URL 1

URL 2

Then use CTRL+Tab to scroll between the tabs.

Slowly, at first. Then faster, preferably until the two websites blur into a swirling mass of oneness, like a fairground carousel under the influence of eyesight depleting substances.

As ASOS_James put it, “How do these people sleep at night?”

I’m not saying they copied, just that it’s the sort of inspiration that begs the question of authenticity. Enjoy the free PR James

Item #1 : ASOS? As Seen On Screen subject to the old adage ‘imitation is the best form of flattery’ .With so many high street retailers following the path ASOS carve, B2W have perhaps been a little less subtle in their copying of ASOS design template.

Item #2: B2W? Born2Wear seem to have adopted even ASOS copy.”Hello, is this AS-OS, you’re lo-ok-ing fo-or?”

For larger versions click the thumbnails below…

Google’s browser is expected to permanently steal the top spot from Internet Explorer at the end of April, though it’s been flirting with the crown for some time now.

And interesting Chrome seems to pip IE at weekends as people use Chrome at home, before returning to work where browser choice is enforced from on high.

As Andrew Ball puts it, “the weekend figures seem to indicate that Google Chrome has already won the people’s choice award.”

The obvious question is how?

The reasons are manifold. The simple answer is, it’s simply more in tune with the needs (some we didn’t previously know about) that Google fulfils.

Synced bookmarks and history, add ons that don’t crash it and easier control of personal data. (It’s not perfect mind, but it’s user friendly at least). Oh and a whopping advertising budget probably helped too.

Perhaps Microsoft assumed they could protect their share by lassoing IT departments into their servers, software and browser. Perhaps, if the people win out, those days are numbered…

There’s little doubt her article bemoaning her own beauty was misguided, whether because you disagree with her high regard for her looks, or detest her abysmal view of the female of the species. Or perhaps just her self-centred living-in-a-dream-world attitude to life.

Is Samantha a fool for writing such codswash, or a genuis for raising her national (and international) profile quicker than a coked up Charlie Sheen on a rocket launcher? (What’s next? I’m A Celebrity call up? A book deal? Piers Morgan Life Stories?)

The Daily Mail are the real winners – 1.5 million web hits and counting, leaving most retailers luminous green with envy at the robustness of the newspapers server capacity (you would expect they are used to this type of thing after their huge growth, and thanks to Jan Moir). Not to mention their ability to serve banner ad trash to another seven figure audience.

Ultimately though, the Samantha Brick story tells us more about our society today than most blogs or wikis or encyclopaedias could ever hope to.

“I don’t get angry”, Michael Grade mumbled yesterday on Radio 4′s Front Row, talking about talent shows on TV, “I don’t like exploitation, and I do feel occasionally the shows verge on exploitation”. Though he added “I think most people that appear on those shows by now, it’s informed consent”, he was being diplomatic.

The Daily Mail, by allowing pixel inches to be used for Samatha Brick’s drivel, have used the author in the same way reality TV shows use their contestants. No doubt the editor jumped with joy upon receiving the copy, fists aloft declaring another Max Gogarty or Mike Read moment, perhaps on their largest scale yet. Hurrah!

I hate the Daily Mail. I hate them partly because they are a mirror into the soul of society today, and I don’t always like what I see. It’s a society where poor, beautiful and foolish/genius [delete as appropriate] Samantha Brick can be as equally enlightening on how we operate as she is manipulated and exploited by the Daily Mail.

And by us, though our implicit consent to this behaviour. Perhaps she should know better as should the drove turning up at TV talent auditions.

Samantha Brick does not deserve vitriol, just as 19 year old  Max didn’t (Jan Moir however, made her bed). But perhaps the authors and their editors need to understand that in the long term, their appropriation of X-Factor values and lazy journalism might not be worth the banner ad revenue it generates them.

Sofa King have been running this cheeky catchphrase for nine years (not entirely without controversy). And now it’s been banned.

But that’s not because their catchphrase is rude, abusive or threatening, it’s because some people have no fucking sense of humour.

Sofa King Silly: the ad that broke the sofa's back

The thing about swearing is, that it isn’t cool when it isn’t necessary. But, as a linguistic or oral device, it has a distinct place in our vocabularies.

It’s a sound at the end of the day, nothing more and nothing less. We give it meaning, and compared to the meaning of calling someone something nasty or hurtful with personal impact, swearing is merely an impersonal superlative that adds or detracts from another words meaning.

In fact a casual swear word can modify what might otherwise be a derogatory phrase into something jovial rather than something with added venom. Not all swear words are said in a negative context. And whilst no-one wants to see children casually f’ing and b’ing and c’ing their way in kidulthood with cursing infiltrating their every waking sentence, adverts like Sofa Kings do nothing to glamourise swear words (the rap music does that, you see).

For me, Sofa King’s ad is as offensive as a cleverly named Fantasy Football team, and I don’t see the Daily Mail brigade ringing Northamptonshire Poice Service (who could be out fighting real crime rather than investigating this nonsense) about The Times’ annual virtual soccer prediction tournament, do you?

A budding jewellery maker wants potential buyers to see his forthcoming designs, but doesn’t want big companies to steal those ideas.

A photographer wants her talent to be recognised – perhaps her images even purchased – but doesn’t want to see them distributed across the web for free without her due credit.

Pinterest have announced the release of their copyright code which can block the repining of protected material. But for people with a vested interested in distributing their work in a controlled manner, should they be scared to share on Pinterest or should they block social pinning.

To me, Pinterest allows distribution with due credit and the ability to actually find where an image comes from, quite unlike an image appearing without credit on a blog. Sure people can still steal an image, upload it to Pinterest and reap the glory, but this new code isn’t going to put an end to that blatant disregard for online property..

The reason for such excitement in Pinterest is its ability to share images of inspiration, and images of inspirational things, with a wide and diverse audience. That’s something that copyright owners could use to their advantage, increasing awareness and interest in their content, with the added bonus of built in traceability and measurement.

The trade off to reaching this audience is allowing Pinterest to gain a large, engaged and long-dwelling audience which is waiting to be monetised.

Perhaps copyright owners would prefer a share of the revenues from re-pinning rather than blocking their content?

This independent ashop on Etsy has reached a new audience through Pinterest, and the links are traceable directly back to the product page on their store. A good reason to share copyright?

Connecting? Linking? Meeting? Sharing? Finding? Networking? Expressing? Belonging?

Absolute donuts.

This screengrab of a timeline was emailed to me, the source may or may not be this https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150652961626972&set=a.10150261117236972.370374.299674901971&type=1&theater

But these billboards – stolen from advertisers by a Robin Hood of moral guidance – tell words worth many thousands more without the aid of any pictures.

They are the work of Robert Montgomery, an artist whose ambition in life is merely to provide shelter for himself and speak his mind via his guerilla medium.

His billboard poetry is profound and often beautiful.

Aptly, his works would be much more tricky to pull off in an online environment. But they certainly inspire me to pull the shutters down on the displays ads for a while and turn my computer off.

With apologies and thanks in equal measure to the Independent http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/features/the-artist-vandalising-advertising-with-poetry-6353303.html?fb_action_ids=10150654091999414%2C10150598865391812%2C10150687719467317%2C805976930844%2C806121536054&fb_action_types=news.reads&fb_source=other_multiline#access_token=AAADWQ6323IoBAFm9QIfrVUx2S4iEK3jgGpg6ZBJeV7FZCTnPdLLtRTsmvYIa44AvdVqK7jRvq0M5tZCexKQexGEUfFlT562Fsa7r7kJwQZDZD&expires_in=4683where I read about this billboard poetry and borrowed their pictures.

This example of five star customer service speaks for itself (click images to enlarge!)

And Lily Robinson aged 3½ is right. Why is tiger bread called tiger bread?!

Giraffe bread makes much more sense.

Lily's letter to Sainsburys re tiger bread

Silly baker indeed!

And dictionaries, currency exchanges and all you other useful free tools. You can now no more send me to the pit of your murky online lair somewhere miles below ‘the fold’ before I find the answer to my questions (another one there, Q&A sites, aha!).

Nope, no more. Now that Google has realised how many milliseconds you take away from me with your location based ads for girls in Leeds and belly tucks in Bradford. You will soon fall from your lofty perches unless you change your ways and make my life easier!

http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2012/01/page-layout-algorithm-improvement.html

It can only be a good thing (unless of course those ads are for Google?!)

As well as liking, @replying and tumbling, we can now ‘pin’.

And of all the social media platforms, Pinterest is one of the most useful.

Simple concept: see an image, pin it to a virtual board. It’s an indexable, shareable way of recording memories and inspiration, of virtually pinning interesting images to a cloud-based memory board in the sky.

Think an Evernote for pictures and a public timeline. Brilliant.