Bernie's cars are "so choice"



The fedoras and feather boas were out in force last night at the Battersea Evolution which played host to the 1920s-themed party for today's Automobiles of London auction by RM Auctions, in association with Sotheby’s.



The martinis were dirty, the music was excellent, the champagne was flowing, and flappers were everywhere.

This inaugural event includes magnificent sporting classics from the highly respected U.K. collection of Mr. Bernie Ecclestone, an outstanding group of important sports and racing cars from Brazilian collector Mr. Abraham Kogan, and a most impressive array of Ferraris and other significant sports cars from the collection of an Italian Gentleman. With almost 100 outstanding automobiles on offer, the magnitude and importance of this sale is unprecedented.

The cars are absolutely stunning.



My favourite, by far, is the 1954 Ferrari 250 GT. The estimate is between £325,000-£400,000. As I'm sure Ferris would say, "It is so choice. If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

Technorati Tags: personal, sothebys

Marketing Week 2.0 Conference



Tomorrow afternoon, I'm speaking at Marketing Week's Web 2.0 and Social Media for Research & Insight.

If you're in London and feel like dropping by the Melia White House, let me know. That said, I think the name of the conference is longer than my presentation. ;-)


Technorati Tags: conferences, iris, blogosphere

Hula? Don't even know ya.



The global web.
A supposedly fantastic new service.
Lots of opinion.
Too bad it is only visible Stateside.
Morons.

Technorati Tags: startups, hula

Facebook gets a little funding



Mark Zuckerberg has 740 million reasons to smile.

Microsoft has invested $240 million and two New York hedge funds invested $500 million in Facebook ... at a whopping $15 billion valuation. It makes Zuckerberg worth $3 billion on paper at age 23. Holy sh*t, he did it!

Microsoft to Pay $240 Million for Stake in Facebook
New York Times

And Now Let Us Praise Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg
Silicon Alley Insider: This is a great post.

Oh snap! Faceberg raises another $500 million
The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs: Word up. Hot on the heels of the big investment by the Borg only a few hours ago, Facebook has now landed another $500 million from two hedge funds in New York. At the same $15 billion valuation. It is on, people.

Mark Zuckerberg, the $5 billion man
Vallywag looks at the individual numbers behind the deal. Very insightful.

Microsoft on Facebook: The internal memo from Kevin Johnson
CNet: Microsoft just bought a small stake in Facebook for $240 million (more than Facebook's 2006 revenues, which is interesting) on a $15 billion valuation. Kevin Johnson, president of Microsoft's Platform and Services Division …



Perspective: Facebook Is Now 5th Most Valuable U.S. Internet Company
TechCrunch: Yesterday came news that Microsoft invested $240 million into Facebook, valuing the company at $15 billion. — How much is $15 billion? It's hard to understand how much money that really is. (Image above from Techcrunch)

Three Reasons Microsoft Underpaid For Facebook
Epicenter: It's official — the truth is less profitable than fiction. Facebook has secured the cornerstone of its $15 billion valuation with today's Microsoft alliance. But at $240 million, that's only a 1.6% slice of a much larger pie.

The "$15 billion" nonsense
Rough Type's Nicholas Carr, the un-hype machine.

Tons more discussion/links here and here.


Technorati Tags: social.networks, facebook, investment, vc

ING and iris



I've been sitting on this post since late last week waiting for this article in Marketing to be published.

Following a 6-way pitch between R/GA, Glue, Inferno, Exposure, and the incumbent agency VCCP, we've been appointed by ING to handle their £40m global Formula 1 sponsorship starting in 2008.

It is an incredible opportunity and reinforces our channel neutral "Media Anything, Idea Everything" approach. I also think it validates our ability to compete with some of the best specialist agencies out there by delivering truly integrated thinking and ideas.

The work will be developed across digital, broadcast, print & outdoor and experiential.

More to come. Watch this space.

Technorati Tags: ing, f1, iris

Iris wins £5m Corporate Entrepreneur Challenge



Iris Worldwide has become the second regional winner in the Bank of Scotland Corporate £25m Entrepreneur Challenge in association with The Sunday Times. The Entrepreneur Challenge is the biggest prize ever offered to businesses in Britain and is open to fast-growing UK businesses with a turnover of £2m or more and at least two years of sustained profits.



Some other photos from the event are here.

Here's what our co-CEO Ian Millner had to say in The Times:

The thing that makes us different at Iris is that we have a culture which is very positive and supportive. We have people with strong personalities who are very instinctive and intuitive, and there is a very strong sense of camaraderie, togetherness and team spirit.

Marketing is such a people business that if you don’t know how to attract and motivate people, then you go out of business ... We just thought there was another way. We are able to be faster, smarter and cheaper because we are young and entrepreneurial and we don’t have any fat cats telling us what we should and shouldn’t be doing.

It's brilliant! We've never won anything before... we're exhilarated and honoured... It's our responsibility now to do the right thing with this investment. ... We are a group of people who only know one way to play, and that is to attack. What this loan allows us to do is to attack globally.

Watch out world ... here we come! ;-)

Related:
Iris celebrates a capital victory in £25m Entrepreneur Challenge
Iris to expand after winning £5m loan funding
Bank of Scotland: Regional Winner: Iris
Times Online competition announcement



Technorati Tags: iris, entrepreneur, funding

Integrating Advocacy at the MAA

Here's the presentation that I gave at the MAA Worldwide conference here in Vegas. Not sure if all the videos and such will work (probably not) but hopefully you'll get the point.




Technorati Tags: iris, wom, iris, maaw, advocacy

Viva Las Vegas



I'll be in Vegas for the next few days speaking at the Marketing Agencies Association annual conference. Never been, and I'm really looking forward to the trip.

I'll post my presentation here once I get back. Check out "Integrating Advocacy" if you want a teaser.

Following Steven Wright's lead, I'm planning to get into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I consider to be an odd number. And depending on the cards, blogging may be a bit light.

Technorati Tags: iris, vegas, advocacy, maaw

Bothud TV



Don't believe everything you read, but trust all you see on Television.

I have no idea what they're up to, but the Bothud Squad at iris has something cooking.

Technorati Tags: iris

Arcade Fire has a hot one



Big Si sent the link around this morning ...

I don't know what to call this other than an "interactive music video", but it's amazing. The site, built for the Arcade Fire for the song "Neon Bible", allows visitors to interact while the song is playing. But the site guides the user as well as allowing interaction, and the possibilities of what you can do change in conjunction with changes in the song. This is a must see... no word on who created the site.

The text above is via Random Culture.


Technorati Tags: music, sites, cool, flash

Burgers and broadband



This is a fantastic idea, and it is about time.

McDonald's is rolling out a free high-speed wireless internet across nearly 1,200 restaurants from Monday. The move will make the fast-food giant the UK's biggest provider of free wireless internet access.

The fact that more places (cafes, restaurants, other meeting points) in Europe don't get the fact that offering free wireless access is a great way to pull in more customers is beyond me. Most places make you pay, and I think that's silly. My hunch is that WiFi companies came to these businesses with "turn-key" solutions to enable wireless into the stores at little/no cost to the owner. The idea being that they'd pass on the cost to the consumer and make money in the process.

Why not use the platform to do some POS marketing? Coupons. Loyalty programs. Surveys and other data gathering. Even brand marketing. You want free wireless? Great, all you have to do is watch one nice piece of marketing. I'm sure the vast majority of people would not mind. In fact, they might even find it smart.

The full story is over on Brand Republic.

Hey, you want fries with that?

Technorati Tags: marketing, wireless, mcdonalds

Off air? No way!



Now, I know that posting has been a bit light these past weeks ... Lots of biz-related madness (news on that as soon as it is all official) coupled with the fact that I'm still sorting out a new internet connection at home (long boring story) has made it pretty difficult to send as many 'postcards' as I'm used to.

That doesn't mean I haven't been thinking about you, my beloved readers, commenters, family, friends and passers-by. Ha! Far from it. So, without any further ado, here are a slew of tasty links that I've come across over the past week but have not had time to discuss here.

Regular programming will return shortly. In the meantime, it's link madness this lovely Monday morning!

• The Skype hyper | Economist.com
  How eBay Created Latest Internet Bubble. If you take the Economist's word for it, Meg may not last much longer.
  
  
• IAB Press Release - 2007 Digital Revenue
  Historic Second Quarter: Revenues Exceed $5 Billion for the First Time.
  
  
• Funny or Die - Chosen Videos - Most Buzz All Time
  A nice selection of very funny videos. They pick off YouTube videos and show them on their own site with ratings and other community tools. Sequoia has actually invested in this business.
  
  
• Techmeme Leaderboard is live - Techmeme News
  Gabe Rivera's latest is a Technorati-like ranking tool for A-list bloggers. Ok, it is a nice, ego-inflating, somewhat gameable interface that could/should take out the Technorati 100 list (which sucks these days), but what I really want is a searchable database of the daily links. I'd get much more value from that than knowing that Techcrunch is the top referenced site on Techmeme.
  
  
• Techdirt: Romney Learns About The Pitfalls Of User-Generated Content
  Poor Mitt. He obviously never saw the Chevy Tahoe fiasco. Here's the most seen homemade video to come out of their little experiment: Jumpcut - Way! Bravo Mitt ... Doh!
  
  
• No Indie Digital Agency Is Safe From Sir Martin - Advertising Age
  Article detailing WPP's Blast Radius acquisition.
  
  
• Publicis Modem and Dialog talent join forces - Brand Republic
  Publicis Modem's Tom Poynter and Dialog's Sebastian Dreyfus are teaming up as joint managing directors of Publicis Modem London to lead digital business for Publicis Worldwide in the UK.
  
  
• Online ads save UK from slump - Brand Republic
  Internet advertising broke through the £1.3bn barrier in the first half of 2007, preventing the UK advertising industry from slipping into recession.
  
  
• Campaign Magazine Digital Awards 2007
  
  
• Yahoo Search Just Got Smarter
  
  
• How to Quit Facebook - wikiHow
  This is funny in a geeky kinda way ...
  
  
• YouTube - Project Direct
  A nice application of the new Pareto rule, in my opinion. A new competition allowing people to direct an original film using specific elements outlined by award-winning filmmaker, Jason Reitman. Look for much more of these competitions to start popping up. Moving beyond simple UGC concepts, these nextgen comps target specific groups with the aim to motivate smaller groups to produce content for the masses. Here are 3 posts I've written on the Pareto rule, just for reference: Pareto, revisited, Rethinking Pareto, What is the 1% rule.

That's all for now. All of these links are categorized individually over on my del.icio.us page, in case you need to find them later.

Technorati Tags: blogosphere, 2blog

Radiohead's Rainbow: pay-as-you-please



I love Radiohead. Always have. Always will. They're a brilliant and innovative band. Saw 'em in Philly when they played The Bends to a crowd of less than 500. OK Computer was the must-own album in Silicon Alley at the end of the 90s. They defined office space all over lower Manhattan. Sure, they've meandered and strayed off course now and again, but they've always had it. Whatever "it" is.

Whilst I have not yet heard a single track off of their soon-to-be-released album, In Rainbows, it is already one of my favourites.

Why?

Because they're giving it away online for free.

paidContent writes: In Rainbows will be available only via the band’s inrainbows.com website, where fans can place the title in a checkout basket but, on payment, are told "it’s up to you".

Here's a great quote from a a pessimistic record label exec in Time magazine, "This feels like yet another death knell. If the best band in the world doesn’t want a part of us, I’m not sure what’s left for this business."

Time also has this gem from a 2003 interview with frontman Thom Yorke, "I like the people at our record company, but the time is at hand when you have to ask why anyone needs one. And, yes, it probably would give us some perverse pleasure to say 'fuck you' to this decaying business model."

Great cover art review and images are on Creative Review. (Thanks for the link, Big Si.)

Discussion and links:
Silicon Alley Insider, Guardian Unlimited, Guardian Blog, WSJ, Mashable, Bubblegeneration, and PaidContent:UK



Technorati Tags: music, business.models, radiohead