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Last night, I took some of the team to the D&AD New Blood event in Old Billingsgate. The event is supposed to showcase the best creative talent from across the UK higher education system. If you are a student creative, this is the place to be seen and try and get that elusive first job.

We went down, full of hope and smiles, arriving just before 8pm and then spent over 30mins queuing to get in - even though we had private invitations. When we did get in, we were informed that all the free beer had been consumed within the first hour ‘by the students’. Not only that but the free beer was the only beer they had - so you couldn’t even buy any! I was offered warm white wine or a coffee? No thanks. Fed up from queuing, thirsty from the lack of decent drink and bloody sweating from the heat of so many people in the venue, we decided to hit the task at hand… until the size of the task became apparent. In previous years the D&AD student showpiece has grown from one floor, to one and a half… this year it covered three floors. How the f*ck are you supposed to be able to go through that amount of exhibition area in the 2-3 hours of the evening, without air con, no cold drinks, serious heat, and after a 35min queue? Stick with me because I am not at the REAL issue yet…

We split up and headed out to all corners, looking for someone with a flair for creative and digital and that was the issue. I can count the number of websites I actually saw on screen on ONE HAND! Some of these did not even work. I don’t mean the buttons did not link I mean they did not even load (on a local machine). Personally, I think there is a massive issue, when we have such a skills shortage online and yet the colleges, unis, etc are just vomiting out thousands of students who know FA about digital and have not been made aware of it (except for the Flash or Dreamweaver lesson that just puts them off).

Why is digital treated as the bastard brother to traditional creative?
Why is the system churning out a zillion print designers when there are hardly any pure print jobs left? Look on any creative job page (on or offline) and you will see that most jobs expect experience or an understanding of digital. These kids have none.

Digital is the future, so why are our future generations are so bloody unprepared for it?!

Musicovery - an interactive web radio… well that is what it says. Like a sexy little Cinderella, this is so much more. Just have a quick play and you will see what I mean. It is more like a visual and aural sonic odyssey. I love it. Choose your mood then get non-stop streams from over 1m tracks. The LoFi sound is OK for the freebies but why not pay $1 a month and get HiFi sound? Why not indeed. There are some real classics buried within this site and it has had me hooked for days.

The downside was that I came across one too many Ricky Martin tracks on a Sunday, but that’s what I get for choosing energetic Pop and Salsa as my mood. There are also some minor usability issues like the lack of track skipping but I think it is a great little app with a rosy future. This is how radio should be. Streamed, good quality, interactive and varied. Now where did I put those Ricky Martin hipsters…

There are quite a few flash-based drawing apps floating around the Internet, but there aren’t many like the one on the Jackson Pollock site. Now you too can become an artist within minutes! A cool little program with a nice minimalist feeling (no complicated buttons / menus).

http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

here are a few simple rules for ensuring that your Web 2.0 application is a resounding success; culminating in a £1.25bn offer from Google. I thought I’d share these with you. If you need more information you can send a cheque for £4,300 to Neoco for your own individually addressed information pack on Web 2.0.

1. Usefulness; less is more
This is the golden rule for creating a successful Web 2.0 app; always remember that less is more. Ideally your Web 2.0 app should have absolutely no point whatsoever. Sometimes a compromise is needed whereby it will vaguely useful, sometimes, to a small number of people.

2. Beta; for at least a year
All Web 2.0 apps should be in beta indefinitely. This suggests that whilst the app seems to have lots of bugs and very little point, that’s OK, because it’s only in beta - the full app is still to come.

3. AJAX; apply liberally
Ideally your Web 2.0 app should send a single line of HTML to the browser, and the rest of the app should be served via AJAX. This gives the user that slightly confusing feeling when they click a link, because they’re not quite sure if anything is actually happening (preferably nothing should happen).

4. Icons; made to look like Mac icons
Ideally you should just steal the icons straight from the Mac. If there isn’t a Mac icon to suit your needs, just use a different one. All menus should be styled with a two-tone horizontal shadow effect (again think Mac).

5. Logo; always include “2.0″
If it’s a Web 2.0 app, make sure everyone knows about this. Try to use the term Web 2.0 as many times as possible. Try to include “2.0″ in as many different places as possible; eg: “Help 2.0″.

Now get going… quickly. And if Google do buy you for £1.25bn just remember who to thank (cheques made payable to Dave).

If you get stuck making your logo, use this handy Web 2.0 logo generation utility, brought to you by “Alex P”.