breathe.com

I was reminded of this lovely tv spot, made at the time of the dotcom bubble peak



I think the music was an adaptation of some Eric Satie, especially commissioned. The sums of money to get this onto TV and big cinema screens must have been fairly eye watering.
Breathe.com did not live much longer than ad run!

An old edition of the News of the World

I found a Dec 2008 copy of the News of the World when doing a clear out. Why I kept it, I have no idea, but having a read through of the sports pages is quite illuminating how little the paper got right, though I'm sure it all felt completely on point at the time.


'Phil's just fine for Terry' - Phil Scolari given vote of confidence by John Terry.
"He's a great man, he gets on with everybody"
Phil Scolari sacked on Feb 9, 2009.

'Fab's done good - How Godfather Capello saved England.'

Clearly written before the shambles in South Africa 2010, the Capello index, the sacking of John Terry, reinstating of John Terry despite him leading a players revolt, the sacking of John Terry etc etc...

'I'd love to boss England' - by high flying Hull City manager Phil Brown...

Hull avoid relegation by one point, Brown disgraced as he grows a goatee and sings karaoke.

Carragher: We'll win the league.

Liverpool do not win the league and do not end their 19 years of hurt.

Forget the Ashes... 

Later that year, England win the Ashes

Oh well, farewell News of the World...

Skyscrapers in Croydon

Croydon is clearly going to be the new Manhattan. 
Images taken from the wonderful Skyscrapernews.com.

1 Lansdowne Road

Cherry Orchard Road Tower

and this is the Skerne Road redevelopment, opposite my current house

Chart of the Day

Guess the chart...

measures of success on a publisher website

As a marketing scientist with a special interest in media sites, a few interesting posts and developments have come to pass in the last couple of weeks.

This post from Greg Linch came on my radar – discussing how a measure like "engaged minutes" makes more sense for content evaluation on media sites. Using page views stems from advertising models established from print circulation models. In the more-digital era page views can give a bum steer, so you should derive your own measures…

http://www.greglinch.com/2012/01/quantifying-impact-a-better-metric-for-measuring-journalism.html

Some publisher sites will have defined their KPIs organically as the online presence evolved, but now may be in the last throes of reporting this first wave of measures, or submitting to legacy standards, as the accuracy and granularity demanded by advertisers is not satisfied by a big number that looks a bit fishy, but has been audited to the highest professional standard possible, on that measure.

The race to 'that measure' has seen many publishers shift strategy over time,. If this has not publicly admitted, it has seen many well known publishers become more famous for the content that people are finding from their organic search and referral traffic.

Facts: 

In May, The UK Daily Mail saw its highest traffic not reporting the death of bin Laden, but for some Kim Kardashian bikini shots…

The politically left wing Guardian newspaper sometimes gets its highest single volume of inbound referrals from right wing Drudge Report.

In terms of then using PV and CPM based models, the Daily Mail should focus on more US celebrities and the Guardian should put up more stories about disappointing US economic news and military tensions.

Discussion of how the Mail became bigger online than the NYT is featured in this BBC piece 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16746785 and the message is clear – they do what they do well. A mixture of very clickable viral bait, tempting picture links and glossy magazine images to keep you on site, and get you to share. Houses that look like Hitler.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1371091/Swansea-house-looks-like-Hitler-complete-naff-parting.html

The thing with right wing Drudge is that inbound referrals are distinctly un-sticky. Huge volumes come in to view that carefully selected poll showing the GOP up but don't feel compelled to browse around the rest of the site. Which is where engaged minutes come back in 

Following the Pacman Google Doodle, The Guardian have launched a Space Invaders window with an amusingly blunt request to 'Help make our analytics dwell-time figures skew this month' 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/interactive/2012/feb/01/tokyo-play-games-arcade-space-invaders

One final thought is that a favourite reference site of mine, BBC Sport may see fewer engaged minutes in the coming weeks. Redesigned in canary yellow, the site will glow radioactively on the screens as previously discrete males try to quickly scan the fixture lists and transfer gossip.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/sporteditors/2012/02/changes_to_the_bbc_sport_websi.html

My Top Photos of 2011

Since my boy was born in June 2010, my photos have been less about eastern European architecture at obscure angles, and more about partially digested carrot. Not as appealing to everybody (though Mrs Tea Set points out that Budapest Bus Station is not exactly gripping material for most either..).

Anyway, in 2011 I took a few non baby related photos, and here are a few of my picks.

The o2 Arena - in the Spring, I went to see a couple of expensive mega prog gigs - The Wall and Rush. This shot of the o2 and surrounding buildings to showcase an entirely modern part of London which could just as well be in Istanbul or Qatar for the stylings.

Boris bikes... I suppose this is in as an editorial shot - a sign of the times where austerity is taking over, and the London commuting public is encouraged to get on their Boris bike as a way of avoiding the horrible Tube and overpriced trains.

Freelance 'gigs' are always a bit bizarre, but earlier this year I was asked to take photos of Handel House for a photo gallery backdrop to the Montreal Tafelmusik chamber orchestra's season. Nuts, but a great opportunity to have a museum to myself and take photos of harpsichords. And also discover the legalities of not being able to show any images of someone else's paintings! Who knew?

London Zoo penguin enclosure had a revamp, as the lovely art deco concrete curves were giving old pengiuns arthritis or something like that. The new enclosure is a big perspex tub which has a viewing gallery in front of it. the penguins swoop around when the zookeepers drop fish in, and the local seagulls go crazy at the same time too.

Sunset over Newquay. Just a nice sky shot from a fun wedding weekend in Cornwall. 

A bicycle in Bruges. Ah yes, the old bicycle against a fairly ugly paint colour wall in Belgium - the Lepki photography of my youth is coming back to me.

The London Shard will be finished this year. There is a better picture to be had here, but this is just a placeholder whilst I get to it - the old British phone box and the largest tower in Europe. 

Tiny birds. Again not a brilliant picture, but one that shows a few tiny birds and a big bird and a bit of focus.

Well on Ukrainian Christmas, my blue and yellow photo from Alberta, Canada is reminiscent of the flag of my ancestors!

Chains and mountains in Canmore - I quite like this empty playground shot. Nothing deeper really.

A bit postcard like this one. The Chinook sculpture, by the Bow in Canmore. I can feel the summer day around this picture.

Sunset over Somers Town - at the end of my time with the Guardian, the sunsets were huge. This one was in my final week as I prepared to move on back to Critical Mass.

Answering the question of how reindeers handle warmer climates - Santa arrives by speedboat in Antigua.

Examples that will come in handy, possibly

Just a few handy bookmarks - not really anything you won;t have seen anywhere else, but useful for me to have in one place.

This is how the BBC is seen as a trusted source of news on some external research

Who needs passports? A Canadian man entered US using an iPad - I tried to use an iPod touch once to pull up some wedding details - UK immigration were not super impressed.

And also, Facebook starting letting you print business cards. The service is through moo.com, who I have used for printing custom cards before and always been very happy with their results.