From friend Allen’s Twitter feed last night. I post this for the few, remaining Luddite newsies who insist, “I don’t care what someone had for breakfast” in expressing their disdain (and cluelessness) about Twitter.
Author Archives: Steve Mays
Fists getting airplay on BBC
A few months ago I received an email from a young man in the UK, asking permission to use a photo he found on my flickr for the cover art for his band’s new single (Cockatoo). I said sure and please keep in touch. And he did.
“The vinyl version of the single’s out now and is doing really well. The photo has certainly done it’s job and intrigued people. We’ve had lots of national airplay from the BBC and lots of new opportunities have been popping up all the time which is obviously very exciting.
We did a single launch in this big DIY arts space called The Arts Organisation in Nottingham. There was talk of doing a Steve Mays photo reel featuring a whole raft of the photo’s to be projected on walls and stuff but we didn’t have enough time in the end and felt that we’d be taking the piss a bit in terms of permission to use them.
Here’s 23 seconds of that show that somebody took on a phone (I’m the short guy wearing the black jacket and white T-shirt btw):
We’d love to send you some copies of the single in the post if you’d like. Posterity and all that. Let me know where to send them and we will. That said we certainly wouldn’t be offended if you’d rather we didn’t. Once again thanks for everything.”
James and all of Fists
Ah, to have my life become the backdrop for an edgy British pub band…
I’ve added the Fists blog to the sidebar for wonderful passages like this:
“…if you want to go on a slightly wrong night out then you should go to Wildside which is this once monthly cock/sleaze/glam rock revivalist night at Junktion 7 in Nottingham. It’s mostly filled wall-to-wall with dysfunctional hard rockers who get crazy drunk whilst getting emotional about it not being 1986 before dropping to their knees for an Eddie Van Halen solo and then disappearing into the toilets to have sex and drink Jack Daniel’s and fall out with each other due to fringe scene claustrophobia. It’s like going to a special zoo that houses dying musical sub-cultures and is one of my favourite nights out.”
Okay, but I like to be home no later than ten p.m.
Captain Blood
I love grabbing snippets from old movies or TV shows and sharing them here. The process goes something like this: I hit the record button on the DVR. Then I hook up my old Sony camcorder and pull the video off the DVR. Next, I import the video from the camera to the MacBook. Now, thanks to a new little video capture widget from Elgato, the drill got much easier. (Mac only, sorry)
One end plugs into the video/audio out of any device and the other is a USB connection to the MacBook. And the software is simplicity itself. If you need to get video from your TV or DVR over to your computer, the Elgato Video Capture is a near perfect solution.
My test clip is from Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn.
New Get a Mac ads (2009)
Wonder how many of these there are now? Started in 2006. The three new ones are Customer Care, Elimination and PC Choice Chat (above). I love that they didn’t bother put with mic cord or phone cords. If you’d like to make these stop… get a Mac.
TED Talk: Seth talks Tribes
Mural for Dur Fez Bunker
Listenomics and why things are different this time
I remember reading Bob Garfield’s The Chaos Scenario as an article in Advertising Age but I’m not sure I listened to the interview Mark Ramsey (Hear 2.0) posted to his website back in March. More on that in a moment. I don’t think the book is out yet but here’s a blurb from the web page:
“What happens when the old world order collapses and the Brave New World is unprepared to replace it…as an ad medium, as a news source, as a political soapbox, as a channel for new episodes of “Lost?” That is The Chaos Scenario.
In this fascinating, terrifying, instructive and often wildly entertaining book, Garfield is not content to chronicle the ruinous disintegration of traditional media and marketing. No, having established the problem, he travels to five continents for solutions.
What he discovers is the answer for all institutions who wish to survive – and thrive – in a digitally connected, Post-Media Age. He calls this the art and science of Listenomics.”
Mr. Garfield is Advertising Age editor-at-large and co-host of NPR’s On the Media. Looking forward to the book. If you spot it before I do, let me know.
Lance on why he and Sheryl Crow split
“She wanted marriage, she wanted children; and not that I didn’t want that, but I didn’t want that at that time because I had just gotten out of a marriage, I’d just had kids [Luke, Grace and Bella],” Armstrong, 37, reveals. “Yet we’re up against her biological clock — that pressure is what cracked it.” — New York Post.
You can change everything
In a recent post, Seth Godin reminds us we are not really stuck in a rut. We can, in fact, change everything and then lists a bunch of ways to do that. Some of my favorites: Move to Thiland; Become a vegan; Have all meetings in a room with no chairs, and everyone wears a bath robe over their clothes.
But as one who spends most of his days (and nights) working on websites, this one really spoke to me:
“Delete your website and start over with the simplest possible site”
Might be difficult to make this blog more simple. But some of our company websites could be a LOT leaner and cleaner. I’d love to flush ’em and start over as Seth suggests.
Tweetie
Since installing Tweetie, I keep it running on the left side of my desktop. The clever folks who designed Tweetie must have anticipated this is how folks would use it. I can see at a glance when someone tweets; mentions @smaysdotcom or sends me a direct message.
Earlier tonight, William Gibson tweeted about a new movie coming out this summer, describing it as “must see” and included a link to the trailer. Well, when my favorite author says he “must see” the movie, you can bet I’ll see it, too.
When I saw his tweet, I thought: “Cool. William Gibson is online, at this moment, doing basically the same thing I’m doing.”
Now, I can’t direct message Mr. Gibson because he doesn’t follow me and I’d like to think I would not intrude if he did. But, with what other form of communication might I have such a real-time experience with one of my heros? Not email. Probably not a blog post. I’m not sure I can describe the feeling. Not quite personal, but almost.