Loic talks sex. Again.

My first Sephora

Parisian biscuits

Fay Presto. Magician. Legend.

Bus Radio - just Google-style evil?

I just read on Boing Boing that the same Florida county giving away free McDonald's Happy Meals to clever children has introduced Bus Radio, which advertises to kids on the journey to school.

Is this as bad as we think? I've been concerned for while that everything cool service I use (Gmail, Blogger, Flickr, Twitter, Vuze etc.) is free and paid for by advertising.

This is the Google way. Is it evil? Possibly. Do I like free cools things? Definitely. Am I being brainwashed? No. I don't even see the ads, except the ones I like.

The only reason people are getting upset about Bus Radio is because they think of the poor, defenceless children being advertised to while on the bus. Bus Radio hasn't done itself any favours by refusing to disclose who its advertisers are. As a result, the negative reactions across the web have been plentiful. Note that Bus Radio does say they the companies will be 'carefully selected'.

But if our children are all going to grow up in an advertising-funded world, perhaps it's a good thing that they're learning to filter out the corporate messaging early on? After all, the Governments aren't going to pay for music and educational programmes for our children as there's no obvious return. They're busy spending our money on war. And nuclear power stations. And space travel.

We can all agree that kids are going to enjoy having music on the bus. If the advertisers are the only ones willing to fund it, all power to them.

But if Bus Radio 'carefully selects' McDonald's as an advertiser, then it's time to have a word.

An exercise in copywriting

European champion triathlete Olly Freeman is sponsored by Mazda. As a result, he is quoted in advertorials for Mazda cars in men's magazines. The articles are about training for a triathlon, and the challenge he faces. But then the corporate messaging hits you like you've just been run over by a sports SUV with a 2.3 DISI turbo engine that produces 260ps (whatever that means)...

"My sport gives me the mentality of constantly striving for excellence and that transfers to everything in my life," says Freeman. "It's especially true when choosing a car, because with all the travelling to and from training and race locations, driving is like a fourth discipline. With an exciting drive and plenty of room in the back for my triathlon kit, the Mazda CX-7 has everything I need from a car."

Subtle.

Brrr

My week in media: Meme me up

My Best Frenemy has tagged me in the 'my week in media' meme that's flitting about at the mo. In my view it's one of the duller memes (RSS feeds, Radio 4 and my PVR seem to be common answers) but it'd be rude not to respond. And I'm certainly not rude.

What I've read

The Mirror, The FT, The Mail, The Times (on Saturday - it was embarrassingly awful) and the Metro. Not all of them every day, of course, as that would be silly. But if I've read 10,000 words in those publications, I must've read a million on Twitter, my RSS reader, email, the web, the TV, billboards, and the backs of shampoo bottles. Oh, and Men's Health. I never miss an issue. Plus I read and write for a living, so there'll be a few press releases, opinion pieces, feature synopses and letters in there. I'm also trying to read Stuart Maconie's Pies and Prejudice. Loved Cider with Roadies and everything his mate Andrew Collins has ever written.

What I've watched

Lots and lots and lots of crap. Just in the last day I've watched a few minutes of Ten Years Younger, How To Look Good Naked, Extreme Makeover, Extreme Makeover Home Edition, Extreme Makeover UK, Grand Designs, A Place In The Sun, Property Ladder, Big Brother Celebrity Hijack, Star Trek (The Next Generation), Top Gear, Pop Years and Top of the Pops 2. I viciously flick through all the Sky reality, lifestyle and comedy channels. Then I move to music channels, and spend hours watching videos like this one. We also have BBC News on all day on the big screens at work, and Sky News in the toilet (read into that what you will). On DVD it'll be films, films, films, then The Mighty Boosh, Nathan Barley and 24.

What I've listened to

I don't have a journey to work where I can listen to music or read - I ride a motorbike so have to concentrate / hold on for dear life. At the weekends I listen to the radio in the car and flick between (in order of my radio presets) Radio 1, Radio 2, Capital, Heart, Magic and Radio 4 every few minutes. At home I listen to iPod playlists featuring Jason Mraz, Kanye West, Biffy Clyro, Turin Brakes and Justin Timberlake on my Kensington SX-2000 while cooking extravagant meals. I'm obsessed with Tori Amos, so listen to at least one song of hers every day. I hate podcasts, because they are all rubbish.

What I've surfed

Who started this meme? This isn't supposed to be everything, is it? That would be silly, and possibly incriminating. Mainstream news includes the BBC, Guardian and Times. I'm rarely off YouTube, Twitter and Google. I love Boing Boing and Crave. If there was one site, and only one, that I could keep reading it would be B3TA. I have 2619 unread items in my RSS reader. Send help.

That's it. I get it now - that was fun to write.

I tag Wade, Will, Morgan, Paul, and Sam.

Scoble live

Check the bit when I ask whether Plaxo's method of chasing you down is too aggressive... He says "Plaxo has its own problems. Aggressively spreading its love is one of them." (And he also admits to driving while QIKing. But it's all part of the rule-breaking, risk-taking, facebook-shaking Scobleizer.)


VIDEO REMOVED FOR BEING TOO ANNOYING


And he's back on Facebook, if you hadn't heard.

Scoble banned from Facebook

Scoble's Facebook account has been suspended. It appears that the script he was using infuriated an automatic bot scanner that temporarily kicked him off.

I'm sure he'll get reinstated quickly (after all, it's a bit of a balls up when you consider his online following) but I want to know what he was doing!

He's not going to talk about the script until he speaks to its developer, which is understandable. But the whole affair has kicked off a great debate about who owns your data when you muck about online.

But was he measuring his own data, scanning other people's Facebook accounts for mention of himself, or secretly trying to force passwords of those that have infuriated him in the past? The developers of the Kindle, perhaps?

We'll have to wait and see...

UPDATE - Mike Butcher notes that he was probably trying to download his 5,000 contacts - sounds like a fair request to me. Unlike Drew I think Facebook will leap to reinstate him.

Best present

On the back it actually says "Do not use on eyes".