• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
TheWayoftheWeb

TheWayoftheWeb

Content and Digital Marketing Specialists

  • Blog
  • The Cipher
  • About Us
    • Useful Resources For Businesses In Peterborough, UK
  • Contact Us
  • Show Search
Hide Search

angus farquhar

A compilation/best of/round-up/braindump…

March 12, 2009 By Dan Thornton

Call it what you like, but for various reasons I’ve been blogging-lite, and have 100 things floating around my head which I need to expel in the blogging equivalent of an exorcism. And I’m sure you know all about Facebook’s new interface/look, and Google adding comments in Google Reader, so I’ll at least try and unearth some other stuff.

A great post by friend and former colleague Angus, which adds to the interesting and equally great original post on newspaper business models.

That somehow led to me thinking about ‘micro-careers’, and how the collapse of ‘a job for life’ and fears about security can somewhat be alleviated by the internet, and the fact you can form several careers by playing around and experimenting with different skills. E.g. writing, photography, video would have been entirely silo’d careers, but look at Christian.  It allows you to experiment for little or no cost, and then focus on the things that give you the most enjoyment, best results etc – and you’re able to still do a day job to pay the bills if the fun stuff doesn’t support you.

The most idiotic attempt to cash in on a ridiculous patent award goes to worlds.com, for claiming a patent on all virtual worlds (From Venturebeat).

The most interesting thing for me about Robert Scoble leaving Fast Company, and Jason Calacanis/Mahalo employing a now convicted hacker, isn’t the idea that the loss of Scoble’s sponsor means social media has failed, or the fact that in a 3-5 interview process, the Mahalo team failed to perform a quick Google search.

The interesting aspect is that both Scoble and Calacanis published their stories as soon as news broke, and that we expect it and accept it. Compare that to the hundreds of more traditional companies which are issuing redundancies at the moment.

If you’re wondering why politicians seem to be increasingly ridiculed and ineffectual, here’s a good example of the reasons why. The Conservative Party have wasted time and money that could have been used to benefit voters/constituents for a service to send a fake letter from Gordon Brown.

Compare that to the amount of brilliant apps coming from quick, effective and cheap hack days, like the Guardian Hack Day, for example.

I feel better after that! Incidentally, when I’m not writing a new post, I’m normally twittering: @badgergravling, sharing stuff via Google Reader,  or starting to get a handle on using Friendfeed effectively.

Which of the following would you purchase?

January 23, 2009 By Dan Thornton

A lot of blogs are talking about the new advert for Cadbury, which comes from Fallon on the heels of their Gorilla and Airport adverts.

I’d agree it’s entertaining, but it happened to coincide with me witnessing the following video, shot with a Samsung Pixon phone.

The question is which one is more likely to make you part with some hard-earned cash – the professional advert, or the video shot by someone to test the product they’ve just paid for with their own money?

A case for Advocurrency?

I’m not saying that advertising/marketing shouldn’t be entertaining, or professional shot and edited.

I do wish some of it was more informative, and was based around making my life suck a bit less – for instance, T-Mobile sorting out their customer support, or Cadbury‘s sticking more Dairy Milks in their Roses selection boxes.

How about alternating between one piece of pure entertainment for awareness, and one bit of making things better for people buying your products?

Interested in online video?

January 13, 2009 By Dan Thornton

If so, I heartily recommend friend and former colleague Angus Farquhar’s new blog – after several years of suggesting he shared his knowledge and insight into the world of video, he’s finally started committing to doing it.

So check out Angus Farquhar’s Online Video Producer blog. And if you want to see what he’s up to now, check out his videos for Which? from CES

And I’m still amazed that he actually managed to make my attempts at presenting a video show good enough that I can just about watch them without cringing – I’m just thankful he didn’t put together the outakes.

I’m still working on using my voice to actually convey enthusiasm – hence why I haven’t embraced the likes of Seesmic and 12seconds.tv yet. But having predicted that the added conversation and interactivity coming to video would give it a huge boost this year, I might not be able to hold out much longer…

Mixing comedy with advertising?

December 4, 2008 By Dan Thornton

A while ago, my former colleague Angus recommended I subscribe to a really funny and innovative Youtube producer’s channel. And in amongst the comedy moments, I spotted one which seemed appropriate for a blog covering advertising and marketing:

And if you want to see more, then click for the dananddanfilms channel on Youtube.

Some news, and something for you to do next week…

October 31, 2008 By Dan Thornton

Lake Finja by dandownunder on Flickr (CC licence)
Lake Finja by dandownunder on Flickr (CC licence)

The news is probably somewhat underwhelming, but I’m going to have limited internet access, if any, for the next 7-10 days. I didn’t want you anyone thinking I’d given up or vanished! It’s come at a good time as I’m re-evaluating the purpose of www.140char.com to offer something which is unqiue and complimentary to other microblogging sites, and how I best use the spare time I have to keep both sites running when I’m happily getting involved in more and more at my day job.

The good news is that I’ve had a chat about getting some guest posts on here and possibly 140char over the next week from someone new to actually creating blog content, if not to the internet, journalism, or multimedia. My good friend and colleague Angus Farquhar (his tumblelog) has said he’ll try to write a few things, and hopefully by calling him out publicly, it’ll mean he has to do it!

He’s a specialist in video production, having shot 100s of videos for Motorcycle News (Look at the honours on Youtube, man), including the ill-fated MCN Daily News show, started with yours truly. So if you have video queries, from webcams and Qik to professional set-ups, now’s the time to get them in the comments and get a response.

But in return, I’d like to ask a couple of things of the wonderful people who read, comment, converse, share, digg, stumble and interact in any other way with the content I throw out into the world.

Firstly, I’d really appreciate it if you’d show some love for Angus’s posts. He might be a paid journalist and great video specialist who observes my blogging efforts with interest, but I’d love for him to experience even 1/100th of the great interactions and comments I’ve been lucky enough to have.

Secondly, if you like this blog even just a little bit, but have comments, ideas, thoughts, offers of help, or you’ve spotted 100 typos and want me to get a dictionary, it would be a great time to get ideas and suggestions for improvements to here and www.140char.com. Although I might be offline for a bit, I will have a couple of days when I can sit down and think about what I’m doing here, and how I can improve. The best way to reach me is thewayoftheweb at googlemail dot com.

I’d be really interested in anyone also asking questions, or suggesting topics/sites/industries/things they’d like me to cover?

And if you want something to read in the meantime, a kind person has not only compiled a great short paper on Twitter (probably the best and most comprehensive guide yet!), but also referenced 140char in it. More details here.

Primary Sidebar

Join us…

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • LinkedIn
  • RSS
  • Twitter

We only exist to deliver results for your business. So you get fresh Content, expert SEO, engaging Social Media, or a new Website which is right for you – and your customers.

We help you build your brand, reach more customers and increase your revenue

Search

Categories

Creative Commons License
This work by TheWayoftheWeb is provided under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

Start growing your business today Contact Us

TheWayoftheWeb

Copyright © 2026· TheWayoftheWeb Ltd. Company Number 08038527. ICO registration: ZB397650