Face #34

The obligatory 2007 Review

I did some stuff.

Some of it was alright.

Some of it sucked.

Next year I plan to do less stuff that sucks.

A lesson from London Underground

Always under-promise and over-deliver.

The problem here is that knowing the London Underground system, they probably under-promised AND under-delivered.

The Rules #39

Our industry can move pretty fast.

Take time to stop and smell the bullshit.

Face #33

How to find the best shops in London

Yesterday was a pretty exciting day for me. My girlfriend is starting a new business called Unchained - and at 10am yesterday morning the beta version of the site went live. It helps you find the very best independent shops in London. It’s all Web 2.0-ed up with Google Maps integration and stuff. And it lets you plan your shopping trip and see it all plotted on a map.

We’re pretty excited about it and are asking people to try it out, attempt to break it and tell us what they think.

This first site is for London - but within the next couple of months it’ll be expanding to other cities around the world. Which is why it needs to be tickety-boo at this stage.

Go and have a tinker and give us your honest opinions. Click on the logo above to visit the site.

The Rules #38

If everyone in a company hired people who are better than them, the company’s success would be guaranteed.

Face #32

You better watch out, I’m telling you why.

It’s not just Santa that wants to know who’s naughty or nice. I saw this lovely Christmas tree decoration in a shopping centre in Canary Wharf yesterday.

Can Facebook target THAT well?

I know Facebook is offering some incredibly tight targeting for their advertisers - but do they really have this much information about me?

I found this ad on my profile page. I don’t recall putting any information in there about the state of my scalp. Did they manage to access some insightful research about 30-something male marketing professionals in the South West of London and found that they have a much higher incidence of inherited baldness?

Creepy!

The Rules #37

Don’t be a culture snob.

You very rarely have to advertise to art critics and avant-garde aficionados.

Face #31

I only spotted this little koala-chap this morning in the Poke locker room.

This may be the first time I’ve gone ‘WOW!’ at a screensaver

While ambling idly around the internets a couple of days ago, I stumbled across some OSX screensavers. And one of them really amazed me (please remember that I’m an over-enthusiastic geek and I must be avoided at parties).

It’s very subtle - which is why I like it. It simply makes your screen look like a rippling pool of water. It’s beautiful. And it’s free. If you’ve got a Mac you can download it by clicking on the image above. If you’ve got a PC, you wouldn’t appreciate such aesthetic beauty anyway.

Or if you’re feeling a bit festive, the same Wakaba people do a snowflake one. It’s pretty slick. And there’s even an Escher one where you spiral ever inwards in a never-ending picture.

Next week I’ll be talking about the latest in mouse mats. That’s the future baby!

Face #30

My friend David was presented with this little chap when we went out for brunch at the weekend. Yum.

The Rules #36

Don’t try to make a website into a pastiche of the real world.

Turning pages and other such contrivances have been done. A lot.

People are used to websites now. They don’t need those reference points.

Do they know something about targetting that I don’t?

Nathan Williams, the Usability Ninja and man behind Simiant, pointed out some potential competition for my muthafckr Web 2.0 MILF finder. He discovered the site milfr.com. Dang!

So I just had to go along and find out what they were all about. And - yes - it mainly seems to be links to MILF sites and resources. However, I noticed these entries on the sponsored results:

Do they have some amazing behavioural insight here? Do people that are into MILFs have a higher propensity for door purchasing? Or is there a door fetish that I’ve not been made aware of yet?

I’m confused. But slightly fascinated. Hmmmm.

One thumb up and one thumb down to the BBC

Over the past week, the BBC has launched a couple of beta pages. And being an opinionated bugger (and a licence fee payer) I’d just like to comment on them.

The first is the new BBC Homepage

I can see what they’re trying to do. And the underlying spirit of it is pretty good. They’re trying to offer users a kind of iGoogle customisable page. You can drag the elements around, select the number of entries you want in each topic, minimise and maximise each topic box and add your local details to make the information more geographically relevant. Brilliant! That means I don’t have to see the football stories I’m not remotely interested in. And I can access the BBC technology news stories directly from the front page.

So great thinking from a functionality point of view. There is, however, one big problem: It looks shit!

I mean, look at that clock at the top. WTF?!! And the size of the BBC logo on the left! It’s as if the stupidest, most obnoxious retail client just kept shouting “make the logo bigger!” until the designer quit the project in disgust. The titles for each topic box look as if they’re designed to be read from the other side of the room. I’m sure even the most stringent level of accessibility doesn’t require text to be this big. I’m hoping they’ll let you customise it to choose your own text size too. They’ve gone so web 2.0 on the functionality that they obviously wanted the design to match. It’s got the clichéd rounded corners and smooth gradients. All that’s missing is the reflective glass feel and a name like ‘mastrb8r’. Yuk!

And now for some good news.

I love the new BBC iPlayer. Admittedly the design has committed its fair share of Web 2.0 offences with gradients, rounded corners AND a glass effect on the buttons. But it’s so good that I’ve managed to stop myself from blowing chunks.

I suppose I’m most impressed that it works on a Mac. I really wasn’t expecting that. It also plays the programmes in full screen – although it’s a bit flakey at the moment. To help all of us bloggy, emaily, community dudes, you can share each programme by email, facebook, delicious and all the usual stuff. It also looks like you can download the programme if you’ve got a PC – although it looks like they may soon also offer this to the sensible people who spent their money on a Mac instead.

So there we have it. This year the BBC is giving us one turkey and one cracker. God bless them!

The Rules #35

Imitation is the sincerest form of theft.

Face #29

We didn’t come second. We’re the number one loser.

I know I’m a bit late here - the Campaign Annual 2007 came out last week. But better late than never. I’m delighted to announce that Poke came second in the Digital Agency of the Year award.

Having only been here for 2 weeks, I know that I haven’t had much bearing on the result. OK. None whatsoever. But I’m still chuffed to bits for everyone here at having done so well. And that wasn’t the only achievement:

- Orange ‘Spot the bull’ and Orange Unlimited both made the shortlist for the best digital ads

- Iain Tait was placed amongst the top digital talent.

- Iain’s Crackunit blog was also deservedly awarded

- Simon Waterfall was named as one of the top adland brands

However, more than a few people are surprised that we were missed off the ‘Best Agencies To Work For’ list.

So a big congratulations to all my talented colleagues. And congratulations to Dare who must be getting a bit blasé about scooping the prize now.