Day: 17 March 2024

Weeknotes #60: new music Monday

Busy week: concerts, work, strategy, birthday, historic paddle steamer.

Week commencing Monday, 11 March 2024

PS Ryde, a slowly rusting paddle steamer
Slowly rusting PS Ryde

Quantified Self

  • This week: Stand 5/7; Exercise 2/7 and Move 4/7. (52%). Morning walks: 0/4 (days in the office don’t count). Office days 1/4. Total steps: 54,334

Life

  • Monday evening, we headed to the Pizza Express Live (Holborn) to see Ada Morghe, perform a set. Now I am streaming her album, Box, all the time.
  • A four-day work week for me. Planning for up-coming work took a big chunk of several afternoons and, as we get closer to the go live of our new integrations, the inevitable gatherings of people to agree on the deployment details took up more time than it should.
  • An all-hands talked divisional strategy talk was interesting and I’ve broken down into team-specific talks for next week. The horizon is 12 months which seems far off.
  • Friday, PY’s birthday. Lunch was the Hanoi menu at Six By Nico, with the matching number of courses, was superb from start to finish. Initially I thought we’d do the accompanying wine flights but glad we decided against it. It would have been too much.
  • On a walk from Wooton Bridge to Newport, we passed a slowly rusting paddle steamer. It’s the PS Ryde, a paddle steamer run by Southern Railway to ferry passengers to the Isle of Wight from 1937 to 1969. They wanted to preserve it but, I guess, nobody had the money.

Specials On The Streets Of San Francisco

My San Francisco visit highlights the need for location-aware online ads.

It may be jet lag or hallucinations brought on by an overdose of blue cheese dressing, but my visit to San Francisco during the last week has convinced me of two things: there are some very smart people in the online ad business, and they’d better have a location-aware ad play by the time you’ve finished reading this. If they haven’t got one soon, then my first point was wrong.

My predictions landed on your screen on 1st January, didn’t they? Well, 109,440 minutes later (or 17th March as some know it), I’ve seen my three key thoughts in action. If they can achieve mass-market penetration, there’ll be substantial new advertising revenue around. Having seen the pieces come together now, I can really foresee huge opportunities for companies that can get scale and reach on mobile devices. And although I am in the spiritual home of internet start-ups, the tool that proved my point was created in New York, and I’ve been using it in London for some time, believing there was something in it. It’s the tool that made me the unelected mayor of two coffee shops (who should read what I have to say and get me a free coffee): Foursquare.

Foursquare is a location-aware social network mobile game (just count those buzz words and cash your VC cheque now). In a nutshell, tell your friends where you are, collect points and leave tips about great things to do. Check in (identify your current location) on your mobile phone wherever you are (my check-in stats are here). The game elements, points, value and status add to the fun. Wikipedia says there are 450,000 members/players as I write this.

As I wandered through San Francisco, I’d check in occasionally. You get more points the first time you check in, so, as I hadn’t been in town for 10 years, every check-in was a stack of points in my own personal game. But here I saw something new. A little “Special Nearby” flag would appear. Check the special, and you’ll discover offers on places nearby: $1 drinks, a frozen yoghurt discount or something for the mayor. Visit the location, check in, and show your mobile phone to the retailer to claim your discount or freebie. Simple, elegant, and it really works. There should be no reason London isn’t offering as many specials right now, but if it is, I’m going to the wrong places. In Frisco, I just kept coming across them in the central area.

This all ticks at least three of my prediction boxes just 10 weeks after I wrote them down (I’m not claiming to be Mystic Meg, just that the collision of these ideas proved themselves to me a little sooner than I thought they would)! Tick one: it is location-based, and the specials are near where you are now. Tick two: most specials are, effectively, coupons which you show to redeem. Tick three: it’s real time (by which I mean the offers are available near you now). I haven’t determined if the venues offering the reward are always open when you see the “Special”. Tick, tick, tick.

I have no idea if it will be Foursquare that goes big with this (they need more people in more places playing), but it is showing what a world of location-aware advertising could be like, and that’ll be a very appealing world to a lot of retailers. As the number of advertisers grows, a little user targeting (to ensure, of all the offers here, it’s the right one for me) will be needed, but generally, the people who will see your advertisement will be in the right place at the right time. It’s an ad proposition with lower waste and greater measurability, which is what most businesses want.

Now, I’m checking in at the airport to head home to try a check-in at Paul A Young Fine Chocolates, which are, apparently, offering free award-winning chocolate truffles if you prove you’ve checked in.

Birthday Boy

Stephen, it’s your birthday and all of us – by which I mean me – at Hello Curns (the blog for Britain – I’m thinking it might be a good slogan) would like to wish you all the best for the coming year. I’m sure it’s been a fun year – that Child Catcher costume alone must have made you laugh each day and, perhaps, put memories of that Technicolour Dreamcoat behind you. But when, dear boy (and I say that as a term of endearment rather than as some comment on your person), will you be back in the studio recording some pop tunes for us? I was most disheartened that there was no further material after the last album. Truthfully, I was one of those who thought it was great. So, I don’t think you need any brother of some bygone pop star to be your new frontman. No, stick with the solo material. Oh, and don’t drink too much tonight. Happy Birthday. 

Stephen Gately was Man of the Moment at some point in the past when we did that stuff

And in case that’s not enough, Stephen is 29, and today is Thursday, March 17, the 76th day of 2005. There are 289 days left in the year. This is St. Patrick’s Day.

Far From Heaven

Far from Heaven is a strange film set in a place called Hartford in 1957, and it really does look like it. It’s melodramatic – as all 1950s movies should be – and it’s got that feeling (you could say retro as the look is very in at the moment) which makes you think, for some reason, that Formica is the path to happiness for us all.

Cathy and Frank are a successful couple living in a well-to-do house with successful friends and the appearance of a respectable, 50s suburban family life. She lunches and hosts parties, the maid looks after the children, and he is a top salesman. The family, however, is rocked when Cathy (Julianne Moore) catches Frank (Dennis Quaid) in a passionate embrace with another man. This repressed homosexuality eventually wrecks their marriage, and Cathy finds comfort in the friendship of Raymond Deagan (Dennis Haysbert) – a black man in a time when white men and black men could not ride in the same part of the bus.

The film is certainly moving, and there are some scenes where you see and feel the emotional trauma the pair go through. The reaction of the middle classes is an insight into what, for me, seems like a different world. It’s played well, and the three leads should all be praised for their performances. Far and Heaven addresses difficult issues in an interesting way, but the 50s styling allows you to distance yourself from the characters’ feelings and opinions. I suspect that some of the fear and prejudice still lie beneath many, and this film won’t make people address them.

Some of the scenes seem too forced, stylised, or stereotypical to be carried off believably. Having said that, it’s an enjoyable film and one I would recommend.

UPDATE 24 MARCH: Sadly, Julianne Moore didn’t win for this or The Hours. However, Michael Moore did win Best Documentary Feature for Bowling For Columbine.