A phrase one employer is using: “synergy-related headcount adjustment”

Brand Republic have an interesting article this week with some encouraging stats for those of us who work in the digital media market and have an eye on the economy

Online adspend up 21% while total ad market falls

by Jacquie Bowser, Brand Republic 07-Oct-08, 09:00

LONDON - Internet advertising expenditure grew 21% year on year in the first half of 2008 to £1.7bn as the total ad market fell by 0.7%, according to the Internet Advertising Bureau.

 If you have a spare two seconds its an interesting read, not just the article but the comments too

Our planned Roome summer outing was delayed somewhat by the sheer weight of summer holidaying going on here… something to do with the weather being rubbish and everyone needing to escape to warmer climes. Anyway, the autumn season brought with it an outing of the bone chilling variety in the shape of a Jack the Ripper tour. It was a cold night for a two hour walk around Whitechapel but drinks and sausage and mash from S&M Cafe kept us going and we sure did learn a lot of historical facts. Did you know that the road Houndsditch was originally an actual ditch that Londoners threw slaughtered cats and dogs into due to the belief they were spreading the plague? Those rats must have been laughing…

Thanks to the entertaining website that is College Humour - We get to see this lovely montage of the Man who took a photograph of himslef everyday for 17 years from the age of 31, aparantly until he got a girlfriend!! Interesting to see, says a lot about this guys life! Lovely Jazzy accompanies it too :D

http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1830530

Enjoy

Roome are wetting their yellow pants with happiness to be sponsoring Brief2008

This semi-serious social event will bring together teams of young planners, account people, designers and creatives from digital or integrated agencies to answer and present back a brief in two hours, probably under the influence of alcohol.

Brief2008 will be held on Thursday 17^th July 2008 at the Design Council on Bow Street, and has the following confirmed judges:

Iain Tait (Founder, Planning/Creative Partner, Poke)

Amelia Torode (Head of VCCP Digital)

Ben Milligan (Head of Planning, Holler)

Richard Knight (Creative Partner/Founder, Mission21)

Rachel Lawlan (Director of Integrated Strategy, DLKW)

This event will be a chance to discover what kind of thinking comes from people from different backgrounds as well as a good excuse to socialise with like-minded keeners.

Being a big fan of the 1960’s cult show ‘The Prisoner’, myself, means that I am Very excited at the news of a series remake with Sir Ian McKellen and Jim Caviezel (of The Passion of Christ fame) due to play the infamous No.6.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7483053.stm 

Be Seeing You

But really, it’s a lovely site. Well apart from the ‘Stomp’ inspired intro maybe but hang on for the graphics. Construction = cool. Who knew.

The bare faced cheek of some people is astounding

Recent web stalking has revealed a number of bloggers talking about an advertising trend in Japan based on search engine results. Instead of typing a URL into the address bar a simple sign ad tells people to type a search term instead.

 

As Stuart at Fenton Benton, Benton & Fenton points out you can try this for yourself in Firefox, but I’ve found it’s also possible to change your settings so that the result isn’t simply what you’d get if you hit the Google I’m feeling lucky button - the default option will load the number 1 ranking website of the keyword searched, instead of listing matching websites, so if like me you never rely on a lucky feeling, you can change it like this: 

In the Firefox address bar, enter about:config and then press Enter. 

In the Filter: field type keyword.url 

You should see a preference name of keyword.URL in the list. Double click it and an Enter String Value input box will appear. 

Replace the string with http://www.google.com.my/search?q= 

Click the OK button and you’re done.

Well any of you who are up on the best blogs around will have already read about this on Mr Taits blog but thought it was so great had to include it on ours. The number of times I’ve wondered whether its just me, well now I can check at http://downforeveryoneorjustme.com/

If you are trying to access a site and its not working, you’ve refreshed, you’ve waited, you’ve turned your computer on and off again, and then thought hmmm maybe its not me. Its the little things that make a difference.