Idealog
- Business Magazine of the Year MPA Awards 2007, 2008 & 2009 Business Website of the Year MPA Awards 2009
October 19, 2006
Welcome to Idealog Weekly, the free email newsletter for New Zealand commercial creatives, entrepreneurs and anyone rich with ideas.
In this week’s issue: Silicon Welly, a Texan odyssey, life on a Mumbai footpath, colouring the estate, Pedro Almodovar’s Basic Instinct, coming home and the quote of the week.
Silicon Welly
YouTube was created just last year but already Google is ready to stump up US$1.65 billion for the video-sharing site. It’s not hard to find sceptics claiming that the dot-com mania has returned, but unlike last time round many web startups are earning good money. Rupert Murdoch paid US$580 million for MySpace, but he looks set to recoup far more than that in advertising and search revenues. YouTube itself is often panned as a company without a business model but some observers think it has always been profitable.
So where are the bright young things creating kick-ass web businesses in Godzone?
The good news is they’re out there. Take, for example, ProjectX, a team of superbright online mapping gurus who have licensed their technology to Trade Me for its Smaps website and have their sights set on providing mapping tools for the world. Consider also Star Now, an inspired site built by three Wellingtonians on their OE which introduces dancers, actors, models, musicians and reality TV wannabes to casting directors, movie and TV producers and to each other.
Read our feature about the cool new world of the web and learn why it’s a great fit for creative Kiwis—and how we can get a bigger slice of the online action.
(Although I’d like to take the credit for the snappy phrase ‘Silicon Welly’, it was actually coined by Natalie Ferguson of Decisive Flow. Coming soon: the Silicon Welly website!)
A Texan odyssey
Several Weeklies ago we pointed to a wonderful Flight of the Conchords fansite. Tonight at 9.30pm on TV3 don’t miss Flight of the Conchords: a Texan Odyssey, documenting New Zealand’s fourth-best folk guitar-based jazz, techno, hip-hop duo on their journey from Wellington to the legendary South By SouthWest music festival in Austin, Texas. Says FOTC’s Bret McKenzie: “It’s hard to describe this festival. Imagine the Masterton Golden Shears Awards, but multiply it by one thousand and replace the shears with electric guitars. Incredible.”
The Conchords are back in the States, making a pilot for HBO. Before you know it they’ll be the fourth-best folk guitar-based jazz, techno, hip-hop duo on the planet.
Life on a Mumbai footpath
Sometime Idealog contributor Philip Peacocke is recently returned from Mumbai, India, where he shot a film to help raise funds for the crowded city’s street children. “Television is full of commercials portraying poor and underprivileged children in quite a negative way and I wanted to make something more positive,” he says. “I researched Mumbai and discovered there are ten million people living in the slums and three million living on the footpaths in an area the size of Auckland. 300,000 of whom are orphans. In my mind, it intrigued me that I couldn’t picture what a footpath home looked like.
“I travelled alone to India armed with a camera and some preconceived ideas about what and how I would shoot this commercial. When I arrived, the reality of a footpath home among the rubbish was less a physical place, but a true community and much more vibrant and joyful than an average New Zealand suburban house. For two weeks I traveled all over Mumbai filming everything in sight. Everywhere we went there were children living on the streets, on trains, at rail stations.”
Philip returned to Godzone and shot a striking film with local production house Cinematic Alliance. The trailers, in 30-second and 60-second versions, are on YouTube.
Colouring the estate
Sony clearly isn’t afraid of logistics. Not long ago it rolled a bunch of technicolour bouncing balls through a British village. This time it’s taken a creative mixture of paint and high-explosive to touch up a dreary council estate. The shoot iself took ten days and 250 people; the clean-up took 60 people five days! If that was my home I think I’d rather they left the paint in place.
Pedro Almodovar’s Basic Instinct
Ever wonder what Pedro Almodovar would have made of Basic Instinct? What if Lars von Trier had directed Titanic? What would Lord of the Rings directed by Emir Kusturica look like? Neither did we, but now we know anyway, thanks to these advertisements for a Romanian film festival.
Coming home
Bill Mori spent 25 years studying and working in Sydney. Now happily ensconsed as a senior lecturer in photography at AUT, Mori is exhibiting a series of homecoming photographs called, well, Homecoming. It’s at the Artful Gallery, 1 Morgan St, Newmarket, Auckland, running until October 26. Mori will be at the gallery on Saturday from 11am to discuss his work.
Quote of the week
“For New Zealand, what is its creative edge in the world marketplace? It’s our creativity, it’s our innovation. It’s the entrepreneurial spirit that we have.”
—John Clegg of ProjectX
More at Idealog online
Read more on our website: Web exclusives, opinion, Idealog IP and the Idealog blogs. See you at idealog.co.nz.
Matt Cooney
Editor
{October 12, 2006} Previous
Next {October 26, 2006}
Previously in Idealog Weekly …
October 30, 2009: Man of the moment
October 23, 2009: By the numbers
October 16, 2009: Pavlova principles
October 9, 2009: The secret of the songbook
October 2, 2009: Free and easy
September 25, 2009: What the world wants
September 18, 2009: A slice of the pie
September 11, 2009: Walking man
September 6, 2009: A calmer kind of business
August 28, 2009: We have issues
August 21, 2009: Mincing about in waistcoats
August 14, 2009: Wired on pop culture
August 7, 2009: Trust is not a commodity
July 31, 2009: Fuzzy logic
July 24, 2009: Game of life
July 17, 2009: Grape expectations
July 10, 2009: Blade runners
July 3, 2009: Free: another word for nothing left to lose
June 26, 2009: Poorly pleased
June 19, 2009: The giver
June 12, 2009: Buggy on down
June 5, 2009: Brand Cambo
May 29, 2009: When the going gets tough, go proactive
May 22, 2009: Bayerische Wasserstoffmotorenwerke
May 15, 2009: Rugger blogger
May 8, 2009: Get on our cloud
May 1, 2009: Easy Tiger
April 24, 2009: Tiki tacky
April 17, 2009: The not-so-great indoors
April 3, 2009: A site for sore eyes
March 27, 2009: Dual control
March 20, 2009: Worth their Alt
March 13, 2009: Biofuels or bio-fools?
March 6, 2009: It's electrifying
February 27, 2009: Experience-rich and theory-poor
February 20, 2009: It's a hundred-and-fourteen-pager
February 13, 2009: Own your mistakes
February 5, 2009: Rules—made to be broken
January 30, 2009: Money: that's what I want
December 5, 2008: Framed by the thousands
November 28, 2008: Spank-branding novelty next week
November 21, 2008: In the Loop
November 14, 2008: Your good health
November 7, 2008: Misfits of science
October 31, 2008: No absence of colour
October 24, 2008: Plain-speaking Peri
October 17, 2008: Rebels with a cause
October 10, 2008: Seoulipsism
October 3, 2008: Fall seven times and stand up eight
September 26, 2008: Don't label us
September 19, 2008: Bloody Graham
September 19, 2008: Dream proposition
September 5, 2008: Taxi!!!
August 29, 2008: Up-Skilling on Idealog TV
August 22, 2008: 144 pages of pure pleasure, plus politics
August 15, 2008: Wash down that Lovemark with a Steinie
August 8, 2008: Strange journey
August 1, 2008: SMElly and happy
July 25, 2008: What a dive
July 18, 2008: Softly and woolly does it
July 11, 2008: The saviour from Timaru
July 4, 2008: Last laugh
June 27, 2008: King Kev
June 20, 2008: Slow ART
June 13, 2008: Killing two birds with methane
June 6, 2008: A combine harvester
May 30, 2008: Gold paint
May 23, 2008: Rock, out
May 16, 2008: Goodwill hunting
May 9, 2008: No wine jokes please
May 2, 2008: Who's bad?
April 24, 2008: Succession success
April 18, 2008: Out now or thereabouts
April 11, 2008: Paint by numbers
April 4, 2008: Reincarnated good
March 28, 2008: Making it
March 20, 2008: Knock three times
March 14, 2008: The customer is always tight
March 7, 2008: Beautiful words
February 28, 2008: Goodnight, I'm off to work
February 22, 2008: The art issue
February 15, 2008: Straight to the top
February 8, 2008: H for hot
December 13, 2007: Nothing in common? Perfect
December 6, 2007: Who needs a beer?
November 30, 2007: Dirty secret goes public
November 23, 2007: Don't speak
November 16, 2007: Worthy work (and free beer)
November 2, 2007: East meets best
October 25, 2007: Raid the fridge
October 19, 2007: Looking good
October 13, 2007: Can't miss it
October 5, 2007: Fresh meat delivery
September 28, 2007: If the walls had eyes
September 21, 2007: Phoenix rising
September 15, 2007: Can we fix it? Yes we can
September 6, 2007: Feats of social engineering
August 31, 2007: Doesn't bite
August 24, 2007: Telling us where to go
August 16, 2007: Tomorrow time
August 10, 2007: Going West
August 3, 2007: How to ... be your business
July 27, 2007: Freaky food
July 20, 2007: Meet the neighbours
July 12, 2007: Free Hollie
July 6, 2007: Green queen
June 29, 2007: The truth about youth
June 21, 2007: Walk this way
June 14, 2007: Times ten
June 7, 2007: The ape woman needs a label
June 1, 2007: Impossible is something
May 25, 2007: Yeah, we're still here
May 11, 2007: Trophy time
May 3, 2007: Friends with the band
April 23, 2007: Why worry?
April 19, 2007: Done by the big jobs
April 12, 2007: A rockin' good read
April 5, 2007: No fear
March 29, 2007: Out to pasture
March 22, 2007: Hip-hop and The Human Touch
March 15, 2007: Crazy Frog and Billy T
March 10, 2007: The Benadryl edition
March 1, 2007: We can be Xero
February 22, 2007: Back on board
December 15, 2006: Free beer
December 8, 2006: December 8, 2006
December 1, 2006: December 1, 2006
November 24, 2006: November 24, 2006
November 16, 2006: November 16, 2006
November 9, 2006: November 9, 2006
November 3, 2006: November 3, 2006
October 26, 2006: October 26, 2006
October 19, 2006: October 19, 2006
October 12, 2006: October 12, 2006
October 6, 2006: October 6, 2006
September 28, 2006: September 28, 2006
September 21, 2006: September 21, 2006
September 14, 2006: September 14, 2006
September 7, 2006: September 7, 2006
August 31, 2006: August 31, 2006
August 24, 2006: August 24, 2006
August 17, 2006: August 17, 2006
August 11, 2006: August 11, 2006
August 3, 2006: August 3, 2006
July 27, 2006: July 27, 2006
July 21, 2006: July 21, 2006
July 13, 2006: July 13, 2006
July 6, 2006: July 6, 2006
June 29, 2006: June 29, 2006
June 22, 2006: June 22, 2006
June 15, 2006: June 15, 2006
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Audi designer Wolfgang Egger brings the A5 Sportback to life right in front of our eyes. It’s all about three lines, apparently, but those three lines have been obsessed over. Enjoy the autospeak: the rear comes complete with both accent and elbow.
Latest issue: Betting on the bell curve
Tweeted
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Overheard
- Matt Cooney on Banking on the unexpected:
We know; the paperback came out in 2008, as the review says. It's the way he's been proven right by events that makes it topical.
(As you probably know, Taleb also (re-)appears in Malcolm Gladwell' … - Mike on Banking on the unexpected:
Great book and Author as was is his first "fooled by randomness" but no new thought breakthrough here in this article - this book (and Taleb's black swan theories) came out years ago. - malcolm rollinson on The econoclast:
At nearly 80 years of age I am filled with admiration for your opposition to Doc.
I have opposed them on other issues and am disgusted at their usually self serving attitude.If you are ever in Timaru … - Joshua Bruce on Poor fortune:
Good article - more in this space / area of innovation would be awesome. - William Lower on Social tsunami:
Thanks David. I really enjoyed reading your article, and the point about "syncing your social voice with your brand's voice" grabbed me. I have seen many companies' dialog on Facebook which … - Aaron Davidson on Picture perfect:
Great article Amanda. Luke and Team - well done. Inspiring to see what passion and commitment can achieve from anywhere.
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