Some rather cosmic italo style disco from Belgium.  Vito De Luca and Stephen Fasano of Belgian duo Aeroplane's track 'Caramellas' is our hold music of the month. Hold music never felt so dreamy…

Check out other tracks from Aeroplane at http://www.myspace.com/aeroplanemusiclove

We were delighted to be joined at our meeting yesterday with IPTV Communications by Buster. Buster is only twelve weeks old(aah!!) but already has some interesting ideas on best practise for social marketing…

Just seen pop RnB man Lemar signing live in the shop window of House of Fraser Oxford St. Is it an initiative of House of Fraser's to partner with entertainers to give shoppers a new experience and a reason for them to interact with their brand on a new level? Or is it just another throwaway stunt from a pop world that is struggling to survive in the digital world…

Attention all marketers – even our local barber is running a new promotional campaign through this tough trading environment!

Great to see more quality independent digital output. This is a hilarious spoof Ross Kemp site (or is it?). The Ross stare movie, 'Eye of the Tiger' organ based theme tune and the random quote generator outputting classic comment like "Ross Kemp refuses to acknowledge the colour pink and will only call it light red" are giving us something too often lacking online - fun!

You can get Kemp'd at http://www.rosskemp.co.uk/ (look out for sightings of the Ross Kemp is a Bomb tshirt!)

The walk in to work today was like a Christmas card scene.

Last week Government announced their vision for us becoming a digital nation. Leading with the headline grabbing ‘insight’ that every home/business should have high-speed broadband connection!

On the face of it this seems like common sense thinking, if lacking in inspiration and originality.  If everyone can connect to the internet we are all a digital community. But for those of us working with this technology this headline raises many concerns.

1)       At the moment most of us with high-speed broadband connections, in reality don’t get high-speed broadband delivery, as the current network cant cope!

2)       Over 37% of the adult population cant use a personal computer

3)       24% of households in a recent survey don’t want internet connections

People need to hear what being a digital nation means and how it is going to help us all. There are great digital skills in Britain but focusing on connectivity, as the driver will fail to grab the population’s imagination and participation.

You can download a copy of the interim report via the link below:

http://www.culture.gov.uk/images/publications/digital_britain_interimreportjan09.pdf

That is the Facebook application you may have seen from Burger King. It asked you to sacrifice 10 of your Facebook friends in exchange for a free burger voucher.  Facebook took the application down voicing concerns over data protection, but is that decision really in keeping with a social network?

I can't help but wonder if Facebook could have been a bit more community lead on this and could have highlighted the power of their community and asked the whole network if they would have swapped 10 friends for a burger, a pizza, fish & chips or a kebab! In the end Facebook administrators looked like a dictator and turned a clever PR campaign from Burger King into a global discussion.

Although Burger King did come out of this a little burnt, as they neglected to flag in all campaign materials that this offer was for USA customers only…

A big welcome to Claire Lloyd. Claire joins us as our Publicity Manager.

She will be helping our clients increase their profile across new media and to also raise our own profile in the media.  Claire had previously worked with us on a campaign to promote the Maylands Business Park Gateway, securing widespread national coverage in the TV and press.