Say hello to Beme – YouTube vlogger and superstar Casey Neistat’s new social video platform that has made it its mission to make social media authentic.
It’s a step change from all other social media out there: all of them allow for a carefully curated digital self through the simple function of reviewing what you’ve written, photographed or recorded before posting it. Some allow you to edit after you’ve posted.
Beme is the odd one out: no preview, no review, no filters, no editing, no second chances.
A friend asked if I took requests for my bits and bytes. He’d just read the news about Twitter CEO Dick Costolo standing down and wanted to know why Twitter wasn’t making any money.
The Apple Watch is here. Kind of. It’s available for pre-order starting at £299 for the smaller Apple Watch Sport and goes up all the way to £13,500 for the Apple Watch Edition.
I pre-ordered mine on the first day possible and was still landed with a delivery window of sometime in June, so that gives me a lot of time to read reviews and worry that I’ve made a mistake and gone for the first iteration of a watch that is slow, needs a phone to do anything interesting and will undoubtedly get better with the following version (according to some of the first reviews I’ve read). Continue reading “Apple Watch: a seamless connection between the digital and real world?”→
A simple explanation really: I’ve gone from a long distance relationship to living together. A change that brought about a dramatic change in weekend priorities, one where geeking out over t’Interwebs and digital bits of interest slipped down behind spending time with G, long walks with the dog, doing the weekly shop, shouting at the telly because Arsenal are yet again throwing away a game.
Andrea Pirlo was one of 11 Italians that broke my heart in 2006 when he beat Germany on his way to winning the World Cup. Gutwrenching. I boycotted pizza for half a year. But even I had to admit: Pirlo is one of the greatest midfielders of all time. Even now, in his later years, where he strolls across the park stroking his glorious beard, he still dictates the game, picks a pass and puts one of his lads through. Likely a Balotelli. Which makes it painful all over again. Continue reading “#Pirloisnotimpressed vs. the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge”→
I am recovering from the relentless Brazil v Chile game. A game decided by the woodwork (both times in favour of the hosts), a game that neither team deserved to lose, a game that Spiegel Online reckons was Howard Webb’s application to also referee the final – after all, not many would have the stones to (correctly!) disallow a goal for handball. Also, he’s English.
The Suarez incident in particular has received the most attention. Partly because it was just so predictable before the first ball was even kicked, but mostly because it provides so much fodder for wordsmiths to sink their teeth in. See what I did there? Yes. Very clever.
Twitter went into pundemonium…
Luis Suarez is hoping that Uruguay meet Germany in the final as he said he would like to try a shoulder of Lahm.
Twitter has been a key part of the tournament, at least from the perspective of the fans following the games, reacting to goals, incidents and saves.
The chaps at Twitter have kept a close eye on what we’ve been tweeting about during the group phase. Some of the highlights
300 million tweets related to #WorldCup, with the opening game garnering the most Tweets (I suspect that will have been surpassed by last night’s game against Chile)
Marcelo’s own goal against Croatia was the most tweeted moment
Messi is the most mentioned player
The most retweeted Tweet was by @FinallyMario who would have like a kiss on the cheek from the Queen as a thank you to Italy for beating Costa Rica and keeping England’s chances of progressing alive. Italy lost, England went home
If we beat Costa Rica i want a kiss,obviously on the cheek, from the UK Queen.😂😂😂.
To finish off the World Cup round-up, for this week at least, is a look at the love of soccer in the US of A. Sparked by a team that is actually quite good (mostly because they have a German coach and mostly German players) the nation of cheerleaders has finally discovered the beautiful game.
They have the biggest set of travelling fans and after their dramatic win against Ghana in their first game, they coined a catchy new chant: ‘I believe that we will win’. A chant that fans in this pub were giving their all. See if you can spot the moment where Portugal equalises.
Then of course there was much confusion about how a game can end in a draw. Or that you’d advance to the next round after losing. Welcome, finally, to the world’s game, America.
Don't really understand soccer. How many games do we have to tie or lose before we win the World Cup?
A collection of the very best 404 pages from across the web. Kinda makes you want to build a broken website
There are blogs, Facebook groups and galleries dedicated to images of incorrectly spelt names on Starbucks cups. This exchange between a customer who reckons it’s just Starbucks’ way to get people to post free ads and @Starbucks is an excellent example how matching your counterpart’s sentiment and tone of voice can often lead to social media win
Rumour has it that Facebook is building FB@Work – possible competition to Intranets across the corporate Internet that will have in-house IT and Internal Comms teams freaking out over
Remember the viral über-sensation ‘First Kiss‘ from a few months back? A black and white film for fashion company WREN showing strangers kissing for the first time? It spawned a number of parodies – including, this week, a surprisingly tender and lovely version by Max Landis called ‘The Slap’. Initially a parody, Landis also posted a making of clip where he refers to it as an experiment. The slap as a social interaction. Both worth a watch.
I love this mind-bending video for the track Kodama by 20syl. Minimal electro beeps and bloops that end up in a Dali-esque landscape. Trippy. More on how it was made on Creative Review.
Been a while since my last update – holidays and life got in the way, but I did finish the London Marathon. It didn’t go to plan, but I managed to cross the line regardless. An absolutely brilliant day with seemingly all of London out to support the runners.
Less than 24 hours to go until the London Marathon – no better way to get my mind off the 26.2 miles that lie in wait than write my weekly bits and bytes.
This week I’m looking at the biggest threat to the Internet since the Y2K bug, how banning a journalist from a media dinner is a recipe for disaster, how Costa Coffee did a great job with engaging bloggers (but then forgot to tie that good work back into their social profiles), and the new Twitter profiles that will be coming to a screen near you.
Bits and Bytes 