Our old mate Benet, AKA Dr Hitchcock who runs the website Starlifter TV posted this video from TED. Wikipedia describes TED as… “TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) is a global set of conferences curated by the American private non-profit Sapling Foundation, formed to disseminate “ideas worth spreading”. Since June 2006,[1] the talks have been offered for free viewing online, under a Creative Commons license, through TED.com.” (Read more here)
So back to Dr Hitchcock, where hes just posted this video from TED on Copyright. Wow! This lecture is particularly relevant as the NZ Parliament is currently discussing new Internet laws, with a strong focus on punishing those who infringe New Zealand and International copyright law. So please watch the video and then think about how the oppressive focus of current, and soon to be, copyright laws stifle creative freedom and categorize an individual as a criminal for exploring that creativity. Tandem doesn’t believe in taking someones work and on selling it, but we do believe in creative freedom where you can take whatever is around us to inspire and create something new, to express your voice and your view.
“Smell like a man, man,” – that’s the message spicing up YouTube at the moment.
It’s a very clever viral-marketing campaign on an old spice – Old Spice. The Isaiah Mustafa-hosted ads have been ranked YouTube’s number one most-viewed of all time in the Sponsors rank, holds this week’s and this months most-viewed top spot – globally.
Old Spice is keeping its customers interested by releasing the ads slowly over a period of time.
Here’s what all the fuss is about:
‘The Man Your Man Could Smell Like’:
The point-of-difference with these commercials is that the Old Spice’s Isaiah Mustafa personally responds to those who leave comments. Watch:
Life In A Day is a world-first global experiment to create the largest user-generated feature film – a documentary, shot in a single day, by YOU.
On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.
Kevin Macdonald is an Oscar-winning director of films such as The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void and One Day in September, and Ridley Scott is the director behind films like Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Thelma & Louise, Blade Runner and Robin Hood.
Life In A Day will premiere at the 2011 Sundance Film Festival and if your footage makes it into the final cut, you’ll be credited as a co-director and may be one of 20 contributors selected to attend the premiere.
The story dates back five years.. When Christchurch musician Amy Bowie was involved in a songwriting competition for television, she wrote and recorded a song inspired by Alice Sebold’s book, The Lovely Bones.
At that time, Amy wasn’t aware Peter Jackson had plans to turn that novel into a movie. Fast forward those five years, and the film was launched. With encouragement from friends, Amy decided to stick the song on YouTube. “Basically it was an experiment to see what would happen and if I could make any money out of it.”
Amy says she was embarrassed that people might think she was some “nutty YouTube girl” so she loaded it onto the video-sharing site anonymously under the username booksRgr8.
She didn’t have a proper video camera and was “way too embarrassed to ask my filmie friends for help”, so she went around every cemetery in Christchurch taking photographs of angel headstones and the like.
She also drew a few pictures, scanned them in and edited them together into what she calls “a stupid little video”. She titled it “The Lovely Bones Song” and away it went. To her surprise, people started asking for a download link so she started her own “Amie” (pseudonym) iTunes store – with most of the downloads and video views coming from the United States.
Thousands of people have now watched the video and it’s getting anywhere between 500-1000 hits per day, without really pushing the song at all.
Watch the beautiful, yet haunting, The Lovely Bones song here:
To download the song off iTunes, go to Amy’s iTune page – Amie
Wanting to capitalise on her success, Amy researched her followers on YouTube and found that most of them were ‘Twihards’ – often with usernames mentioning vampires and Twilight. So, she went and bought the book and discovered that one of the most mentioned songs in the book/movie was ‘Clair de Lune’ by Debussy. Amy did some further research and found that it was inspired by a poem by Paul Verlaine, which led to her decision to do a word-set adaptation/arrangement of the poem to Debussy’s melody – as she couldn’t find one to that particular melody. She has now loaded that one on YouTube and is working hard at promoting it on the sute through comments etc.
Amy finds the whole film-book-song-fan-video mix a fascinating study of culture and has even had someone make a fan-video of her song, “which I thought was way too weird and funny”.
Check out our interview with this interesting Christchurch muso as part of our Fresh Ideas:
The Christchurch Music Industry Trust, or perhaps more known as CHART, is an industry representative body for contemporary popular music in Christchurch.
But its appeal is much broader than that. CHART’s very active website – www.chart.org.nz – which had almost 40,000 visits during May music month alone, lists articles of multi-media interest, has reviews, lists job opportunities, and of course has an extensive gig guide.
Jeff Fulton is the full-time manager of CHART and has a dedicated Board made up of passionate local music advocates with extensive industry experience. CHART also acts as a support and advice network for the Christchurch music industry.
CHART hosts regular professional development events, live music showcases, seminars and workshops and manages www.christchurchmusic.org.nz – Christchurch’s number 1 music web portal which promotes the Christchurch music industry and showcases the city’s vibrant music scene.
At last month’s CHARTFEST, Tandem worked with CHART during the festival and offered the winner of the best up-and-coming local band competition a recording session.
Here’s an interview with Jeff Fulton as part of our Fresh Ideas section:
For the first time, I’ve come across project management software – Huddle. Sure, it may’ve been around for a while, but when I stumble across new things, it’s good to share.
It’s a space where you can share documents and collaborate with people (specific people and groups) online who are working on the same project as you.
Huddle’s tag phrase is ‘connect, share and work better together.’ A place you can manage people, projects and information inside and outside your business – securely.
It’s like a big, secure chat room – and, it’s free to get started!
Here are the benefits of using Huddle:
* Unlimited users: Invite as many people as you need
* Discussions: Don’t ‘reply all’. Use discussion forums to brainstorm ideas
* Document creation: Create and edit Office documents online and on your desktop via Microsoft Office
* File sharing: Store, share and manage your files
* Project alerts and notifications: Assign tasks, auto reminders and iCal integration
* Whiteboards: Or wiki, share ideas and comments, easily work together on documents
* Document management: Automated versioning, audit trails and approval workflows
* Meetings: Integrated phone & web conferencing
* Custom branding: Customize your dashboard, homepage, emails, own URL
* Security: 128 bit SSL, control over who can see and read documents
An interesting blog at Mashable asks whether Facebook can make people instantly connect. Ori Brafman says with all the news about Facebook’s never-ending privacy problems and the exodus of angry users, has the real story been overlooked?
Specifically, is Facebook limiting people’s ability to actually, well, connect? Ori has done some research into the things that make people connect instantly.
He says, “From meeting someone at a work party to that special spark on a first date, instant connections aren’t just intense; they can have a substantial effect on the overall tenor of the ensuing relationship. Research has shown that teams that click tend to work more effectively together and couples that had love at first sight are more passionate with each other even after twenty years.”
Ori says that Facebook indeed does foster some of these connections, but there are specific factors, or accelerators, that trigger such connections. Read the whole mashable.com blog here.
Google has just released what might be seen as their answer to Facebook – Orkut.
It’s an online community designed to make people’s social lives more active and stimulating, by helping people maintain existing relationships and friendships with pictures and messages…sound familiar?
Orkut makes it easy to find people who share the same hobbies and interests as you, look for potential love connections or establish business contacts.
And, much like Twitter, Orkut has created a wide variety of online communities to discuss current events. It’s also a place to reconnect with old school friends and exchange information.
Who you interact with is entirely up to you. Before getting to know an Orkut member, you can read their profile and even see how they are connected to you through the friends network..
All you have to do is sign up through your Google/Gmail account – www.orkut.com
When thinking site-search engines, the obvious one is Google, right? According to Geoff Brash from SLI Systems, Google is an excellent tool, but SLI’s searches go more in-depth.
Say for example you were looking for something really specific, like purple jellybeans, SLI’s search engine would no doubt be able to help you find them. They have developed a learning-based search and navigation technology for publishers, Ecommerce and corporate sites that Searches, Learns and Improves the user experience, making it easier to find really specific things.
Here’s an interview we had with Geoff Brash from SLI as part of Fresh Ideas:
In 2008, it won the APRA children’s song of the year, and now a new accolade – the New Zealand Post Children’s Choice book award.
So, what makes Craig Smith’s children’s book and song The Wonky Donkey so popular? It might have something to do with this little question – What do you call a donkey with only three legs, one eye, likes to listen to country music, is quite tall and slim, smells really bad, gets up early in the morning and hasn’t had any coffee, is always getting up to mischief but is quite good looking?
Catch the interview we had with Craig this week, as part of our Fresh Ideas section:
Craig doesn’t just make content for children. He recorded part of his album, 45 South, at Tandem Studios. He has also signed to another book with the song Willbee the Bumblebee. That’s due to be released in October 2010. In the meantime, stay entertained with The Wonky Donkey:
