100 Years Of Special Effects [video]

Luke Viral 0 Comment

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This is a pretty cool viral I saw over the weekend, 100 years of special effects in film starting with The Enchanted Drawing in 1900 right up to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button in 2008. Oddly theres an eleven year gap between 1993′s Jurassic park and the release of Spiderman. I’m sure there was at least one or two amazing special effects blockbusters released during that period… Independence Day (in 1995), The Matrix (’99) and The Fellowship of The Ring (2001) just off the top of my head.

Making the AIB Surfer Ad [video]

Luke Advertising, TV, Viral , , 0 Comment

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This is one of my favourite adverts on TV at the moment. Its the AIB ad featuring one of their customers, John McCarthy. He set up Lahinch Surf School with the help of the bank. The advertisement was filmed in Lahinch and Doolin in Ireland, in September 2008.

The End Of TV News?

Luke Marketing, Social Media, TV , , 0 Comment

I often let blog posts incubate while I try to expand on their initial premise. Sometimes an idea or thought becomes more grounded in fact as time passes, such as some notes I wrote down last month that queried the future of TV news. The query stemmed from the realisation that I watch little TV news anymore and was expanded upon by the articles listed at the end of this post.

Look at the competition out there for TV news. Firstly it lacks the depth and breadth of subjects that can be achieved in print and even on radio. Online there’s a barrage of options for the individual to decide what news affects them most and how they wish to receive this information. Check Youtube for video, Flickr for photo’s, Google News for different sides of the same coin and Twitter for live streams from people on the ground in the very situations that are making the news. These sites can be more graphic, more spontaneous and less subject to laws concerning broadcast guidelines. All of which carry positives and negatives aspects.

These websites give the individual direct access to news streams, often its these same streams the news organisations are also relying on for information. Just look at the case of the Iranian elections earlier this summer when foreign journalists were not allowed in the country. Even for smaller stories switch on Sky or BBC News and chances are there will be referencing these same websites. Sky even go so far as to broadcast a daily programme based upon the most popular content on its website. Its part news and part ‘You’ve Been Framed’. Those who watch the Daily Show will also be familiar with Jon Stewarts constant lampooning of CNN’s efforts to stay tragically hip, broadcasting unedited tweets and messages, sometimes in a manner that might be construed as lacking confidence in its own skills to set the news agenda.

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Of course there has been a precedent for this – in newspaper industry. Google News has been blamed for their current malaise, as the service aggregates all the free news topics from around the globe. Maybe that’s partly true, maybe not. But this article on Viral Blog throws up an interesting proposition courtesy of Google’s Youtube website ‘News Near You’, bringing news content based on your geographic location. The article is in depth and worth a read if you can imagine the future of live news being an aggregator of countless streams from people on the ground, adding video, photos and live twitter commentary. What’s more is news organisations are signing up to provide free content to this service, much in the way the newspapers provide free content to Google news.

It is a well known fact that during big breaking news stories such as Michael Jackons passing or 9/11 the viewing figures go through the roof for the 24 hour news channels. However, what we are seeing now is the viewer in control of how they digest their news. In the recent passing of Michael Jackson a celebrity news website, TMZ.com, broke the story. They followed up the story with further exclusive breaking news that no other news organisation had access to. So when the various news readers were accrediting TMZ, I wondered how many viewers thought to make the switch from Sky or BBC to TMZ and when wireless internet ready TV sets become the norm, the switch from TV channel to website will require less effort and thus providing greater competition for the news channels. Just this month Channel 4 announced it was to axe several of its news bulletin’s

With regards to Youtube’s News Near You, it looks set for now to be available in the USA. Google stress this service will provide local content within a 100 mile radius to begin with. This radius will be reduced as more content becomes available. As with every service it has to start somewhere.

Further reading;
New York Times article
Viral Blog article
Business Insider article

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