Another great piece of video content from Transport for London. This clever clip follows previous greats such as ‘take the test’ and ‘whodunnit’.

However, when it comes to making clever videos to make your point you have to make sure that your audience actually understands the message.

The feedback goldmine (mostly rock but the occasional lump of gold)  that is the comment field can provide some insight here. A brief look on youtube suggests that not everyone gets the message; for example one comment reads “why were the policeman, money, police car, and button so big?”. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to react to this feedback, either getting involved in the comment feed, or adding to the video to provide some assistance to ensure the message gets through to everyone and that a great piece of content isn’t wasted.

Like me, you might have got sent a link to an eBay item description a few months back. The item was a pretty standard BMX, but the description was anything but.
For example:

“Once I did a boom gnarly stunt trick on it and a girl got pregnant just by watching my extremeness to the maxxxx”

“Basically if you buy this bike you will instantly become a member to every club that was ever invented, worldwide, because you will be awesome.”

Turns out the item was actually posted by Australian agency George Patterson Y&R, and was an ‘experiment’ to see if creativity actually worked. They simply bought the BMX off eBay then re-sold it, but added some ‘creativity’ to the item description. The bike sold for 500% more using the second technique. It’s a great example of the power of creativity, original content, and of course the Internet.

Source: Pigs Don’t Fly

The Internet, perhaps one of the most useful inventions of all time is going to get a whole lot more useful when we can access it any time anywhere thanks to our mobile devices.

Here’s a list of some great things, that thanks to mobile can be made even better.

1. Social Networking

Create an event on facebook, but then want to change the venue, fine if it’s two days before the event, not so good if it’s 2 hours. But with mobile people can keep up to date just before the event. What’s more you’ll even be able to create an event just hours before. See an old friend at such an event, but don’t remember anything about them? No problem just have a quick check on facebook on your mobile and you’ll get all you need, checking the relationship status can also avoid those inappropriate questions!

2. Uploading digital photos

Take photos on your internet enabled camera phone, or maybe just your internet enabled camera. No longer do you have to wait till you get to a computer and go through the hassle of uploading, just upload in real time via your mobile device. What’s more thanks to GPS technology have your mobile device automatically geo tag each one of your photos. With things so instant and easy, more and more photos will become available many with real time relevance. Want to check out what a place looks like before you go, these days you should be able to find an image but soon they’ll be many more, and many showing you exactly what it looks like that very day.

3. Shopping comparison

Out shopping on the high street, see something you like, but not sure if it might be worth waiting to get it cheaper online? Just check on your mobile, to find the answer. With the latest technology from Snaptel (currently USA only) you simply take a photo of the item you want and the Snaptell application will run an instant price comparison, find it cheaper then you can buy it online then and there.

4. Online reviews

These days nearly everyone uses online reviews, but still only a small proportion of people actually contribute any reviews themselves. This might be for various reasons, the main issues are likely to be related effort and the fact that by the time you get to a computer after the experience the issue is no longer in the forefront of your mind. Now people can review things as they experience them, not only will you be able to find more reviews, but for things not previously available. For example thinking of going to a club, just check the latest reviews from people already there. Twitter is proving to be a great platform for such reviews, people are sharing their experiences as they happen in 140 characters and these are available for people to view just by searching for the relevant hash tag in Twitter search.

5. Searching for telephone numbers

It’s not hard to get a telephone number these days, get on the computer, and search the company name and the word phone, and google will magically find it for you. Could it get any easier? Yes! With mobile internet there’s no need find a computer, just go to google on your mobile, put in the company name and google will recognise you’re on a phone and display the phone number without you having to go to all that effort of typing ‘phone’ (actually on some phones this can be pretty useful), then there’s no need to go and find your phone (it’s in your hand!) or even type in the number just click (or touch) on the number and you’ll be chatting in no time.

6. E-tickets

Thanks to E-tickets we can buy tickets for things closer to the event (or departure time) than postage times had previously allowed us, without actually having to make a journey to go and buy tickets. But thanks to mobile this process can be further improved. No longer do we have to print off tickets, codes can be text to our phones, and internet enabled phones should even be able to display full tickets including images and barcodes. What’s more thanks to the mobile internet we order E-tickets even closer to event, if you’re already out and about you needn’t try and find a computer or a ticket office, just purchase on your phone and receive your E-ticket straight away. Some services also operate which allow you to simply order your ticket and payment can be taken off your mobile bill.

7. Wikipedia

Thanks to wikipedia debates such as how many different flavours are there in a bag of skittles, or what was Christmas number 1 in 2000, need never go unanswered. But where do most of these questions arise? Down the pub of course! You need never lose £50 (or your currency equivalent!) on your misguided faith of your knowledge of Angelina Jolie’s age, or how many league cups Man Utd have won.

8. Augmented reality

Augmented reality is the merging of the real world and the virtual world into one, this is often done using a webcam to film ‘reality’ and this is presented on a computer with virtual elements included. This can look great presented on a computer or laptop, but it’s when you get mobile involved that real possibilities emerge. Digital information can be attached pretty much anything in the real world, and mobile phones can be used simply as a tool to view this. Point your mobile camera at a view and you’ll be able to see all the digital information attached to that scene, such as road and building names. This isn’t just a future possibility, it’s something that is already being developed for phones that run google android.

9. Maps

Pretty obviously it’s much more useful to have virtual map with you rather than back at home as your navigate your way through this world, you could of course print one out, but that can’t locate your position via GPS, and who want to go to all that effort of pressing the print button. What’s more with your virtual map you can get up to date changes such as traffic problems, you can search the internet for information about the area you’re in, and soon you might even be able to see the location of you friends in your map view.

10. How to guides

These days you can pretty much find out how to anything just by searching on the Internet. Anything from how to cook a chocolate soufflé or how to fix a bike tyre, it’s all their with all the text, images, or videos you could ever need. But the problem is we don’t always have access to these guides when we might need them the most. It’s not very practical to take your computer outside while you change that tyre, or that you don’t have that computer on you when you get a puncture miles from home! But with your mobile you need never be without your help guides ever again.

Of course there’s many more things about the Internet that mobile access will improve (we could have had way more than 10 based on search alone), and there’s many more things that we’ll be able to do unlike anything that was possible before. But what this relatively short and simple list does demonstrate is just how important mobile internet access is going to become.

The other week I found myself at an event called Rollapaluza which felt a little bit like 8 mile but with Bikes, but in Bristol not Detroit. There might have been a few other differences but I’d had a few and I didn’t notice them. Basically it was held in bar, loud hip-hop was being played, and two guys or girls went one on one on a couple of bikes put on rollers. It’s a knock out competition, with the winning man and woman getting to keep one of the bikes at the end of it all. They go all around the UK and it does make a change from a normal night down the pub.

It seems bikes are cool again especially racers (obviously I just went out and bought one), a bit of olympic success, a bit of a credit crisis, and with it being cool to be green and all. The Economist reports that the Giant, the largest bike maker in the world is set to have it’s best year ever in terms of sales. Bikes have even managed to maintain their image while Borris and Cameron (did he get his back?) ride about on them.

The best bike related campaign has to the ‘take the test’ virals, but i’ve not seen many good ads and i’ve seen (and used) some awful websites, so plenty of opportunities out there.

Essentially it’s trying to stop you car drivers knocking down the cyclists.

It’s not a bad viral, but I was hardly surprised about what I missed, whereas in the first I very much was…

The New One:

The Old One: