DigitalAgency

Business and Pleasure:

A travelling week.

Fly to Newquay in Cornwall today.

Stay with pals Tim, Amanda and their son; 'Man of Steel' tonight in St Tudy.

Then off to Shepton Mallet tomorrow to see brand new clients; Alex and Jane Nicol of the small, but beautifully-formed, Spencerfield Spirit company at the Bath & West Show.

Then onward to Paddington for Friday meeting with Charlie, Chrissy & Paul of the very wonderful; Red Spider.

Back down to Cornwall for weekend R&R, then return to Edinburgh Monday.

FaceBook:

FaceBook is definitely a social network worth keeping an eye on.

Recent developments there look really interesting, and many well informed folk think it's going to be a 'Big Deal'.

I was recently talking to a friends daughter who is at college, she migrated from MySpace to FB, when she left school, which seems a pretty common occurrence. But a lot of older 'people', (aka farts) like me are getting into it.

In her view, FaceBook seemed more 'mature'.

I've been noodling around a bit, and am amazed at the size of some of the communities on there.

You might want to check it out yourself, but before you do:

Robin has an excellent post here, if you'd like to find out more.

Dodgy Dentals:

Ewan and I met for an impromtu business/social coffee morn today at the marvellous Centotre in Edinburgh.

Home of our weekly Coffee Morns on Friday's, Ewan can only make it to about 1 in 4, such his his travel and speaking schedule. (Lucky boy is going to ReBoot this week.)

We had a right old chinwag, some exceptionally fine coffee, but did manage to eschew, rather than chew, any of Centore's legendary Bacon Ciabbatt's.

With matching PowerBooks, and canon digital cameras we probably looked like a cross between geeks and poseurs, playing with our toys. (Which is pretty much what we are, now I come to mention it.)

But who gives a stuff? Not me.

I'm doing something I really like love doing, sharing an appreciation of revolutionary change and opportunity.

I'm as excited by the creative, and social ramifications, of Web 2.0 in exactly the same way as I was stoked about being a trainee copywriter in an ad agency 30 years ago.

I feel lucky to be part of what's happening.

And I hope it shows.

User Generated Content:

Heinz asked consumers to create their new ad campaign for them.

The New York Times reports. (Under the somewhat ominous headline of: 'A high price, for free ads.'

A cautionary tale about things not going to plan, which also raises the question of judgement, when it comes to the subject of getting 'civilians' involved in ad-making.

Tip O the hat to my pal Nev, for the heads up.

12 quid a month? Oi, RealPlayer, have a word with yourself:

Wow, thanks Real.com.

You mean, I can give you 12 quid a month to watch breaking news from BBC, CNN, etc?

Instead of what I do now, i.e. keep up for free via my browser, and (hopefully) faster text based feeds.

Word of advice to Real.com.

Er, get real.

Coffee Morn 250507:

(Edinburgh's latest Boy Band take a break from rehearsals.)

In attendance at Centotre:

Douglas Shirlaw:
Mike Coulter:
Tim Maguire:
Fraser Edwards:
Andy Hyde:
Ian Dommett: (Nay pictured.)

A rattling good chinwag this morning.

So without further ado, we covered Dan Germain's great 'Play' post on Howies blog.

Googlemail/gmail issues, in the UK.

Pecha Kucha Edinburgh. Thanks Andy.

Sharps beer, followed swiftly, (metaphorically speaking of course, it was still only 0830), by Theakston and Belhaven. (We're looking for a booze sponsor for our Beer 2.0 Evening. ((More of that in a later post.))

Fraser's neat wi-fi enabled M700, and the story of Skype 'dis'enabled (surely I mean disabled??), handsets.

Why I like the Apple Store in Regent Street as my London office, with a neat little follow-up observation from Douglas.

Tim's pitch in the US using web conferencing software and SnapzPro, to get a result.

(Tim when you read this, maybe you could refresh my memory about the apps you used, and anything else you might want to mention.)

Oh and Springwise, a beltingly, gem-like, wonderful find via Fraser's eagle eye.

ps. Coffee morn regulars; Fraser W, Ewan, Nev, 'AthensBoy' Jamie and Johnnie, you were noticeable by your absence, and may as a result be barred from Beer 2.0, pending a stewards enquiry.

del.icio.us salted:

Andy, at RecentChanges, told me about this little mashup.

It's a nice way to review your last 20 delicious bookmarks.

(Or anyone's bookmarks)

Pecha Kucha style. (For more on Pecha Kucha see here.)

Delicious 'salted' goes and grabs the bookmarks and presents them as a slideshow 20 seconds apiece.

Go here, type in your delicious username and have a butchers:

(It can be a little bit buggy, and when I tested it out, the odd page didn't load, but you'll get the picture.)

Back from holiday:

Fully restored.

Marvellous 18th birthday barbie for Joe, our hosts son.

Long-overdue catch-ups with old pals.

Sensational meals at Rick Stein's Seafood Restaurant and St Petroc's.

Clumped in with terrific coastal path walks, good weather, (eventually), patchy internet/mobile phone access, (hurrah!), and truly magnificent Sharps locally brewed beer.

Perfect, perfect, perfect.

Off on holiday for a few days:

Going down to see old pals in Cornwall for their kids 18th birthday bash.

Back Wednesday next week.

Picture from Sharps Brewery website, purveyors of truly magical Cornish beer.

Jaiku:

I've been using Jaiku for a few days now, and my initial impression is very good indeed.

I like the 'real-time presence' aspect of it, and also how it aggregates and delivers to one central page everything from my continually updated Web 2.0 'empire'.

Flickr, friends photos, delicious, this blog, colleagues blogs etc.

However if I have one issue, and this might say more about me that Jaiku, it's that the levels of privacy seem pretty basic.

As I understand it, I can 'hide' my Jaiku from non Jaiku users, however any Jaiku user can see what I'm up to, where I am and who I'm talking with.

Fine fort inconsequential, fluffy stuff I don't mind people knowing.

But what if I was using it as a collaboration tool with a few tight colleagues, and we wanted to lock out prying eyes, (during a pitch for example?).

Doesn't look like I can do that.

So as a corporate productivity tool.

Nil point.

Sure I/we could use Basecamp or IM'ing.

But Jaiku has the versatility, connectivity and mobility I need.

Just not the security.

UPDATE:

Just got an email from Jaiku re my problem.

Great customer service, and wonderful speed of turnaround.

Hi Michael,
when you check "Hide my Jaikus from the public", your profile (first name, last name, and buddy icon) remain discoverable at yourname.jaiku.com - but your stream of Jaikus, your location, and your list of contacts are not displayed publicly.

Only a Jaiku member that you have added as your contact can see your Jaikus, location, and contacts.

Any Jaiku member can add you as their contact (consider it a request - "please add me back"), but they will not be able to view your updates unless you reciprocate the add. This privacy model is similar to IM.

Hope this helps.
Jyri

Jyri Engeström
www.jaiku.com