Filed under: Brands & Marketing, Cool & Online, Events, Hot List Clients | Tags: alternative, blog, Bowie, cool event, digital agency, jazz, london, Meltdown, music, sold out, Southbank Centre, Spotify, tickets, Twitter, we loved Massive Attack last year
Tickets now on sale for the AWESOME Meltdown event.
This has been an absolute stormer over recent years with previous guest directors including Massive Attack, David Bowie, Morrissey and more. this year, free jazz legend and icon of the avant-garde Ornette Coleman will take over Southbank Centre’s riverside venues and spaces as the 16th director of Meltdown. Reflecting the restless, unfettered spirit of this year’s director, Meltdown in 2009 will provide a platform for avantrockers, jazz and world music artists alike – giving free reign to reinvention, improvisation and the collaborative concerts Meltdown is renowned for.
As the Southbank Centre digital agency it was our task to put together all the comms for this year’s event including the dynamic website that draws on several social feeds, including Twitter, Blog and a Spotify playlist.
There has been a great response from the community – the Twitter feed already has nearly 700 followers and newsletter subscriptions are high. So don’t sit here reading any more – go and check it out and why not treat yourself to some tickets too!
Filed under: Coffee Break, News | Tags: arrest, blog, blogging, China, corruption, Egypt, government, Iran, prison, World Information Access report
The University of Washington’s World Information Access report (WIA) has shown that since 2003, at least 64 people have been arrested for blogging about political issues - for exposing corruption in goverment, the abuse of human rights or for just generally criticising governments. In 2008, it is likely that more bloggers than ever will face arrest as a result of the growing political importance of blogging.
More than half of all the arrests have been made in China, Egypt and Iran with prison sentences given to many. The average prison sentence for blogging was 15 months and the longest sentence found by the WIA was eight years!
Its not just the Middle East bloggers though – in the last four years, British, French, Canadian and American bloggers have also been arrested. Arrests tend to increase during times of political uncertainty – so with upcoming elections in China, Pakistan, Iran and the US, arrests are predicted to high an all time high.
For more details about the report visit http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/7456357.stm
Filed under: Cool & Online, News | Tags: beta release, beta website, blog, coming soon, cool, countdown, exciting, May, neoco, new design, new website, website
Some very exciting news… our new website is getting closer and closer. We are going to release the beta version next Wednesday 28th at noon (GMT).
The new website will see a whole bunch of new features from day one but a program of development ensures that there will be some cool stuff being added each month. Don’t worry, the blog will remain – well, we couldn’t lose our little soapbox could we?
The case studies section has gone through a major overhaul and now has client quotes and pulled out stats. We have API’s, social bookmarking and more besides.
The most important thing for us though is the new visual design that it will bring with it. It’s different. Very different. But very ‘us’.
Check out the very small sneaky peek image and then go to our existing homepage and watch the seconds (minutes, hours, days) count down.

Filed under: News | Tags: ad, blog, community, craigslist, digital marketing, Ebay, legal action, site, sue
eBay are suing community ad site Craigslist to “safeguard its four year financial investment”. eBay believe that Craigslist’s executives Craig Newmark and Jim Buckmaster have adopted unspecified measures that have disadvantaged eBay and unfairly diluted their “economic interest by more than 10%”. EBay’s general counsel Mike Jacobson has said “since negotiating our investment with Craigslist’s board in 2004, we have acted openly and in good faith as a minority shareholder, so we were surprised by these recent unilateral actions”.
In response, Craigslist have said in their company blog that they are surprised and disappointed by eBay’s “unfounded allegations”, and that eBay’s legal action “came to us out of the blue”. It said “we have always treated eBay fairly as a minority shareholder, and plan to continue doing so, despite this unfortunate development. EBay has absolutely no reason to feel threatened – unless a hostile takeover of Craigslist, or the sale of eBay’s stake in Craigslist to an unfriendly party, is their ultimate goal.”
Read the full article here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7362221.stm
Filed under: Coffee Break | Tags: American Airlines, BA, blog, consumer, crisis, digital marketing, Heathrow, syndrome, T5
There are two approaches to a consumer crisis.
- Put your fingers in ears, close your eyes and repeat ‘la-la-la-la-la’. This is what we now call the ‘BA’ approach or ‘T5′ syndrome
- The alternative is to actually engage with the consumers. This is the braver but ultimately much more competent approach. Look at American Airlines ‘Crisis’ blog: http://www.womma.org/blog/2008/04/a-look-at-american-airlines-crisis-blog/





