More iPad thoughts

I’ve been using the iPad for around two months now I guess and, although my thoughts on the device have been percolating since February… I think, at last, some words have finalised themselves in my head;

The iPad is a high-end, luxury disposable device. An oxymoron. Social, yet non-committal.

Social, is the key word here and it’s this, as well as the whole damn anthropology of it all that brings me to our conclusion.

  • The mobile phone; hyper-personal. Unique. Yours.
  • The laptop; still personal, but inclusive. At times, socially unacceptable. Effort.
  • The iPad; social. Open. Socially acceptable.

Flat and, like table top space invaders of old, it just works. Around the home, in the pub or even in the office – the iPad is handed ’round like it’s always just been there.

I like the iPad. It’s a social consumption machine and there really is nothing else like it.

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– – – Drawn, written and posted,  from my iPad

1000heads: Things we like #1

The first in what I expect to become a series of blog posts from us ‘heads over the coming months. I’m going to kick it off with this effort from David & Goliath, USA

Image courtesy of Direct Daily —

To highlight Universal Studio’s latest King Kong 3D attraction, D&G arranged for these huge footprints to be left in the sand on Santa Monica Beach, complete with a crushed lifeguard vehicle for added effect.

A bit stunty, yes. But imagine walking down to the beach to discover these one morning or, better yet, looking out of your sea-facing window to spot a whole trail of them walking up the coast.

What else could you do?

  • Send out ‘Giant ape sighted’ alerts to key voices in the area?
  • Engage with the local sasquatch believers/hunters?
  • Hide things in the actual prints themselves?
  • Building up to the event, plant reports of ape sightings?

We’re always trying to improve on things here at 1000heads. The ideas above lend themselves to this slide taken from a recent presentation I gave to New Media Age –

When social presence strategies are becoming the norm, what can you do that sets you out from the crowd? YouTube, Twitter, Facebook – these things are now mere housecleaning to any decent launch.

Do something cool. Do something different. Do something awesome.

This is James Whatley, reporting live from Santa Monica, USA.
(and the less we say about this video, the better)

The Alps, Aug 31st

Molekskine entry: August 31st, 2009

I’ve not had time to do any writing as yet. We’re here, on the border of the French, Swiss and Italian Alps, looking up at Mont Blanc after a really, really intense couple of days. Yesterday, after flying in the 1hr 15mins from London, we were picked up from Geneva and drove through to Italy. I had no idea it was so close.

Within an hour of arriving we were already kitted out and on our way for a training session in the hills.

Yes. That’s me.

We walked for hours and climbed for a while too. Aside from a couple of smashed phones (my own N86 and an iPhone belonging to one of the winners), it was a good day. Intense, but good.

But that was just day one. Today, August 31st, has been one of the scariest days of my life. Being up there, in the mountains, some 3300m above sea level, with nothing but a single rope, a guide and your friends to keep you alive. It’s pretty hairy.

There was a bit, just after that I decided to cut. We stood there and just cried. Cried and cried and cried. The emotional intensity of it all. Completely overwhelming.

Festival season and mobile: The ugly truth

There now follows a minor rant by James Whatley…

‘Here in the UK, festival season is kicking off a plenty and with the great and the good outdoor musical bonanzas just ’round the corner it falls to the mobile industry to produce a veritable banquet of hand-held software and hardware to help the savvy, mud dwelling, sun-loving festival fan this season.’

You’ll probably be reading this kind of opener quite a lot in the national press over the next month or so. Both online and off, journalists and bloggers alike will extolling the virtues of what you should be packing in your tent-rammed sack this year

So, instead of doing the same old, same old – I’m just going to offer some pointers. Having done the mobile festival thing a couple of years running, and having also sent a few tweets from the middle of the Namibian desert, I’d like to think I can offer a bit of first-hand experience when it comes to travelling light while maintaining a degree of connectivity.

Continue reading “Festival season and mobile: The ugly truth”

1000heads: Commended!

A couple of months ago we entered a little creative awards ceremony known The Chip Shop Awards. Billed as ‘creativity with no limits‘, the categories include such prestigious titles as; ‘Best work any brand you haven’t a hope of winning’, ‘Best reject’ and ‘Best use of shocking copy’.

We must admit, while we entered pieces of work (some real, some not) into a fair few categories but it was our entry into the ‘Best use of plagiarism‘ that not only caused a certain amount of hoo-hah, but also earned us a cheeky nod from the judges.

The ‘original’ idea was to take last year’s plagiarism winner and re-enter it as our own. As it turned out, the judges loved it.

— Yes, the ‘award’ is an actual bottle of vinegar. Amazing —

Special thanks to 1000heads CEO, Mike Rowe,for coming up with the ‘original’ idea and of course, it wouldn’t be fair to accept this without a special nod to last year’s winner (and creator of the ad in the first place), Miss Ali Turner.

Ali, drop us a line or leave a comment – we’d love to send you some cake 🙂

1000heads: We heart cupcakes

We eat use them whenever possible.

With Gumtree, with Miele and sometimes Aussie too.

Giving cupcakes is great. Getting them is so much better. So, as you can probably imagine, we were made up when this absolute monster of a cupcake arrived at our office yesterday afternoon!

Nothing too fancy, just the perfect gift from every one at The Family Cake Company, thanking us for our business these past few months. Nom. There was just about enough to feed everyone in the office and well, it didn’t last very long…

Remember delight and surprise? Yeah, that.

Have a great weekend everybody! 🙂

Dear World (and especially Robert Scoble)

Today I read a fantastically thought-provoking piece from Robert Scoble. Yes, that guy. Love him or hate him, he is talented and he definitely knows a thing or two about tech. We’ve had our fallings out over mobile from time to time, but overall – he’s a good guy.

The post in question, entitled Location 2012: Death Of The Information Silos, talks about what the geo-location-based/cache world of tomorrow could look like by the time we hit the Olympics. The key word here is could.

Continue reading “Dear World (and especially Robert Scoble)”

Why isn’t my MP3 more like Flickr?

The last great MP3 player (and I’m obviously talking about phones here) was the N73. I’m not talking about any old N73 either. I’m talking pre-internet edition, pre-music edition, I’m talking the original, the beautiful N73 v2 firmware.

Why? Because this player gave you a glimpse of the future – as well as the present.

But why is this important? And how does it relate to the question of the title?

Allow me to explain…

Continue reading “Why isn’t my MP3 more like Flickr?”

Pre-Alps Planning

Molekskine entry: August 27th, 2009

My Lucozade QOTD

“As your bungee footage went down so well with the facebook fans, can you take your mobile with you when you descend into the large crevasse? It’s a pretty unique experience and it should make some good footage…”

Hilarious.

————————————————————————————————–

What bungee footage? This bungee footage:

Hand held and shot entirely with my beloved N86, the video came out perfectly.

It’s funny, back when I did the jump, I didn’t make any kind of note in my diary at all.

I’m not sure why or why not. I just didn’t. In fact, I think this is the first time I’ve published it here. Apologies if you’ve seen it already but, well…  I love it.

Some thoughts on M-Publishing

I was invited to attend today’s M-Publishing event (thank you CamerJam) but alas work commitments have kept me in the office. However, that didn’t stop me throwing together a few thoughts this morning on my way into work… For me, the key question you need to answer is ‘why’?

Forgive me if this seems a bit scatty, it was an early morning brain-dump somewhere under London.

Continue reading “Some thoughts on M-Publishing”