mandydale

The annual Google Zeitgeist conference has come and gone. Luckily, we’re left with some fantastic videos from the conference that are worth watching:

• Clay Shirky’s talk on the role of inconvenience in designing social systems – with a great example of how technology has made some things overt (like a change in relationship status) that were once not easily found by your larger group of friends and how that changes the social interactions we have.
• Hans Rosling of Gapminder.org showing some great data visualizations.
• A fun demo from Charles Huang from Guitar Hero – oh how I want one of those!

More videos can be viewed from the Zeitgeist Conference on the Google Zeitgeist Channel.

I thought it was strange that George Bush decided to have a press conference the other day about the financial market. Now Jon Stewart points out that GW’s talk just so happened to coincide with Fed Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke’s. Nice mashup of the two’s opinions about the economic health of our country.

My friend Zeb decided to create a special video that shows how I’m an up and coming candidate for president. I must admit that the email I got from him was pretty compelling, with the following vague text:

Hey Amanda,

I went on this online community thing and everyone was talking about you… what is going on? There’s even a video about it on News3Online. www.News3Online.com

Let me know,
Zeb

and the linked video was fairly well done, but a bit long. I’m still not sure exactly who did this, or why…

Radiohead has produced a thought-provoking video for the MTV Exit campaign that compares the day-in-the-life of a child from a first-world nation to a child that has been forced to do manual labor. The video was created to promote awareness about human trafficking; the UN’s ILO estimates that 2.5 million people a year are subjected to inhumane practice.

The title of this Nike sponsored stunt of Laker Kobe Bryant jumping over an Aston Martin going 50 miles an hour states:

Laker Kobe Bryant attempts massive stunt…and succeeds! Real?

This tactic of creating a controversy (i.e. a viewer would question if the stunt Kobe pulled real or faked) is a good way to use YouTube to increase video views. The video description also reinforces that skepticism:

When an Aston Martin is coming at you at 50 miles per hour, what else can you do but JUMP! That’s what Kobe does, but is it a special effect or is he that talented?

Of course the person who uploaded this film knows the answer, but the technique of creating a question that draws people in to view the video is a very smart tactic in viral marketing.

Also note that Nike products are subtly mentioned just at the very beginning of the clip, and not even mentioned in the tags. Did it work for Nike? Guessing so, with over 1.7 million views in 4 days, and top honors on YouTube (#7 of most viewed on YouTube this week). Overall, a very nice deployment on Nike’s behalf.