On Friday I had the good fortune to potter around the Olympic park to get a sneak preview of how it looks.
Well, I’m pleased to report that it all in all it looks genuinely spiffing. No real lowlights, in fact, but some mediumlights (think Mid April, 4pm, high cloud cover) to go with the magnificent highlights. Let’s start with the mediums before we go living it up with the highs:

Mediums:

- The Chinese had the emblematic “birds nest” stadium. Our main stadium looks more pragmatic – it’s a very flexible structure, so that the stadium can be reduced in size after the games.

- Just hoping that the Legacy Committee that was set up last year does its job brilliantly – this probably should have been set up even earlier.

Highs:

- A belting aquatics arena (pictured) that looks like a cross between a manta ray and a cow’s tongue.
- A lovely central park that will join London with the river Lea – the perfect date spot for sporty types
- The fact that they had a “health centre” for the soil, which was lifted up, lovingly cleaned, brushed up smart and sent back into the ground with a proud new coat of tarmac.
A lot to be proud of here, and (astonishingly) all set to be completed well on time.

I love it when people get all end-of-the-world-is-nigh about developments in technology. There’s always a good headline or even a book deal to be had from making the point that things are going to hell in a handcart and were much better before. There’s a new target every year or so.
For example, in 2007 Wikipedia took a beating from “The Cult of the Amateur: how today’s internet is killing our culture”, while in 2008 Atlantic magazine made lots of noise with an article titled “Is Google Making Us Stupid?”. The arguments have been raging back and forth ever since.

Recently there has been even more of it than usual. Social media is on the receiving end this time, possibly prompted by Facebook announcing their 500 millionth user. Amid the Facebook PR fanfare a few dissenting voices have been heard. Firstly, a survey stating that although Facebook is still the top social destination for online teens, 19% of those who have created a Facebook profile say they no longer visit the site, or are using it less.

Another survey, measuring customer satisfaction with websites, shows that social media has the lowest satisfaction score of any category, with Facebook coming bottom in the social media rankings.

The Washington Post got in on the act, with an article filled with anecdotal evidence of Facebook fatigue. Too many friend requests, too many updates, too little real-world contact. Etc etc.

Complaining about new stuff isn’t new. People have been complaining about new-fangled technology ever since the ancient Greeks decided that writing things down was a bad thing as it would make people lazy. But because of the technology we have now, we can use technology to make us all nostalgic about the good old days. For example, this website that makes any website look like it was made in 1996 by a 13 year old on Geocities. Good old days.

Yesterday Maxus’ very own David Fineman was highlighted as one of the industry’s prestigious Media Week 30 under 30. In his winning entry David is promoted as the youngest digital lead for a top 20 media agency, helping to secure and transition a number of new accounts into Maxus. I hope you will all join me in congratulating him on this fantastic achievement (and let’s not mention the John Travolta line).
You can catch the full article here
 http://www.mediaweek.co.uk/news/1018388/gallery/8082/page/10/#8082

Over the last year social gaming on sites such as Facebook has exploded, with millions of people logging on and playing every day, and millions of pounds spend on virtual transactions to enhance their game play. Well now social gaming giant Farmville (currently with 65m users, and 20m playing daily) has teamed up with Green Giant placing Farmville Cash coupon stickers (for ‘5 free farm cash’) on selected products in 4,000 supermarkets across the US.
It was reported on Mashable that in the six week pilot for the promotion, which was launched in Target Fresh Grocery and Super Target stores, there were more than 100,000 in virtual Farm Cash redeemed using the stickers which appeared on 25 different Green Giant products. The promotion was then expanded to supermarket nationwide as a result of the success of the pilot.
It is great to see how the social gaming space has seen such a fantastic increase (despite the hundreds of daily updates in my news feed), and will be interesting to see how it evolves. So, what do you think about the rise of social gaming? Do you think something as mainstream as the Green Giant promotion would take off in the UK?

That’s right, it was announced yesterday that Facebook has registered it 500 millionth user (UK Facebook users currently at around 26m).  Metro newspaper dedicated its front page to the fact today along with a handful of other facts, truly proving the dominance of the social network. In case you missed them the front page can be seen below.
* Facebook Facts: from Metro Front Page
* Globally Facebook has 500m Users
* 26 million Britains use it (that’s more than a third of the population)
* More than 3 million pictures are uploaded every month
* There are more than 60 million status updates a day
* On average you create 90 pieces of content every month
* The average person has 130 friends
* Collectively users spend 700 billion minutes a month on Facebook
* 30 billion pieces of content (web links, news, blogs etc) are shared each month
This comes at a very good time for the social network as the trailer for the film of the creation of Facebook ‘The Social Network’ (recent trailer attached below) was released recently again showing the magnitude of the site created in 2004.

Yesterday evening in Regents Park
Midst gentle chatter, as it grew dark,
Balls rose and fell with merry thud
Onto gravel caked in mud

Twelve teams began, eyes lit up
With childhood dreams of raising the cup
But hopes stooped, crumpled and fell
While ours grew stronger, stately and well.

Until at last, in the fading light
Waghorn threw the shot of the night
By gum we’d won it! Triumphant cry:
“Maxus the champions!” Enscrawled on the sky

Last night Maxus fielded a team of 5 (aptly named “One for the Road”) at a Mercedes + agencies endurance Go Karting competition at the Daytona racetrack, Milton Keynes. With what appeared to be limited experience amongst the drivers, there was some initial hesitation. Little did we know how event filled the evening would be.

The evening kicked off with a practice session, during which time all team members had to complete at least one lap. At this point Milly discovered ballet pumps were not suitable go kart shoes and that borrowed, oversize trainers give you the kind of cramp that means you cant move your feet to operate peddles. The go kart spent a large amount of time with its nose firmly rammed into crash barriers.

Straight after practice, the heavens opened to what can only be described as a monsoon-like lightning storm. We thought that must be game over. We hadnt counted on the astonishing persistence of the track owners and within 20 minutes of the rain stopping they’d got the track ready. Team Maxus were back on the grid, lining up for the real race – the endurance section, 90 minutes of constant racing, aiming to clock up maximum laps.

Little did we know Paul Capleton was the secret Go Karting weapon. From a starting grid position of 14th, he shot us up to 2nd place during his spell on the wet track (“like driving on ice”). A red light and required ambulance break (nothing serious) somehow resulted in us moving up to 1st place. Victory was in Maxus’s sights! An ambulance incident was certainly not enough to stop the race for long and soon we were back in the car, moving onto to the rest of our drivers. Without  naming and shaming, things got a little slower from here, with one black flag incident from Team Maxus (“arms and feet out of car”) incurring us a time penalty. We fell down to mid table. With a burst of speed in the final few laps, we clawed back up the standings to finish a respectable 7th – and, crucially, ahead of our agency rivals.

A good time had by all – and those few precious minutes where we were ahead of the longstanding Mercedes champions can be reminisced about for a long time …

So..What are you you all doing next Tuesday? Work, maybe an evening drink?

Well Lindsay Lohan will be surrendering herself to the Centrury Regional Detention Facility in Lynwood. California, where she will start her 90 day prison sentence for repeatedly violating the terms of her probation following her 2007 drug charge.

Am I the only one that thinks that this will be possibly the best thing to happen to Lohan since she started to derail at the age of 19?

Her live court hearing was watched by 2.3million people online. This – and don’t quote me here – is probably 10 times as many people that have collectively paid to see Lohan in anything prior to Mean Girls back in 2004.

Since becoming jail bait, Lohan’s career has rocketed and she is finally famous for being something other than Samantha Ronson’s girlfriend.

A-List celebrities are giving her advice, TV Channels offering up millions for interviews and even her lost love Samantha has met her for a secret dinner somewhere in the hollywood hills. Seriously, I bet she is loving it.

So, what do you think? Will this be the reinvention of Lohan? Well, in 90 days we will see. Enjoy your time in the Big House Lindsay, just don’t drop the soap.