Last night, Andy Lee switched on the lights of Limerick’s floating Christmas Tree. Things took a surprising turn, and the floating tree crashed into the Shannon Bridge (”New Bridge”). Major traffic chaos ensued. Road closures on the bridge and Bridge roundabout continue.

Grabbed a few pics this morning.

Love Irish Food.

Starbucks are partnering with Project RED so that for every use of a Starbucks (RED) card at participating stores, 5c is donated by Starbucks to the Global Fund for the elimination of AIDS in Africa.

More details on the Join Red blog.

Fred posts a presentation that tidily wraps up social recruitment.

On computational journalism.

Pointless carpet.

The Guards’ Chapel installation on heroes.

Ogilvy have published a nice post on Facebook’s new guidelines for promotions that businesses, agencies and the Stoked might find interesting.

Pretty Much Amazing have The XX’s Black Session at France Inter FM for download.

Lovely Aphex Twin cover.

Internet readership is almost twice the size of newspapers in the US.

Shit My Dad Says is telly-bound?

On Auden’s martini.

Everything you know isn’t a panda.

Simple McD’s wifi ad.

Time lapse of the world’s biggest team photo being erected – Spirit of Highbury. It’s a permanent exhibit showing every Arsenal player and manager. Executed by W+K. Via Welcome to Optimism.

Same guy?

SimplyZesty launched their lists and they had taken a similar approach to signup to TwitIreland. It seemed so anyway. But no. They hadn’t. It appears that they only way you can ask to be added to a list they create is by public hashtagging tweets. These hashtagged tweets are necessary. They are prerequisites.

Not very different from the Moonfruit spam bullshit that happened last Summer, except in SimplyZesty’s case their lists appeal to the ego and not to the Macbook-Pro-shaped hole in your life, right?

These lists represent social capital that SimplyZesty is producing. They are also appear to be visible demonstrations of SimplyZesty’s understanding of the Irish tweeting community, Twitter and beyond. But they are really not.

Spam, spam, spam

The really disappointing thing about SimplyZesty lists requiring users to send that hashtagged message is that it transforms a participant from being part of a community to be part of a cynical PR campaign. And plenty were fine with that.

The sad thing about this is that SimplyZesty are an online PR agency that specialise in giving advice about Social Media. They sell themselves as experts that businesses call into give advice about engaging online. Now, if experts in a tiny field treat their own users as mere meat in a flat, old-school PR approach of mention inches, not ideas then the industry is fucked before we even start.

I took issue with the way SimplyZesty posts were constantly pimped on Twitter untagged and RTed in a circuit of circlejerkery and now I take issue with the way that SimplyZesty are using people as word of mouth pawns. I don’t care if it’s a one-time thing. If SimplyZesty create a service that ends up in spamming the Twitter feed to talk about their stuff, it’s still spam. I’m kind of wondering where they go next because parts of the team seem resistant to learn a damn thing – I took issue with iFoods spamming my email many months ago. A case of blame the intern?

Flawed Thinking

It’s not just the spam issue, SimplyZesty’s list approach has a few major flaws:

Lists are limited

So what happens when a SimplyZesty list outgrows the account it belongs to? The USA and UK lists are perfect exemplars. Do we add ‘1′ or ‘2′? Adding numbers to the end of the name of a Twitter account really means that the atomicity of the original account is lost – so I want a full list of people that live in London, perhaps I’ll have to browse SimplyEngland1’s (or 2, 3, etc) Greater London for London users. Suddenly, the easy 1-click approach of lists that SimplyZesty is advocating is lost in conditions – one must search, read and find now? Scalability is now a problem.

Search already does the job and features-to-be

Typing in “near:location” ( for example, “near:Wexford”), into the Twitter search box returns the list of Twitter users that have entered Wexford as their default location in their Twitter profiles. While some may say that this is too difficult for users to manage, users seem fairly used to using Google to search every single day. Users are not ignorant.

Twitter is just a step away from making lists infinitely more usable by connecting search to list creation, maintenance and sharing. This will be definitely part of a corporate Twitter offering to organisations along with metrics and decentralised ad creation. Connecting search to lists would effectively kill the SimplyZesty effort. It’s the classic question that startups face – “is this a feature or something worthwhile – and how likely is a small effort on the part of an service provider/competitor is likely to kill on what I am working on?”

Creativity Hide-and-Seek?

Community isn’t about transparently using people online to benefit. Marketing and online PR people in Ireland are still not getting this. Requiring people to use hashtags as prerequisites  for anything, cheapens not only the user, but the service/event it is promoting. SimplyZesty and firms like them that sell Social Media expertise need to realise that and need to begin respecting their web users.

Where’s the bloody creativity? Is the mother-lode of online PR and social engagement hashtags on Twitter? Christ. We’re so far behind the UK scene, it’s scary. While they are Wright-Brothersing-it by focusing on ideas and mixed-media approaches to connecting with people on things they actually give a shit about, we’re still scratching in the dirt treating people as buzz meat and congratulating ourselves on hashtags.

We’ve been down this road again and again. Irish PR practitioners keep plugging away at the hashtags thinking it’s a saving metric for their clients. This does not work. Giving invites to Irish bloggers and Twitters to blog and tweet like zombies using hashtags does not work. In fact, the usual faces at the usual events organised by the usual people smells of shill and for sale. How many times must one say it?

Web users are partners. Online marketing and PR agencies need to work with ideas that infect us with wonder, fun, WTF .. etc. Enriching what people care about is something to focus on. The rest will follow.

When SimplyZesty came into the scene, they held so much promise.  An agency born out of the web and dedicated to the online. I really believed that they were going to make a difference. I guess I was wrong.

This year I’ve been competing in NaNoWriMo. This past week has given me the kingly number of 62 words. Out of a target 50k.

With every successive rewrite, I find myself investing word count in other places. I’ve lodged more words in blog drafts, emails and every other spot than in my .docx document. I’ve resurrected coding projects across multiple languages and platforms. I’ve begun a second book too.

Like the placing dominoes at arcane angles and daring them to fail, I’m tangoing with ”This Girl”. She has given me a kick up the arse, 62 words and an opening line that I am stealing for something else. So, I’m keeping her just to bang away on.

Kirstie and Aphrodite from Beaut.ie will be in Cork tomorrow to sign copies of their new book, the Beaut.ie Guide to Gorgeous at Easons tomorrow at 1pm. The Beaut.ie girls always write with verve and joy, so any chance to meet them in person is a treat. More details on the Beaut.ie blog.

Disclaimer: I have to ban myself from their blog at times, such is my addiction to buying cosmetics.

(Logo shamelessy robbed!)

To celebrate this birthday, the Morning Ireland team have a special show in store for us tomorrow morning stuffed chocka with loads of guests including Hanley.

The show also posted some pictures of the team way back when.

David Davin Power before Night of the Living Fianna Fáil Ard-Fheis with the august David Hanley.

The Starsky and Hutch photo. (Really, that’s what they call it!)

Do say Happy Birthday to them on Twitter or just shout it at the radio!

A brief history of artificial life.

[Next Step] Visualisation on contoured maps?

Toronto is a city of datasets. Open data, we likez.

Joe Coleman of Dublin? Via Twenty.

Urban Informatics Speech Title Generator.

8′20″ – The Ebb & Flow of Paris Traffic. Recorded from the top of the Arc De Triomphe on traffic below. More info.

Eolai is currently collecting photos of graffiti garage doors around Dublin. Lovely.

Martha lists upcoming tech events. Busy calendar!

Follow Me tattoo socks.

Angry people in local newspapers.

Phases of owning a computer.

Where the Dirty Hipsters Are

Interesting exhibition ‘Bits ‘n Pieces’ in the NYC, exploring where digital meets analogue in a post-Digital world.

Contrasting the UI of Android and iPhone for developers in terms of app customisation.

The Cookie Card! Via Nathalie.

Daily Drop Cap.

That Vodafone Symphonia spot. 1000 phones. 1812 Overtureness. Making Of Part 1 and Part 2.

[All in the shadow of last night's Leviathan egg-drubbing of Frank Fahey and Dan Boyle. The one that got away!]

Going live on TV from tomorrow. For further details in how to support Barnardos, check out their campaign site.

The Realex Payments Irish Web Awards 2009 winners list. So many talented peeps nominated. Another year of working in an amazing team. Grateful. Am sure I annoyed the heck of out patient Stephen. Video is my nemesis. * bows *

Further info on Microsoft Ireland’s coop and graduate positions here.

Trends are trending.

Prescient urban advertising.

UXing print newspapers.

iPhone app for predicting flight delays (US only at the min).

Believe in God. Instantly.

Of Disney and Menstruation

Cast of Terminus discuss the play. Opens at the Peacock stage in the Abbey on November 11th – running until early December. And the show is touring to Cork, Belfast, Longford and Galway.

Scarf – Lucinda Creighton

Hello – Brendan Halligan, Joe and Emer Costello

Tricolour

Yes Balloons

Wave of Mutilation

Monkey Gone to Heaven