Clever use of pre roll video by VW
Tag Archives: technology
When number crunchers go rogue
Now, I like my infographics. In fact you can see a bunch of them on one of the pages on this blog, but only I saw one today that I simply cannot believe. It was on this article and the infographic is below:
I simply cannot believe that mobile penetration is 91% and that only 600m people don’t have one. Penetration and subscriptions are two very different metrics – one is the number of contracts out there, the other is the number of actual people who have phones. I know many people with 2 or more phones (and therefore contracts) so this number to me feels grossly inflated by over-consumption in the Western world.
A similar feat of maths blindness comes in the shape of social networks. Frig me, pretty soon we are going to have more people on social networks than people who have internet connection. How can this be? Simple really, if you are active on social media, more than likely you will have one account for one and one account for another so there is probably a large amount of duplication here.
The premise of the story the infographic is trying to tell I have no issue with, but it’s where they use the figures to tell an incomplete/incorrect story that pisses me off.
Flippin’ virals
I have to admit this has long been coming. I saved it when I saw it but then never actually posted it.
I have somewhat of a difficult time with virals as I alluded to here and here. But when someone posts something like this my blood does somewhat boil.
Are virals still virals if they’re filmed in HD? With mobile cameras and #4GEE, that might be the future. vimeo.com/50082473—
(@EE) November 19, 2012
The problem is that viral is a consequence rather an action. The best one can do is create something that has inherent value – whether through knowledge or entertainment – and if it’s good and worthy it will be shared. It matters not if it is filmed on HD, SD or an old reel to reel tape.
And it is this basic point that annoys me about the question because it is trying to put the technology ahead of the content (again) and the viral element isn’t the technology. The technology is merely a conduit, a facilitator to both capturing it and sharing it but it’s not what makes it a viral.
Rant over, onwards to Xmas parties!
Sh*t happens when technology is the story
I thought about doing a longer post about this but frankly I couldn’t be bothered because it would just turn into a rant.
Technology is good, technology is great but never confuse technology isn’t the story. Technology is the facilitator. The latest example of the fallacy is EE.
They took this:
And turned it into this
Maybe I’m just being a bit grumpy, but what the f**k does the speed at which you watch the original video make any different to how shareable is or much you you enjoyed it? The shoddy quality of the original actually added to the realism/surrealism of the whole thing.
Personally, it shows a lack of imagination and a lack of clarity of what 4G is all about – is it really about higher quality? Is that what they’re pinning their hopes on? If so, good luck to them.
Rover and out!
