20 million dollars to be exact. Here’s a link to Luxury Insider for news about it:
http://www.luxury-insider.com/luxury-news/2012/05/cello-goodbye-us20m-stradivarius-slips-breaks
Tragic isn’t it?
There’s nothing more beautiful than an elegantly composed wooden instrument. This 17th century masterpiece is like magic in wood form, or something to that effect.
It can not be understated how important a part Social Media plays on our life, close to 500 million people use Facebook, Twitter is already approaching a user base of 250 million, and the swell of the world of the blogosphere has made the internet more accessible than ever. There is also live streaming, podcasts, Youtube, forums, news updates, competitions… phew.
Why do people get so addicted to the net?
Why the hell was I up until 4am on Saturday night on a forum discussing the ramifications of putting clothes on Pandas? (no seriously)
Because it’s fun. That’s the most basic, most simple answer. Losing the limitations of public expectations and having the freedom of expressing your ideas and thoughts via the veil of internet anonymity is what appeals to those who want to have a voice.
That pretty much covers all of us I would say.
BUT! Who are the ones who organise the chaotic voices of the people? People have a lot to say, with anonymity comes lack of accountability and responsibility; and that is where Community Managers come in…
These are moderators, organisers, knights of order and harmony. We are the ones who host the parties, make sure everything goes smoothly, and generally create a fun place for people to hang out, like a cocktail party. I have managed quite the fair few communities in the past, and over the years I have found there are a lot of fundamental skills you need to learn before jumping head first into the role. Let’s have a look at a few ways good Community Managers get the job done:
This is a teetering topic depending on the job. Ideally in this day and age people like it when you are honest with them, putting a face to a community manager is more comforting than hiding behind a logo.
However if you are a business that intends on maintaining professional values then using a logo, developing a house style, and being more organised with moderating and updating is more ideal.
Spritz, for example, follows this second rule. When writing Twitter posts I like to exude a normalised approach similar to Harrods or Liberty. While this writer appreciates warm and homely text, it isn’t always appropriate for what the company wants to say.
Consider what type of brand you are before you decide what type of face you use as a Community Manager. And don’t forget, be professional, you’re a sort of face for the company, try to keep the more controversial details of your life private.
I follow a lot of big companies and their PR and spokesmen, be they PR for design companies, or the folks at Capcom and Namco, I like to know that they’ll be there to answer our questions.
It is important to embed yourself within the community, providing updates all the time, maintaining a strong presence, always making it known that you’re there as a sort of representative for the company.
Be authentic, leave your ego at the door and gain the trust of the community!
This is by far the most fun aspect of Community Management, I have maintained dialogue with many people who replied to us on Twitter in the past, people really appreciate it and it is incredibly rewarding to know they’ve formed a certain relationship with you.
Just so you know.
This will take many an hour.
I can’t stress this enough, your job is not to just jump in and throw offers and sales in people’s faces. The number one thing is to build the community, earn their trust, and become a part of them.
Call to action marketing works on leaflets, posters and other adverts, but marketing most certainly needs to be more subtle when addressing an involved community. People are savvy enough to realise when you’re just there to sell them something.
Building a community is hard, it takes time, and you need to deliver a lot of good, interesting content. But if you’re a good Community Manager that should be easy… right?
“Listening” is the big thing right now. However it seems that “responding” is still an issue. People can ask for more information on products, they can demand new features for future products, and generally make a hubbub.
Let’s say the blogosphere is going crazy about a certain T-shirt they saw in one of your adverts. This is perfect, the Community Manager can see this, they can be engaged and realise that there is demand for the shirt itself. After all, you want to get the community involved!
An example can be the “Salty T-shirt” from Capcom’s recent “Cross Assault” live stream show. It was quite popular in the live stream chat and neogaf, and would have been a good way for Capcom to market itself a little more by selling the T-shirts or having competitions that allowed people to win them.
Ok I could go on. Community Management is a mammoth of a job. All those things I mentioned at the top? We’re involved in all of that and more. If this post was too long and you couldn’t be bothered to read it all, here’s the bottom line for what you need to do the job well:
Be passionate, be engaged, put in the hours, take pride in your work, and have fun!
Remember Heavy Rain?
The game featured some of the most realistic graphical models at the time. It made waves with the Gaming community (and those who appreciated good graphics in general), we couldn’t believe the Playstation 3 could be capable of such feats of technical wizardry.
And of course, having set the bar for graphical excellence, team at Quantic Dream has now released this new gorgeous tech trailer to show that they’re still at the top of the food chain when it comes to cinematic prowess with their uncannily realistic facial expressions and beautifully clean and crisp character models. Not only that, but it’s running on Playstation 3 hardware in real time!
The Playstation 3 is SIX years old.
Very few of the games run at a smooth 60fps, not all of the games can manage full 1080p graphics, and in general Arcade and PC hardware has far surpassed it in graphical capability.
Here’s hoping they do something good with this tech, I always liked futuristic android stuff anyway, so I hope they expand on the world they created in this demo.
An interesting new series is airing on Channel 4. Starting today, every Thursday at 9pm they will be airing a show called “Mary’s Bottom Line”.
Mary Portas is a retail advisor, journalist and television presenter (in case you didn’t know), and her new show is addressing a subject quite close to our heart. That being, the British manufacturing industry.
The once renowned colossus that was the British Clothing industry has sort of withered into a hollow shell of itself. Compared to the fast, efficient, and (perhaps unethically?) cheap production of clothes abroad, it is no surprise that the market has flocked towards them.
But what was it about British clothes that made them great? What about the surviving gems that are scattered around the country that still shimmer in the sea of mass production?
We think it’s quality. It is that element of British manufacturing that we can be proud of, that our quality products are always meticulously put together with care and finesse.
Mary’s Bottom Line plays with this idea as she creates her own line of British produced underwear and tries to sell them to retailers.
The question is: are we Brits willing to pay more for Home grown products?
Anyway, here’s a fun clip of Mary arguing with someone:
As of today the new Windows 8 trial is available. For those who haven’t seen the new user interface, it’s a complete overhaul over whatever people have been used to in the past:
It sort of looks like a window. I guess
I’ll assume that Microsoft is trying to normalise the user interface for all their devices, because we’ve already seen a design similar to this before…
What the...
And the tile system has also made its way to the Microsoft portable devices too. Windows Phone 8 will be making it’s way into our grubby hands later this year, which will be tasty for those who are adamant they don’t want to buy Apple products.
The design is very easy on the eyes. But for anyone who has played an X-box 360, there’s a bit of a fear that the UI will be slow, difficult to navigate, and full of unnecessary fluff. One can only hope they have worked on their design since then.
Steve Jobs’ birthday and the Apple round-up
People all around the internet are celebrating the birthday of the creator of the third apple that changed the world. The first threw mankind out of paradise, the second propagated gravitational theory, and the third created a modern day technological revolution.
Ok so none of the first two happened. In the origin myth the fruit of life was never referred to as an apple (and even then, it depends if you’re religious or not), and the Isaac Newton apple story is no more than a heavily propagated urban myth.
Credit to Chinasmack.com for this picture. Not sure about the original source but Steve Jobs' jaw has never looked so glorious.
But the Apple sensation that has gripped the world for the past decade is no myth, and it continues to this day. Steve Jobs left behind a legacy that still has yet to lose any steam.
Time to aggregate some Apple goings on for the day in celebration of Steve.
The first is an aptly titled website called Celebration of Steve.
According to the website:
“The focus of this project is about seeing everything in the eyes of Steve Jobs with the title being “Celebration of Steve”. We are currently working on an online exhibition, a book and an iPad Application.”
The project is created by Mehmet Gozetlik along with a talented team of professionals who are cited on the website. It’s an interesting concept, simplicity as a form of style and luxury is something we’ve only come to appreciate in modern times. Remember The White Album by the Beatles? There was a mysterious and elegant air about the album even before the CD was even taken out of the case. This sort of beauty is something Apple cleverly capitalised on, and it will be interesting to the Apple-tastic fruit of their labours.
“The Jotun Paints helped us throughout the painting process and have also shot a short making-of documentary. It is photographed by Emre Basak and programmed by Kadir Yardımcı, also supported by Benan Kapucu, Fırat Parlak,Handan Akbudak, Hayati Senturk, Zekai Demir.”
Keep an eye on them.
Now I will move on to this phenomenal short movie made by Wonsuk Chin
“Finding a pair of sneakers is not as easy as it seems”
The description of the movie is as follows:
“’992′ is a short film by Wonsuk Chin (‘e-dreams’ ‘Too Tired to Die’) about a man whose search for a pair of New Balance 992 leads him to an unexpected encounter with a mysterious shoe store owner.”
Ok to start off, props to this man for making such an enjoyable movie, despite being attached to the blog I highly recommend you go to the Youtube page and “like” it. I have a penchant for Korean movies, and this really captures what I like about them both in terms of directorial style and uniqueness in plot.
So what does this have to do with Apple? Here’s a little more from his video description:
“It’s a funny, warm homage to the late Steve Jobs. And fittingly, it was shot entirely on the iPhone 4S.”
Now this is phenomenal to me. I’m sure there was a lot of post-production wizardry with colour saturation and the like, but it still looks fantastic. Obviously we won’t be replacing real video cameras with phones for movies any time soon, but this really is a look into the step forward in technology we’ve been experiencing since the crummy pictures we used to take with the Game Boy camera only 14 or so years ago.
“It stars the newcomer Danny Park, beautiful Korean star Yoonji Lee and the great Euisung Kim. The film was shot by Hyeonseok Kim (‘Poetry’) and edited by Saekyoung Moon (‘Mother’).”
Congrats to all of you.
I’ll end with a little glimpse of the future
Ciccarese Design’s iPhone 5 concept. I like it, stylish, sleek, and simple. Isn’t that what Apple is all about? My colleague was perceptive enough to notice that it bears a striking resemblance to the Apple Mac mouse, but I have an inkling that was the point. In any case I would definitely not mind if the next iteration of the phone looked like this. Whether I could afford it is a different matter completely…
Check out The Ciccarese Design Website for more images. I especially like the light on the back of the phone in the final picture. Very smooth indeed.
Architect Sir Basil Spence and Augustus Pugin; opera singer and composer Frederick Delius; designer Mary May Morris; secret agent Odette Hallows; inventor Thomas Newcomen; performer Kathleen Ferrier; author Montague Rhodes James; code breaker Alan Turing; and social reformer Mary Fry…
They are all names threaded into the patchwork tapestry of British history. If only there was a way to commemorate them.
Well, Purpose have been assigned to design 10 stamps to perform that very task.
Nicolas Cage is among one of the most famous Britons of note
Check out Design Week to see the stamps in all their glory.
It’s interesting how some pictures of these people of note have been lost in the sands of time (and quite tragic, really. Be sure to take more pictures of yourself!), but it adds even more meat to the stamps to be able to see noticeable examples of their achievements in tangible form where portraits aren’t available.
Stamps have always been a sort of institution in how they are a form of timeless celebration. We are not sure how it came about, but it is a beautifully odd way that we Brits have chosen to stamp (ha) our achievements in history.
Here’s hoping we at Spritz end up on a stamp some day. Somehow.
They’re out today. Check out the Royal Mail website to get your hands on them.
A lot of people are talking about the Google +1 button, so I’ll jump on the hype train.
I’ll start off with this video, a little taster to give you an idea of the power of Google. Watch it if you haven’t seen it already:
And with that, let’s have a talk about the Google +1 feature.
In the past few years the revolutionary world of social media has turned society into a closer, tight knit community, distance is no longer an issue. We’ve now reached a point where everyone has a voice, everyone can be heard, no-one is forced to sit on their hands when they have an opinion. It’s a beautiful concept.
Google’s +1 button is a new addition to the cast of the “have your say” web universe. People have the ability to press the button if they like a website and Google will log that on the system.
So what does this mean?
The way it affects search results is quite nifty, it doesn’t entirely affect universal search engine results, moreso it acts like a networked version of how Google used to magically find relevant links for you during search results, to that end it’s an individual search engine enhancer, the more of your friends who “+1″ a site, the more likely it is to turn up on your search results.
Mashable has posted up an interesting entry about their opinions about the +1 button and whether it affects SEO. What can we take from this article? It seemed to end with a bit of an “iunno, maybe?”, and asked for our own take on the issue.
Well in my opinion…
Jump on my Google+ train now! As soon as possible!
Choo choo! All aboard the Google Train!
Let’s have a look at how the +1 system works. For businesses, the +1 button is a beautiful beautiful feature. Let’s apply this to two hypothetical situations:
Company 1 doesn’t implement Google +1
Due to graceful copy and good SEO, it manages to climb up the Google search ladder. This invariably leads to more people stumbling upon the site. Alas, this company offers high end services only, but a large percentage of people landing on the site will probably have no interest in paying such hefty sums of money for what they want. Drat.
Company 2 does implement Google +1
This company also offers high end services. People who aren’t interested in this don’t bother pressing the +1 button, while people who are interested do. This now means that everyone associated with them will have their own search results affected whenever they look up those services. And it’s a fair assumption that their associates will be more appreciative.
What can we gather from this is that Company 1 has a tonne of people who aren’t interested in their services clogging up the website and not accurately portraying the amount of potential clients visiting. Company 2 on the other hand is not only filtering out people who are disinterested, by not placing as high in their search results, but they are getting more and more relevant people viewing the site via recommendation. Heck, even if the overall numbers are smaller for Company 2, the amount of important numbers will be drastically increased.
This is of course, all hypothetical. But let’s not discount the power of social media marketing. This article on Freshegg about the power of Twitter, which for some reason is called: TweetSerping – You heard it here first goes into a little more detail, a very recommended read.
So let’s draw this garbled mess of words into a conclusion.
Why is Google +1 great?
Because it filters your audience to be more relevant and enhances the spread of your content in a focused direction.
Why should you implement Google +1?
Because if you don’t, someone else will. And then you’ll have competition.
Is there anything else I should know?
This is the greatest thing about “Like” systems on websites. It forces you to create enjoyable and inspired content; if you’re confident in your brand then it’ll actually come through.
Also: hope you had a good pancake day.
The Guardian, perhaps my favourite broadsheet, seems to have dropped the ball. Not to say one expects any publication to be perfect, but this article seems to be especially off the mark. John Naughton’s post in the Observer: Why Graphic Designers are ruining the web seems to have a fundamental lack of understanding on what the purpose of good web design is.
Good designers make sure that their websites aren’t bloated. They make sure that their fonts are compatible with every common web browser, and that the layout is such that the copy is well structured and easy to access.
That’s not to say you won’t come across the odd website with all style and no substance, but such nonsense isn’t attributable to all graphic designers. Self-indulgent designers exist but it’s up to the client what they want to have done to their site, the pressure put on designers to make sites as pretty as possible can be extremely weighted at times.
The Guardian website itself was probably carefully laid out and designed by professional web designers who gave thought to the hierarchy of information. One needs to bear in mind that even simple and bare bones websites are often scientifically and meticulously examined to make sure that all the information is structured in an easy to access and logically sound way.
As for bloated websites such as journals and blogs, the main culprit here isn’t always design, moreso every too many pages load several (sometimes 10 or more) Facebook buttons and Google buttons and Disqus comments. They are loaded with AJAX and the combined effect is quite noticeable. Attributing external elements of web pages to design shows a slight level of ignorance with regards to how the internet works…
The know-how of good web design is something that is built up over years of study and experience. Unless you want the web to be a bloated mess of words words words words words, hard to navigate, badly formatted and impossible to read, get a good web designer.
Happy corporate marketing ploy holiday to everyone. While you’re sitting there wondering whether to be a slave to marketing or be an insensitive ass to your partner, why not have a look at how people approached Valentines cards in days of old? Maybe it’ll give you an idea of something to give your special someone tonight.
Click here to check it out!
