Finally bought this Batman graphic novel at the Kino 20% sale over the weekend. Excellent and truly seminal stuff. It ends with a joke, and a truly beautiful one, at that, casting the relationship between the Batman and the Joker in clear light. I love this comic!
Batman: The Killing Joke graphic novel - the origin of the Joker a seminal piece of work - 20% off! from Kinokuniya, Ngee Ann City, Singapore
UniqueFrequency posted on his blog about the HP Touchsmart PC ad and how the tune was really catchy and viral. I checked out the ad and felt kind of disappointed. Here's the HP ad first:
Now have a look (and listen) at this one:
Honestly speaking (and I know this is probably going to be subjective), which ad has the catchier tune, and which video is more compelling?
Alright, everyone's gonna say, "He's an Apple fanboy and is gonna love whatever crap Apple feeds him anyway." Well, actually I'm not that big a fanboy. Go with what works best for you, I say. And go with whoever delivers the better experience. In the case of the two touch ads, I kinda prefer the Apple one.
Incidentally, the Apple Touch ad was first created as a fan video by Nick Haley without the permission or guidance of Apple. It floated around virally on Youtube for a while, and Apple were so impressed that they asked Nick to help make the actual ad for Apple. Or that's how the story goes, at least. Check out the Nick Haley version below. You'll be amazed how much the final "professional" commercial resembles the original "amateur" one. Respect to Apple for being able to recognise a catchy tune and video! I don't think HP have really figured that out yet.
And if you're curious, the track in the Apple Touch ad is called "Music is my hot hot sex" by a Brazilian band called Cansei de Ser Sexy. You can watch their original music video here, which, incidentally, was the most popular video on Youtube at one point, with close to 90 million views. How's that for viral? (The original video was taken off Youtube sometime back, after it hit #1, so it's not on the most popular list anymore.)
Podfire's new food show, "Small Girl Big Appetite", is fresh out of the editing room at podfire.sg and sgba.tv. A lovely first episode shot at the French Stall on Serangoon Road. You can watch it (and future episodes) at the above links. I've embedded the first episode here too:
A rather well-shot and presented show, being only the third series Podfire has produced. I'm keeping an eye on these guys to see what else they have in store in the video podcasting space. I'm also rather keen on the smoked salmon and sea bream!
Barcamp Singapore II on Wednesday night was great. Some really interesting speakers from Google, Singeo, Lilihood (loved their control interface) and Homespace, and I loved Preetam's idea pitch about object-tagging. I didn't get to catch the Mobile breakout, because we were presenting a demo on Shoplette for the Maps session, but I'm sure it was great too. Will have to check out the video once it's out.
I think what really made Barcamp II for me was the feeling of learning from each other and sharing our approaches. It was great that the participants weren't just talking about what their site/service did, but also their approach to different problems and how they solved it. That was really helpful. Kudos to Singeo for the tip on Fire Eagle and Skyhook, and also to the Homespace team for their tips on Clusterer and custom info windows for Google Maps. We hope, when we have more stuff on Shoplette, we can share tips that might be useful and valuable to other startups as well.
Barcamp II was the first time we spoke about Shoplette to a public audience and it was a good experience. I think what we gained most was from the questions people asked about Shoplette and the feedback they shared with us about the service. And we actually met a few of our users at the event, which was a real blast!
It's great when you actually get to meet the people who use your service because you get a much better sense of who your market is. Putting an actual face and personality behind your users beats any kind of demographic description in trying to understand what they're expecting and might like from the service. Plus the fact that you get to thank them profusely for their support! (We're incredibly grateful!)
So thanks to the organisers of Barcamp II for a great event, and I'm definitely looking forward to the next one!
Great words of wisdom from Chef Giovanni on "Jamie's Great Italian Escape":
Remember to have fun! Not just work, work, work. Let your hair down and play once in a while.
Strangely, my idea of fun is learning Objective C and Cocoa. Erm... Not quite right. But, damn! Objective C really makes object-oriented programming so natural it hurts not to.
