Some minor issues

I’m back from holiday. I tried to grow my beard, but as soon as I was home and I powerd up my computer things went terribly wrong .. see for jourself.

Case added to jealouscomputers.com

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thx Denny

Serious business as you can see!
Check out more at the Jealous Computers website for more information and shocking footage, and warn your families, friends and co-workers (unless .. )

Thank you Peter for not giving me a N95!
It seems my N80 is causing some friction, but luckily the aggression stays away (for now).

UPDATE: join the “I was attacked by a computer” facebook group

On today’s Bizzreport: “Advertisers disappointed with Facebook’s CTR“. So let’s take a look at some ads on facebook (see read more, don’t want to spoil my homepage).

Totally dull, not integrated ads. The first is completely pointless: “you’re the 999,999 visitor, you won!” Come on! Which moron thought he would make a chance with this ad on Facebook? Think about the usebase people, are you really thinking the youngsters and/or advanced internet users present on facebook are gonna fall for this?
Second ad: “Parlez l’anglais?” Why on earth do you think, as an advertiser, you want to speak to me in French (a language I don’t completely master) on an English platform about learning English? Ok, I get this: for the French speaking FB users this might come as a helping hand: if you don’t understand everything you are reading here .. we might be able to help you. But I’m not French, so DON’T show me the ad.

Facebook is an excellent platform. Facebook is an excellent advertising platform. But if advertisers want to improve their CTR, they really have to start thinking and take the users/target group into account. Who cares about CPM if 95% of receivers isn’t on target. And if your CPM targeting sucks, so does your CTR.

I’m not sure, it might exist, but the FB advertising future clearly is/should be contextual. That’s the only model that will work. That’s the only model that will ad value.
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I just bought “The Age of Conversation” online at lulu.com, a website that digitally prints books before they ship them. So no stock and less overhead costs, interesting model. (Although I must say the usability of the store can be improved).

The Age of Conversation is a distributed blogger project. 100 bloggers wrote about the subject, one pagers, which are bundled into this nice book together. Hope it will be delivered before my holiday read break, but I’m afraid not.

There are some excellent bloggers/marketeers/thinkers involved. Some Belgians as well: Kris Hoet, Geert Desager, Luc Debaisieux, ..
Quite frankly I’m a bit jealous I missed this boat I think I would have liked contributing in this project. Not fast enough, so better luck next time.

So all involved: good luck with the sales and promotion. I’ll write a review as soon as I’ve read the book.

BTW: please note by buying this book you’re supporting charity.
- e-book: $9.99 ($7.99 going to charity)
- paperback book: $16.95 ($8.10 to charity)
- hardback book: $29.99 ($8.55 to charity)

Whenever you want of course

Translated copyline: Ijsboerke comes whenever you want.

Ijsboerke is a Belgian company delivering ice-cream at home. The campaign is to show the consumers/prospects they can choose on the website the best time for Ijsboerke to drop by and deliver their orders.

Nice viral campaign.

Created by Vince Manze, part of NBC’s marketing team. He didn’t told the Heroes creator Tim Kring and finalized the project with only $17,000. Great job.
More information on the Heroes Wiki.

By the way, in terms of viral television spin-offsn check the Primatech website. They actually mention it in the show. There is a whole world behind it, discover it! (Use this wiki page for guidance..)

Found on buzzing Bees.

A few weeks a go I attended a graduation jury for MCT. We had to evaluate the internships of a few students. Our own intern was doing very well, but I was truly astonished by an other team of 3 students.

These students decided they wanted to make a movie instead of doing an internship. During the year they prepared as much as they could, and during the 3 months foreseen for the internship they actually shot and created their flick: Dossier-C.
Man this was good! The movie was great cut, the actors were convincing, the special effects were ok and so was the story. I’m telling you: it really could compete with the fiction we see on Belgian television nowadays. It’s even better in a lot of cases!

I really love these guys. They had the guts to say “fuck you” to the internship and instead decided to do their own thing. I love the school for supporting them and letting this happen. In a lot of schools this would be a no go I’m sure.
And best of all, they showed effective. They did it. They convinced the police to cooperate, a group of amateur actors, a director of photography to let them use his camera and give them advice. Total budget: about ¤ 1000 (mostly going to pizzas and booze). Amazing. The Kevin Smith way!

Last thing to do: use right-free music and make a final cut. If this happens I’m sure they’ll distribute the movie on the website. Hope they’ll subtitle it in English.

If I was in movies I’d hire them instantly, no questions asked.
Good luck Wouter Samaey, Pieter Taelman and Lode Moutton!

The way things look are so important. Design is an indisputable part of marketing.

Example: last weekend our washing machine broke down and we decided to buy a new one. In a segment were differences between different products are getting marginal (or of marginal importance) design becomes a key decision feature. And so it did in our case.

I’m not saying its absolute, and in fact I quite don’t care how our machine looks. But you have to decide. In my believe there are margins you decide on rationally: what’s about the amount of money you want to spend, what are the specs (in washing machine language: volume, rotation speed, functionalities ..), maybe some brands, .. . With this information you look at the goods to narrow your selection down. But the way things look is the final decision criteria. It makes you pick product X out of the selection that was left.

At These Days our DC (short for Design Cartel) started a blog some time ago. Check it out here: design.thesedays.com. It’s out in the open now.

It seems they are going for it, already leaving the labs behind in posting frequency. Come-on developers, let’s catch up!