POST DIGITAL

ON: TheBar.com In Second Life

Alcoholic drinks supremo Dieago is hosting thebar.com in Second Life, stocking the online world with a much needed tipple or two. The brand has launched a virtual ‘Bar Kit’ available in select bars and nightclubs, such as popular Irish pub ‘The Blarney Stone’ http://slurl.com/secondlife/Dublin/80/106/26/26/.

The Bar will allow greater interactivity for virtual drinkers, linking drinkers through their choice of booze, with animations for toasts and not restricted by troublesome things like opening hours and the last train home.

Virtual development was handled by Millions of Us and of course the requisite Virtual Bar Crawl has already taken place.

http://thebar.com

ON: 7digital and Bebo

7digital and Bebo have announced an exclusive partnership which will allow 31 million Bebo users to download music direct from the site. In a direct challenge to the already struggling high street music stores, over 450,000 registered Bebo Bands can now sell their music via Bebo and will be eligible for a position in the charts.

Integrating 7digital’s indiestore service into Bebo Bands will allow the popular social network to offer the service to users in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Ireland. 7digital has also developed a widget which will promote the sales of downloads direct from artist’s user pages and via SMS. www.bebo.com

ON: The Art of the T-Shirt

I am a t-shirt and jeans type of creative - rare that i do the suite thing - I only do it for the clients...however if you know me my rebellion always happens in my footwear!  All of that said I have found  a great new t-shirt design site called ClickShirt.  Get jiggy with your shirt art!

Visit http://www.click-shirt.com/

ON:Earth Hour

At 7:30pm on the 31st of March thousands of buildings along the Sydney skyline will be taking part in the annual Earth Hour event by switching off the lights for an hour.

The ambitious event, organized by Fairfax Media in collaboration with WWF Australia, is a hoping to make a huge statement about global warming and how simple the steps are to help prevent it. So far 600 businesses and restaurants and tens of thousands of homes have signed up, including Nestle Australia, Coca-Cola, ANZ Banking Group Limited and St George Bank.

The new campaign kicks off Sydney's 2007 objective of reducing greenhouse emissions by 5%. As well as turning off lights, earth hour are urging those involved to unplug any appliances that are not being used and anything left on standby.

Although it is early days for Earth Hour, the wider goal is to start up similar events around the globe, moving the event to cities such as London and New York, with possibility of one day staging a mass global turn off. Followed by a mass global baby boom, no doubt.

The campaign is being promoted both online, print and on TV with a beautifully shot commercial from Leo Burnett Sydney featuring a voice-over from actress Cate Blanchett.

Earth Hour are also relying of word-of-mouth, calling for those signed up to get others involved. So if you’re home at 7:30, give it a go, turn everything off and enjoy a nice candle lit dinner for once.

http://earthhour.smh.com.au/   

ON:Lonely Planet TV

Yet another video beta.  Enter Lonely Planet TV. Focusing on consumer travel this new travel video channel, packed with stuff shot all over the world by Lonely Planet TV and independent travelers like you.

ON:Get The Glass

Now that the advertising industry has finally got its head round digital creativity, we’re at an interesting crossroads. The potential for interactive experiences and stunning creative is expanding every day, as bandwidth expands and consumers spend more time online. So far, so obvious. However, a new site created by North Kingdom in Sweden is provoking some debate in the blogosphere for being…well, ahead of its time.

The site in question is a continuation of the Got Milk campaign, at www.gettheglass.com. Based around the idea of a boardgame, users navigate stunning graphics to get the milk-deprived Adachi family around all five regions of the board and into Fort Bridge to get the glass of milk. While this is going on Fort Bridge security are hot on your tail, ever-ready to ship you off to ‘Milkatraz’.

So why so controversial?
Because it’s sooooooo slow, that’s why. On a broadband connection, on am mac using firefox I think our Internet connection’s probably as good as most, yet each page and stage of the game takes around a minute to load.

Once you get going, it’s a lot of fun, but haven’t we spent the last two years trying get people to understand that online experiences must be customized for optimal usage? How many calcium deficients do you know with that much free time on their hands? And just because you CAN make a site look that beautiful, does it mean that you SHOULD at the expense of functionality?

Check it out fr yourself! www.gettheglass.com 

ON:comScore's Primetime Video #'s

Nearly 123 million people in the U.S. (70 percent of the U.S. internet audience) viewed 7.2 billion videos online in January, according to comScore's Video Metrix service (via MarketingVox). On average, each video streamer viewed 59 streams - nearly two videos per day - and viewed 151 minutes of video online during the month; average viewing time per video was 2.6 minutes.

Google was the top streaming video property in January, as measured by total unique streamers (54.7 million) and total video streams initiated (1.167 billion). Google's YouTube.com alone accounted for 992 million video streams initiated.

comScore's analysis of U.S. video consumption by daypart showed that people were more likely to view video on weekdays than on the weekend. Peak relative viewing - 60 percent higher than average - occurred between 5:00 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on weekdays.

That's just as traditional TV prime-time usage begins to ramp up, according to MediaPost, which cites Nielsen data, according to which traditional TV primetime, which occurs from 8 p.m. to 11 p.m. every day except Sunday (7 p.m. to 11 p.m.), has been stable for the past several years, accounting for about 23 percent of all daily viewing.

Meanwhile, the highest relative video consumption on weekends occurred between 7:00 p.m. and 11:00 p.m., when streamers viewed 31 percent more video than average.

"Marketers have a great opportunity to leverage Internet video in conjunction with their traditional TV buy and essentially double their 'primetime' commercial airing hours," said Erin Hunter, executive vice president of comScore. "'Primetime' TV viewing occurs between 8:00 and 11:00 P.M., while 'primetime' viewing of online video occurs during the preceding block of time – between 5:00 and 8:00 P.M. on weekdays. Shrewd marketers will utilize a multi-channel strategy to capitalize on these adjacent 'primetime' blocks in order to maximize their marketing impact.”

comScore Video Metrix measures online video content served through all major formats, including Flash, RealPlayer, Windows Media, QuickTime and DivX. The service, which is based on streaming activity among U.S. Internet users, does not include measurement of digital rights management (DRM) content (which is paid, encrypted content), online videos viewed through peer-to-peer (P2P) applications, or offline viewing of video content.

ON: Hot Ice Breakers Spring Break Videos

What did you do this past spring break?  This video is one of several videos that have criss crossed the net.  Enjoy Whoa! Moments - Citrus Relay Race.

ON: Piczo and Microsoft

Just got word through my Twitter community that Piczo is set to announce an ad deal with Microsoft on Monday. 

However, this isn’t a Facebook-type deal, or one that will be considered a consolation prize as Google sneaks away with ad deals for MySpace and Friendster. This is smaller and UK-only.  Microsoft Digital Advertising Solutions becomes Piczo’s exclusive UK ad sales partner across all communication formats and market categories. Piczo is handing over its UK ad sales to Microsoft.

Piczo claims 25 million users globally, 2 billion pageviews monthly and a reach that extends to two-thirds of UK teens according to ComScore. Look out for a Microsoft announcement on Monday.

ON:The Breach

Unless you're hiding under a rock, you've heard something about the movie "The Breach." It seems to be everywhere, and everyone is discussing it. I haven't seen the movie yet, but was so glad to see that with the importance of interactive in today's media mix, the time was spent for more than just a run-of-the-mill movie website.

There is solid video streaming, with a nice layout and quick responses; a good selection to choose from and more than just the regular photo gallery and cast and crew-for example, there's a fake FBI exam and an "Uncover the Mole" game. Some real time and effort was put in, and I think it paid off. I felt engaged from the time I landed on the site and wasn't let down as I moved through the rich content and interesting features.

Check it out at http://breachmovie.net/