Damien Mulley

Jason has blogged about a WordPress security issue which allows people to get the emails of all posters and event people who leave comments. Disabling public registration seems to fix it but see Jason’s blog for more.

All the Bebo haters can tune out now. 🙂 I’ll be on Spin1038 in a little while to talk about the Irish Bebo Profile competition that I’m running from the Irish Awards Bebo profile.

The idea for it really is to get the word out to the possible future bloggers about the Blog Awards, to see exactly how many people from Bebo take part in this (I’ve not seen any good metrics on Bebo) and possibly to annoy those people that don’t think Bebo deserves attention. Oh and maybe to see can I melt another Blacknight server. 😉

If you want to nominate yourself or a friend’s Bebo then fill in the Bebo Awards form.

Kudos to Jason Roe for writing the scripts and backend stuff.

Yes yes, I would think that the people that read this blog know about viral ad campaigns but I’m going to mention a few I like and what could be done in the small Irish market to send an ad around.

Even with little resources, a company or indvidual can get massive coverage for their product or endeavour. This seems to be happening more and more even in the little old broadband backwater of Ireland. Judging by the 10s of 1000s that visited my site to hear Twink tell her husband to zip his mickey (since removed after advice) and the loads of hits that Claire got for the Meteorite Gardai, it shows there is a massive potential audience even for something so parochial and the cost of distribution is zero.

These were, I suppose, very much unintentional viral campaigns. That’s the odd thing with a viral ad/viral video, they could be started by an ad company or by some joe public who just uses these products in a fun way.

I like what Viking did with their office supplies being used to recreate scenes from movies and the public being asked to guess the films. The site from what I can see was hugely popular and I’m sure most of the traffic to the site was seen during 9-5 by office workers, perfect.

A recent flickr photostream of a Jaguar being covered in post-its appeared to just be one of the usual pranks but I bet a post-it company could work on this idea and run a competition for car art using post-its. UPDATE: They made ABC news over this. Nice ad for the company and the atomsphere there.

The Diet Coke and Mentos videos that went all over the planet were started by a bunch of fun-seeking people but now both companies are apparently getting into the game and running competitions. I’d prefer people drinking or chewing my product more than wasting it but extra sales are probably more important for these guys.

I thought the best ad for Toyota in 2006 was what the Top Gear team did to a Toyota Jeep. I’m sure the video predates 2006 but I found it a testimony to the Toyota brand. I bet it helped increase sales of Toyota jeeps. I’m surpised Toyota didn’t cash-in on this. Maybe they didn’t need to do anything and just watched sales increase. Were I them I’d licence that segment from TopGear and free it to be used online. Stick it on YouTube and all the rest of the video sites. The original version of this I found on Google Video but it since got wiped.

An intentional (I would think) viral video campaign came from the Will It Blend? crew who were there to sell their blenders but blending things you didn’t think possible got them worldwide attention and a segment on the most watched American morning show. Cost? (If we are to believe there wasn’t a PR company with shills pushing the thing down every journo’s throat) – Safety glasses, electricity, a few working iPods and a dustpan and brush. How much would their competitors have spent on ads to get the attention of the same audience?

I don’t think that Dove makeup and photoshop ad was that good. It was viral though but I’m not sure did it want people to actually try out their product the way the Diet Coke and Mentos ad did but it sure as hell got them some great and free brand recognition for an area of the market they want to target. It did however seem costly to make and the ad wasn’t fun or funny. It stimulated the deep thought part of the brain and for some reason laughter travels faster than consideration on the net. Alsot the Beeb made that Toyota “ad”, the kids made the Mentos “Ad”. Fair enough Viking did make a website for their campaign.

Suggestions for Irish Companies:
So could small Irish companies use viral ads to spread the word and either sell products or at least create brand recognition? What cold we see some of the blogging companies do?

Pat Phelan and Roam4Free could create a stop-motion video of clamshell phones singing some song. Not really showing off the product itself but definitely getting brand recognition and using a tool for free roaming.

Maybe Mary Gilmartin at AdvancedTechnology Products could create a video using their products. Maybe film the reaction of people when people in the cleaning room Space Suits just walk around like tourists in the streets of Ireland or do a whole John 3:17 thing and appear at numerous public events in the suits. Then there’s puppetry with the latex gloves and other such products…

Bubble Brothers – Hard to do something with an alcohol product. Get engaged couples to talk about their cute engagement stories or to even re-enact them and have them put them on YouTube. Have engagmentStories.ie host the best ones. Bubble Brothers will send 10 bottles of champagne to your wedding.

Aer Arrann – Just dozens of clips of Michael O’Leary mouthing off and just at the end have white text on a black background. “If you fly with us then this arrogant bollox doesn’t get your money”.

Woah, just 3 sponsorship slots left for the 2007 blog awards. That was fast!

USB heated slippers. Seriously like, why? The market for stupidity ins infinite.

A good idea is heat senstive spoons. That makes much more sense. Have they these on baby bottles yet?

Bono wants to squeeze more out of his back catalog. 50 years is enough surely. Surprised PJ Harvey is also wanting to have copyright extended.

Guy sues GF over her blogging about their sex life. Was only a matter of time for this to happen.

Geek out. Comparison of spaceship sizes from popular sci-fi franchises.

A frank note to one of those people with ultra-senstive car alarms. I must print out some red cards or notices for asshole Mahon point drivers who block multiple lanes so they can get shitty bargains.

Bo Selecta interviews Meatloaf. This is brilliant. Pity I couldn’t find it without commentary:

Bill Bailey on Argos:

Bill Bailey – Kraftwerk Tribute( as already seen on Blogorrah):

Matches in a Microwave:

I’ve signed up to attend BarCamp South East on January 20th and I’ve put myself down to give a talk too. The talk will be my experiences of working in IrelandOffline and my views on how to effectively lobby the Government and big business with a budget of zero and no fulltime staff. It will not be a talk about telecoms/broadband in Ireland.

Off the top of my head it will cover:

• Setting up a lobby group structure
• How to engage the public/get supporters
• How to engage the press
• How to engage industry and the Government
• How to research and fact-check

January 28th is Data Protection Day in the EU. How will Ireland celebrate?

Via Twenty Major. Read the reviews for this album.

Wired Magazine’s 2006 Vapourware list. Always a fun read.

JT covers the fact that Angel investors in France are going to get tax breaks. Good way of fostering investment.

Prince Harry is going to Iraq. Bring more bodyguards mate.

How to leak stuff to a reporter. Would Irish journalists agree?

Dana Carvey as Tom Brokaw covering how Gerald Ford could die:I’m from Barcelona – We’re From Barcelona:

I’m from Barcelona live:

Seems the In Fact, Ah mob will be on Newstalk tomorrow. Best of luck El Commandant P, if that really is your pseudonym.

In 2006 I made a list of the recent Deloitte Fast 50 winners and checked to see had they blogs. None had. The list of the Deloitte Fast 50 from late 2006 has now been examined by me and once again is disappointing to say the least. While there were a few with what they called “blogs”, some did not have RSS feeds and also didn’t allow comments. Others had staff members blogging but it did not seem to be directly about what the company does, so I classed them as personal blogs. When those were taken out a grand total of two companies in the top 50 had blogs. Qumas and Globoforce.

Krishna De had a little to say on the subject of the Top 50 blogging. She offered free consulting to whichever exec from an Irish Top 50 company approached her. I wonder have any of them?

I’m not hugely concerned about the lack of blogs, that’s a choice for the business but it is a damned shame about the lack of RSS especially when most of these companies have press and news sections. Deloitte should encourage RSS and run an aggregator for the entrants.

1. Xsil
2. Digiweb (Some staff blog)
3. Espion
4. Pulselearning Ltd (They do have Skype us button)
5. Zamano
6. Exoftware Agile Solutions Ltd No blog but a news feed.
7. Newsweaver – Denise Cox has a blog on their site. Success!
8. Puca Technologies
9. TNS Distribution
10. Bookassist – RSS feed for their searches.
11. Globoforce – Woo, Globoforce have a blog.
12. Gem
13. Crannog Software
14. Prologic Data Management Ltd
15. Systems Solutions
16. Propylon Ltd – Blog of Seán McGrath, CTO
17. Directski.com
18. InterFusion Networks
19. Lagan Technologies Ltd
20. iQon Technologies Ltd
21. Strencom
22. Meridio
23. Empathy
24. Core Systems (NI) Ltd
25. ITS New Media Ltd
26. Texthelp Systems Ltd
27. Datacare Software Group Ltd
28. Medicom
29. Mapflow
30. Ash Technologies
31. Singularity
32. MediaOne Ltd
33. Andor Technologies plc
34=. eTel Group Ltd
34=. Williams Industrial Services Ltd
36. Ocuco
37. Consilium Technologies Ltd
38. Partners in Europe
39. TERMINAL FOUR
40. Level Seven Creative Ltd – They have a blog but it does not allow comments or subscribing. So maybe not a blog.
41. SWS Business Process Outsourcing Ltd
42. Version1 Software
43=. Nitec Solutions
43=. Qumas – Hooray they have a blog and you can sub to it! They have podcasts too.
45. Alchemy
46. First Derivatives plc
47. Ergo
48. Real Time Systems Ltd
49. Webtrade Ltd
50. MobileAware

Irish Rail loves their customers, right? Getting there might mean dealing with this kind of behaviour.