We really like this new spot from George Patterson Y&R in Melbourne. The campaign uses super-slow motion cameras to capture and bring Schweppes iconic branding, Schweppervescense, to life - at 10,000 frames per second!

And for those of you who find it hard to appreciate Schweppe’s fantastic artistic use of slow motion, here’s someone “bitch slapping” a person at a similar speed.

Last week, Starbucks announced the launch of ‘My Starbucks Idea‘ – a social network where consumers can post ideas on how the company can improve its services, or comment and vote on others’ ideas. They have also launched a new blog, ‘Ideas in Action‘, to keep consumers up to date on what they are doing with the proposed suggestions.

This ‘Virtual suggestion box’ will prove to be an interesting experiment for the brand, given that they have never really listened to online conversations before, and will be a natural online extension of the central role played by its stores in creating vibrant communities, welcoming customers and encouraging creativity.

Starbucks Director of Digital Strategy, Alexandra Wheeler, commented that the site will “allows users to engage in other people’s ideas and vote those that they like to the top”.

However, posts so far to the site have been quite repetitious, with nearly every other submission an “idea” for more free drinks, which probably isn’t what Starbucks had in mind! Also, an independently run blog, www.starbucksgossip.com, already exists, and its founder Jim Romenesko queries whether this latest initiative is a response to negative brand postings received to his blog.

The question remains as to whether this new Web 2.0 initiative will prove to be a smart idea for the brand by truly enabling Starbucks to empower its consumers, or whether it’s merely a top-down mission to reclaim some of its customer-service mojo?

Hats off to the Collison brothers from Casteltroy, Co Limerick who sold their start-up to Canadian company Live Current Media for a multimillion dollar price tag!

Auctomatic, which is a tool for managing your eBay business, is reported to have sold for in the region of USD5 million, according to ENN’s online sources. However, Auctomatic owners are keeping tight-lipped about the value of the deal.

The Auctomatic application, which was only launched in October last year, can be used to track inventory, pictures, and auction templates, and keep tabs on auction traffic.

They’ve lots of time to enjoy their rewards – especially seeing a Patrick is only 19 and John is only 17!

eMarketer has forecasted that American companies will nearly triple spending from US$15 million in 2007 to about US$40 million in 2008 on widget development, promotion and distribution. They further estimate that approximately 50% of the American adult internet population (69million) and 77% of American teen internet users (15million) actively use widgets regularly.

While these may be US centric statistics it’s safe to say that the knock-on effect is obvious for European users, considering so many of our most viewed/used sites are of US origin. From our own experience, we’ve already noticed a huge leap in education and demand for widgets over the last four months in particular within the UK and Ireland.

Up until quite recently widgets were primarily a social networking and blogging tool, but it’s great to see that they’re now been accepted as a standard digital vehicle.

Casio have launched a new mobile phone that tracks calories while you train called Activoo. Similar to the Apple Nike iPod partnership that monitors training, the Activoo allows users to listen to music and make phone calls while working out, while the distance, calories and pace of your exercise are monitored at the same time.

A quirkly Activoo microsite has also been launched. And even though it’s in Japanese it’s still fun to interact with (albeit slightly bizarre and quite unkind)!

Another great piece of viral work from AKQA. This time a spoof of Guinness’s latest for Pot Noodle.

Last week’s SXSW Conference in Texas was watched with a close eye with good reason – they have a habit of introducing the next big things in social media.

This year it’s the use of video-chat in social media. Comments made will actually appear within the video, remaining there as others watch that video – allowing users to chat and interact on the video platform.

Websites like Strutta.com, and DanceJam.com will give you an idea what they’re talking about (YouTube also have a version planned for 2008. The website that stands out is Viddler.com. Pay particular attention to how the comments made appear within the video for iJustine. Last year Coke launched a similar bubbles application on Joost.com, allowing users to send a Coke Bubble to anyone in their email address book.

TV networks will welcome the latest findings from Harris Interactive which revealed that US and UK Adults use the Web as an accompaniment to the TV at home.

The research revealed that 78% of US adults went online whilst watching TV with 35% claiming to do this “often or always”. The research has called these adults “Double Dippers” and 62% of them said they were searching online for the content for what they were watching on TV. 25% claimed they were seeking information on the actual programme they were watching; drilling further into this group gets very interesting for advertisers: 40% said they were seeking information on products and services advertised during the TV program.

This information was sourced from Saor Communication’s eMedia Weekly.

EMI Records (Ireland), Sony BMG Music Entertainment (Ireland), Universal Music (Ireland) and Warner Music (Ireland) have started High Court proceedings against Eircom aimed at compelling them to take measures to prevent its networks being used for the illegal downloading of music.

This is the first case in Ireland aimed at an internet service provider, rather than individual illegal downloader’s. Eircom’s lawyers have said the company was not on notice of specific illegal activity that infringed the rights of the music companies and had no legal obligation to monitor traffic on its network.

The Irish music industry estimates that for every single legal downloaded, there are 20 illegal ones. This trend is having a dramatic effect on industry income, with Irish revenues falling from €146m in 2001 to €102m in 2006.

A common occurence in the US, this is the first such case on Irish soil and potentially a massive wake-up call for ISPs worldwide.

Thanks to the Irish Times for the information.

This caused more than a few laughs in the office - a parody of Rihanna’s music video for her song Umbrella, with “Barack Obama” and “Hillary Clinton”.

Enjoy!