Come back after the break, no wait…just stay.

Hey again, today I'm going to be talking about viral ads. The viral ad, in my opinion, is probably the biggest revolution in the media advertising sector. I remember my first encounter with a viral ad. It left me perplexed, confused and somewhat amused. I had no idea at the time that this was a new, clever advertising medium that was soon to hit the mainstream.
Since the first viral ad, of an office worker attacking his computer, viral marketing has come a long way. With the popularisation of video sharing sites such as YouTube and Metacafe there is a chance that any user of these sites will encounter a viral each day. The effectiveness behind a well produced viral is that you won’t even know you have just seen an advertisement.
The proliferation of the viral ad has received much support with television shows such as Rude Tube dedicated to sharing different viral ads from across the internet. Being initially targeted towards an online community the ads frequently contain in-jokes and common internet memes. Targeting this specific audience increases the effectiveness of the ad. The specification of audience can be narrowed even further. Within the whole community of online users there are sub-communities of people who share similar interests; for example video gamers have their own groups. This allows users, as Sunstein, C said, to ‘choose your own programming’. This allows the ad to be even more specific in targeting its audience.
As the popularity of viral ads has increased the effectiveness has decreased. The most prominent reason is that the community of online users have grown accustomed to this method of advertising and many videos that are supposed to remain a hidden, almost, subliminal, are uncovered for what they are. There is also the commercialisation of certain sites such as YouTube, many videos are preceded with classic advertisements, which not only add to the crowd of advertisements and influences the community are subject to, but also fade the effectiveness of the intended promotion by the viral.
In order to better understand how viral marketing works and how they are constructed, I decided to have a go at producing my own viral. I discovered that in order to produce an effective viral ad I had to make it confusing and entertaining. In my experience the most effective videos have been the most puzzling.
My own experience with the viral ad has been an exciting and interesting one. I had fun creating it and others have fun viewing it. In a way it brings the online community together allowing the many different sub-communities to unite and share an experience. It also serves to bridge the gap between the consumer and marketer.


And for the moment you have all been waiting for, check out my viral add below.

Is Online Gaming Ruining Games?

Okay, so Xbox is heading in the direction of online co-op and versus gaming and has been for quite some time now. But amongst all the chaos of COD and strategical play of Command and Conquer: Tiberium Wars, we should take a step back and ask the question; is Xbox live ruining our games? It has become apparent, more so in recent titles, that developers are trying desperately to meet the demand for online compatibility and in some cases, it is jeopardizing solo play.

Take, for example, the recently released Resident Evil 5. Whilst the addition of having an AI partner does have its advantages, where for example she can auto heal you, having someone follow you throughout the entire storyline can be distracting and does ruin the 'back-against-the-wall' feeling, which as I’m sure you’ll all agree, makes the genre so appealing.

Secondly if Capcom insist on having and AI partner they could at least get the intelligence part right. I've found that Sheva constantly likes to wield her pistol even though she has bigger and tougher guns in her arsenal. When we come to ask why Capcom decided to include Sheva as an AI partner into the solo play, we have to come to the conclusion that the only real purpose it serves is that it allows access for a friend to join the game and offer support at any time.

Upon discovering this we have to ask; is this such a necessity that we can allow it to ruin a tradition of a well built genre? Although the Resi5 example isn't the strongest and most prominent example it still comes to show how little additions to games, just to suit the online demand can damage a title's solo play.

Then we come to those games which include an online feature that doesn't jeopardize solo play, but are just generally poorly constructed. For example let's take F.E.A.R 2. The online play here is extremely poor, with the spawn points being as close as me to this computer screen. Although it includes some great features from the solo play, it is no contest for other FPS greats such as Call Of Duty. It appears that the developers have squeezed in online play as an afterthought just to please you, the gamer.

Don't get me wrong I'm not saying I dislike online play, after all it's what makes 21st century gaming great, but is it required in all games? Developers shouldn't include online as an afterthought and they certainly shouldn't jeopardize solo play to include it.

I just feel that overall games developers seem to think that as long as their game has a form of online play it will be a relic, but that just isn't the case. The developer shouldn’t sell out to a trend just because their peers are. The developing of games is no playground activity.

Making games is no child’s play; don’t sell out for a craze.

Despising the notion called Facebook

Hey everybody, this is Daveaysrelax coming in to talk to you about a number of different ways that I use the internet and the things it has to offer.

Number one, this may be the biggest love hate relationship since Jekyll and Hyde, and it goes by the name of Facebook. There are a number of things that simply annoy me on Facebook and I think that the main one is the fact that I was a dedicated MySpace fan. MySpace was personal and you could show to you friends and enemies what you’re into and who you are. It also had the added effect of HTML editing; I know that this isn’t for everyone however thankfully it did encourage me to learn HTML and come handy with other projects.

I was perusing the internet the other day and found an article by Danah Boyed called “Why Teens Heart MySpace”. (http://www.danah.org/papers/WhyYouthHeart.pdf) she states that “In essence, MySpace is the civil society of teenage culture: whether one is for it or against it, everyone knows the site and has an opinion about it.” I agree with this notion completely, before university and especially on rainy days I and my friends used MySpace and Facebook as a place to “hang out”.

Another thing that I dislike about Facebook is the forever updating statuses that, quite frankly, I do not care about…

Not only are these statuses ill worded and full of bad grammar they also fail to excite my interest in other people’s day to day lives. To add to this, people then feel the need to reply to them!! MySpace however conquered this by making there statuses “bulletins”, these gave the user the option to read or not to read these pointless statuses instead of having them shoved in your face.

Just as I was settling into the annoyances of Facebook, what did they go and do? Update it, and not just once. This is a constant annoyance that the creators of Facebook seem to think is good. I used to like the old layout, but now I don’t know where anything is and uploading photos seems more of a task than playing a prank on a friend, who got a little bit worse for wear at last nights party…

To me MySpace seems more of a predecessor to Facebook not just a different social networking sight, this is because everyone moved to Facebook and forgot about MySpace. I last logged into MySpace 2days ago and it’s like a treasure trove of old friends, old pictures and old songs that I used to listen to. This reminds me a little of my dads attic accept its easier to get into.