It’s a blog!

http://akem.ws/index3.html

If you have a mic, plug it in, turn it on, and make some noise.

A friend sent me this link today:

Click

I’m not sure what to think about it. It’s entertaining, though this is better, and I would guess the inspiration behind the above ad. My main problem would be that we can’t turn the animation off, or replay it, if we were so inclined, but that may be because it’s a prototype.

CORRECTION: There is a button to replay at the end of the animation. I thought that button was for replaying the trailer, which isn’t as cool.

My online portfolio won’t be up for a long time, I’m guessing. But, in the interim, here’s a little exercise I did. I found I was a tad rusty, and it took me a few tries to get this, plus I kept crashing the the app trying to get the squares smaller.

You spend a lot of money on school to do a job that anybody thinks they could do. Why on earth would you want to let them do it?

Subway is suing Quiznos and iFilm for inflammatory and false accusations in a “create your own ad” campaign. They posted over 100 videos made by Quiznos fans after they instructed them to draw “a comparison between Quiznos and Subway with Quiznos being superior.” The results were filtered, but the messaging was off to begin with. Quiznos has taken an aggressive stance against it’s number one competitor, so I’m sure the video review was very liberal.

I don’t think you have to be a professional to be funny or to have a good idea. But advertising and design are more about painting a pretty picture. You have to create something that’s well thought out and meaningful. Interactive, by nature, engages people to participate in the process of advertising. But if you rely on people to figure their own way through a campaign, you better be able to accurately predict the outcome.

I’m not exactly sure when these two campaigns happened, and if they occurred at similar times, but Chevy Tahoe tried an approach that let you make your own Tahoe commercial using canned footage and text overlays. The plan back fired in a big way when videos like this one flooded YouTube //

Countdown with Keith Olbermann is definitely my favorite news show. I studied journalism through high school and college, and he’s the only prime-time news anchor that does things right. He’s described as progressive, though some say that’s a smoke screen for the word liberal (I don’t agree that they are one in the same). Basically, he’s the anti-Bill O’Reilly. He’s dedicated to making sure the facts are correct, and he apologizes when he or anyone on his program makes a mistake.

Anyway, his show is online here. Countdown is broken up into segments, the 5 top stories of the day, and a few interstitials. If you click on a segment, it will play the selected one, and then cycle through the other stories. You pretty much get the whole show. I highly suggest you check it out. It’s a great news show, and it’s a good way to distribute the content using Flash.

Good night, and good luck.

Some of you may be aware that my drive in interactive design was sparked by disgust for Myspace.com. I finally deleted my account a while ago, incase anyone didn’t notice. This article was on Digg. International Delete Your Myspace Account Day is 30 January 2008.

I hesitated posting this until I saw this quote from this article on a follow-up to the post //

One blogger has declared January 30th “International Delete Your MySpace Account Day”.
But MySpace doubts that this will have a great impact on their network.
“This Delete-Your-MySpace day is just about being controversial,” Ms Horne said.
“MySpace is still the biggest social networking site in the world.”
In the words of BBC comedian Catherine Tate, MySpace does not look bothered.

My sister recently called me asking how to delete her Myspace account after it apparently sent something inappropriate to my brother. My baby sister never got one, though I tried to get her to initially. I’m glad she has more sense than me, though she’s probably having less fun.

Please, consider it.

Coke Zero came out with a new Fantasy Football tie in. The coolest part are the games. There’s Classic Electronic Football, which my brother informs me was called “Coleco”, the super-hot Retro Electro Football, a.k.a. Electric Football (or Vibrating Football).

And also, check out the intro.