Geekdinner tonight in London with Howard Rheingold

Looks like it's a last minute thing but Howard Rheingold is in town tonight, 22nd September - author of SmartMobs. Ian's organising a geekdinner - which will probably be a dinner rather than just drinks. Find out how to sign up over at the geekdinner blog. I'm a bit networked out this week what with Mobile Content World 'n all, but if I get second-wind, I'll be there.

Tales of the Unexpected meets Ealing Comedy

I went to the Corpse screening yesterday afternoon at Soho House and thoroughly enjoyed it. 15 minutes of comic horror courtesy of Richard West and Ben Pullen and the fine actors Oliver Chris, Philip Jackson and Angela McHale. Go check out the website for more info and a sneak preview. And before long you'll be able to check it all out on your mobile too.

Avast me hearties...

It's "talk like a pirate day" today. No really it is. Check it out.


Thanks to Adrian at HW&W for pointing it out.

Adidas marketing reaches Second Life

I must admit, I try many things online (and mobile for that matter). I figure that I need to understand the space as a consumer myself to be able to understand the consumer better. That means I've tried online shopping, email newsgroups, social networking, business networking, online tv, mobile tv, blogging, moblogging, tagging, ebay, instant messenger etc etc. However, much as I try, I can't get into virtual reality. I know it's big and it's popular and lots of people seem to be living out their lives through their virtuality. However, I just can't get into it. I've tried Habbo Hotel (ok, too teeny-bop for me) and There.com, albeit sometime ago. Maybe it's because I'm not that much into computer or videogames? Maybe I haven't given it enough of a go? It just seems a bit odd to me to want to spend your hard-earned cash on virtual real-estate that lives on a server somewhere. I feel the same way about chatrooms too.

However, this virtual living is HUGE and shouldn't be underestimated. There are folks who make their real-life living out of selling virtual stuff. And I really like the sound of this campaign from Adidas where they are using Second Life (one of the biggest virtual reality worlds), to promote its new Microride trainer. You can buy virtual Microride trainers to give you extra bounce and there's a bounce floor where you can test them out.

I think this sounds like a well thought through campaign and more interesting than the usual sponsorship you might normally expect in these areas.

Mobile could be the greatest media ever created

According to one of the head honchos, Peter Chernin, COO at NewsCorp, during his speech at the recent CTIA. However, he figures we need to spend more time, effort and imagination on marketing mobile entertainment services, that we haven't worked out the emotional connection to attract and retain customers. Nor does he think we make the content easy enough to find. But he remains confident that this market is growing and is set to be huge.

QR codes are so last year now that we have FP codes ;)

QR codes are as common as muck in Japan by all accounts these days with the average Jo/e using these barcodes to access information about anything and everything on his/her mobile phone.

But it seems that it's not enough and that the humble QR code is a bit too obvious so there's now a way to create an FP code (fine picture barcode) that is embedded in a picture and that it's so well hidden that you'd be hard-pressed to find it with the naked eye courtesy of the team at Fujitsu. Of course your cameraphone can pick it up easily enough which means you have all the easy access and usability benefits of the QR code without it interfering with your creative treatment.

I did hear a rumour that HP was looking at exactly this a year or so ago but I never read anything about it since.

Jan explains more about it here.