No new favourite site... again however...

A Lama?!?

Apparently these pics were taken driving through the Civic in Canberra NSW one day. I love the "Alpaca on Board sticker"!!

New 3News Site

3News has a new site which launched today. Its ok. It’s a news site.

They took away the skyscraper from the entire 3News.co.nz site. Not a one to be found. Awesome. Killed a schedule I had had signed off. That’s ok, I’m sure the Herald appreciated the budget.

Site doesn’t work properly in Chrome. What a surprise. In Firefox it looks like this:

But looks like this in Chrome:
Photos in middle column – pixels
Weather – fallen back and kinda disappeared
Search – freaks out and certainly doesn’t work (which seems weird as they use google as their search engine.)

I know I go on about this, but I love Chrome, it is a great browser. I don’t want to change to suit other people; they should change to work in with me please.

(Might be a little bolshie today, so far this week everything has gone my way, why can’t this continue? Huh?)

Wellington City Council, what are you doing?

So the anti-graffiti campaign for Wellington has been up and running for a while and to be honest my take on the whole campaign was “it’s butt ugly, but its WCC so at least it is not going to leave Wellington, and hopefully we won’t have to put up with it for too long”. That’s kinda where I left it. A number of people have noted just how darn ugly it is, but that was as far as it went. I thought…

Here is a visual of one of the AdShels:

Last night, talking to my lovely new flatmate who works for the Capital Times, I found out just how bad this campaign is. The ‘graffiti’ that is responsible for this supposed outbreak, is actually some artwork which was COMMISSIONED. The very talented drypnz who has done a number of pieces around Wellington - including outside Rex Royale, one of my favs:gets paid for this work, because he is talented and people appreciate good street art.

The more I heard about this, and the more I have read about it this morning, the worse it gets. So it would seem that the photographer for this campaign just went out and took a photo of graffiti, they didn’t realize that it was ‘legal’ street art. When the Capital Times hit the Council up about this, they said that they had spoken with Dryp and apologized. Dryp never had a phone call – and lets be fair, its not hard to find him – and so the council retracted their statement and said that someone (I’m wondering if that might be Wellington Wall Street) have voiced their concerns about using commissioned work to highlight ‘illegal’ graffiti and the Council apologized to them. Awesome guys.

So, let’s check this off:

1. Develop an ugly idea for a campaign
2. Take a photo of commissioned work to portray to the public as ‘illegal’
3. Force the Wellington public to see this awful creative
4. Claim to have apologized to the artist
5. Retract statement and say that they will stop producing the posters (I don’t believe they have said they will stop the whole campaign though

Good work. And who is responsible for this campaign? Is there an agency behind it? A misguided design studio? Worse still, was it done in-house? Some of the comments from Wellingtonista’s blog about this campaign have been hilarious. This is my favourite though:

"I found the whole campaign creepy. All the people in the adverts were white, suburban and somehow infected by an 'otherness' from the presence of street art/vandalism."

Would love to know any other information if anyone knows anything.

Twitter-hunt!

Thanks Levis!

So you may have already read Tee’s detail re. ISpyLevis, but I’m so stoked about winning some Levis (and may have helped someone else win too) that I’m gonna blog about it too.

Using Twitter for ‘treasure’ hunts. It is a really nice idea. More than happy to be corrected on this, but I am pretty sure NZ Twitter-hunts all started with The Ring Hunt by @donoogle_com which you can read about here. Other ones that I know about have been the ‘find the 3G guy’ and HTC hunt by @vodafoneNZ, I believe that Snapper did one and now @iSpyLevis. The basics behind Levis is that the iSpyLevis guy is wandering around town (Wellington today, he was in Auckland over the weekend) twitpic-ing clues as to where he is. Work out his clue, find him, and ask if he is wearing Levis... and he hands over a pair or a voucher. Awesome.

It’s a nice little promotion for anyone who has a tangible product to give away. Jeans could have been quite tricky, however problem solved – give them a voucher. I never heard of how the Snapper card went, however I think you have to really assess how valuable the prize is. For example, $5k ring, Netbook, $1.1k phone, jeans all of these items are relatively sexy products and worth a decent amount of coin. Snapper cards though? Was that what they were giving away or were they the USBs? Either way, public transport isn’t the sexiest of prizes, I’m not sure I would go out of my way to try to win that.

So, what if you don’t have the most tangible, hand out on the street products? I am talking about products/retail here, what then? Well, I’m annoyed at myself that I didn’t favourite the story in my RSS feed, but there is also a video out there somewhere which details a story about a company in the State who use a bot to search Twitter at all times for mentions. A customer walked into one of their stores somewhere on the West Coast and as she sat down with her coffee and food she sent a tweet that she was in the store. Whoever was monitoring over on the East Coast, where head office is located, called the store she was in and asked them to find the woman in the store and in effect give her the meal for free.

So, obviously not the best branding exercise as I can’t remember what the company was, but maybe I would if I had heard of it before, but what something like that does is build a ‘warm fuzzy’ feeling around the brand. No doubt the person who received their meal for free would have told people about what happened, because it is a nice story. The video that I watched which detailed the events was an employee of the company, and she said that she had told lots of people, not because it was her company necessarily, but because it was such a nice story.

So here is my question, all of these lovely stories, good PR and free stuff, does that mean we are inching closer to Generation G? (If you can’t be bothered clicking on the link to read about Gen G, don’t make the mistake I did and think it is Generation Greed – which is what I would expect – it is instead Generation Generosity. Isn’t that sweet?

New Favourite Site of the Week 240709

So, just to be a little different, this week my favourite site is actually You Tube.

Bit of a cop out, I know. But here are some of my favourite clips on You Tube...

Les 7 Doigts (I was lucky enough to see these guys at an arts festival - most magical stage show I have seen in my whole life):


Nevermind the Buzzocks (It upsets me that NZ cannot air this show. I have had lengthy conversations with the programmers at TVNZ and Mediaworks - they cannot obtain the music licences and therefore can not air the show on NZ TV):

This clip is just the best bits from when Amy Winehouse was on, for the full episode, check out this.

You and I both know that there is much more greatness to be found on You Tube, but I've taken up enough of your time. Happy weekend.

Unfortunate coincidence

Just as we all cringe when we read a story online about a plane crash which has a travel agent or airline display ad showing, it would seem banks cannot escape a similar unfortunate coincidence.

Slap bang in the middle of an article detailing a child's death which has been confirmed as swine flu related, is a BNZ ad with a little piggy.

I know that the pigs are now quite firmly THE campaign for BNZ, and there is not a lot of other creative for BNZ to run (I'm assuming this ad didn't work too well for them - since I've never seen it again??) but if I were them, I would have laid off the pigs during the height of the swine flu. Especially once the New Zealand deaths were reported. No one is going associate BNZ with swine flu deaths, but if feels a little bad-taste-ish to me.

Advertising Alcohol Online

A while ago I wrote a post about the online industry and how they complain about not being taken seriously. Well, this is, in my opinion, another example of why agencies and advertisers shouldn’t take online seriously. Advertising alcohol online.

Just went onto the Herald and was confronted with a nice big rectangle advertising Steinlager’s new brew Edge.

I’m not sure about this at all. Television very strongly regulates alcohol advertising. It can only go to air at certain times of the day, and dependant on ratecard spend on alcohol advertising, ALAC (and please someone correct me on this as this is based on what I think I know about the account) have a deal with the networks which gives them a percentage value of that airtime to counteract the alcohol advertising. There is a balance – alcohol brand and ALAC.

So my concern centres around the fact that not only can this alcohol advertising be seen ALL day on a national site (yes – I acknowledge the fact that it is in the business section and its not like kids visit the business section of the Herald on a daily basis, however the reason that I got to this article was a link on Twitter) but you can take the user brand experience to the next level by clicking on the ad.

The first screen you come up against is an ‘are you 18’ screen, but it’s not difficult to lie on this. What gets me however is the next screen you come to isn’t exactly what was detailed in the ad. The ad says “Find out more” at which point I would have expected to land on the “About Steinlager Edge” as below:

Instead, you land on a competition page (I thought there were rules about giving alcohol away as prizes?):

So we have an ad which is driving the user to slightly misrepresented content and a competition with only an ‘I promise I am over 18’ check box. I wouldn’t say that I am a total stick in the mud, but I do find this worrying. It was way too easy for me to get my hands on alcohol at a very young age, and I didn’t have the access to the Internet that kids to these days. No wonder we are a nation of binge drinkers (don’t get me wrong – totally guilty myself).

So my question is: Is there a similar deal with publishers and ALAC as there is with television?

There just seems to be a serious lack of self-regulation within the online advertising industry. I realize that it is still a young industry, but it would be great if someone would start drawing a line in the sand. I would have thought that this is something that the IAB could have done, but with an impending restructure announced today, and the departure of Grieg as a CEO, I hope that there will be someone/some people to steer the ship in the right direction and really start to take charge of how we can make this industry as great as it could possibly be.

Still hating on Chrome

EYEBLASTER! Why do you hate Chrome?? Why? Why? Why?

So some time ago I wrote a blog asking people not to forget about Chrome users, cos (while I do often bitch about them) I would like to see some of the creative ads that are out there. Really, I would. For instance, today, @craigadolph sent out a tweet: “http://twitpic.com/alwsf - cool telecom ad on nzherald. using non standard ads without being offensive. i like. @ros_ashworth” when I tried to check it out, I could not see it. Instead of this:

I got this:
I totally agree with Craig, that is a really nice wallpaper ad, nothing obstructing my view, NZHerald have done a GREAT job of accommodating the creative. This is the best thing I have seen come out of Telecom in ages - and Eyeblaster has killed it for Chrome users.

For some reason or another eyeblaster does not support Chrome for wallpaper ads. One comment from the last post was that it was ok as Chrome only have 2% penetration. Not sure where this number came from (it was an anonymous comment) however I have access to analytics for a variety of websites (including this blog) and the average percentage of Chrome users across 5 very different sites is 5.8% for the last month.

What I think eyeblaster really need to think about is WHO is using Chrome. Is it ma & pa on the farm in Timaru? Or is it the people who are pretty dedicated to Google, and the internet, and (remember, this is MY OPINION) potentially the early adopters? You know, it was not that long ago that everyone used IE, and look at the use of Firefox these days.

Here’s an idea. Rather than take a leaf out of the telco’s books and constantly play catch up with the rest of the world, why not be proactive? No one like someone who is dancing 1 beat behind the music; Chrome use is growing, dance in time with the music and people will pay you more attention.

Interestingly, 10.1% of visitors to my blog view it through Chrome, well higher than the other sites I have analytics access to. Wonder what that means?

Wellington Goodness!

The joy of the interwebs and RSS feeds!

So much goodness, all in one day for Wellington this weekend. Sure, it is all a little girly - but once again, I get to reiterate how freaking awesome Wellington is.

C/- Lucy on The Wire I found out about:
C/- Good as Gold I found out about:

Which is also this:
And thanks heaps Wellingtonista for bringing this to my attention:
So what are you doing on Saturday?

New Favourite Site of the Week 160709

New favourite site of the week this week is a sweet little site that takes your photos and makes them all dreamlike. You can check out the site here.

So for this little experiment I stole a photo off a very talented friend of mine - Sam Waldron, you can check out even more of his work here - as my best photos seem to be of Egypt, and that place doesn't really lend itself to dreamlike imagery.

Take one already very choice photo:
And turn it into an almost dream like image:Now, Sam's photo was just as beautiful all perfectly in focus as he shot it, however this lovely little site allows you to take a perfectly focussed photo and play.

In other news, The Dead Weather are amazing and have just released their debut album Horehound. Hot damn. With Jack White (White Stripes), Alison Mosshart (The Kills), Jack Lawrence (The Raconteurs) and Dean Fertita (Queen of the Stone Age) it is a band made in rock and roll heaven!

On 22 June they played their first live show. You can check them out here: From the Basement.

The Wall St Journal have this little interactive gem detailing just how amazing Mr. Jack White is, and how many pies he has his fingers in. Could Jack White be vying for Dave Grohl's title as the Hardest Working Man in Rock?

A Glass & a Half of Facts

For those of you who haven't had the pleasure of seeing the Cadbury full page ad in the Dom Post (and no doubt other main mets) here is the text portion of the ad. Headline is "A Glass and a Half of Facts" (scanner doesn't manage broadsheet).

Considering the damage control required, this seems very weak. And in Section D of the Dom Post - at least pay the loading and get into Section A.

UPDATED: There was a link here to Hazel from NBR's Picasa account which had this beautifully scribbled over version of the ad above. She really did a stellar job. So good in fact it would seem she has been censored and it has been taken down, and since I don't want a dead link on this blog, I too have taken it down. Sorry about that.

Upstairs for thinking

Idea = great. Creative execution = not convinced.

As the earthquake last night was unfolding on Twitter, I was watching bad TV = TV2 ‘Fringe’ and ‘Chuck’. I did (vaguely) pick up on Bond + Bond’s ‘Wicked Wednesday’ night sponsorship. The creative wasn’t fantastic; I think that is what made me glaze over whole thing. It was, well, very Bond + Bond-esque. I am going to take a punt and say that sponsorship probably cost a pretty penny, so it seems a shame that the creative let it down.

What they have done well however, is part of the sponsorship they have secured a Thursday homepage takeover on tvnz.co.nz with their banner referring to their ‘Wicked Wednesday’ lineup on TV2 “last night”. Smart. People who have missed the programmes last night are likely to jump on and catch up – it does amaze me that people are watching more tv than ever before AND jumping online and streaming other episodes as well. Even though their sponsorship was of Wednesday night on television, they are smart enough to know that tv is not the only place their audience are viewing programming.

What would have absolutely completed this would have been if they owned the intro ads for all episodes of Fringe & Chuck on tvnz.co.nz/video. (note: I say intro ads only – not every ad gap!) What would also help would be if tvnz.co.nz loaded the episodes quickly – at the moment (Thursday morning) neither episode is up, so it is possible that they are going to do this from last night’s episodes.

Again, I think the unfortunate part of this element of the campaign is the creative. When I saw that tvnz had a homepage takeover this morning, I thought (looking at the background and not the banner) that it was HP that had done the takeover – those ‘+’ signs threw me.

Keep the media team, shake the creatives. (In saying that – I am well aware it is more than likely that it is not the creative team’s fault, potentially the client.)

Using Online for Brand

Sometimes I see an ad online and wonder what the point of having a click through on that ad is. If you have nothing to offer once a user clicks through, what kind of experience are you leaving that user with? Potentially not a good one. However, I don’t think that this should discourage companies from advertising online, even if they don’t have anything to offer specifically online.

Where has this come from? See image below, Trade Me homepage today:

The Instant Kiwi showcase, does not have a click through. I say good on them. You can’t buy instant kiwi’s online – all you can do is find out what other kinds of tickets you can purchase, and any recent big winners. Why would you send anyone through to the site? There is no point.

This would be the joy of brand advertising, which I do believe can work just as hard online, as in other mediums. Sometimes, you just want some phenomenal reach for your brand, and what better way to get mass eyeballs on your brand than advertising on the homepage of Trade Me? An estimated 1.1M page impressions in one day, approx. 375k unique browsers (yes – I have my little black Trade Me ratecard now, thank you!) for less than a ratecard spend 30 second spot on Shortland St… Add in some of the other big publishers over the week, and you could have a pretty far reaching brand campaign, with my smaller production costs than television, and placement also at a fraction of the cost.

I know that one of the main selling points of online is the measurable nature of the medium. x number of people clicked, therefore it costs y to get x number of people to your site. Well, that is all well and good, but what if there is nothing for a user to do once they get there?

While Instant Kiwi can afford to place media on both television and online, I think it shows some serious recognition of what online can do for brand. Perhaps other companies, who may know their audience is online, but do not have an online (per se) offering, will start using this medium for brand campaigns. That’d be nice to see, and who knows what else might fall out of it.

Owning my opinion

I started this blog back in October last year. Whilst in London, I got to talking to a friend about all things online: online in the UK, in NZ, publishers, display, search, classifieds, SEO, sales reps, sites, all the things I love. He suggested that, since I was passionate about it, why not write about the world that I love, and so, OpinionAdded was born.

This blog, like most personal blogs, is all about me - my thoughts, my feelings, my likes and my dislikes. Throughout my posts you will note that I use the term ‘I’ a lot. I like, I don’t like, I think, I hope. If/when I am quoting a fact, I attribute where the information comes from. If I am writing about something I have found from another source, I attribute.

So the joy of a blog, and indeed most forms of social media (aside from the fact the tools to produce social media are available at little to no cost and the ease of access) is the immediacy of information and that the information can be altered almost instantaneously by comments or editing.

The instantaneous nature of social media can also be its downside. Something that I have heard over and over again is that when you step into the social media realm you have to accept that you lose control. Whether you are a company putting yourself out into this world, or if you haven’t chosen to be there yourself, but the wider public is talking about you, it is impossible to control what is being said. All you can do be aware it and possibly be willing to be in the space and have a conversation. Note that word. Conversation. This is 2 way, not one way.

The likes of Skittles, Vodafone (when the 3G guy took over the vodafoneNZ Twitter account) and most recently Weetbix, have all found out how quickly opinion spreads through social media, and the one thing all of them have done is acknowledge the opinions, and let their customers know that they hear them. All 3 companies know when their customers say something, the best thing to do is let them know that they have been heard, you don’t necessarily have to do anything about it (although all three companies above did).

Now, I am the first person to put my hand up and admit when I am wrong. I have never deleted a published post, or anyone’s comment. When someone has pointed out that something I have written is factually incorrect I have updated and claimed my mistake.

Similarly, I will not retract my opinion. Too many people just agree, go along with what others have to say, as it is easier. I’ve never been one to make life easy for myself. Without conflicting opinions it is harder for ideas/concepts/designs/anything to develop and evolve, if everyone agrees, boundaries are never pushed. Conflicting opinions allow us to challenge ourselves.

So obviously this has not come out of nowhere. This blog was going to be Internet focused, not so big on the personal life, however this post has crept slightly over the line. I had some feedback recently that someone was not happy about something I had written. For a range of reasons, which I am not going to detail, this frustrated me. So I stopped, thought about this person’s opinion and challenged myself to re-read my post, think about what I had written and whether I believed in it.

As it turns out, I do believe in what I wrote. I think if read with an objective eye, what I wrote was all-round positive. I did not make grand factual statements, simply stated my opinion and in the end, that is the point of OpinionAdded. I get to articulate my thoughts. If it sparks conversation, that’s great, otherwise it is simply my mental dumping ground. I have always had strong opinions and convictions, and I have always had the integrity to stand by them. While reading and talking to other people may influence my opinion sometimes, you can be certain that nothing I write has been passed off to be proofed, or sent to anyone for their approval. My opinions, my words, my responsibility.

I am sorry if some people don’t like what I have to say, but just like more traditional mediums, no one is being forced to consume what I am saying. In the end, it is each individual’s choice. Switch channels (I mean sites), I’m sure you can find something else which will tell you exactly what you want to hear. If that doesn’t work for you, and you would rather I absolutely didn’t write about something in particular, as it turns out, I am quite reasonable, please just email me (link to the right under the disclaimer) and I will be happy to oblige.

Ads to come on Twitter?

I have been in bed asleep all day today. I feel as though I am on the verge of the flu, but I am hoping that mass amounts of sleep and LOTS of vitamin C is going to ensure it doesn't actually happen. At any rate, that is the reason that I
a. haven't done a favourite site of the week
b. don't know what the buzz on Twitter has been.

Twice now I have questioned the 'sponsored definitions' without much response. Are these actually paid for? Whats the deal? Does anyone pay attention to them?

Well, what do we have here then?? Typically I use TweetDeck and otherwise I am a Chrome user, but on my MacBook , I access Twitter the normal way, and through Firefox. So, not sure how long this has been about, but it is looking pretty close to an ad:Hmm, hello very banner looking slice of yellow. Oh no, not a banner, how I loathe banners. I just feel as though they are too squished. I really do like Skys and Shows better, I feel there is a larger creative space for someone to do something spectacular. At least it is not at the very top of the screen just waiting to be scrolled past.

So this 'banner' (for want of a better word) is talking about upgrading Firefox, and this only shows in Firefox, no sign in Chrome or Safari. So, if they can target to browser... I wonder what else they may be able to target to when it comes down to it? More importantly though, how are they going to get around the API situation. I rarely use the web to check Twitter, and with so many applications, there is not going to be an easy way to bring them altogether. One thing at a time though.

I wonder how soon we can expect to see actual advertising in that space. Only a matter of time. Only a matter of time...

New NZ Herald Homepage

Oh… I like it! It is much cleaner than it was before. I think that the addition of extra visuals on the homepage has seriously broken up the page which was previously too text heavy for my liking.

I was lucky enough to be shown what this was going to look like last week, and when you place the old and new homepages side by side, without a doubt the new one looks much nicer.

I like what they have done with the advertising spaces too. So today Farmers has bought out the homepage with the super rec, and because the super rec is being used, the top banner has been dropped from the homepage. I think this is a really good call on APN’s behalf. If a client is willing to spend the money on a super rec (placement and development of the creative) then give them pride of placement. By dropping the top banner, the entire super rec is above the fold (note: I am viewing this in Chrome). From memory, if a normal rec has been purchased the top banner comes back.

I see (especially news sites) homepages as a portal. People go to check out headlines, and then go to a story they want to read. While I am sure that the ads get clicked on, I think the branding potential is much higher.

Can’t say I’m completely wedded to the font, but that’s something I can overlook.

I like. I wasn’t much of a fan of the old homepage, would visit this one more I feel. I will be interested to see if they roll some of these changes out throughout the rest of the site.

Tweet Fail

Ha ha, so my last tweet about when advertising and headlines coming together in beautifully, fails as 2 Degrees bought impressions (which makes sense). This is what I was referring to:

Adserving Issues Stuff?

Got some adserving issues going on Stuff?

Top banners not happy either?

Did Stuff get Swine Flu and go wonky? Has the MJ coverage blown you kids out of the water? Nasty.

Guest blogging

My presence has been requested. For something a little different, check out The New Bicycle Empire.

I love bicycles - especially mine:

New Trade Me

Right, well it was always going to happen and like the Stuff site, I was always going to have an opinion on it. New site is clean and the layout mostly works for me. I'm not so keen about about the 'Buying/Selling' watchlist menu under the search, just because I am not used to it, but that's fine, just a readjustment.

So, colour me not surprised that the top 468x60 (is that the size of the top banner?? Don't know, don't have a ratecard... oh - that's harsh, sorry) has not

been sold on the homepage. Sorry, still think that this format is SO redundant. I know that we used to specifically make tab & tower, but we didn't have a choice. We do now, show and skys, that do not need to be purchased together. Yes!

I note that throughout the rest of the site the majority of the top banner ads have been purchased in conjunction with the sky. It looks (quick check - don't hold me to it) that Westpac has purchased a Sky only, and an in house ad is running in the top banner position. I will be interested to see how this progresses, and whether, like the homepage, they will leave this placement empty if unsold.

Now, I am seriously hoping that agencies are not putting the sky/banner combo

through to their clients as an all in one package. I recall having to talk clients into making tab/tower formats specifically for Trade Me, because TM is TM and if you want to be there, you have to make those formats, but you don't have to anymore... if you don't want to make the redundant format, you don't have to. I hope this message is being passed on to clients.

As per any new site there are a few glitches. This one is a bit of a pity though:

Check out the chicken in the showcase... on the homepage. Now, happy to be corrected on this one, but pretty sure that XT don't have a chicken in their campaign - unless it's Richard Hammond in that chicken suit?? Showcase should look like this:I saw the chicken, thought "Huh?" clicked on the link, went through to XT, went "huh?" again. Like any good Internet geek I emptied my cache, refreshed a few times, got the right ad, and then the chicken turned up again, and it was at this point I screen grabbed (let's be fair, when I got the right ad the second time I was kicking myself for not screen grabbing the first screen!!)

Other nasty little glitches like the drop menus not returning properly are a little frustrating, but I have no doubt that these will be fixed relatively quickly.

Overall, I do like the site. I think it is clean and it is a nice evolution from the previous site. It is fresh but not a complete departure from what it's users know. For me, I am not a fan of the top banner as an advertising space, but in saying that the sky/banner combos that are on the site today do look good, I'm just not sure if the price tag is justified. So there you go. Like I said, was always going to have an opinion on this.

UPDATE: I get it now. Opened Trade Me in IE and the chicken was dancing (it wasn't dancing in Chrome, just static). Interestingly, when someone else opened up TM in IE there was a showcase sitting in the top banner. That was odd. Isn't happening for me, I would have included a screenshot of it. Ah, the joy of new sites!

my dirty little secret

I have this secret. Dirty, embarrassing secret. I like really crap bad American television.

Recovering on a Sunday afternoon, there is nothing better than watching crap tv, and something that falls into that category is Gossip Girl. Beautifully targeted at young girls, kind 13-24 I am most certainly out of the target audience, but the crazy storylines and ridiculous lifestyles that these characters lead is the perfect afternoon escapism.

At any rate, that is not what this is about. Over the last few episodes I have noticed something interesting with the music that they use in the show. Rather than using a range of music in an episode, they have started picking up one artist and using their music all the way through the episode. A few weeks ago they only played Kings of Leon, last week only Bloc Party, this week, only the Transcendents. I like it. For a start they are playing very good music, but its nice, it gives an additional element to the episode.

At any rate, I would highly recommend checking out an episode before it finishes. See what you think.

Updated 12/7 - just watched GG on tvnzondemand, and Trascendents do the theme, the music from last week was White Lies (which I just downloaded and LOVE). Thanking my delightful HTC Magic and the wonderful Shazam application for correcting me!

New Favourite Site of the Week 030709

Oh the BEAUTY! This site, without a doubt is the best of the bunch thus far. This little gem turned up via @designpimp and I just can't say enough how much I am in love with it. I would play all day long if I could. If you like the Cold War Kids already, you will love this beautiful interactive piece of amazingness. So it is for their new track 'I've Seen Enough' I would give you the link now, but I want to walk through the complexities of it before sending you to the actual site. Mean I know.

You can control so many different aspects of the Cold War Kids whilst they play their latest single.So they are playing their new single, which is great. But wait there's more! See how the guy on the bass is in the dark, that is because I paused him. So the rest of them are playing, but he's just chilling.

What's this? The guy who was on the piano and the singer have changed! Now ones on keyboards and the other has a guitar.

Wait, they've changed again!

And changed again! You can change their instruments by clicking the colours at the top.

So you click on each person to pause that instrument, and the song just continues.

So much fun. Click here to have a play. Seriously. Play. For the whole song. Its GOOD. So much interactive musical goodness I don't feel like I am doing it justice.

does no one have an answer for me?

Little over a week ago I asked if I was asleep and if I had missed the monetization of Twitter. No one answered. Does no one have an answer? Is that why? Or is everyone just ignoring me? I'm gonna guess it is the latter somehow. So the last one was Apple - who is this?
Huh? Where am I? What's going on? Who am I?

Bad expandable banners - again

I hate to pick on people, but for some reason, I am just not a fan of BNZ's advertising, online or otherwise - don't get me started about the use of the Tiki Taane song. Expandable banners in my mind are gross. Looking like sh*t is being splashed across my screen really doesn't do it for me.

Showcase:

Ew:

No:

The ONE redeeming feature is that the second your cursor moves off the showcase it disappears.

Really - anyone got information as to whether this works. It is just messy to me, and personally the only reason I end up clicking on one is when it is by accident and I am trying to rid of the darn thing.