SoHotRightNow!

Want to see me wear a dress for charity?

2011-11-10T20:03:00.000-08:00

Dare me to cook a BBQ at work wearing this dress?

The Dress

I'm scared, but it'll be worth it.

I'm doing this to support a charity I care for called One Girl.

One Girl's mission is to provide 600 education scholarships to girls in Sierra Leone by 2014.

My mission is to raise funds so you can have the laughing pleasure of seeing me in this dress!

If you want to see me wear this dress, donate now!

The BBQ is happening around 12pm on Friday 18th November at the Vodafone Head Office, 40 Mount Street, North Sydney.

I'll post the pics on my Facebook after the event.

Cheers,

Greg

PS: Thanks to Lisa Messenger of The Messenger Group for donating the dress. I'm not sure if I'll fit into it yet, but that makes it more of a challenge!

PPS: Here's the link again for donations: http://doitinadress.com/gregbeazley

Like: Special Patrol

2011-08-26T18:53:00.000-07:00

Brings back memories of The Prince Albert Hotel.

Changin Emily by Special PatrolChangin Emily

Here's some other classics:

Random Background Drumming: The Honey Pies [VIDEO]

2011-05-15T05:04:00.000-07:00

Recorded during The Honey Pies' first recording session at Hillside Studios when it used to be just myself on drums and Jon Marco on everything else. We jammed on some good stuff and this video is filmed by Jono whilst I bashed on the drums in the background.

That was back in 2007, but since then The Honey Pies have become a full band and are taking their strides in the moozic biznesss!

They've also just released their first studio album "Think Of England"

The Honey Pies:

Twitter @thehoneypies

Benny Bucket: Head Banging [VIDEO]

2011-05-09T20:28:00.000-07:00

Benny Bucket has had one dream his whole life: to play the guitar. Seeing life through a green bucket makes this dream hard to pursue. However, once Benny befriended Johnny Milk Crate he unlocked a whole new world of inspiration...

The Art of FLIGHT - snowboarding film trailer w/Travis Rice [VIDEO]

2011-04-18T18:13:00.000-07:00

Amazing: Three 8 Year Olds Krumpin' Freestyle [VIDEO]

2011-02-18T18:32:00.000-08:00

Jose Pasillas Performs at Guitar Center's Drum-Off 2009 [VIDEO]

2011-02-07T05:11:00.000-08:00

Best drummer EVER!!!

If you want to find out Jose Pasillas's drum set and cymbal set up, check this out and have a go at the cymbal builder yourself: http://www.drumsetcymbalsblog.com/drum-set-cymbals/sabian-cymbals-set-up-builder

I use SABIAN cymbals, just like Jose Pasillas II. My favourite type of cymbals at the moment are SABIAN AAX. You can get a sweet deal from zZounds on a SABIAN AAX Cymbal Pack (which I wish I got) for under $700. That's heaps cheaper than what I paid when I bought my set-up.

Big Scary [MUSIC]

2011-01-03T15:05:00.000-08:00

One of the best bands at Falls Festival 2010. They're gonna do big things this year. Keep your eye out!

Here's their myspace: http://www.myspace.com/bigscaryband

Don't forget to vote for them in the Triple J Hottest 100: http://www.abc.net.au/triplej/hottest100/10/vote/default.htm

My Blackberry Is Not Working! - The One Ronnie, Preview - BBC One [VIDEO]

2010-12-22T17:56:00.000-08:00

eMarketer Webinar: Key Digital Trends for 2011 [PRESO]

2010-12-20T16:52:00.000-08:00

Thanks for sharing @simuddell

eMarketer Webinar: Key Digital Trends for 2011

View more presentations from eMarketer.

Waitakere City Council Ad Campaign: Car For Sale [VIDEO]

2010-12-13T23:48:00.000-08:00

Very creative and effective ad.

Young racers don't listen to road safety advertising. So Ogilvy Auckland created this unique campaign to directly target them in Waitakere City.

Check it out. It's worth the watch.

The Temper Trap 'Down River' with Mumford & Son's Live [AUDIO]

2010-08-02T15:43:00.000-07:00

I wish I was there :(

Old Spice Odor Blocker is SoHotRightNow! [VIDEO]

2010-07-08T18:31:00.000-07:00

If this isn't SoHotRightNow! then I don't know what is.

Advertising at its best.

Extreme Free-Running Gymnastics [video]

2010-05-19T01:54:00.000-07:00

Ok, so this not the usual post, but it's certainly SoHotRightNow!

Gymnast Damien Walters pushes free-running to the limit, tumbling and flipping off buildings and cars with seeming ease.

Check it out!

Visa Turns Your iPhone Into A Credit Card

2010-05-18T07:15:00.000-07:00

Visa announced a new product today called, In2Pay. In2Pay (developed by DeviceFidelity) is basically a 'contactless payment system' for the iPhone which allows you to use the phone as a credit card.

The payment method uses a modifies microSD card with a near-field communications (NFC) chip inside. Because the iPhone doesn't yet feature a microSD slot, the card has to unfortunately sit in a case that powers the chip to make payments. In2Pay would simply work by holding your iPhone up to a compatible reader and making a transaction.

The basic idea is good but it makes me wonder about the security of ensuring someone has actually paid for the item or made the transaction. Imagine you could just walk into a shop pretend to scan something in action of purchasing it and proceed to walk out. Meanwhile the shopkeeper would be left questioning what just happened? I guess to solve this there would need to be some sort of magnetic strip or attached to raise an alarm if an item was stolen. Regardless, if Visa have backed the idea, I'm sure they have thought long and hard about the pros and cons and how to overcome instances like this.

The other side to this is that despite In2Pay aiming to free you from carrying a wallet and allowing you do everything with your phone is that:

Is it more convenient than a wallet if in order to use the service it requires carrying a case for the microSD? The video below seems pretty convincing.
Assuming that In2Pay would be connected directly to a Visa card, would there be an opportunity to connect it to your bank (direct debit) or your phone bill?

If bank, fine.
If phone bill, how will this affect mobile carrier's ability to pay for the goods in advance? Will this be an opportunity for the Telco to charge the consumer credit card fees to purchases?
When would the supplier of goods receive their funds?

Overall I think it's a fantastic idea and I'd certainly use it. It looks very simple to use too. Check out the video below.

And I agree with Wired with the thought that soon, almost all payments will be made using mobile phones, even the ones that involve paying your friend back that dollar he owes you.

But, one thing to always be mindful of - just don’t lose that phone!

Water Pistol - WaterAid Cannes Young Lions Ad Contest 2010

2010-05-16T16:23:00.000-07:00

Copywriter, Gavin Chimes from M&C Saatchi / Mark Sydney created this intriguing ad called "Water Pistol" for WaterAid as part of the Cannes Young Lions Ad Contest 2010.

Check it out and show your support by sharing or rating it!

Follow Gavin Chimes on Twitter.
Subscribe to his YouTube channel.

How the iPad will turn TV viewing social

2010-05-13T07:14:00.000-07:00

I've always been told by internet marketing gurus that "content is king" and it seems many companies out there are starting to broaden the accessibility of content on demand.

Telstra are creating IPTV partnerships with LG and Samsung so customers can stream BigPond movies for free. They've also launched the T-Box: a set-top box that links into the BigPond content network and most recently, the T-Hub, which also aims to drive content (like Social Networking, News, Weather, Music etc.) through a fixed line home phone touch-screen interface.
Verizon have also been pushing their FiOS TV, delivering TV and movie content through fast fiber-optic cable.
iiNet are soon to be on the content bandwagon when they launch FetchTV, which also delivers TV and movies through an internet connection.
Sony's PlayTV is another 'game changer' because PSP users can now watch, pause and record high-definition digital TV. It also offers an easy to use programme guide and the ability to record live TV while watching other channels and manage your recordings with the interactive video library. Play PS3 games and record TV shows at the same time, plus if you're around a wireless connection you can watch TV on the go.

The other key player in this is of course, Apple. The release of the iPad has spawned a new category within the mobile device industry and the content opportunities have and will continue to follow.

With all this talk about TV content, check out Comcast's new Xfinity Remote. The iPad app lets you peruse the programming guide, operate your cable box, schedule DVR recordings, and even invite friends running to app to watch live shows with you (virtually, of course). Better still, you can actually search On Demand options using the onscreen keyboard, a feature that isn’t available to us subscribers using our traditional remotes.

Comcast CEO Brian Roberts shows off the Xfinity Remote prototype at the Cable Show 2010.

What do you think will be the next evolution in driving TV content or content in general?

Swipely: Would You Share What You Purchase?

2010-05-13T06:27:00.000-07:00

So when you buy stuff quite often you'd probably tell your friends about it: whether it's good, bad and what they think of the product or service. Well, how bout sharing your purchases through a social network to achieve the same reaction?

Enter Swipely. Swipely is a service that aims to make your purchases more social. But rather than focus on the money, they focus on the transactions themselves. Although similar to Blippy, another 'social purchasing service' (is that what you call it?), founder Angus Davis believes the key idea behind Swipely is to “add value to every swipe”. What he means by this is that with every swipe of a credit card, Swipely wants to make that information more useful to both you and your friends. It’s not about how much you’re spending (Swipely doesn’t show that), but rather, where you’re spending your money and what you’re buying.

And rather than automatically posting each of these transactions, by default, you choose what you want to post. You can choose if you want to post just purchases made at restaurants, for example. When you do so, the hope is that it sparks up a conversation about the transaction. For certain items, Swipely can easily populate what you bought thanks to a large database of menus and store catalogs. For other things, you can simply leave a comment below a transaction, just as you see below items on services like Facebook. And yes, your contacts will be able to “like” anything you buy.

Swipely from Swipely on Vimeo.

I can see this service working in close connection to Foursquare and other location based services, where you'll be able to publish your purchases through an app, if you choose for it not to be linked to your credit card.

What do you think? Would you be happy to use a service like this and publish to your social network what you're purchasing? Would the choice of what you publish be useful? Would you be sceptical about security and credit card fraud - especially after what happened with Blippy recently?

Read more: TechCrunch

Facebook Plan to include "Check-ins" through a "Places" tab

2010-05-12T02:11:00.000-07:00

As TechCrunch and Mobile Marketing Watch report, it seems Facebook is planning to incorporate a geolocation "Check-in" functionality by including a "Places" tab to the Facebook menu.

It's been identified through inspecting the Javascript on the touch.facebook.com version of the site. It's been developed using HTML5 and has been optimized for phones with touchscreens like the iPhone and Android phones.

Visiting the touch-screen optimized version of Facebook causes the site to hang for an extended period of time, indicating that code being called isn’t working properly. Digging deeper with debug mode enabled reveals that the site is attempting to populate something called the “places_tab.” Since this feature (presumably tied to Facebook’s geolocation functionality) isn’t yet enabled, the error is thrown out. Mobile Marketing Watch

It's thought that once the Javascript loads, your location is recognised and you'll be taken to the Places tab and presented with a list of venues around you. From here you can click a button to check-in. Apparently, it will not only record your latitude and longitude, but also your altitude, heading, and speed. The benefit of this (if true) will mean that it may help curb cheating of "Check-ins" that has been a problem for other location services like Foursquare.

At this stage the service is still in speculation, but it makes sense that Facebook would be considering this move to compete with the likes of Foursquare and Gowalla.

TechCrunch also stated that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been in talks with Foursquare co-founder Dennis Crowley. Could this mean a partnership is on the cards or will they stay head-to-head?

What do you think?

"Worldlenns" iPhone app: Augmented Reality Social Integration

2010-05-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

"WorldLenns" is a new iPhone app developed by the unique startup, QderoPateo. If you've never heard of QderoPateo before, they are interesting company specializing in their own brand of augmented reality known as “Articulated Naturality”.

Today the company announced its first mobile app known as “WorldLenns”, which is an augmented reality app for the iPhone 3GS that incorporates “SpaceTagging,” a concept pioneered by QderoPateo to allow users to “touch and tag the real world.”

It's been dubbed as the “first augmented reality fan social interaction tool", which allows users to take a picture, upload it, and even leave a virtual note for other users to see - it’s a social-based augmented reality experience that integrates digital information with the real world.

How does it work?

A user opens up the app, signs in and is presented with several “channels” to choose from. These channels include things like “tag your moment”, “tag your deal” and “tag something tasty”. The user chooses what category they’d like to tag, and the app goes into camera-mode to allow the user to start tagging the physical world around them. The user can then tag real-world objects and locations which is then available for other users to stumble upon and contribute to.

Mobile Marketing Watch calls it "Foursquare on steroids". The mobile marketing opportunities are beyond Foursquare's reach. My thoughts are that the next level of an app like this will be an aggregator of all social platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Foursquare etc. so the user can select what information they would like to see and can interact in their own way. For example, you might eventually be able to hold up your camera phone and visualise people's Facebook status or their latest Tweet. Then you'll have options like, become their friend on Facebook, follow them on Twitter, and request their contact details. Sounds freaky, I know, and this will obviously unlock a whole bunch of privacy issues, but the technology is there and it's only a matter of time before it happens.

My other thought about taking this technology to the next level is for advertisers and gamers (see previous post), whereby companies will be able sponsor locations and/or monuments such as the Sydney Opera House. Imagine Coca-Cola wrapping the Sydney Opera House in advertising that's only visible to those using Augmented Reality? Imagine if XBox could transform what the Sydney Opera House looks like into a Castle as a destination to earn points for WarCraft? The possibilities are endless!

Remember the 3D shark in Back to the Future??

WorldLenns is now available on the iPhone and you can get it here or from iTunes.

Reference: Mobile Marketing Watch

Celebrity Doppleganger Week Becomes A Hit, Followed By Urban Dictionary Names

2010-02-08T06:25:00.000-08:00

As posted on AllFacebook.com, celebrity Doppelganger’s were all the rage over the past week on Facebook. It was just as big as the Facebook Bra Colour campaign that happened back in early Jan. With a large number of Facebook users changing their profile photos to images of their celebrity look-a-likes, Facebook users appeared to start a new trend: weekly viral games. As such, users attempted to spark a new trend last week: Facebook Urban Dictionary week. While not everybody participated in the game, a large number of people flocked to the Urban Dictionary website to find out what their name meant.

What makes the Urban Dictionary viral campaign exceptionally interesting is that Urban Dictionary had nothing to do with it, yet they’re enjoying the love from the community and the spike in traffic. According to Urlesque.com who got in touch the founders of Urban Dictionary, the viral campaign came as a complete surprise to them.

“Many thanks to whoever started it! We've been working hard the past few days to make the site perform well, now that so many people are visiting. It will be interesting to see what happens next!”

Interesting to see how such a simple little idea can turn viral without even planning on it. Seeing that these ideas drive huge levels of traffic to websites/fan pages, I wonder at what extent does it have the strength to convert sales. Although I couldn't find the stats myself, it would be interesting to find out whether they had an increase in sales, sign-ups and fans.

Google Wave: A Clever Example Of What's Possible

2009-11-07T21:46:00.000-08:00

Pulp Wave Fiction

Good Wave Hunting

To see the original post about Google Wave click here.

O2 launches Giffgaff - a new SIM only mobile network

2009-09-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

The new network, named Giffgaff, has positioned itself as a ‘people-powered’ mobile network, using online recommendation activity and product innovation to reward customers with money off their mobile bills.

Similarly to Virgin Mobile, Woolworths, DoDo and TPG here in Australia, Giffgaff will work off the back of O2’s network but will not highlight the O2 brand.

Giffgaff, which is an olde worlde word that means ‘mutual giving’, will operate on a low cost base and offers fixed rate SIM only tarrifs and a range of online tools to allow members to suggest answers to each other’s questions in online user groups. To join, customers need to simply purchase a SIM card at an initial top-up fee of 10 pounds.

Members will then be rewarded for things like referring Giffgaff to a friend, creating user-generated marketing, or voting on business decisions. The more that members get involved, the more money they will get off top ups.

The basic idea behind this new network is to keep telecommunications as simple as possible while adding a social element into the mix to generate interest and to promote the new offering.

Here’s Giffgaff’s explanation as to why consumers should give them a go:
• One simple tariff for voice, text and data.
• We’re online only, which saves us money, which means we can offer you brilliant prices.
• Your calls become cheaper the more you get involved.
• There's no long-term contracts and you can use any existing ‘unlocked’ handset.
• The option to donate your rebate to a charity or cause you care about.
• Play a role in deciding what services we offer.

Giffgaff launches before Christmas 2009 with the pricing model and other unannounced features and benefits to be revealed. Customers can’t preregister at this time, but can leave their email address to receive updates.

Interesting idea and certainly one to watch.

Brand Republic.
Marketing Magazine.
Mobile Industry Review.

Indian Farmer's Control Water Pumps With Their Mobile Phone

2009-09-02T03:39:00.000-07:00

This is a classic example of how Indian Mobile Operator, Tata Teleservices are using innovative mobile technology to help people in rural areas.

Using a wireless automation system called Nano Ganesh, farmers are able to monitor and switch on irrigation pumps remotely.

Farmers would usually walk kilometres to water their crops, but due to India's erratic power supply there's often no electricity available to power the irrigation pumps. Now, farmers can simply dial a code from any phone to a wireless receiver attached to the pump's starter, which then tells the farmer if there's electricity available and if gives them a choice to turn the pump on or off.

The service is currently being trialled and costs $56 (US) for the system, plus mobile phone costs.

Website: www.nanoganesh.com

Nokia to Launch Mobile Bank Accounts in 2010

2009-09-01T06:35:00.000-07:00

It's been confirmed that Nokia will enter the mobile banking market in 2010, after they recently purchased a stake in the mobile payments company Obopay. The launch of Nokia Money will allow users to pay for products, pay bills, top-up SIM cards using their mobile phone. It will also allow customers to send money to their mates just by using the person's phone number.

In amongst their plans, Nokia will aim to build a network of Nokia Money agents, or Automatic Teller Machines (ATMs) to be more flexible with their customer base.

Although Obopay already exists in a WAP format (see the iPhone demo below), Nokia predict that mobile payments will be the next big thing in the financial services industry.

Nokia could bring banking access to hundreds of millions of people, both urban and rural, who are undeserved by existing payment means, especially in emerging economies.

As Mary McDowell, Nokia executive, said:

"In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage, suggesting that many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services. With more than 4 billion mobile phone users and only 1.6 billion bank accounts, global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services such as Nokia Money."

The service will be available across different operator networks and on virtually any mobile phone, rolling out in Germany in September, before launching in specific markets in 2010.

What are the other benefits to consumers and opportunities for Telcos?

This could significantly increase the use of mobile devices in general.
Potentially break the age barrier of under 18y.o. Pre-Paid customers who don't own a credit card, to recharge their service on the run.
Safety or convenience - send someone in need, money for extra credit, or to catch a cab late at night, or even in case you just need an extra $10 to buy that thing in the shop window.
Gift - even though its still more exciting to get money from your Grandma when its tucked away in your birthday card, Grandma could instead get all tech savvy and send you money via her mobile phone. Wow, what a treat!

I'm sure there are many other benefits and opportunities, so if you think of any, please leave a comment.

Cheers,
Greg

Read the original article by Dan Leahul from Brand Republic 28 August 2009.