Since Google Street View launched last month it seems to have done nothing but cause trouble and controversy.  Depsite being a very cool piece of technology it has apparently, aided burgalars, caused divorces and, riots in small villages.

However, despite all this negative press a client has just proved that Street View can actually be a very useful media tool as he used it to brief me on a couple of specific outdoor sites that he was interested in! What clearer way then navigating that little orange man to the exact location and showing me pictures of the sites in question?!

Could this be a media first? Or indeed the beginning of the end of all of this Street View negativity?! Watch this space in Media Week!!?

I think this may even have appeared in the BJKEshed before but it makes me so cross wanted to revent. I dont know about everyone else but I get masses of post every week which goes straight in the bin which is driving me crazy. Prime suspects are:

> £500 day “book now last chance for this great price” conferences on some obscure piece of marketing strategy
> Poorly thought out media owner promotional material – how many cardboard pen holders can I possibly make use of on one desk?

Now I know people have to promote themselves … but in this age of online technology is it totally necessary to make me chuck reams of material away every week? Couldn’t a little bit more imagination be used?

Grrrrrr

If you Google her name, you get 7,980,000 results.  That’s more than Boris Johnson (1m) or Margaret Thatcher (2.1m), Razorlight (4.9m) or Van Halen (6m), Jonathan Ross (5.5m) or Russell Brand (4m).  Its even more than Arnold Schwarzenegger (7m) – and she’s English!  And until very recently was relatively unheard of anywhere else in the world.  Her story has made the front cover of every single copy of OK! magazine from 17th Feb (that’s 8 weeks).  She is, of course, Jade Goody.

I must admit I was quite hesitant when deciding whether or not to write this blog.  There are quite opposing views on the whole affair, her past, and how we as a nation have responded.  There are quite obvious and laudable opinions on raising awareness of cervical cancer.  And equally there are those of the opinion that we, as a nation, have gone completely mad in our over-reaction! 

Either way, she’s certainly not the only one helping to contribute to a greater way of life.  There are others, perhaps with a less relevant profile, that have arguably done more for the human race.  Take Bob Geldof (1m) and his continual support for international well-being, or Mother Teresa (3.1m)… Ghandi (5.4m). 

Have we gone too far?  Is she genuinely worth the attention we give her? Should we blame her or praise her?  Admire her sense of pragmatism, or Max’s?

Have your say here;

Yesterday, after weeks of searching, I finally found a source of the new flavours of Walkers crisps (the shop on the ground floor in our building – the closest shop to our office, d’oh). For the uninitiated the new flavours are as follows, Builder’s Breakfast, Cajun Squirrel, Crispy Duck & Hoisin, Fish & Chips, Chilli & Chocolate and Onion Bhaji.

Walkers have been pushing six new flavours recently, the public are being asked to vote for their favourite and the winner will be added to the Walkers range indefinitely. Unfortunately the shop downstairs didn’t have onion bhaji in stock so we could only sample, and savour, 5 of the new flavours. After doing this I would surmise that unless the onion bhaji flavour is the greatest crisp ever to be invented, or at the very least mildly palatable, the winning flavour will not adorn the shelves of the Walkers distributor for long. In running order of best (or at least not vomit inducing) to worst I would rank them as follows:

1. Crispy duck
2. Cajun squirrel
3. Builders breakfast
4. Chilli & chocolate
5. Broken glass & razor blades
6. Fish & chips

The fish and chips flavour initially hits you with a smell similar to Maldon sea front after the fishing trawlers unload their haul. The flavour explodes on the palate like a raw fish sandwich with fish paste as the filling. Needless to say nobody had more than a single crisp and there were certainly no enquiries as to seconds. Crispy duck was the best, most went back for a second try, but, like the others, it left a strange after taste akin to old gym socks.

Of the people I’ve spoken to about these new flavours (seven) nobody has liked them. Surely we have to say this is a stunt to increase sales short term and may affect brand positioning in the long term; I for one will not be moving away from Kettle Chips any time soon.

We’ve been talking a lot this week in our team about the G20 riots and whether or not they are in any way worthwhile etc.. However, the team’s overarching opinion is that perhaps these riots would not have taken place on such a large scale had the media not banged on about them and how big and scary they were going to be for the last 2 weeks?! It seems that if it had been kept between the few small extreme groups and the police it would have remained on a much smaller scale.  However, with the papers and news channels screaming the topic from the rooftops every day, they have basically been advertising the event to the whole country and encouraging p*ssed off people to join the movement!?

It is quite interesting/worrying to consider how much the media has the ability to change and shape world events.  We all know that one of the most important factors affecting the state of the economy is consumer and business confidence.  The rumours of a recession started quietly a couple of years ago until the papers grabbed hold of it and increasing media coverage started to tell us on a daily basis that the world was destined for doom.  Surely it is then no surprise that everyone freaks out, stops spending, sells their shares and sacks people due to fear of future profit issues? Obviously, mass borrowing and irresponsible banks also had an impact and, I’m not suggesting that we should live in a censored society, but it does make you wonder if the economy would have been less screwed if the papers and TVs didnt permanently tell everyone to expect the worst?

The country appears to have gone April Fool’s Joke mad today.  I can understand companies trying to cheer us up in these recession ridden times but whilst some of them do just this, others are just not that funny.

I am enjoying Google’s new launch CADIE which is a new ‘Cognitive Autoheuristic Distributed-Intelligence Entity’ who appears to currently be a panda obsessed with other pandas. They have carried on the joke on a large scale with CADIE the panda appearing on their streetview (instead of the normal person) with a ‘panda mapplet for humans’ and hosting a You Tube page – currently populated solely with panda videos.

You Tube itself appears to have thought less about being clever as they have simply flipped a number of their videos upside down – how is this an April Fool’s joke?

The Guardian’s annual hoax is slightly more funny but altogether too immediately unbelievable with the headline being that they are moving from print to Twitter as ‘every story can be told in 160 characters.’ Amusing but the sign of a truly great AFD joke is one that you need to check out is actually a joke.

The most bizarre one I have seen so far though came into my inbox courtesy of laptops direct who are offering ‘free funerals.’ This links through to a page where they are offering to save on the average £5k cost of a funeral by sponsoring it. Not really funny or clever just slightly odd…..

Are there any other good/bad ones out there you’ve seen?

Google
http://www.google.com/intl/en/landing/cadie/index.html

You Tube
http://www.youtube.com/

Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/apr/01/guardian-twitter-media-technology

Laptops Direct
http://www.laptopsdirect.co.uk/