4 Fuks Saké

A Quality Newspaper.

An endearing Sun promo celebrating 40 years of the 'UK's favourite handheld,' with respect to Apple.

Money. Twitter. Measurement. The Usual.

Go online, look for social media debate around Twitter, and you're a click away from two debates.

1. How does anyone make any money from Twitter?

2. How do you measure ROI on social media?

The answer to the first one is simple. Go into the conference production business, or start manufacturing lanyards. The big winners so far are anybody who cashes in on the thousands of bodies in and around the industry short on paid-for client work, and long on love of the sound of their own voice.

If you can't beat them, join them. So yesterday, Mike took his business cards down to the O2. Don't watch Olly Murs clips - kick off your shoes and enjoy all 17 minutes of it. James Poulter is your host.

Second, here courtesy of David Berkowitz has written an outstanding post - 100 ways to measure social media. There is one flaw. If I'm a client, I still can't work out whether any of them will increase sales of my product. 

Currently working on this. When it's done, 4 Fuks Saké readers will get first dibs on the tickets to the resultant conference in the New Year.

'The Floyd' On Primrose Hill

 

'Dark Side Of The Moon' album cover recreated on Primrose Hill in London last night.

Why?

So that people watch their 1994 Earl's Court performance of the album this Friday, on Sky Arts 1 HD.

Done by us.

Social Media Guru

Courtesy of @FinchFactor and @matt_creamer (whoever they are). And why can't they spell their names properly?

Save Time & Money.

Here's an opportunity to give yourself a break filling your "packed" schedule of procrastination at conferences and seminars. Just watch this, and then go and do some real client work in social media for 6 months. It's all you need. They'll be another one in the spring.

Who Still Wants To Be An Astronaut?

I have a pretty good job. I try to persuade people to drink more booze, eat more food and watch more telly. It gets demanding though, and at times of extreme stress my mind naturally wanders to what I'd rather be doing. David Gower's job as main anchor on Sky Sports, or the bloke that chooses the music for the goal montages on Football Focus are obvious first choices. More prosaic careers such as being a lorry driver pop up - probably the time and space you get I imagine. The process of travel has always been strangely alluring - perhaps flying a commercial airline might be an option.

I am not alone.

KidZania in Tokyo is a theme park which is targetted at 2-14 year olds. It shoudn't be for kids - I'm 36 and I want to go. Originally launched in Mexico, it's no surprise to see it a roaring success in Japan.  It's a replica town where you can have a go at doing the job you fancy doing. You can get into uniform, fly a replica jet, work the post office, marshal the traffic - whatever needs to be done, you can do it.

After Disney's takeover of Marvel, and the certainty of another 100 years of character-based theme park-to-fast food tray juggernauts, it's nice to see that there's a place for simplicity. Nintendo always said that everyone likes playing games however old they are and they're right. 

Knock down Chessington down the road from me, and stick one of these up.

(Pic: guardian.co.uk/Getty)

Beauty & The Bollocks

According to The Guardian yesterday this was ninth in one global viral video chart. 80% of people who watched this film in the US, said they were less likely to text when driving. It cost £10,000 and was made by a film maker and local students in Gwent.

How much did Diageo pay to shoot 7 minutes of Robert Carlyle's beautiful looking whisky epic? How much money will they spend on media, on seeding costs, on promotion and PR of said film? How much time was spent in meetings, presentations, focus groups and rounds of research to produce it? How much more whisky will be sold as a result?

1. Which do you think is the most effective piece of work?

2. Who are the winners and losers here?

Big Business

Big Brother "axed" says The Sun. Before you take the piss, was it your idea to knock up a portakabin and then make £25million a year? The format deserves to go down as one of the great business achievements in television history.

Channel 4 and Endemol deserve nothing but respect for devising a format that is commercially stupendous, and still looks ahead of its time, (even if the content it produces has become just a little predictable). Its simplicity is everything. Stick some people in a box, peer at them via your TV, mobile, computer or tabloid newspaper and then persuade people to spend more money sending texts, making calls, buying the sponsor's products. People do.

Endemol CEO Tim Hincks says Big Brother "is the only really convincing multiplatform idea and format in the UK". He could add the world - the format has been exported to over 70 countries. In reality, there are shit loads of them - but Hincks' people showed them the path to gold.

Can't wait to see the back of it myself. And that's nothing but pure jealousy.

Who Killed Summer?

People sat at desks near me have worked very hard to make something very cool.

The Swayze And Wenger Legacies

We now have confirmation courtesy of yesterday's 'Swayze Dead' Twitter trending, that your Mum & Dad will be on Twitter by the end of the year. Not that we were far off anyway. Reading Women's Weekly last night, I couldn't help but notice the magazine take a virulent stand against @schofe for 'tweeting' on his 'Memorial For Dad Weekend Mini-Break'.

Rumour is the most effective vehicle to promote a new communication channel or device. There is a precedent in email.

Yesterday's 'trending' took us all back to the mid 90s, and a tasteful song that stays with us to this day. Generally, a Man United v Arsenal fixture at Old Trafford isn't complete without a 5 minute chant of "Sit down you paedophile," sung vile-ly at Arsene Wenger.

Back in 1996, the UK was on the cusp of embracing email. Only senior management or people you didn't really know, had email addresses. We didn't really get it. Those that did - and the finger at the time was pointed to blokes in the City - recognised you could shuttle information around at rapid pace whether it was true or not.

At 2pm on a random Tuesday I was faxing press releases directly to bins in newsrooms. By 2.30pm, Ian Lessey in accounts was running around the office telling everyone that Wenger had apparently been "busted by cops in a hotel room." By 2.45pm William Hill had stopped taking bets on him being fired and by 4pm, he was on the steps of Highbury issuing a full denial.

By 5pm everyone realised it was total bollocks, was a bit confused, but wanted 'in' on this email thing.

Now everyone knows a little more about how Twitter works. I'm sure it's what Patrick would have wanted.