Category: 5things

Things of note for the week ending Sunday September 4th, 2016.

Monochromatic edition. Because why not?

Come on in, the water’s lovely.

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THING ONE: DARK

“It’s been seven months since Emma died and two weeks since I started building a bot from her texts. I’m feeding every word she sent me into the system, every thought, every feeling.”

If you’re reading this near to someone, read the whole thing aloud.

It’s dark, poignant, and beautiful.

‘My Dead Girlfriend’s Bot‘

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THING TWO: LONG READS

It’s been two weeks since the closure of Gawker.com (if you know nothing of what I speak – start here with this New York Times report in May, then read this follow up piece, and then finally this round up from The Guardian) and, irrespective of your opinion who was in the ‘right’ on this one (most people are either: Tech billionaire throws tantrum! or Gawker invade privacy!), in its 14 years of history, Gawker has published some hella amazing articles.

Buzzfeed asked its own staff for their favourite Gawker pieces and pulled together a fantastic list (NOT a listicle) of Stories to Remember Gawker By.

Some seriously fantastic writing.

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THING THREE: NOT COOL

Frith Hookway writes:

‘In a similar vane as name dropping, name bombing is when someone’s name is used as a catalyst for getting something done faster.

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For example, in an email or meeting we might say “so-and-so has asked for this by the end of the day” or “I’m doing work for you-know-who so really need everyone to pitch in”.

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Without even thinking about it, I know I’m guilty of this. Many of us probably are.’

You’ve probably done this. I definitely have.

It’s not cool. I’m going to stop.

Are you?

Read more: ‘Name bombing: the not cool way of getting things done’

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THING FOUR: SPACE, MAN

Next on this week’s list of things, is ‘Never go to space it’s terrible omg‘(yes, that’s the actual title). A brilliant piece from Leigh Alexander that delves into the physical and psychological challenges that lie ahead for any ambitions star-travellers among us.

A sobering read (and bizarrely reminiscent of my recent play time on No Man’s Sky (if there’s one thing that this game manages to do it’s capture the real feeling of insignificance in a truly inconceivably large universe)) it looks at how much work our astronauts have to put into surviving the most hostile environment you can possibly imagine.

The known knowns are interesting.
The unknown knowns blow your mind (the Buzz Aldrin about halfway in, for example).
The unknown unknowns are the things that’ll literally stop us dead.

Our planet will attempt a manned trip to Mars in my lifetime. This piece goes some way to explain just how hard that’s going to be for those that will be onboard.

Go read.

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THING FIVE: DIE DRAGON DIE

One of the wonderful (and yet super hard to communicate clearly) things about gaming online is the huge sense of camaraderie that can come from achieving a seemingly insurmountable feat. With death at hand, a clutch victory in the closing seconds of any match can go down in legend among your fellow players and, in many cases, forge life-long friendships along the way.

I speak from experience.

With that in mind, I read this story this morning about a band of brothers and sisters who put aside their differences to defeat an undefeatable creature and, in doing so, triggered a chain of events that had the senior management at Sony Online Entertainment sit up and pay attention.

Even if you’re not a gamer – this is an excellent read:

The Surprising And Allegedly Impossible Death Of EverQuest’s ‘Unkillable’ Dragon

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Bonuses this week are as follows –

• Weird short vines/gifs.
• I laughed harder at this than I should’ve done.
• Got a smashed screen on that iPhone? I like these.
• I can’t stop watching this amazing queue control.
• Steward and McKellan are coming back to the West End.

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And finally, a couple of years ago I went to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and, with my good friend Robbie, caught 18 different shows/performances/plays over the course of three days.

The very last one we saw was a one woman show by Pheobe Waller-Bridge.

The name of that show? Fleabag.

In my post-Fringe write up I wrote:

And it was.

Utterly, utterly brilliant.

That was three years ago.

Today, Fleabag is back. Waller-Bridge has adapted it for TV and you can find it on BBC iPlayer and, I believe very soon, on Amazon Prime. It is superb.

So superb that it gets its own separate section in this weeks THINGS.

Google it.

Find it.

Watch it.

Talk to others about it.

Then go and read all the other amazing things that have been written about it.

Waller-Bridge deserves every success off the back of this.

That is all.

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Right, I’m outta here.

Thanks for reading.

If you could do one thing for me this week it would be to tell a friend about this newsletter.

Until next time…

 

 

Things of note for the week ending Sunday August 28th, 2016.

It’s 07:45am on Sunday August 28th as I sit down to begin this week’s edition. Work has changed recently (for the better – more soon) and finding time to even open WordPress just once throughout the week is proving difficult.

Note: this is a good thing.

An output of this increased workload however,  is that FToF will arrive more and more frequently on a Sunday. While I’m sure this isn’t too much of a problem for many of you (I mean, can you imagine? ‘What’s that Whatters? This amazing weekly newsletter of quasi-interesting stuff that you do for me completely for free is MOVING its publishing date!!! Screw You!!’ – ha!)  I’m fairly sure that if you had an issue with this you’d just stop reading.

Right? Right.

PS. There’s a LOT to get through this week. So sit back, relax, and PUT THINGS IN YOUR EYES.

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1. THE LOTTERY OF INDECENCY

via @LaSauvageJaune.

The only good thing to say about the horrendous burkini stuff happening in the news cycle over the past week or two is that there might finally be a light at the end of the [very dark] tunnel.

 

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2. USE WHATSAPP? READ THIS.

This has been pretty much everywhere this week BUT I figured I should share it all the same.

In a move that genuinely did surprise everyone, WhatsApp announced a new change to its privacy policy this week that will enable it to share your data with its parent company, Facebook.

What data? So far the list includes:

• Your WhatsApp Phone Number
• Your ‘Last Seen’ data
• What OS you’re using (eg: Android 6.0 or iOS9 etc)
• Country code
• Carrier info
• Device info

Crucially, there’s no message data being shared. You may recall earlier this year when WhatsApp switched on end-to-end encryption. In short: WhatsApp couldn’t read your messages even if it wanted to.

So when it comes to this, it comes down to personal choice:

Do you care enough to keep your data hidden? Or do you genuinely want ‘better’ advertising and will therefore allow aforementioned data to be shared?

The good thing is: you have a choice.

When the new terms pop up, scroll to ‘read more’ and then untick the box. If you’ve already just hit ‘OK’, don’t panic, you still have 30 days to opt-out. (details via the Independent).

Additional things to be aware of (that will not doubt be circulating in the trades for a little while yet):

First, 2014. Jan Koum, co-founder of Whatsapp, said this on the WhatsApp blog:

“Respect for your privacy is coded into our DNA, and we built WhatsApp around the goal of knowing as little about you as possible: You don’t have to give us your name and we don’t ask for your email address. We don’t know your birthday. We don’t know your home address. We don’t know where you work. We don’t know your likes, what you search for on the internet or collect your GPS location. None of that data has ever been collected and stored by WhatsApp, and we really have no plans to change that.

If partnering with Facebook meant that we had to change our values, we wouldn’t have done it. Instead, we are forming a partnership that would allow us to continue operating independently and autonomously. Our fundamental values and beliefs will not change. Our principles will not change. Everything that has made WhatsApp the leader in personal messaging will still be in place. Speculation to the contrary isn’t just baseless and unfounded, it’s irresponsible. It has the effect of scaring people into thinking we’re suddenly collecting all kinds of new data. That’s just not true, and it’s important to us that you know that.”

So there’s that.

Second: both the UK and the US are allegedly looking into the legalities of this change.

This one could go and go…

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3. BEHIND THE SCENES

I used to work in TV. Long time ago. The vision mixer / director is the person that chooses what you get to see during a live TV broadcast. At one point this was something I really wanted to do (I used to sit behind the people at GMTV and watch them do it – I even completed a couple of training courses on it).

This four minute video, looking at the behind the scenes of perhaps one of the largest vision mixing responsibilities in the world, The Oscars, focuses in on the 1997 awards and, well, it’s really really worth a watch.

Such passion!

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4. A QUANTUM LEAP, BUT FOR REALS

This week, China launched the world’s first quantum satellite. That’s right, China is actually going to try and teleport information outside of the known barriers of space and time.

I think we need to let that settle in for a minute.

…

Done that?

OK.

Now go and read an expert’s take on it.

Truly potentially world-changing stuff.

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5. SHARING A GIF? CAREFUL NOW.

Four days ago, sports writer, Jim Weber, wrote about how he had his Twitter account permanently deleted simply for SHARING A GIF. I know what you’re thinking…

But don’t worry too much. Well. Maybe. Said GIF was from that world-leading and uber-progressive social media content event, THE OLYMPICS.

You can already tell how this is going to play out:

Over to Jim:

It all started when I saw a GIF of her sublime first pass on the floor routine two weeks ago on the front page of Reddit. Wanting to share what an awesome moment this was, I downloaded the GIF and uploaded it to Twitter with these four words: “Aly Raisman: She’s good.”

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I had read that the IOC was banning the press from using GIFs but I didn’t see how that applied to me. Sure, I didn’t have the rights to any footage at the Olympics — just like countless blogs and users don’t have rights to the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and NCAA footage that they create GIFs out of and profit from every day.

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But I figured the worst thing that would happen is the GIF would be deleted from my account, as Twitter often does in these situations.

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Boy was I wrong.

 

Hello Gif, goodbye Twitter account!

The IOC sucks at social media. We know this.

Turns out Twitter decided to play hardball too…

Damn.

 

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Bonuses this week are plenty –

• Here’s a rare interview with Rick Moranis from last year. I think I missed this first time around. Ignore the dated-Ghostbusters-remake-bashing headline and enjoy an insight into where Moranis has (and has not) been hiding himself since Spaceballs.
• Images, Snapchat and Mobile.
• Push and Pull.
• Creatures of the Deep.
• Our nearest habitable planet has been in the news this week; here’s why.
• The First Lady Bake-Off.
• Top tips for taking selfies.

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Right, it’s 10:30 (there were pauses to play Lego) and we’re done.

Until next time, my friends. Hope you don’t mind the casual shift to the occasional Sunday.

Oh, and enjoy the Bank Holiday weekend!!!

Whatley Out.

 

 

Things of note for the week ending Sunday August 14th, 2016.

1. GROUNDHOG DAY: THE MUSICAL

You’ve just read the headline of this ‘thing’ and you’ve thought one of two things:

1: WHAT? NO. UGH. IS NOTHING SACRED?
2: IT’S OUT ALREADY?! YES! CAN’T WAIT!

Unless you have a third option, which is mine, and it goes like this I’VE SEEN IT AND IT’S GREAT AND YOU SHOULD ALL SEE IT AT ONCE.

To the doubters, I’d say give it get over it.

I went in with a small amount of concern (and why not, Groundhog Day is arguably one of the best comedies/romantic-comedies/Bill Murray films ever made – of course you might be anxious) BUT the fact that it came from the geniuses (genii?) behind the MATILDA musical meant I had a good chunk of reassurance.

I went. I saw. I laughed a LOT.

You should go too.

It’s on at the Old Vic London until September 17th and if you can go, then GO.

It’s wonderful

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2. WHITE HOUSE BOT

This week in BOT NEWS – you can now send a message direct to The White House (read: ‘President Obama’) via Facebook Messenger.

AND IT ACTUALLY WORKS.

LOOK!

I have to admit, it took me a good few minutes (and a couple of rewrites after that) to work out exactly what I wanted to say.

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Neato.

Via Fast Company.

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3. EVER BEEN IN A CORPSE CUPBOARD?

Aka: what happens when you die on a plane?

There are two ways to find out. One involves dying. Here’s the other one.

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4. LOOK AROUND YOU

Next year – 2017 – this satellite going to be launched into orbit around the Earth.

What makes this satellite so special? Well, this satellite will be carrying the world’s first VR CAMERA FOR SPACE.

SpaceX have confirmed it: it is happening. In 2017, we’ll be able to strap on a helmet and look around in actual space in real time.

Just let that sink in for a minute.

Amazing.

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5. SUICIDE SQUAD

…is a terrible movie.

I wrote a [fair] few thoughts on Teh Twitterz after I saw the movie last weekend but in case you missed that, here are a select quotes from a number of reviews:

Vanity Fair said:

Suicide Squad is bad. Not fun bad. Not redeemable bad. Not the kind of bad that is the unfortunate result of artists honorably striving for something ambitious and falling short. Suicide Squad is just bad. It’s ugly and boring, a toxic combination that means the film’s highly fetishized violence doesn’t even have the exciting tingle of the wicked or the taboo. (Oh, how the movie wants to be both of those things.) It’s simply a dull chore steeped in flaccid machismo, a shapeless, poorly edited trudge that adds some mildly appalling sexism and even a soupçon of racism to its abundant, hideously timed gun worship. But, perhaps worst of all, Suicide Squad is ultimately too shoddy and forgettable to even register as revolting. At least revolting would have been something.

Inverse said:

Even if Suicide Squad was a competent movie and not merely a series of disconnected scenes, it would still have one major problem: The way it handles race and nationality. Suicide Squad is so blatantly, outrageously, almost comically offensive, with stereotypes galore and cellophane-thin characterization, you’d think it was doing it on purpose to be subversive — only, it isn’t smart enough to.

Deadspin:

I suspect the disjointed nature of this movie owes to the fact that it is two separate stories director David Ayer is doing a very half-assed job of trying to present as one. The first is a romance between the Joker and Harley Quinn. This element seems like the result of Jared Leto wanting to make a music video about how badass the Joker is, and Warner Brothers deciding they should build a movie around it using another film they were already shooting, a divorce and morality tale surrounding Will Smith, who must fight powerful monsters with his friends.

There are a ton more I could link you to but they’re all fairly depressing.

In short: don’t see this movie. Suicide Squad is a terribly dull movie and it really isn’t worth your time or your money.

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6. TRUMP TWEETS

Which ones does he write? Which ones do his team write? Someone looked at the data and guess which one they found to be angrier of the two?

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7. SUMMER DESSERT PLANS

Yes. That is exactly what you think it is.

OH YEAH.

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Bonuses this week are all gaming related:

• FIREWATCH (PS4 & Steam) is probably the best example of story-telling-as-gameplay I’ve seen since the highly commended/awarded LAST OF US. And, without doubt, is the best game I’ve played this year. Here’s a short video interview with the creators that give you a small insight into exactly how they did it.
• I’ve gone all in on NO MAN’S SKY and I am LOVING IT. I linked to this piece, from The New Yorker, back in May when I first started talking about it [NMS] so if you missed it then, read it now. If you have no idea what the fuss is about, it will tell you all you need to know.
• Spotify launched Spotify Gaming – playlists for gamers. An intriguing concept given that there are many who enjoy in-game choons but hey, I’ll give it a shot. Will you?

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And I’m done.

Until next time…

Whatley out.

 

 

 

 

Things of note for the weekending Friday August 5th, 2016.

What a GLORIOUS DAY IT HAS BEEN!

Also: the newsletter is on time. What the flop?

Amazing.

Shall we?

1. GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, WATER PISTOLS DO

If you’re an iPhone user, then you might already know that Apple’s latest firmware test release (aka – iOS 10 beta 4) features a number of really great emoji updates.

One of them though is perhaps not so great.

E.g.:

You can see how this might be a problem.

Emojipedia has a great write up on the above (and more).

Go read it.

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2. PROPER TRANSFORMERS

This live-action version of classic Transformers is actually brilliant.

And probably 10,000% better.

Go watch it.

Don’t even start me on the newly announced version of Hot Rod. Jeez.

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3. BANKING IN NEPAL

This is amazing.

“In Kagbeni, Nepal, a village of fewer than 1,000 people nestled high in the Himalayas, rupees change hands inside shops and barley is traded for buckwheat in the streets, but there is no modern way to store wealth. The nearest bank is a three-hour hike away; while most villagers have a drawer or plastic bag filled with badly worn rupees, few bother making routine deposits or withdrawals. So when a family finds themselves with a little extra money, or in need of some, they look to their rooftops, where the Kagbeni version of a savings account is neatly stacked.”

Uh huh.

More here.

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4. FLOCK TO UNLOCK – UNLOCKED!

Hey, look at this NEW thing.

About two yeas or so ago, if you worked in any kind of communications agency, you’d have had a conversation with a media agency about this SUPER NEW AND EXCITING new feature from Twitter called ‘Flock to Unlock‘.

Here is an article covering a Puma execution from August 2014.

If I recall correctly, the price of entry for use of said feature was about £50k. Might’ve been $50k. Can’t quite remember. Anyway, point being, jump back to August 2016 and Twitter have [finally] rolled it out for all and sundry with no huge media spend up front (seemingly, at least).

I think Marvel did it last summer too…

Yes, they did.

It didn’t go down that well.

So look, ‘Flock to Unlock’ is now available. It’s got a new name and you can find out about the details over on Twitter’s blog.

Go on, off you pop.

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5. USE THIS

It isn’t new but it is useful.

Thanks to TNW for the reminder.

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Bonus items this week are as follows:

• Handy guide for brands tweeting about the Olympics: don’t do it!
• Subversive Typography
• Intellectual Jokes
• Same
• Lol

And I’m done.

Oh.

One more thing.

What’s got two thumbs and is off to enjoy his weekend?

Things of note for the week ending Friday July 29th, Sunday July 31st 2016.

Wow, I was tired last week! Thanks to those of you that spotted the missing item number three. For those that spotted it and didn’t email in, the big thing was supposed to be:
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3. THROWING A BBQ?
Buy some bananas and some chocolate – and do this. Then tweet @markofrespect and tell him I said to say thank you.
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Mind. Blown.

I know. Almost as much as that time I heard about grated bacon. Almost.

OK, so that’s the admin out of the way.

Onwards – to THE THINGS!

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1. TEAM BUILDING

Kicking off things this week with this really quite excellent long read on creating the perfect team (via the NYT Magazine).

“Five years ago, Google — one of the most public proselytizers of how studying workers can transform productivity — became focused on building the perfect team. In the last decade, the tech giant has spent untold millions of dollars measuring nearly every aspect of its employees’ lives. Google’s People Operations department has scrutinized everything from how frequently particular people eat together (the most productive employees tend to build larger networks by rotating dining companions) to which traits the best managers share (unsurprisingly, good communication and avoiding micromanaging is critical; more shocking, this was news to many Google managers).”

What follows is an excellent analysis that uncovers the profound effect that group behavioral standards can have on the interplay, impact, and ultimately the overall success of the group involved. These norms may manifest themselves as unwritten rules or simply just part of the known culture.

If you work in a team – or are a member of any kind of group – then this is a must read.

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2. WHO’S TALKING?

In a week(end) where an old white dude proclaimed that the gender diversity debate was ‘all over’ (as well as a personal fave: ‘millennials don’t do leadership‘), was subsequently lambasted by an entire industry, and then pretty much told to go stand in the corner and think about what he’s done by his boss (it remains to be seen if he’ll be allowed back); you’re probably ready for some kind of useful tool to help test Mr Roberts’ theory yourself.

Right? Well, maybe.

Whatever, I’ve got just the website for you.

It’s called: are men talking too much?

CLICK IT!

Dead handy.

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3. TWITTER FOR DUMMIES

Twitter isn’t having the best of times right now (if anything, it’s mid-pivot and struggling to sell that in (that or it just needs to ‘enable instagram‘ – jeez)) however, be that as it may, some people are still only just discovering it.

If anyone ever asks you ‘What is Twitter and how do I use it?’, you now have a useful guide to hand – as written by the always-amusing Stu Heritage.

Save it for later.

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4. NO INTERNET

Believe it or not I’ve spent several days and weekends completely disconnected from the Internet. TRUTH, I tell thee. TRUTH. That said, these days it’s genuinely quite hard to find places where you can escape the umbilical cord of connection and truly be alone in the world.

Fortunately, ‘White Spots’ can help you find them.

Fast Company has more.

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5. A BAG, DEAR?

This week in GOOD NEWS, six months ago the UK introduced a 5p charge for any and all plastic bags normally just given out over the counter. Since then, plastic bag usage has dropped a staggering 85% since said charge introduced.

Too little too late? Or a sign of [better] things to come.

Read more.

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6. TINA THE T-REX

This is so awesome it’s probably my favourite thing all week.

I am so excited, in fact, I might slip into ALL CAPS.

YOU GUYS. THANKS TO THE AMAZING PEOPLE AT NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS, YOU CAN NOW TALK TO A TYRANNOSAURUS REX VIA FACEBOOK MESSENGER.

WANNA TRY IT?

GO TO THE NAT GEO KIDS FACEBOOK PAGE AND HIT ‘MESSAGE’

HERE –

I TRIED IT AND IT WAS BRILLIANT.

LOOK!

This stuff is wicked. I’m very much in a chatbot place right now (more, later) and to see wicked little executions like this really warms the heart.

Got kids? Let’em play!

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7. SEVEN MINS THAT SHOOK THE DNC

Khizr Khan. I hope you already know his name. If you don’t, go and watch his speech.

It’s incredible.

That is all.

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Bonuses this week are as follows:

• You may have already spotted this on your internet travels (and it’s a bit old now but), in case you missed it, Tesla’s Master Plan: Part Deux is well worth a quick glance [into the future of cars once more].
• The [original] Addams Family set in colour is simply gorgeous.
• Uber is building its own maps system; interesting against the backdrop of autonomous cars.
• Mark Ritson is being Mark Ritson again (worth a watch)
• Love Seinfeld? You’ll like this.

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Thank you, as ever, for tuning in.

If you liked it, tell a friend.

Until next time…

Whatley out x

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Things of note for the week ending Sunday July 24th, 2016.

Good evening. It’s 21:30 on a Sunday night as I start this week’s belated edition FToF (hence the title change) and I am quite sleepy. Having spent the weekend on a narrow boat somewhere in and around Banbury to say I am the epitome of chilled out would perhaps be an understatement.

1. WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE ALS ICE BUCKET CHALLENGE?

If you didn’t do it, you certainly know someone that did (I did it, obvs) and for one summer, it was all your Facebook feed would show you (YES it went viral and YES it was awesome but let’s all remember Facebook made an algorithm decision just at the right time eh?).

In September 2014, the BBC reported:

There have been in excess of 2.4 million ice bucket-related videos posted on Facebook, and 28 million people have uploaded, commented on or liked ice bucket-related posts. On image sharing website Instagram there have been 3.7 million videos uploaded with the hashtags #ALSicebucketchallenge and #icebucketchallenge. Justin Bieber’s has been the most popular – with about one million likes.

But did it actually do anything?

In the same year, ALS received $98.2m – compared with $2.7m donated during the same period last year. Pre-ice bucket, the MND Association would receive on average £200,000 a week in donations. From 22 to 29 August, it received £2.7m.

An immediate and undeniable impact. Hurrah and hurrah again.

Two years on, The New Yorker has taken a look to see if that impact has lasted.

Good reading.

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2. KEYNOTE SPEAKER TIPS

Speaking of good reading. Stephen Waddington has been at it again. This time around, sharing his twenty tips on how to present like a keynote speaker.

There be gold in dem hills.

Go digging.

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3. THROWING A BBQ?

Buy some bananas and some chocolate – and do this.

Then tweet @markofrespect and tell him I said to say thank you.

4. STRANGER THINGS

 

I’ll put this simply: if you have Netflix, watch STRANGER THINGS. If you don’t have Netflix, borrow someone’s log in and watch STRANGER THINGS.

Evocative of everything from GOONIES to D.A.R.Y.L. to POLTERGEIST to EVIL DEAD to THE TWILIGHT ZONE to even GARTH MARENGHI’S DARK PLACE. If you’ve ever loved any kind of 80s supernatural / sci-fi film or TV show then you must, must, must watch STRANGER THINGS.

If you’ve never watched or seen any of the above things then just watch it anyway; the music is fantastic.

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5. BECKY WITH THE GOOD HAIR

What to say?

First, I lifted this from Matt Muir’s newsletter – Web Curios (go sub).

Second, I had no idea what ‘Beck with the good hair’ meant, let alone implied.

Third, as Matt mentions, to see a ‘legacy fashion’ magazine, such as ELLE (in this instance) take so much time to critique its own mistake(s) is heartening.

Read: What do you see when you look at this cover?

Enlightening.

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6. SAN DIEGO COMIC-CON HAPPENED

Historically this is where you get the best and newest trailers for some of the most embed them all here and let you click through to the ones you want. This time around, I made you a YouTube playlist of the best ones.

YOU’RE WELCOME.

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7. FILM CRIT HULK ON THE FORCE AWAKENS

FILM CRIT HULK is one of my favourite film reviewers. The last time I featured his words here it was his STELLAR review of EX_MACHINA (there be spoilers there, so only read it if you’ve seen it). The thing about FCH is that he makes you think differently about the films you (think you) have seen.

This is a long read but a good one.

FCH – SMASH! – STAR WARS: TFA

Read it.

Then let’s talk.

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Bonus items this week are as follows:

• There’s a super cut of all the time Game of Thrones alluded to Jon Snow’s destiny at this link. I really rather enjoyed it.
• Speaking of crows, when a crow dies other crows investigate the crime and report it to their friends and family. TRUTH.
• Need a gif? I got you a gif machine.

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And that’s it.

Thank you to all of you who hit reply last week, it was so awesome to hear from you and what you’re working on / finding exciting. My task this week is to reply to you all!

It’s 22:20 and I’m going to find you a comedy gif and then I’ll hit send.

Whatley out.

 

View at Medium.com

Things of note for the week ending Friday July 15th, 2016.

It’s 00:24 on a Friday night / Saturday morning and I’m just sitting down to write this week’s FToF. It’s been a long week. Two days leave at the start, a day in the office in the middle, then a two day client workshop. Basically: attempting to fit five days’ work in one day. You know how it is. I’m taking a break from my inbox to write this to you, now.

To that end, this week’s edition will be swift (I think – I haven’t written it yet) and full of random interesting bits for you to go off and read at your leisure. If you want to do something for me this week, then by all means RT this Tweet so others may find this newsletter.

Finally, before we crack on, the word ‘Pokémon’ appears only once in this publication – and that was it. I think you’ve read your fair share of hot-takes this week and I’m not about to add to them.

Shall we?

1. THIS WEEK IN CHATBOTS

I’ve been building chatbots lately. I’ve built one for the office (still in beta – but early tests are good) and I’m in the middle of building one for my department. In short: they’re great. I’ll tell you more about them hopefully in a couple of weeks (when we start talking publicly* about them) but in the meantime, go and look up some chatbot-building services.

They’re really, really interesting.

In the interim, here are a couple of chatbot-related pieces that I’ve read this week.

First is ‘The Humans Hiding Behind the Bots‘ –

Amy Ingram, the artificial intelligence personal assistant from startup X.ai, sounds remarkably like a real person. The company designed her to take on the mundane tasks of scheduling meetings and e-mailing about appointments. If a bot had access to your calendar and was cc-ed on correspondence, why couldn’t it do the work for you? After she made her debut in 2014, users praised her “humanlike tone” and “eloquent manners.” “Actually better than a human for this task,” a beta tester tweeted. But what most people don’t realize about this artificial intelligence is that it isn’t totally artificial: Behind almost every e-mail is an actual human—someone like 24-year-old Willie Calvin.

Awww yeah. that’s right. Some of those bots out there, they’re human.

Second up is ‘K I get Uber‘ – I’m pretty sure someone sent this to me and I’ve forgotten who (sorry) but this is less human-as-bot more human-wowed-by-bot. If you’re unclear of how bots will / can / are already changing the world we live in, read this piece from MG Siegler.

 

*when we do, I’ll publish the drafted post I have called something like ‘X things I’ve learnt while building my first chatbot’ -it’s a hoot!

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2. SOUTHERN RAIL TYCOON

Southern Rail is in the press a LOT at the moment. It’s basically the poorest excuse for a rail service ever. SO OF COURSE someone has turned it into a video game.

Called ‘Southern Rail Tycoon’, this browser-based game (mobile-optimised – while you wait for your train to arrive) allows you to play the role of Southern Rail and your objective is to CANCEL ALL TRAINS.

Amazing. So cynical. So perfect.

Go play.

 

H/T Eurogamer.

 

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3. SNAPCHAT AND THE ART OF UPSTREAMING

A good thought piece on why (and how) Snapchat is becoming the default camera for many phone-owners.

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4. #POWERPOINTSOFTWITTER

I know a smart woman named Kate. Kate made a tumblr. It is amazing. Go look.

What’s it about? Clue’s in the name.

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5. HOW GHOSTBUSTERS BECAME GHOSTBUSTERS

I’ve not seen the new film yet (and I might – early reports are good) but this 9min look at How [the original] Ghostbusters Became Ghostbusters uses the screenplay as the central analysis and builds out exactly how it became the film that we all know and love. Specifically looking at the PREMISE as the DESIGNING PRINCIPLE.

It is excellent.

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Bonuses this week are as follows:

• Norse isn’t new but I’ve been looking into it this week. It’s a live map of all the cyber attacks going on in the world right now. Go. Watch.
• Overnight Success.
• This Mother Jones piece ‘My four months as a Prison Guard‘ is a HUGE read and incredible. Read it.
• I went viral again this week. Not for being witty (this time). Simply for just sharing something. The interesting part is that the super-sharing numbers went nuts on both Twitter and Facebook (as opposed to just the former). Things take a turn for the weird when, and this is new for me, because my post went nuts on FB (2000+ shares) I had about 50+ friend requests from complete strangers. This is very, very strange. But apparently standard for this kind of situation. Who knew? 
• This Law Professor’s response to a BLM ‘complaint’ is timely and relevant. Read it.

It’s 01:24 and I’m signing off.

Whatley out.

PS. If you get this via email, hit reply and tell me something exciting.

Things of note for the week ending July 8th, 2016.

Christ on a bike.

It never ends.

How are you today? Well? Smiling? Safe?

Perhaps all there. I sincerely hope so.

I’ve just returned from the #BlackLivesMatter march / vigil on London’s South Bank and I’m feeling pretty raw. A black girl, probably only around 17, spoke to the crowd – ‘We just want them to stop killing us’. I was stood, watching and, I guess, participating in the vigil from around 18:30 onwards. I walked with them too, for a while, and listened to the cheers of the bystanders as we chanted: ‘Black. Lives. Matter. Black. Lives. Matter.’ – and yet I still couldn’t shake her voice from my head: ‘We just want them to stop killing us‘ – that word. ‘Us’. Here, in London, speaking for all people of her colour. I choked up. Tears in my eyes.

The march continued and I slowly wandered home.

…

It has been a heavy evening.

And now I am here. At home. Writing this for you.

Thing is with FTOF, I draft it throughout the week – so don’t expect any of the below to reflect any of the above.

Shall we?

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1. JUNO HAS ARRIVED

So, this is legitimately amazing. After an epic five year journey, NASA’s Juno spacecraft has arrived in orbit at Jupiter.

Look!

And, at the time of writing, Juno is waking up RIGHT NOW to take its first proper look at Jupiter close up. The closest look at Jupiter we have ever had. Ever.

Juno is on a 53 day orbit of the giant of our galaxy (to put that into perspective, the same satellite would take a mere 90mins to orbit the Earth – that is how much larger Jupiter is in comparison to our home) and, on August 27th – when Juno takes its next closest pass to the planet, it’ll start collecting data. NASA will be sharing those findings near the start of September.

So y’know – put that in your diary.

You can read more about the amazing Juno over at NASA (who, as usual, is doing a fantastic job of sharing everything online).

Oh, and while you wait, why not look at these amazing images of Jupiter’s North Pole.

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2. ADVERTISING LAWS / ETC

I’ve been thinking a lot about the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) again this past week. Not just over the whole ‘we have no jurisdiction over the pack of lies that were used during the Vote Leave Brexit’ debacle. That’s a whole other thing.

No, this week a friend of mine pointed out a timeline of events that I’d hitherto not really noticed.

Indulge me for a second.

Let’s start with the ASA CAP Code on ‘non-broadcast advertising‘. It reads:

Marketing communications must be obviously identifiable as such

This means they need to be designed and presented in a way that makes it clear they are advertising material. The medium or targeting will also be relevant when deciding what is necessary to ensure that consumers know they are viewing a marcom (see Recognising marketing communications and identifying marketers).

Got that? OK. We might revisit it later.

May 2013
A blog post called ‘One of these things is not like the others‘ highlighting the amazing differences between Nike communications and genuinely commentary / content over on the Wayne Rooney Twitter account.

September 2013
A complaint to the ASA about the above content was not upheld. The reasons into the why it wasn’t upheld can be found on the Social Media Remit page of the CAP Code (it’s used as an example against a similar complaint and well worth a read).

October 2013
A post appears on the The Drum entitled ‘The ASA must sharpen its teeth on social media; if we don’t police ourselves properly, the government will‘ (catchy). In it the author – ahem – complains that the ASA a) isn’t fast enough and b) doesn’t take into account longer-term sponsorship deals of sportsmen and women. It also raises concerns about potential governmental involvement if the ASA doesn’t step up the policing of its CAP code to a more satisfactory level.

In short: too much grey, not enough hard lines.

April 2016
The Competition and Markets Authority (the government agency known as the CMA) steps in and publishes a pair of open letters. One to Marketing Professionals and one to Online Publishers.

Key point:

“Misleading readers or viewers may not only damage your reputation, it also falls foul of consumer protection law and could result in enforcement by either the CMA or Trading Standards Services, which could lead to civil and/or criminal action.”

July 2016
This is amazing.

The above is an example of a ‘Thunderclap’ tweet campaign. Thunderclaps are normally used for charity work. Helping those that need the attention lift their signal up from the Twitter noise. Deliveroo isn’t a charity, so probably paid money for these accounts to tweet these messages at this time.

Furthermore, each of the accounts shown has tens if not hundreds of thousands of followers – all looking out for comedy memes all day long. If the word ‘#ad’ is hidden in an image that you need to expand, is that ‘obviously identifiable’? A few years back – being this adventurous with the rules would earn you a slap on the wrist from the ASA and a naughty letter telling you to remove the Tweet (probably around 3mths after it was tweeted).

From what the CMA say, misleading viewers in this way could lead to criminal action.

We live in interesting times.

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3. THIS MADE ME LAUGH

Not kidding, this is an actual ad you can see on the Tube right now.

Joe’s response is perfect.

Looooooooooooooooool.

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4. DEGREES OF SEPARATION

This is really cool.

“How connected is the world? Playwrights [1], poets [2], and scientists [3] have proposed that everyone on the planet is connected to everyone else by six other people. In honor of Friends Day, we’ve crunched the Facebook friend graph and determined that the number is 3.57. Each person in the world (at least among the 1.59 billion people active on Facebook) is connected to every other person by an average of three and a half other people. The average distance we observe is 4.57, corresponding to 3.57 intermediaries or “degrees of separation.” Within the US, people are connected to each other by an average of 3.46 degrees.”

This ^ from Facebook’s latest research into just how connected we have all become. Clue: it ain’t six anymore.

Best thing about this research? If you’re logged in, it’ll show you your own number 😉

IN YOUR FACE, ZUCK!

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5. THIS BOBCAT

This bobcat rules.

\

Amirite?

a) Cool. Cat.
b) More, at the source.

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Bonuses this week are as follows:

• If you’re working in or have an interest about non-profit organisations then you should try and be in London on Friday August 12th and attend this barcamp. Tickets are free. Go check it out.
• We live in a world where racists believe that their behaviour is acceptable. If you’re a witness to this and don’t know what to do, here is some rock solid bystander advice.
• On the flipside – for an example of how the world CAN be – just look at this photo.
• My friend Alfie Dennen wrote this piece about autonomous vehicles and the ‘trolley problem‘ – this is a really, really good read.
• Here is a live stream of a live stream (where bears are fishing for salmon)

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I’m going to bed now. It’s late.

Have an amazing weekend, you beautiful people.

Whatley out.

Things of note for the week ending Friday July 1st, 2016.

1. WHO SHARE, YOU SHARE, WE SHARE, LESS

So here’s a thing: would you believe that people are actually sharing LESS ‘original’ content than ever before? So much so, that Facebook recently held actual crisis talks (yeah, because that’s a crisis) over the huge drop it had seen in content from users.

There are three different data points that support this. First, there was this report from April that stated:

“Overall sharing reportedly fell 5.5 percent from mid-2014 to mid-2015, so Facebook has fewer posts to choose from for your News Feed. But the bigger issue is this: people are posting far fewer of their own personal updates — stories about their thoughts, their life, what they’re up to — to Facebook. The report says this type of post fell 21 percent during that same timeframe. The decline has continued into this year, though at a somewhat slower pace of 15 percent year over year.”

YOU GUYS. TWENTY-ONE PERCENT.

But there’s more.

To combat this decline, Facebook has announced yet another algorithm change.

This particular change is switching the focus of your newsfeed to real life people (in your face, brands). As Facebook itself said:

We’ve heard from our community that people are still worried about missing important updates from the friends they care about. For people with many connections this is particularly important, as there are a lot of stories for them to see each day. So we are updating News Feed over the coming weeks so that the things posted by the friends you care about are higher up in your News Feed.

Yep. Sure.

Whatever you say, Facebook.

Reading between the lines you can see the intention here: by upweighting ‘things posted by the friends you care about’ (eg: photos of your life), the newsfeed will contain more ‘original’ content and therefore inspire you to share / make / upload more of your own.

This is fairly conjectural on my part but still, you can see how I got there. Oh, especially when Instagram is suffering too.

Didn’t you hear?

Over the past three years, Instagram has increased its user numbers by 500%.

That is mental.

However, the average number of photos shared per user is down.

This could be the start of a worrying trend.

As with all [good] trend analysis, it’s good to understand the key drivers of the new behaviour. In this instance the key drivers could be:

• The rise of messaging apps driving content off public platforms to closed chat groups
• Related: the rise of Snapchat (a very clear competitor in the content-creation game)
• Growing mind-share of the cultural implications of over-sharing.

Watch this one closely, it could be the start of something… big.

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2. PARISIAN ROBOTS

A 10-year-old girl applied to a Paris-based summer fellowship to help improve her robot-building/coding skills. Her pitch?

“The streets of Paris are sad. I want to build a robot that will make them happy again. I’ve already starting learning how to code on Thymio robots, but I have trouble making it work. I want to join the program so the mentors can help me.”

This is what they said.

(probably my favourite thing this week)

What next?

3. THIS BODY

Zoe Margolis on happiness, the long hard fight, and ultimately: acceptance.

Also one of the best things I’ve read this week.

I love you, Zoe. You’re awesome.

4. OGILVY BLAZE RADIO

A few issues ago I told you lovely lot about the radio show that I was going to co-host alongside the internet’s favourite webmong, Matt Muir. It was fairly blink-and-you’ll-miss-it BUT if you did miss it and you’re currently worried about how you’re going to live the rest of your life without such aural wonderment gushing into your ears… THEN WORRY NO MORE!

Simply by clicking the above image, you will be magically transported to the Ogilvy Blaze Mixcloud page where our excellent broadcast has been uploaded for your enjoyment.

DO IT.

5. TWITTER IS LAUNCHING STICKERS

Yes, that’s right. Stickers.

So far so Snapchat / so what. BUT. In what could possibly be the smartest thing that Twitter has done this year, said stickers will be searchable.

And that is kinda awesome.

Kinda.

(official link)

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Bonuses this week are as follows –

• Get Emoji. A useful place to cut and paste emojis if you’re working on desktop and need some for a presentation or something…
• The original Clash of the Titans is one of my all time favourite films. This behind the scenes report shows the REAL clash of the titans that happened on set at the time. Brilliant stuff.
• It’s all kicking off between Apple and Spotify. Like, massively.
• Google Maps is FINALLY letting you navigate somewhere via multiple way-points. AT LAST.
• Classifying the emotions of Facebook (via reaction data). Data + emojis = ?

And that is that.

Except, it isn’t.

As has now become the norm, I’d like to present a new weekly feature I’ve decided to call: ‘What the eff is going in your country, Whatters?’ and the following links reflect just that.

• I went viral last weekend – 2.2k RTs and counting (and nearly again during the week – shh). I got called ‘thick as fuck‘, was told me understanding of the word ‘lets’s’ was ultimately flawed, and, above all, I made the top post in a Buzzfeed list. How did it feel? Well, it was funny. You get to see the ‘hilarious’ brutal underbelly of what it’s like out there on the internetz. The only thing I found myself feeling was: ‘James, can you imagine how worse this would’ve been if you were a woman, or person of colour, or sikh, or muslim, etc’ – exactly.
• Here’s a letter to MPs from a Remain voter (at the London School of Economics & Political Science) that I thought was an excellent read.
• While we’re at it, Professor Michael Dugan, the leading EU lawyer whose criticism of the referendum campaign’s “industrial dishonesty” went viral, is back with another video this time assessing the current situation. Worth a watch.
• If you’re overseas and still have no real idea how the hell we found ourselves in this position, then this brief history lesson should offer some decent insight.

And finally, given that I’ve used a gif from the film earlier in this edition of FToF, maybe we should all take some time and re-watch THE IRON GIANT this weekend.

Farewell, my friends.

Stay safe.

Until next time,

Whatley out.