silentflute

Blog

  • Bhutto’s Son on Facebook Prank

    Bhuttos Son

    The assassination of Benazir Bhutto sent shock waves around the world, during the short period between her death and her subsequent funeral – there were reports that Bhutto’s son, 19 year-old Oxford undergraduate, Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, was named to succeed her as the head of the family’s Pakistan People’s Party.

    During this period, a prankster (as documented on digitalspy 1, 2 and consolecity) set up a facebook account using pictures found from the Internet and various other sources and put together an online profile seen by millions of college students around the world.

    The prank facebook account did not disappoint in describing a portrait of Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, which included his hobbies as being and avid “Buffy the Vampire Slayer fan, and eating junk food” with a picture of Zardari in a Halloween costume.

    The prank was, at first, taken verbatim by many journalists and various worldwide sources – until it was uncovered by other journalists and Facebook members who promptly tipped off the website about the phony profile.

    Of course, its not the first time that someone has done this, there’s loads of “fake” profiles on facebook, ning, myspace and even going back to Firefly (this is going back to 1997-1998 mind) there were people pretending to be a celebrity when they weren’t, but this is the first time to my mind that someone has used this “tactic” (if you can call it that) to be claim his/her “15 minutes of fame”.

    Personally, I’m pretty ambivalent on politics. I don’t have much of a view on political issues, and really don’t have anything new, exciting or interesting to say about political issues but this prank shows 3 things;

    (1) Lazy, gullible journalists who have a tight deadline will follow their gut/instinct rather than investigate the story further,
    (2) Some people think its okay to use a person’s death to heighten their own “claim to fame”,
    (3) You can’t trust the information because it just happens to be on the Internet.

    Either way, this strange Facebook prank shows that there is a dark-side to social networking.

    Links;

  • Another look at Forbidden Kingdom

    Jet Li Forbidden Kingdom

    This is another look at the upcoming Jet Li/Jackie Chan project, “The Forbidden Kingdom”, and is a follow up to my article “Jackie vs Jet: The Forbidden Kingdom: A preview“.

    The Forbidden Kingdom is the widely anticipated movie which will see both Jackie Chan and Jet Li in the same movie for the first time in movie history.

    The recently released Americanised-heavy trailer has worried many pundits that the movie will have actually very little on-screen time between Jackie and Jet. Some fans are worried that the on-screen fight sequences between Chan and Li will be short, quick and ultimately unsatisfying, whilst others express concern that an American-focused approach will take away the heart and soul of what should be a great movie. Indeed, both Jackie and Jet have told fans to keep expectations low.

    Having said that, another trailer I’ve seen seem to give a much more romantic, Crouching-tiger-coming-of-age feel to the movie.

    For me, the coming-of-age style works better than than the Americanised version, because it tells a story that the other doesn’t, also it gives you the impression it’s going to be a good, well-written story.

    Yes, I am disappointed with the American-point-of-view of the plot/story, but it could work incredibly well.

    We’ll know later on in 2008 when Forbidden Kingdom is released.

    If you’re interested in reading up on Hong Kong style movies, I recommend Bey Logan’s blog on Dragon Dynasty.

    Links;

  • The cult of being Rick Roll’d

    Rick Astley

    Being Rick Roll’d was perhaps one of the fads of 2007, the concept is real simple – essentially it’s giving a link to someone that is meant to be something good, but is just in reality a video of Rick Astley singing his hit “Never gonna give you up”.

    Even I’ve been Rick Roll’d a few times, and its given me a chuckle, a quick laugh.

    Perhaps the best version of being “Rick Roll’d” is the Radiohead fan site that had a counter for an exclusive Raidohead audio/video – but ended up being a clip of Rick Astley (current)

    Of course for those in the know, or who can take a joke, its just a quick laugh – but for many it soon turned into a real bug-bare of surfing online, or being on a chat-room/social media site. It even worked its way onto traditional media, with Radio DJs turning song requests into an excuse to play the Rick Astley song.

    Links;

  • Grand Theft Auto IV: Trailer 3

    GTA Trailer 3

    Rockstar have recently released trailer 3 of their upcoming video game “Grand Theft Auto IV”. GTA IV is to be released some time next year, and is due to be released on various platforms, including x-box 360 and PS3.

    More info about GTAIV can be found on Rockstar’s website.

  • The Dark Knight Viral Campaign

    Joker

    Warner Brothers’ is using viral marketing to build buzz for their latest movie “The Dark Knight”, the sequel to “Batman Begins”.

    As widely reported on superherohype.com, Warner Brothers’ marketing department are going overboard sending fans on a “treasure” hunt, and are being asked to do specific things, such as playing games, video, calling telephone numbers and visiting websites.

    Original article;
    Dark Knight Viral Campaign Blog (superherohype.com)

  • McClaren, and the press’ pound of flesh

    Steve McClarren

    So what went wrong? Who’s to blame? Why did England screw up so badly when it came to the crunch? Was it because of “the millionaire pre-Madonna’s?” Was it because of McClarren? Was the press to blame for wanting a native English manager above all else, to the point of abursidty? Was it because McClaren often used “power words” to hide his lack of tactical nouse, and couldn’t trasmute the need to win to players properly? Was it the FA’s fault?

    I believe its all of the above, and more!

    Just watching sport programmes and reading newspaper columns over the weekend and you’ll be left in no doubt that the National game is on its knees, and needs to be reworked.

    But who really is to blame, and why? These are my thoughts/opinions. (more…)

  • Niche video content

    As reported on Springwise, magnify.net is one of the many social video websites that helps web publishers bring subject-specific, niche-specific video channels to their own websites.

    Quote;

    “Launched in beta version about a year ago, Magnify features a meta-search tool that combs the web for videos matching a site’s specific focus, such as aviation, soccer or college life. Users can also upload their own video content, and the resulting mix is available for sharing, rating and ranking by the community as well as integrating into playlists.

    Magnify provides the templates and controls publishers need each step along the way, including site design and customization; video search, uploading, storage, bandwidth and sharing; and advertising, community, statistics and network tools. The service is free to users and its business model is based on shared advertising revenue with the websites that use its service. Magnify has grown from 20 sites to more than 2,000 user-generated video channels since its launch.”

  • Revenue loses 25 million personal records

    As widely reported, “Alistair Darling told the House of Commons this afternoon that a police investigation has been launched into how Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs has lost child benefit records relating to 25 million people” (ref: The Register).

    But, it looks like someone already has placed an advert on ebay for those “missing” Child Benefit CD’s. (Nope, its not real).

    Darling admits Revenue loss of 25 million personal records (The Register)

  • Buzzing with ideas

    I’ve been incredibly busy over the past 2 weeks and probably will be for the next 2 weeks.

    I’m hoping to launch a couple of ideas of mine within the next few weeks.

    One of the ideas I’m having is to diversify what I do online into different niche’s. One of my hobbies is watching, reviewing and commenting on Hong Kong based action movies; its something I haven’t done in a while; but I’m hoping to launch a specific niche site just for that – it won’t compete with the kungfucinema’s of this world, and its not meant to either; its just another option for me to explore.

    I’m also going to be contacting some old contacts of mine, to see if I can offer expanded my freelance services into other areas with partners I’ve found in the past 2-3 weeks, including in web development, and especially social media optimisation areas.

    I don’t intend to compete with the larger new media marketing organisations that are out there, but with the extended range of freelance services and the partners I’ve already contacted, I hope intend to offer a more personal, 1-to-1 relationship; something I feel the bigger agencies don’t do as well.

    Anyway, any future news of products/services will be announced first on this site.

  • I don’t get “smarter than a 10 year old”

    I decided to sit down and watch Sky One’s constantly advertised “Are you smarter than a 10 year old?”, and within a few minutes it really annoyed me.

    The show is really slow paced, there are no other competitors, the constant grating soundtrack “are you smarter than a 10 year old” sung by kids is really, really annoying.

    But there’s one thing that I really don’t get about this game show.

    Lets say your a contestant on this game show. You’ve just got up to £2,000 or whatever and you feel unsure about the next question and so you quit there and then. Congratulations, you’ve won £2 grand.

    But don’t celebrate just yet.

    You have to look in the camera and say “I’m not smarter than a 10 year old” Why? – Because you didn’t get up to £250k!

    But wait a minute. You’ve won 2 grand. The kids win nothing, nada, not a sausage.

    So, doesn’t the fact you’ve won 2 grand make you smarter than a 10 year old?

    I don’t get this TV game show.