We had a fantastic family holiday recently in Fife’s East Neuk (the Scottish Riviera allegedly) and stayed at absolutely fantastic self catering accommodation in Elie called Belcote Cottage.

I got talking to the owners about how to market themselves and their website and one of the best ways I thought of being able to show off the size and quality of the 10 berth self catering house would be to use the power of Youtube.

Just before we left I did a quick walkthrough with my digital camera and then added some music (King Creosote) via I-movie.  Took about an hour to do in total and everyone is happy with the results.  Since the clip was added at the end of June it’s had nearly 400 views which for a niche market isn’t bad at all…

I also wanted to demonstrate how close to the beach the property was (60 seconds away) so  I created a clip that demonstrated that.  This clip has had over 200 views.

My point is that these are so easy to do.  Anyone can do them.  I went a bit fancy by adding titles and music, but that’s just because I could and I’m a bit of a frustrated creative.

I’m currently working on some similar video content for my Loch Lomond Self Catering Accommodation client up at Ardlui – they’ve got so many great selling points and amazing scenery so it’s a no-brainer for that property to use video.

The Digital Economy Bill that was hurried somewhat undemocratically through the Houses of Parliament this week is an ill-conceived, poorly thought-out and downright ludicrous piece of legislation that will cause all sorts of problems whilst potentially and unnecessarily criminalise a considerably significant proportion of the unwitting British public.

This piece of legislation is going to throw up all sorts of legal and logistical conundrums as it primarily affects the provider of the internet connection rather than the “illegal” downloader.

I’d love to get a legal perspective on the following scenario that I’m currently testing at the moment.

I’m on my way to London on a Virgin Train, enjoying free Wi-Fi coverage courtesy of a mistaken upgrade to First Class.  I’m also currently downloading “God Save The Queen” via Pirate Bay, which was the first single the band released on Richard Branson’s own Virgin Records.  Seemed like the perfect test track to use (Malcolm McLaren RIP) as I’ll also be over by Buckingham Palace in a wee while visiting Google HQ (that’s a story for another day!)

Would this count as one of the three “strikes” that could lead to Virgin Trains losing their internet connection? Can I expect the police to be waiting for me at Euston Station?

I didn’t stay up for the Superbowl final last night (the Saints beat the Colts 31-17) so I missed the highpoint of the US advertising industry’s year.  The half-time adverts…

It’s a biggie in the states, with TNS Media Intelligence estimating that in the past 20 years Super Bowl ad revenue has translated into $1.84 billion of network sales, from over 200 different advertisers.  Now that’s a whole lot of wonga.

With that kind of spend and there being such a heavy focus on this primetime slot, it’s no wonder some of the biggest companies in the world want a piece of the action.  Step forward Google.

A while back, I highlighted Google’s recent engagement with traditional forms of advertising and their latest incursion – an advert during the Superbowl – is a further sign that traditional forms of advertising are not dead.

Here’s the advert. Get the hankies oot.

Interesting Google search engine results for the term Google at the moment…Whilst they still maintain the number one spot (come on…it is their search engine after all) , they’re currently picking up a lot of negative PR over their Nexus One  within their news results which appear above the number one listing.

Google has long been branching out into different avenues, like with its mobile Android OS, or Chrome browser, but the Nexus One phone marks the company’s first attempt at launching a physical electronic product. Unlike the T-Mobile G1 Google-phone, the Nexus One is fully marketed and sold by Google, though it is still manufactured by HTC.

Billed as a legitimate challenger to the iPhone 3GS‘ dominance, moreover, expectations for the Nexus One were certainly quite high. The current troubles plaguing the Google model, however, have less to do with hardware failures, and more to do with a lack of support.

This is potentially highly damaging for Google, especially as they are also trying to encourage take-up of their Chrome Browser and OS.  Maybe taking on too much at the moment?  I’m sure they’ll sort it out.  In the meantime, I haven’t seen anything on the Nexus One that would make me want to choose it over an Iphone when my existing contract expires.

Well, they’ve not actually said it as such.  It’s just a conclusion that’s extremely easy to come to.

When I’m not forced to suffer the commute to work by the swine flu express I’m cycling to work.  There’s a couple of pretty major billboards by the Clydeside Expressway and I was fairly surprised to see a Google Chrome advert up there this morning in place of the usual Cheryl Cole “you’re worth it”/Davidoff Adventure nonsense that’s usually up there.

Excuse the quality of the image.  It doesn’t get properly light again in Glasgow until mid-March.  What the image does illustrate though is what passing motorists will see, which is not a lot.

Whilst I’m a big fan of the uncluttered element of the Google homepage, this level of minimalism on physical advertising seems a bit short-sighted.

The advert features a mostly blank page with a big Chrome logo and the words “Chrome by Google – A fast, new browser. Made for everyone.”

They wouldn’t be able to make this claim until they had a version of the Mac version of the Chrome Browser ready.  I wonder how long they’ve been sitting on the Mac version just so they could tie it in to their marketing campaign?

More importantly, what’s their thinking behind this ‘real world’ marketing campaign?  They’ve only really attempted it before once, when they promoted  its enterprise office and collaboration suite.  Now the big push is on,  with a pretty significant spend on UK billboard and newspaper marketing and  what they are hoping to achieve is significant market penetration (I hate those words) for Chrome as the operating system.

And they still need traditional forms of advertisting to achieve this.

As the way we search and the way we want need our computers to operate become increasingly linked, there is a pretty hefty battle looming.  With Microsoft already committed to spending over$100million dollars on marketing Bing alone and Windows 7 already past Apple’s OS market share, this latest move from Google is all the more intriguing…

Place your bets…

When news is free

I HATE getting the bus to work.  By the time I’ve walked to the bus stop, waited on a bus, got on the bus, caught swine flu and been deposited outside the Ubisan Office, I could have cycled to the office almost four times.  Aside from the risk of communicable disease and being attacked by Rottweilers named after Celtic football players, the only plus is I get to sit down and read a leftover newspaper for half an hour.  Even if it is The Sun.

Don’t worry, I washed my hands afterwards.

Whilst I’ve contributed to the chatter myself about newspapers feeling the pinch and trying to charge for or limit content it opened my eyes even further to the way things are going on my last bus journey.

The Sun Sports section carried a story about Andy Murray’s final third round match with Verdasco and because of the paper going to print it didn’t know if the Murray victory would be enough to qualify him for the semi’s of the ATP Tour Finals as it depended on the result of the following match.

To find out, The Sun encouraged you to log on to their website to find out.  What did I immediately do?  I logged on to the BBC Sport website (stored as one of my favourites on my phone) and read the story there.

Rupert Murdoch would hate the fact that:

1. I didn’t buy the paper in the first place.
2. I went to the BBC for the news rather than the website he wants me to go to.
3. The information was free.

Everybody has their own source that they trust for news, views, restaurant reviews etc whether it’s a friend, somebody at work or God forbid, a search engine!   What’s your source?

For those that are interested, Murray didn’t get through and here’s the links to the two stories.  I guess Rupert got me to visit in the end.  Doh!

The BBC. (Headline: Andy Murray knocked out of World Tour Finals at O2)

The Sun (Headline: I MUZ BE OFF THEN )