at lunch time, it seems there’s been no let up in the spamming of the website and seemingly no efforts made to stop it either.

ben

It’s got me wondering if it’s some kind of stab at a “viral marketing” campaign or a hugely embarrassing spotlight on an overlooked step in the website’s ad posting process. I’m inclined to think it’s the latter and if so I can’t understand how a brand as (seemingly) big as Ben Dunne would fail to monitor or take action on such a potentially damaging situation.

I have to admit to taking some pleasure in the humour of some of the supposed ads, particularly after having endured the awkward and somewhat irritating ads on the radio for the website that were being run repeatedly before the website ever got up and running at all. It did provide some light relief from the dreaded Budget coverage online also.

How long will it take for the spam to be stopped? Is there anybody watching? One thing’s for sure, Ben is going to see quite a spike in his traffic analytics – let’s just hope he doesn’t count the extra few hundred or thousand hits as a milestone and fuel for his next radio ad.

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Dolly mixture, Nov 24

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Wisdom tooth infection *finally* subsiding, normality to resume real soon.

In the meantime…

Etsy goodness
Etsy goodness

Awesome calendar/wall planner thing from Etsy (above).

37 Signals bring you Haystack – “Find the right web designer for your next project.”

Want to avoid silly unwanted gifts this Xmas? Try making a wishlist at Wishlistr.

It costs €20m to build 1km of road in modern Ireland.

Sexy aprons.

“It’s like getting slapped against the cheek by a dry leather glove with each finger being made of a mini-glove.”

Happy protest day. Will be posting all sorts on here and here throughout the day.

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Linder Gallery painting a clue to Lost season 6?

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During the week, a rather bizarre email arrived via the Linder Gallery website, mysteriousmasterpiece.com, pointing out how the painting had been featured in a teaser video for the final season of Lost.

So how did I come across this? The Linder Gallery website is a project we launched at X Communications a few weeks back. The painting is a fascinating work created almost four hundred years ago by an unknown artist although there are many theories and ideas being explored.

Here’s the video that was sent over:

You can read an excerpt of the email on the Linder Gallery blog. I’m not sure what to make of it, particularly since my interest in the TV series died around about season 2. Why that painting? And who was able to identify it, if indeed it was ‘spotted’ by the fans? Is it all a hoax?

Mysterious masterpiece indeed :)

News

YouTube Direct: good news for citizen reporters?

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YouTube have just launched a new service called YouTube Direct. It’s an extension of the existing API designed to enable news websites to take advantage of the increasing volume of ‘citizen reporting’ content being published on YouTube.

The main elements:

1. Embeddable uploader

You don’t have to leave the page – the customisable uploader sits on your news corp site (or wherever). Users with an existing YouTube account can log in to YouTube through it and then choose to submit an existing video from their account or upload a new video, as demonstrated in the screenshot.

2. Moderation Console

Does what it says on the tin – it’s a fairly straightforward looking moderation system that allows you to keep track of submitted videos, preview, approve and find out more about each video submitted. Here’s a video demo of it:

Some of the big FAQs answered on their FAQ page:

Q: Who owns the videos submitted via YouTube Direct?

A: The user who submits the video on your site via YouTube Direct owns the video. The video is uploaded to his or her YouTube account and is automatically made public on YouTube.com. By submitting it through your site, the user may grant you a license to use the video according to a set of Terms of Service that you set forth, assuming it does not conflict with YouTube’s Terms of Service.

Q: What happens if the user decides to remove the video?

A: If a user decides to delete a video after he or she has submitted it to your site via YouTube Direct, then this video will be removed from YouTube, and thus will no longer play anywhere on your site that the video has been embedded or linked to. When this happens, there will be a flag visible in the moderation panel indicating that the video is not longer live on YouTube, and any reference to it on your site should also be removed.

Q: How much does it cost?

A: YouTube Direct is free, but there may be a small cost associated with your Google App Engine account, depending on the amount of traffic being served.

Looks tasty. Will be interesting to see who will use it from both content creators and broadcasters. Read all about it at http://www.youtube.com/direct

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Dolly mixture

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Beautiful Graiguenamanagh at the weekend
Beautiful Graiguenamanagh at the weekend

‘Dear Me – A Letter to My Sixteen-Year-Old-Self’ is an interesting little book I picked up for my bookworm that seems to be going down quite well. The blurb goes: “If you were to write a letter to your 16-year-old self, what would it say? In DEAR ME: A LETTER TO MY SIXTEEN-YEAR-OLD SELF, some of the world’s best loved personalities have written just such a letter.” The Elton John AIDS Foundation will receive £1 for every copy sold and there’s a blog going alongside it at dearmebooks.com where you can read and even submit other letters yourself.

The first Irish Discworld Convention kicks off in Ennistymon, Co.Clare this Friday. There’s a schedule here and a load of info here. I’m a total newbie when it comes to Discworld but loving what I’ve experienced thus far and really looking forward to the weekend.

Mike – who is among other things the tech magician at X Comms – has launched a blog and is looking for a topic for a minor research dissertation that he’s doing for the M.Sc. Management Information Systems at TCD. Some very cute guinea pig pics up there too!

The founder of the little known Wikipedia Jimmy Wales is giving a public lecture at TCD on Friday Nov 27th. Tickets and info all available here.

Got my copy of Futuretainment by Mike Walsh last week. Now if I could just find the time to devour it. Beautifully designed book and it’s got a beautiful little website to go with it. Cheers to the Cybercom team for the introduction at their Cybercom 10 celebrations last month.

Ah, watch this space. Or not.

And to celebrate the safe return of Mr. Mulley to the internets, I’ll take a leaf from his blog and leave you with a song. This was going on while I was in jazz-recovery-sleeps in Cork about a week ago, streamed live over the web. Whatever will they think of next?!