This blog came out of the crater of the dot com bust and wireless growth. Wi-Fi was transforming the way we used the internet at home. I used to have my Mac next to my router on top of a cupboard that contained the house fuse panel and the telephone line. Many people had an internet room and used a desktop computer like a Mac Mini or an all-in-one computer like an iMac. Often this would be in the ‘den’ or the ‘man cave’. Going on the internet to email, send instant messages or surf the internet was something you did with intent.
Wi-Fi arrived alongside broadband connections and the dot com boom. Wi-Fi capable computers came in at a relatively low price point with the first Apple iBook. I had the second generation design at the end of 2001 and using the internet changed. Free Wi-Fi became a way to attract people to use a coffee shop, as a freelancer it affected where I did meetings and how I worked.
I was travelling more for work at the time. While I preferred the reliability of an ethernet connection, Wi-Fi would meet my needs just as well. UMTS or 3G wireless data plans were still relatively expensive and slow. I would eventually send low resolution pictures to Flickr and even write a blog post or two. But most of the time I used it to clear my email box, or use Google Maps if I was desperate.
4G wireless services, started to make mobile data a bit more useful, even if the telephony wasn’t great
Gone before you could get your hands on it. I remember this Ralph Lauren stuff from the first time around. Original pieces were so cheap just a few years ago and now go for mad money as there has been a 90s revival in fashion circles. This style of Ralph Lauren makes a pleasant change from the Supreme circle jerk that seems to have become a parody of hype beast culture. It is interesting how Nike that should have rode this trend is currently in the doldrums. Expect a Timberland style brown boot revival next and I hope that skinny jeans finally die. More streetwear related content here
Publicis Groupe Press Release | Business Wire – is undergoing a destabilization attempt following the dissemination to its auditors and some financial analysts of an anonymous letter stating that Publicis Groupe overvalued its organic growth for 2016 and 2017 through an early application of IFRS 15
Introducing the WhatsApp Business App | WhatsApp blog – a free-to-download Android app for small businesses. Our new app will make it easier for companies to connect with customers, and more convenient for our 1.3 billion users to chat with businesses that matter to them. Here’s how: Business Profiles: Help customers with useful information such as a business description, email or store addresses, and website. Messaging Tools: Save time with smart messaging tools — quick replies that provide fast answers to frequently asked questions, greeting messages that introduce customers to your business, and away messages that let them know you’re busy. Messaging Statistics: Review simple metrics like the number of messages read to see what’s working. WhatsApp Web: Send and receive messages with WhatsApp Business on your desktop. Account Type: People will know that they’re talking to a business because you will be listed as a Business Account. Over time, some businesses will have Confirmed Accounts once it’s been confirmed that the account phone number matches the business phone number. Free to download on Google Play in Indonesia, Italy, Mexico, the U.K. and the U.S – surprised that Hong Kong didn’t make this list
Mark Ritson: The Diet Coke relaunch shows its marketers have lost the plot – Marketing Week – a few things I don’t get. Moving away from the one Coke brand architecture. Are they trying to position diet coke against Red Bull? (Thinking about the can size). Or is there some shopper marketing related insight at play that says they need to maximise choice in a given shelf space? Decidedly odd, I would have expected this lot of ‘product’ innovation more in a market like Japan where you see constant consumer demand for the new new thing. Don’t even get me started on the ad creative…
How China’s market economy has fuelled a prostitution boom | South China Morning Post – My grandma was always grateful to Mao, mainly because she was upgraded from a concubine to a wife under the Communists “one wife” rule. – There is also the shredding of culture and community during the cultural revolution probably ruined community / support mechanisms
Luxury
The Pet Shop Boys are the face (and sound) of Christian Dior’s men’s collection this summer.
American Views: Trust, Media and Democracy – Edelman – I suggest that the public relations business move itself from a reliance on advocacy toward a new policy of informing the populace more broadly on subjects of the day. That means providing the positive and negative facts, with third party attribution
Should the Tech Giants Be Broken Up? | WSJ City – Apple and Microsoft supply 95% of desktop operating systems – but this point hides the huge disparity in market size and power between Microsoft and Apple still in the PC market
Benedict Evans on ten-year future predictions (well as good as anyone can)
Unilever under fire over Gaytime ice cream in Indonesia | PR | Campaign Asia – no idea where they got that idea, I imagine it could become a cult brand if launched elsewhere. Gaytime ice cream makes me think of a more innocent time in my life when, if I was home from school, I would be sat down with Marie biscuits and a cup of Barry’s tea by my Mum. This was a thinly veiled bribe to be quiet, which wasn’t really needed.
The reason for this ritual would be a soap opera called Harbour Hotel and a chat show called The Gay Byrne Show. Both where on RTÉ Radio 1. Back then gay could mean happy; or in the case of Gay Byrne it was short for Gabriel. The radio meant that voices from home where beamed into our house around the clock via medium wave and long wave.
https://youtu.be/hByFDVwiQq8
Of course, I wouldn’t have mentioned it at my English school as there would have been an ocean of sniggers. The Muslim outrage at Gaytime also mirrors the PC revisionist view of The Flintstones ‘we’ll have a gay old time’ lyric in their theme tune. Apparently its original meaning of happy or fun, was interpreted as being intolerant of the LGBTQ community.
The problems that the Labour Party faces with Corbyn and the general distrust of politicians in what should be ‘heartland’ seats
The continued credibility of Nigel Farage
The anti-German sentiment. The EU was seen as a German vehicle to win the war again by stealth – this has almost a Basil Fawlty quality to it. But at least some of the panelists believed it was true
How the political divisions around the societal change driven by Margaret Thatcher’s government reverberated into the Brexit vote
Poundland’s naughty elf campaign which riffed on British smut and the ‘Elf On A Shelf’ franchise affected consumer attitudes to the brand according to YouGov. The research is at odds with the overall positive response it got from Twitter (outside the London media-advertising industrial complex) – YouGov | Poundland’s X-rated ads generated publicity, but consumer perception has dropped
Three Thoughts on Day One at CES 2018 – not surprised that computing is moving to the edge as the network represents latency and potential unreliability – think about how cloud failure when it hit Nest devices and IoT obselescence
Casio AL-1000 – the nixie tube display and ferrite core memory make it a thing of beauty to behold
Huawei’s US market dreams ‘harmed again’ after AT&T walks away from smartphone pact | South China Morning Post – “We have been harmed again,” Huawei’s consumer business unit chief executive officer Richard Yu said in a text message to the South China Morning Post – you can see from later articles how Huawei progressively got their act together in terms of media response though much of the coverage added a thin veneer of analysis whilst repeating the original WSJ article – China’s Huawei hit by last minute collapse of AT&T phone distribution deal | Reuters – the collapse of the deal with AT&T, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, will mean that Huawei will likely struggle to make a hit of its smartphones there as a U.S. mobile carrier would typically promote the products as well as provide subsidies and special package deals
Chad Dickerson’s Fieldnotes – Fieldnotes is an email newsletter from one of the key people during Yahoo!’s web 2.0 geek golden age and former CEO of Etsy. Chad Dickerson was in charge of Yahoo!’s Brickhouse incubator and the Yahoo! Developer Network. He then went to be the CTO of Etsy and was then promoted to CEO. Dickerson came from a background in technology for online media, having worked at CNN, Salon.com and InfoWorld before Yahoo!
Shipping time lapse
This is the second time lapse film I’ve seen done by an officer on a ship. I get it. No internet would give you a lot of time to put the film together. It opens up a world that I had only heard of from people older than me who had served on ships when westerners were sailors. I love the way clouds boil away, time lapse allow you to better see the liquid nature of clouds.
20 choice edits and reworks
Greg Wilson put together this mix of his favourite edits that had been done in 2017. Everyone of them are are an amazing track. Wilson was one of the original resident DJs at the Hacienda. He was the first UK DJ to be seen scratching on TV. He took a break from DJing and returned later to both DJing and production. Wilson is one of the pioneers in the nu disco movement.
LV Pass Apple Messenger icons
Louis Vuitton’s LV Pass app did some really nice integration with Apple’s Messenger stickers. It is based on Jeff Koons artworks and the iconic Louis Vuitton brand. More related content here.
Switch off for the holidays
Fair play to Nokia for running this campaign on their website over Christmas. They realise that consumers are over connected and need a screen break, so they have been encouraging consumers to switch off and connect in real life for the holidays.
GoPro quits the drone business – The Verge – because of the grip that DJI has on the drone market. GoPro had expanded into drones in the face of declining growth in the action camera market. You can start to see drone footage being cut into extreme sports videos providing a variation of views that weren’t possible previously.
TCCC Unity on the App Store – Coca-Cola did an iPhone app to explain the ethos behind its bespoke fonts (presumably beyond not having to pay licence fees and hubris)…
AT&T Backs Off Deal to Sell Smartphones From China’s Huawei – WSJ – if true it represents a spectacular loss of face for Huawei. There would be likely internal repercussions in Shenzhen as it dents the company’s reputation as a brand on the rise, its aspiration to be seen as a globally recognised premium brand and the oft talked about objective of cracking the US handset market beyond burner phones
