Thursday, September 25, 2008

Diesel Viral - Diesel XXX SFW Porn Video

Just in case you hadn't already heard about Diesel's biggest ever party, Diesel have just released a viral video to promote their 30th anniversary party. The Diesel viral video, entitled SFW (safe for work) themed video is pretty hardcore as it takes old porn videos, but in typical subversive style they have carefully placed animations over the top to transform the previously 'adult' scenes' into humorous and innocent alternatives. Check out the video here - BUT BE WARNED, WHILE BEING SAFE FOR WORK, IT IS NOT FOR THE EASILY OFFENDED!


Diesel SFW XXX - Watch more free videos

Anyone can get a ticket, but their availability is limited. Check out the Diesel XXX site for more information. The ambitious event is taking place in 17 countries on the same day and the eclectic line up includes N.E.R.D., Mark Ronson, Pedro Winter, Mr Oizo & M.I.A. who has come out of retirement to play. This adds to the already buzzing rumor that Diesel are releasing a special limited edition pair of jeans for €30.

Monday, September 22, 2008

The Urban Survival Vehicle - Fiat 500 by Diesel





Not only powered by a Diesel engine, but also by the Italian denim and fashion brand of the same name. The special edition Fiat 500 by Diesel has been created by Fiat and Diesel's respective design teams. Their Urban Survival Vehicle concept is designed to navigate the busy city with added personality and style.

Thanks to it’s rivets and chrome air-vent details on the rear, nose and door pillars the military chic styling gives the cult car an added toughness. While Diesel branding is subtle, the car included many exclusive design modifications that add attitude and distinct Diesel design and fashion attitude. Diesel’s famous Mohican ‘Only The Brave’ logo is found on the 16” inch alloy wheels and chrome gear shift. The driver and passenger are greeted with the ‘For Successful Living’ claim moulded into the door sill. The tachometer and dials have been redesigned to look similar to Diesel’s distinctive watches, and even the stitching of the leather and fabric interior recalls details from denim jeans. Proving that the Diesel 500 is an exercise in attention to detail and not merely a cross branded rebadging, as has become the trend.

The car will be made available initially only online before Christmas 2008, before reaching showrooms early next year. Availablein a range of fuel efficient engine configurations, (1.2 69 bhp, 1.3 Multijet 75 bhp with DPF and 1.4 16v 100 bhp) and bronze and black colour options the car will be priced from €15,000 - €17,000.





Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Amazon Adopts New Business Strategy - Giving Away Films For Free!




The way people spend their free time is set to change yet again. The internet has rapidly been eating into into both the hours we don't send at work (as well as those that we do), taking more and more time away from the time we used to spend watching TV. Well, TV is just not quite ready to be cast aside so easily, and more than going down with a fight, it is seeing a rapid reincarnation. Most of my English friends spend their time online watching the BBC iPlayer, and now I am sure my friends in the US will have an equally time consuming distraction as the IMDB site launches its new free TV show and film service.

The IMDB (Internet Movie Database), is set to offer movies and TV programs for free. Amazon that owns the site has started to offer a range of movies as well as popular series such as Lost. New episodes from TV series that have not yet even been broadcast on TV, including the new Knight Rider series will be offered for free. Shows will include advertising, but should the film not be available, or should viewers want an ad-free experience an alternative film will be suggested that can be downloaded from Amazons video on demand digital rental site.

So, Amazon, a pioneering online success story and true company of the digital age has already shown that it is having to move to avoid it's business model coming under threat. Rather than deny the inevitable, and try to protect its online sales and rentals, by offering content for free, they will integrate an ad revenue model, which ultimately will lead to increase online sales from users that are willing to pay for enhanced and ad free content.

Amazon are clearly targeting being both 'the destination' online to buy content and to own the best sites about the content they are selling. They also recently launched SoundUnwound a new site that they want to become the 'Wikipedia' of music and bands.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

X-Rated Erotic Horror Film Marks Relaunch of Agent Provocateur Lingerie Site




Agent Provocateur, has completely revamped their website. It is not the most difficult thing to draw attention to, when you have the opportunity to legitimately show your product on scantily clad young models, but gent Provocateur do it with class and attitude in every area. They are leaders when it comes to innovating with video online, and are no newbies to video on their site. This time however they have the luxury of the web catching up with their ideas. The new x-rated style site delivers an emersive video experience. The erotic and dark theme has a combined look and feel of vintage horror and cult erotic movies - See end of this post for video. Sexy full screen action which also features an equally kitsch soundtrack.

The interactive video invites visitors to create their own path through the erotic story, and eventually decide the fate of the stories ‘Young Virgin’ protagonist. The main print campaign image also contains a hidden secret mystery to be solved. After a well made and evocative brand building experience there is a stylish online store to capitalise on all the visitors the site will have provoked.

The leading luxury lingerie brand is clearly investing heavily in online, and the site reflects and increased focus on the web, aimed at capitalising on the huge success of online sales through their site.




This campaign image contains a hidden message. Solve it to win the competition.

Tuesday, September 09, 2008

New iPods Listen To Your Music




Apple today presented a revised line of iPods in a special press event in San Francisco. The iPod shuffle and classic iPod received only minor changes, while the iPod touch received a minor design upgrade making it thinner and with a curved iPhone like back.

The biggest changes announced were to the iPod Nano line that is the thinnest iPod Apple have ever made. It returns to a similar, vertical design of the earlier 2nd generation Nano, returning to a screen format that would allow it to share some applications available to the iPhone and iPod touch, with particular focus on games, in order to increase potential sales on the already successful Apps store. The Nano does not benefit from a touch screen, but does have a newly added accelerometer, to add more fun navigation of songs and albums. Simply shake the iPod and it will produce a different shuffle of songs.

All of the iPods are cheaper than their predecessors, and with larger capaicity storage, with Apple hoping to captitalise on the sale of content to the devices from the iTunes store. It was the store that also got an upgrade with support for High Definition TV shows, a new way of displaying albums, and a neat functionality that enables iTunes to build automatic playlists of similar music. The software can analyze the songs in your library and recommend other similar songs in your library or even recommend new songs from the iTunes store. This 'Genius' playlist is described like having the worlds best DJ in your iPod. In fact the iPod touch and Nano's actually come with the functionality built into them.

Always looking for more ways to increase the sale of songs, this new function is sure to prove fun and useful for users, as well as helping generate more sales. Though Apple still seem to be missing out on many other social media ideas that could really take iTunes to the next level.

Monday, September 08, 2008

OLPC To Be Sold By Amazon - Rare Opportunity To Get Your Hands On Future Design Classic




For all of you that missed out on last years opportunity to get your hands on one of the most important computers designed in recent history, AND do your bit for the developing world at the same time, there is a second chance! The laptop in question has been developed for the much talked about One Laptop Per Child initiative, with the aim of providing a sub $100 computer for each child in developing nations. In order to avoid the issues experienced when the OLPC programe ran the same initiative last year, Amazon has been chosen to run a programme to enable United States residents to buy one of the most innovative laptops invented (that can also be powered by a hand wound generator) and for every computer sold, a second laptop will be donated to a child in a developing country. The computer will be available from November until the end of the year. Despite the computer costing only slightly more than $100, this is a price point for mass orders and not the public. The combined cost of the two computers will be set at around $380. This is set to be a design classic, as some of the industries best have worked on the project and pioneered many innovations to reduce the cost to near the $100 benchmark cost. Don’t miss out this time round.

Visit the site of OLPC for more details.

Friday, September 05, 2008

Google Knol

So the much awaited Wikipedia killer 'Knol' from Google has finally arrived, but to little hype.

Write Great Google Knols is a pretty good blog for people interested to know more about Google Knol, that is full of articles, advice and news. Of particular interest is the fact that Google are now both content and an advertising distributor, and so to watch will be how their own content is favored within Google search results. It may be an interesting platform for driving traffic, but from what I have gleaned about the site is that it is more like the blogger platform, but for individual articles rather than peope that want to write multiple articles on a subject as they would normally do with a blog.

Giant Robotic Spider Roams Liverpool Streets




Probably the only time I thought I would say 'I wish I was in Liverpool rather than here in sunny Italy' is because this weekend sees what is set to be a spectacular street theatre performance that takes in the entire city. Starting with a giant 15m tall 36 tonne robotic spider that is set to come to life on Friday night, and will then roam the cities streets. There are bound to be other creature and players in the five day production if the previous show 'The Sultans Elephant' that took place two years ago in London is anything to go by. That show was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen, albeit having only been seen online I am gutted to not be able to see this one in person. Check out the video of The Sultans Elephant in this previous post, and for more info on the performance in Liverpool check out the official site, La Machine. I shall post images and video of the event next week.

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Nokia Offer Free Unlimited Music Downloads


Nokia is aiming to take on the growing influence of the Apple iPhone by launching a new series of handsets that enable owners to download to their device and computer, an unlimited number of tracks from their library of over 2 million tracks. The cost of the service is built into the price of the phone, which is estimated to be around €300.

The service expires after one year, requiring customers to purchase a new ‘Comes With Music’ device, but the old handset will continue to work for normal phone use, and previous ly downloaded tracks can still be listened to.

This kind of packaging free music with another product or service is proving to be an interesting future model for the sale of music, aimed at getting to pay for music rather than download it for free. The only way to tackle this issue is to provide a better service than free music downloads offered on illegal P2P networks.

Nokia’s music service uses Microsofts Digital Rights Management and means that music downloaded from Nokia can’t be used on an iPod or the iPhone. This fact coupled with their policy of forcing people to buy a new handset each year, rather than offering customers the chance to pay for a new subscription seems aimed at ensuring more Nokia handsets to combat the increasing influence of the iPhone. But such a strategy goes against why the iPod and iPhone are such great success stories. Remove barriers and make things easier for the user, and you will be far more successful.

Offering a better and open service, where the revenue comes from actually selling the music seems to be a better approach that simply using the free music as a means to incentivize the purchase of a new handset seems short sighted in my opinion. In this environmentally sensitive time, and with a global recession looming, encouraging young kids to throw away technology after one year seems a little excessive.

Either way, expect to see lots more ‘Comes With Free Music’ bundled with everything, as the music industry seeks to revive itself.