My memory is a strange animal. The various bits of mental flotsam that occasionally come to the surface for most people, take up permanent residence in parts of my brain that should be reserved for useful tasks, like remembering to tell my insurance company to fax me over a copy of my car policy (which I no longer have to remember, thanks to this post).

YouTube has not helped in any way, shape or form to resolve this issue. In fact, it has exacerbated the problem. Prior to YouTube, the fleeting memories of “that thing with that guy in it” would pop in and out of one’s consciousness without any need to investigate further. Now, especially for people like me, that becomes an impossibility.

The following videos are the result of several hours (though not consecutive, thank goodness) of trying to scratch that mental itch that comes from such memory fragments:

1) Night Walk – Night Ride: Aired between 3 and 5am on Global TV in the late 80′s. Yes, I was up during those hours as a kid.

2) An anti-drug PSA with a voice-over from Mark Dailey (Local celebroty -Toronto news anchor for City-TV, and former Police Officer).

3) The new Heinz campaign is responsible for planting this jingle back in my head, and I’m not even a fan of ketchup.

4) There’s a part of this video that’s shot in black and white, where a guy’s reading Lady Chatterly’s Lover. It’s always been in my mind, and would I have realized it was from a song that I actually know, I might not have searched as hard to find out where it was from.

Perhaps that’s what YouTube will eventually evolve into – a repository for all the little bits and pieces of mental confetti that prevent one’s memory from performing more efficiently. … Or at least that’s the story I’ll stick to.

The first thought from many of you is going to be “Yup, he’s on the sauce again.”

10am Drambuies notwithstanding, hear me out on this. I was thinking about the way technology is moving forward and how we’re all collectively responding to our innate need to find stuff. The internet is built on a system of requests and responses. The very first “computerized” searches came in the form of relatively crude algorithms that were designed to brute force their way through reams of information to return the closest match to a given query. Present day search systems are much, MUCH more sophisticated. Predictive algorithms, organic search mechanisms, and multi-modal search engines (voice search for example) are just some of the ways that we’ve attempted to make “finding stuff” easier.

There’s just one problem. Finding stuff isn’t really easier because overall, people still don’t know how to search. Think about it. There’s still a massive disconnect between the way that the average person thinks, and the mindset that’s required to search for something “properly” online.

Take for example, a question that’s the de facto litmus test for a search scenario; “Where should I go for dinner tonight?” Now, if *I* were to start searching for the answer (and yes, I am somewhat snobbishly excluding myself from the general public in that I think differently when it comes to online searches), I would go to Google, make sure I’m cookied for Canada by signing into my Google account, and then I’d type something like the following into the query field:

The first result is a rather simple site, but it’s a list of lots of restaurants with links to their website. For a general query, it’s not that bad. However, if you type in a much more natural query like: “Where should I go for dinner tonight?” (still signed into my google account mind you), the results are markedly different. The first result is a Yahoo Answers page from Australia:

http://au.answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20071130191037AAZmpb2

Now, there are of course some very valid reasons for the differences between the two sets of results. My question is a qualitative one, for starters. By asking a natural question, I wasn’t explicitly asking for a list of restaurants. How would the system know which restaurant I “should” go to? It doesn’t necessarily know what I like (yet). The system also doesn’t really know where I am unless I tell it (either through the query itself or via GPS if I’m using a mobile to execute the search). There are in fact a lot of variables that make “natural search queries” quite difficult to handle by a system that doesn’t know who you are.

A ha. Therein lies the reason why the current method of search engine optimization (from the search engine’s perspective) is flawed. It starts off by assuming that the system is completely disconnected from the person asking the question. The goal is to provide enough information to this blind user in order to make the search result more relevant. Queue meta-tags, content strategies, and any other number of mechanisms to make this happen, and make “possibly relevant” results float to the top.

Well, why bother with that assumption in the first place? The only other activity that rivals searching online, is social networking. Ok, fine. It’s actually porn, but we’ll just assume that’s a given and continue on with the story. You’d be hard pressed to find anyone with access to the internet that didn’t have some kind of profile or identity online. Between Facebook, Twitter, … and all of those other communities, nearly everyone is linked to one of them. Everyone’s got some kind of profile online, and most of those will continue to evolve as they accumulate history. Now, before I go on I’d like to clarify that I know the reasons why profile-related search results are perceived as a scary concept to some. Regardless of the fact that many are quick to enable things like search histories and information-sharing between websites, there are some that focus on the potential dangers of doing so. There is merit to these concerns, but it also represents a whole other series of potential material to cover. So for now we’ll move forward.

Think about it like talking to your Doctor or your Lawyer, your Accountant or even your friends. All of these people could be considered systems which are profile-aware. They know you in some specific context and as a result, they can provide you with answers to pretty vague questions (“I’ve got like…a thing on my arm, and it hurts. What’s wrong?”). With the exception of your friends, they’re legally bound to keep your information private but if you think that they all adhere to those regulations 100% of the time, I’m sorry but you’re fooling yourself.

Now think about how this translates to an online search. All of a sudden, “Where should I go for dinner tonight?” doesn’t seem all that unreasonable, does it? If there is a shift in focus from making disconnected information “possibly relevant”, to making relevant information accessible, the way we all “find stuff” could drastically change in the next few years. All of the pieces are already there. The same sophisticated search mechanisms I mentioned above wouldn’t have to change at all. Social networking is already set up to gather information about us. The only bit that’s left to do is to connect the two properly.

Though, I guess the whole thing is really going to get weird when you start seeing stuff like this in response to a dinner selection query:

Thoughts?

“Can I send you a link?”

“Nah, I’m at work. Email/Facebook/Twitter it and I’ll grab it when I get home.”

That’s probably a conversation that many of you have had before over IM. Conversations over IM have typically been laced with some type of sensitivity regarding the content that’s transmitted, especially when one of the participants is at work, or somewhere else where the potential for “eavesdropping” or snooping of some kind. Most companies are gradually allowing the use of IM clients in the workplace, but not without a system to monitor traffic and content over what they view as a “company owned resource.”

The internet is rife with stories recounting embarrassing situations involving risque material that would have been better viewed outside of work. All it takes is one click to trigger content filters or other software designed to keep an eye on what people are viewing online.

Don’t ask me why this particular image was included. I just found it amusing.

The latest version of Windows Live Messenger, arguably the most popular IM client in the world, was recently released with a long sought after feature which could change the way IM conversations take place (especially if you’re nerdly leanings resemble my own). You can now sign-in to WLM from mulitple locations at once, and have completely separate settings for conversations in each place. If you have a machine at home that’s always on for example, you can use it to save your conversations while you log on from work, or when you’re mobile.

I think this is interesting because save for Google Talk (which is massively underused), no other messenger client has this as a native feature. There are several 3rd party plugins that are available to accommodate this, along with some registry hacks that can accomplish the same thing. But why muck about in the registry when you don’t have to?

Anyhow, it’s a handy little feature, and I thought I’d give it a mention.

At least it was, about a month ago.

It should come as no surprise that “disaster marketing” has just as much impact as any other type of marketing effort that’s out there. In fact, media outlets know that when it comes to selling a story, there is absolutely nothing that will do it quite like news of impending doom.

Once disaster strikes, it’s nearly impossible to avoid coverage of the event in the media. Every outlet sets up some sort of task force comprised of elite, special forces trained… journalists to cover all aspects of the event in order to protect YOU THE PUBLIC. Well, until the next story hits anyways. As far as the media is concerned, it seems that the ability to strike fear into the public only lasts as long as the public’s attention span.

Look at the most recent episode of global fear-mongering: The H1N1 virus, somewhat erroneously identified as “Swine Flu” – which you can also thank the media for. The H1N1 virus is actually a potential variant of a virus that has shown to be endemic in humans and birds (as well as in swine). But I guess the Avian Flu (H5N1) trend was too “2007″, so the decision was to go hog-chic this time around.

So H1N1 was destined to destroy the world. The flu pandemic caused so much fear in fact that thousands of pigs were slaughtered, under the mistaken impression that it would help to stem the spread of the flu, despite a lack of evidence that any pigs were even infected to begin with. Masks were donned, reminiscent of the SARS outbreak a few years ago. Schools closed. Travel stopped. Bacon afficionados wept. News stations promised round-the-clock updates and “front line” reports the minute they occurred. It seemed like we were all in for an era of trepidation not seen since the Black Plague.

Well, until American Idol announced their winner anyways. In fact, even before that, people simply started to lose interest in the swine flu outbreak. At least on this side of the Atlantic. Search inquiries started to drop around the beginning of the month (link). But… how could people be so willing to throw caution to the wind like that? The entire population is at risk! Millions could die!

Well as it turns out, to date less than 100 fatalities have been recorded since the pandemic began (source). In comparison, the flu (multiple strains) kills tens of thousands of people per season (though precise numbers are hard to determine). So, while the spread of the virus still remains a concern, the public’s beginning to see that there really wasn’t as much to fear as they were first told.

In fact, there’s probably much, MUCH more to fear from the still-deepening financial crisis that’s occurring across the globe. But it’s a lot easier to convey the effects of a flu bug to the public, than it is to explain the effects of toxic mortgages, derivatives, and the parallel banking system. Hell, I’ll freely admit I don’t completely understand it myself. I just fished out those terms from Wikipedia.

So I guess if we want our next fear-fix, we’ll have to wait for the next potentially crippling disease, natural disaster, bee dissappearance, or Coldplay album release to make its way to the newswire.

They have the ability to lie dormant for years, re-activated for any one of a thousand strange reasons. Maybe you’re at a party and someone whistles 3 or four notes that force you to stop and try and remember their origin for days. Or perhaps you’ve heard someone utter a cryptic pop-culture phrases like “Where’s the Beef?” or “Mikey Likes It!”. Whatever the reason, there’s a good chance that if you grew up in front of the boob tube, part of your subconscious is now permanently etched with countless slogans and catchphrases used to market just about everything, from Ketchup to Cars.

Think you’re different? Think your psyche’s been cleansed for the better? …

(I’m sure just those 3 videos, or any of the ones linked above, will no doubt cause a 3 hour YouTube session. You can thank me later.)

This was just a fun little post. There’s no deep analysis here. No probing question for you all to chew on. Except for maybe one. Despite their overall quality, what makes these old ads so … “appealing” 10, 20, or 30 years down the road? What is it about nostalgia that makes us praise and treasure something that was seemingly worthless and annoying (regardless of how catchy it was) when it was created?. Further, which ones are destined to become the next batch of guilty pleasures that will make future generations question their own sanity?

A friend of mine recently sent across a link to an ad for the new Pomegranate Phone.

Now, you could be a party pooper and fire the appropriate term into Google, rendering the need to read the rest of this post null and void. But for the remaining 1 or 2 readers, play along if you will.

The Pomegranate Phone

I’ll keep this post relatively short, because there’s a fair amount of buzz out there about this particular ad. The usual camps have precipitated out, and the debate will rage on for a few days or so whether or not the ad accomplished its goal. I took the time to explore the ad, never having heard of the phone in the first place, and I think if you go into it with that mindset, you’ll be all the more entertained.

I’ll post again shortly with some followup once the buzz has died down.

Back in 2002, the individuals behind Clueless Mailers distributed a massive diagram that illustrated just how endemic the problem of spam really is. For the first time, you could actually see how various networks connected and collaborated with one another across the globe, to ensure that you had an endless supply of messages in your inbox promising you untold Nigerian fortunes and more manhood than you can shake a stick at… so to speak.

Click to check out the full version of the map

Well, there’s now an updated version that you can access at Spamworld which uses the Google Maps API to track known IPs of networks that contribute to spam traffic on the Internet, in real time (There are other lists out there, but it’s difficult to glean where their numbers are coming from). Looking at the map, it’s not that surprising to see a large number of spam coming from Asia. Which is not to say that the Asian populace is being shady on purpose. It’s merely that there are a lot more people there, and hence the opportunity to set up a relevant infrastructure is that much higher. Almost 2300 IPs carry spam traffic from Turkey, which is almost equivalent to the number from China. Equally strange is the absence of information out there that attempts to explain why.

Perhaps there a lot of server clusters in Turkey that are unwittingly being used by bots and other computer networks as a relay point for spam from elsewhere. Perhaps it’s a viable economic venture for a small group of people in Turkey that have figured out how to exploit the system. Who knows for sure?

But it gets a little weirder than that. Try doing a Google Search for TurkTelecom (Search for “TTnet” – I’ll leave the actual URL off of here) and see what happens. On the first page of results you get links for:

- A Chinese Parts Manufacturer
- A forum about the Nissan Twin Turbo
- A few Training Networks
- An Internet Services Company that has a rock band … or something
- A Textile Company
- The Mongolian Embassy (which,… strangely is linked from the proper TTnet parent domain)

It’s only when you get to page 2 that you actually hit anything that resembles the TTnet site. You’ll also find the Wikipedia entry for the site, which is an orphaned article that has very little info. It has an Alexa rating below the 5000 mark, making it one of the top 5000 visited sites in the world (to put this into perspective, a site like Wired.com falls just over the 1000 mark, whereas McDonalds.com is over the 8000 mark).

It’s an interesting little paradox. This prolific hermit of a entity phases in and out of existence depending on how you look at it.

The only thing that’s missing from that title is some reference to the Swine Flu and the NHL playoffs.

But, SEO-friendly titles aside *ahem*, I just wanted to fire off a quick post about a group of people that decided to say and do something about a recent article that made it’s way into the limelight:

This article was quite typical of those that most certainly got parents everywhere ready to voice their discontent at yet another evil demon of the internet.

However, as reported on Apohenia, this was merely an example of the media grabbing a snippet of information and running with it in order to garner more readers/consumers. Not really a shock there, hm? Anyways, if interested, be sure to check out the article in the Apophenia post which provides data that contradicts the study that the media latched onto initially.

In the last post, I attempted to guess at the future of advertising with respect to the gaming experience. I suggested a scenario whereby you’d be able to order a pizza while playing a game, without ever having to leave the gamespace. Well, it turns out that this was in fact attempted (sort of) by Sony and Pizza Hut back in 2005. While playing EverQuest II, as a player you could enter a command into the system which would then bring up the Pizza Hut website.

This is not exactly what I had mind, as all this really does is launch a web browser which is outside the game world. But it was certainly a step in the right direction. Merging elements of real life into the game environment is something that’s evolved over the last few years, and it’s been met with equal amounts of positive and negative feedback from both consumers and game developers. The major concern amongst the gaming community is that the inclusion of marketing material into a game detracts from its creative value; if you put an ad for Coke or Pepsi into a game, the entire game essentially becomes one giant advertisement. On the other hand, the industry has to be open to different revenue models that will allow it to remain competitive. At the end of the day, someone has to get compensated. So where’s the middle ground?

Well, there are some companies that have been trying to strike a balance. IBM, SonyBMG (there’s that name again), and Nike among others have all set up permanent residence within SecondLife, an online world which has been eluding a specific definition since its inception in 2003.

Once a brand makes a transition like this into a virtual world, it changes in a way that marketers and gamers don’t fully understand yet. If you walk into a store “in the real world”, you interact with a brand. It’s the goal of advertising to make this happen (in order to facilitate a transaction). If you “walk” into a store in SecondLife, the distinction between marketing and brand-interaction becomes blurred. If you end up making a transaction, the experience is really no different than if you walked into a physical store.

The difference between SecondLife and other online worlds however, is that SecondLife has no inherent storyline. There’s no plot distract from, which makes advertising seem less intrusive. It’s almost part of the experience itself. The open ended nature of many modern online games allows for the same kind of “freedom” when it comes to in-game ads. As players find themselves in between a particular set of tasks within the game, they usually congregate in common areas, which provide prime opportunities for advertisers to engage them. At this point, it’s merely up to the advertisers to do what they’ve always been tasked with doing: Provide consumers with an engaging message that persuades them to [trans]act. This doesn’t mean billboards and banners, which seem to be the predominant form of IGA (in game ads) right now. This means being as immersed within the game world as the gamers are. This means understanding their behaviour, and responding to it in a way that is as engaging as the game itself.

An example of such behaviour involves something as simple as traveling within the game world. One of the more tedious aspects of online gaming involves plodding/flying/otherwise moving from place to place. Such a thing can take several minutes, hours, or in some cases, days. So what if a company like RedBull offered an in-game service that would take the player to their desired destination (giving them wings as it were… sorry) for a nominal price (real or virtual)?

Makes sense, no?

“The State of PC Gaming.”

It’s one of the more recent debates that’s polarized both consumers and game developers. There’s been a sharp decline in the variety of titles on store shelves, which themselves have yielded floor space to console games. At the same time, subscriptions to popular titles like World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings Online are quite high. Whether it’s dying, growing, stagnating, or recovering, there’s only one thing that most people can seem to agree upon; it’s changing. Scratch that… it’s changed. In fact, I can’t think of anything significant about PC gaming that’s remained the same in the last 3-5 years. But that’s actually a good thing, for those differences have allowed PC games to survive for as long as they have.

The past:

Walk into a retail outlet, buy a game off the shelf. Return home, begin the install process. Check the manufacturer website for the latest game patches. Check your PC component specs to ensure that they’re also up to date. Once you’re in the game, the usual single player vs multiplayer options present themselves, and then off you go. After an average 30-40 hours of play (single player), the title is essentially expired, and it’s off to the retail outlet once again. The only exception to this would have happened if you were involved with the still rather niche FPS genre (Counterstrike, Battlefield 1942, Unreal Tournament), or with MMORPGs which were in their adolescence at the time.

The present:

Download a full game from the manufacturer’s website, or though distribution channels like Steam and Stardock. Launch the game and wait for it to automatically update itself, verify compatibility with your system, and connect to a group of servers. Then decide if you want to pay for it. … That’s right. Lots of games are offered virtually free of charge, supported by in-game advertising, graduated subscriptions or other forms of user segmentation. Further, these same channels also allow you to centralize game/community settings, character configurations, and even hook into already established social networks in order to enrich the entire gaming experience.

The future… is anyone’s guess, and here’s mine:

As game platforms evolve, so will their content and their methods of distribution (regardless of genre), and the popularity of the MMO format will continue to inform this transformation. While this is happening, there will be a convergence between the offline and online identities of gamers themselves. The notion of a gamers “Profile” will carry more and more weight. You’ll no longer purchase “a game”. You’ll adopt a another brand which you can then apply to your profile. “John Doe the FPS player” becomes “John Doe the adventurer” with consistency in the way their online identity looks and [perhaps] performs in the new game environment. That environment will continue to integrate different (and hopefully engaging) forms of in-game advertising, in order to sustain the financial growth for the different franchises that choose to be a part of it. Imagine a scenario where you actually order a pizza from within a game environment like Grand Theft Auto, or the Sims, and it shows up to your front door. The advantages to this multiplicity favour both the gamer and the manufacturer (not to mention the marketer). If this model does indeed develop, the information associated with a player’s profile becomes that much more valuable. Granted, the requisite privacy issues will have to be ironed out, but those issues are omnipresent in any case.

To say that “PC gaming is dying/ has died” is to fail to recognize that a PC is merely a manifestation of technology, which continues to change. Arcades have all but disappeared from the planet, but you can still find just about every single game they provided a home for with a quick search online.