Author: Tom Coates

Categories
Advertising Television

On Pottery Barn, Friends and Advertising…

Do you remember that episode of Friends where Rachel is obsessed by the Pottery Barn? Well when I first saw it I thought to myself – hmmm, what a strange premise for an episode. And because we don’t even have Pottery Barn in the UK, I don’t think it even occurred to me that it was a real shop. If it had, I think I might have raised an eyebrow or two. But one thing that would never have occurred to me is that Pottery Barn might have sponsored the whole episode. I can’t help thinking the whole thing is totally corrupt. I mean I’m used to TV shows having product placement and advertising and sponsorship, but I will not spend my life watching 22 minute long advertainments for huge multi-national companies. I swear to god – it’s my idea of hell…

Excerpt from Adbusters June/July 2000
FRIENDS FOR SALE: Now advertisers can turn sitcom plotlines into product promotions. The Pottery Barn bought an episode of Friends and the right to have Rachel, Ross and the gang spend their 22 minutes of airtime surrounded by Barn decor.

It has always been implicit in television that the programs are just delivery vehicles for the advertising. But that equation got a whole lot more explicit in February, when the production company Basic Entertainment – the money behind such shows as Politically Incorrect and critical darling The Sopranos – agreed to partner up with the world’s second-largest advertising agency, J. Walter Thompson. The two promptly produced a love-child: the agency’s new “content/entertainment” arm, called (c)JWT.

The rationale behind it all: When the ad is the show, it becomes impossible for viewers to mute it, ignore it, or actively miss it whilst getting snacks.

Categories
Personal Publishing

On Adding Functionality to Blogger…

On 23/6/00 3:16 pm, Matthew Kingston at hit_or_miss_org@hotmail.com wrote:

Tom-

You use Blogger for your weblog, right? I’m wondering if you’ve seen my “Blogger Comments Manifesto” (http://hit-or-miss.org/blogger_comments/) and have any thoughts about Blogger and comment systems.

Matt of hit-or-miss.org

On 23/6/00 9:32 pm, Tom Coates replied:

It’s certainly a very interesting subject. Personally I am interested in seeing Blogger become an online content management system that is flexible enough to handle the updating of different types of sites. But more of that later…

A comments tag would also certainly be useful, but one things occurs to me that might be worrying. How much information might your system be asking Pyra to store? Assuming that more people read and comment on the weblog than actually write the log originally, each log would at least double in size (or more accurately the less visited logs would increase a small amount, while the larger ones would become basically 9/10s comment based). I don’t know what their business model is, so I couldn’t comment on how much bandwidth and disk space they are prepared to pay for without recompense. It seems to me that it has to be a finite amount.

As I said earlier, I personally see the future of Blogger as being a way to manage content for a variety of different types of site based around the same principles as it does now for webloggers. More in depth types of sites, or commercial ones could require a subscription fee, while the weblog template could be free as a taster. Certainly the uptake on Blogger seems to be enough to warrant a more sophisticated, less simple and more expensive version. I mean – I pay for the ubb as it is, and that is certainly nowhere near as flexible and pleasant-to-use a tool as blogger.

An example close to my heart: A magazine site for example would be a prime market for an expanded blogger-based system and is something that I am going to attempt to generate shortly using a good few fudges of my own and a little too much hand-coding. But what I would really love is the ability to write an article with a title, and then define a separate template for a home page or category pages which would then render some taster content and a link through to the article itself, combined with an archive that allows one to list things by title rather than just date.

This would be extraordinarily useful for people who wished to generate webzines (like, for example, ME).

Categories
Random

In which Derek quits webloggia…

Newsflash: Powazek Quits Weblogging. While in an unrelated, but nonetheless relevant counterpoint, Mark has said:

“I didn’t do it for myself, I didn’t do it for you, I did it because I had to. I am Batman.”

Categories
Random

Murder Portal E-Business Venture Update…

The domain name: ikillu.com sounds extremely close to e-memes “ICQ” and Mahir’s “I Kiss You”. Tagline: “The Mafia Revolution Responsible For The Deaths Of…” Find out more at kitsch bitch…

Categories
Random

Sexy thoughts on my new mac…

Barbelith is now brought to you via a G4 400, 192Mb RAM, DVD drive, TV card, Zip Drive, 17″ Studio Monitor, Kritter USB webcam, OS9. Long live the Mac Revolution.

Categories
Humour Net Culture Social Software

On a web-based intermediary for hit-men…

Katy and I have just had a great idea for a new money-making venture targetting a completely underexploited section of the e-marketplace – professional hitmen and the criminally violent. The idea is just like that in Strangers on a Train, where two people arrange to kill each other’s worst enemy. Since there is no connection between them and the person they kill, there can be no apparent motive (and the person who might have a motive can have a solid alibi). Hence, they are much less likely to get caught.

This site would act as a medium of exchange much like ebay, where people could fill in who they wanted dead, and where they were based. This would be stashed on a database until the next stage was complete. They would then be sent a random e-mail from another member, with the details of who they should be poisoning or stabbing or shooting or throttling.

Once confirmation of this kill was made (through some kind of link to the national death records), then the details that had previously been stashed on the database would be sent to another random member who had just signed up, who would be expected to follow through the process themselves. If there was no kill registered within a certain amount of time, then the name and address of the substitute murderer could be sent to the person whose kill it was originally. And since that person must have already killed someone to have got to that stage, this would be enough instigation for the substitute killer to do their job.

The business model is quite simple – targetted advertising from the gun lobby, rope merchants, concrete suppliers and the like would constitute the bulk of the revenue, although clearly paramilitary groups and mercenaries might like to recruit through the site (for a small fee of course). Therapists might also find this a lucrative market to target. And after an initial free period (possibly), high quality service (from someone who has killed a great number of people) could be costed, with the site acting as a broker and taking a commission.

Legally, of course (at least in the initial stages), the site would be completely safe from prosecution. I mean – it’s like Napster isn’t it!? We could put a warning up that read, “no one at our site condones the killing of people” or even “killing people is bad – if you are thinking of killing someone, please contact our psychotherapist at our special discretionary rate”. It’s not like we’d be killing people ourselves (and if we did, I think we could argue that that was separate from the activities of the company).

The only problem is the domain name: killyourcolleagues.com is quite nice, but then so is killthemall.com or ihadtodoitfortheirowngood.com… Opinions would be appreciated, as would venture capital…

Categories
Humour

On Mark's Barbelith dream…

Sometimes Mark just does the coolest things (and of course, if he got himself permalinks, we could treasure them forever, instead of being forced to quote them at length):

barbelith dream by Mark Olynciw

I was an Englander, born and lived there my entire life, with accent and all. And Tom was an obvious American, with I LOVE USA shirts and all. Now everything else went along as it does today, him and his weblog, and me with mine….only it was the year 2044.

Suprisingly Tom and I kept our winning good looks over the years, in fact- we looked very much as we did today.

But in the year 2044 they have such remarkable inventions you do know. Such as this streaming webcam that I was using to spy on my friend. I watched him during the day at work, at dinnertime eating a very healthy McDonalds meal, and at night when the parties started….until the next day in which the same thing went on for.

One day Tom and I got into this heated argument because he had promised to me that we’d go eat a picnic in Belgium. (I’m sorry, even my subconscious has no idea between the cities or countries, and where they are in Europe) But Tom cancelled. Because of his work as a ‘Network Scientist’ he was unable to fly to England for this elaborate lunch I had planned.

I was upset, got into drugs…some of that snorting kind….dropped out of high school, and eventually the IRS had to take away RIOTHERO. I became a mess, living on the streets of England. Every once and a while the Spice Girls would invite me in their home for some tea. I would ask them if it was English tea or American tea…because you KNOW how I hate Americans ever since Tom did that to me. And an hour or two later, I was back on the street hungry again.

It was raining this night, and so I knocked the windows in in this boarded up post office building. I hoisted myself up and fell unto the floor of the Post Master’s office. He wasn’t there of course, he had got home for the night… but I was busy snoopy around, looking at the latest technology in air mail, etc.

As I was walking out of the hallway to find something to devour, I kicked this large cardboard box and I look down to see my name on it! And the return address is from Waterford, CT- HEY! That’s where Tom is from! I rip off the cover, pull out all that fun poppy packaging, and look inside. It’s picnic equipment.

A tablecloth, dishes, candlesticks, spoons, and bottle of wine, a frisbee, and basically everything else anyone would need for a successful picnic. Last but not least I reach my hand into the box to pull out Tom and Katy theirselves!

They treat me to an elegant picnic on the roof of the Post Office where it’s now stopped raining. The food’s delicious, the weather is just fine (not the sweaty kind), and it’s the ‘splendidist’ picnic that’s ever been had.

Categories
Television

Vile Stick-Insect Ally McBeal…

Today’s briefing is brought to you through the tremendous power of absolute and total denial. The day has been filled with all the activities that help me distract myself from bad stuff around me. These include: Chocolate, Random Sex, Music, Daydreaming and The Gym. I am now going to finish the day off with a considerable bout of Pimms drinking outside in the sun.

Which brings me to that appalling harpy Ally McBeal and the stick insect that plays her. You can decide for yourself which of the two I find most reprehensible – but let’s just say the actress plays ‘whining drivel-monger’ with such consummate skill that I can only assume that she was born for the role. And I won’t even get started on the whole “this is just a piece of right wing propoganda disguised as a women’s issues program” speech that I normally give at these points, because everyone always looks at me funny when I rant, and I’m frankly getting bored of it.

Anyway – back to the point. On this, the hottest day of the year in the UK, with the most glorious sunshine and the most ridiculous (if pleasant) proliferation of half naked people, I have to read the that the insane Calista (SUBLIMINAL MESSAGE: eat more pies woman!) has declared that, “England makes me stink because it rains all the time“.

I doubt the link will stay valid for long, so I quote in full the article in question:

Calista Flockhart: “Britain Makes Me Stink”

Ally McBeal star Calista Flockhart doesn’t like visiting Britain because the rainy weather leaves her smelling like a wet dog. The waif-like actress discovered the uncomfortable truth when stranded in a storm on a recent trip to London. She told talk show host David Letterman that although she liked London, the weather put a real damper on things. She said, “It was great but it rained every day that I was there.” When Letterman asked, “It’s supposed to rain in London, was it misty and romantic?”, Flockhart replied, “It was cold and damp. Do you know what happens in London when it rains? You start to smell. It’s true – you start to smell like a wet dog because what happens is you go out and you’re all happy because you’re in London, then it rains. And you don’t have an umbrella, because I’m an American, so then it’s sunny but you’re wet and you smell.”

Categories
Random

On Anti-Advertising…

I’m really keen on anti-advertising. I wonder occasionally if I should try to persuade my boss to run banners for really creative sites as house ads instead of some of the dubiously designed ones that we currently run. I wonder if that would increase general click-thru rates?

Categories
Random

I feel cold, cruel, hollow, vengeful and partially dead…

I have written and rewritten this post about thirty times, and every time it sounds too flippant. So I’m not going to bother writing anything detailed or in depth. Fuck it. I feel like someone slid the hook from “I Know What You Did Last Summer” into my stomach and with superhuman strength forced it towards my throat. Or I feel crazed and in control of a passenger jet. But mostly I just feel cold, and cruel, and hollow, and vengeful and actually partially dead. There will be no more posting tonight.