Today marks the start of a new addition to the Cybercom blog (cue drum roll please): the ‘Friday’s Best of the Web’ post.

Going forth, every Friday, we’ll be taking a look at the best sites that we’ve come across through… ‘erm… research that week (not just what is mailed around the office during the week ). We’ll post about virals, games and just about anything cool and digital!

So first up we have a great video we StumbledUpon – “What If We Lived Facebook In Real Life?”

Games, ARGs & Interactive Digital

• Got Milk? – nicely designed game site (even the loader is cool) that will keep you occupied for hours.
• Haze – video, animation, gameplay; We’re not sure this site is missing anything.
• VW Snake – it might be in Dutch (and unfortunately we have no native Dutch speakers in Cybercom) but we just dare you to try and only have one go!
• BMW Pace – not only is this a totally addictive game but it’s very smart how they blended the low res ground graphics as a blur of movement.

Cool Designs

• Voll – click any of the top bar links to see a really cool javascript site navigation
• Brand Tags – what’s the best word to describe a brand? This site sets out to tag all brands, so make your suggestions!
• Go Media – seriously cool and funky design work – prepare to be left in total awe.

If anyone has found any content that you think deserve a mention, please send it through to us so we can share it with the world. Cheers!

Virtually everyone who has ever come in contact with Mr Soichiro Honda, not only speaks highly of, not only applauds both his leadership and his business guile, but above all praises his ingenuity and creative thinking.

Soichiro carries this to every aspect of his business; from his engineering to his marketing. May, however, saw the launch of one of Honda’s most ambitious campaigns ever. Developed by ad agency Wieden & Kennedy London, the campaign, so far, has consisted of four short teaser clips. None of which have mentioned Honda anywhere. In fact if you didn’t get up off the sofa and run to Google, you’d probably have no idea what it was all for.

June 1st sees the launch of the new Honda Accord. A car which has been completely redesigned from the ground up, to produce a machine with all the elements of Honda’s vast racing technologies in the comfort and reliability of a family saloon. The task was described as difficult, but thoroughly worth doing. This is the campaign for that car.

In the true spirit of ‘Difficult Is Worth Doing’, Honda will attempt a formation jump live during the last ad break in Come Dine With Me on Channel 4 at 8:10pm (tonight 29th May!). In a free fall, 19 Skydivers will attempt to sequentially spell out the letters H, O, N, D ,A.

“We are hoping to give people insight, to let people in, to a certain degree, with what is happening,” said the Honda account director at W&K London, Jonathan Tapper.

“With previous ads such as Cog and Choir we have been open about how we made them because the story behind the production is often as interesting as the commercial itself.”

“By giving people understanding about the ad before it launches, not after, it gives substance and authenticity to what Honda is saying,” Tapper said.

Last month, we posted about Google taking control away from brand owners and handing it back to competitors and affiliates. In the interim, the marketplace has collectively discussed and mused over the trademark change, with opinion generally leaned towards the negative.

Yesterday, Marketing Week reported that a heavyweight group of brands and businesses have met to discuss the possible options open to them to tackle Google’s move on trademarks. Currently the full list of those that met is unavailable, but The Association of British Travel Agents have confirmed they took part in the meeting and it is believed the group included Saga and Lastminute.com

Last week the key legal counsels of these unnamed brands met and discussed real action against Google. ABTA has confirmed that Simon Bunce, its lead counsel, did attend the meeting, whereas Saga and Lastminute.com would only say that they are considering their positions, along with Tesco and Arcadia.

Saga have said, “We are actively considering our position with a view to what action we can take, either by ourselves or in conjunction with others”, but Google would only confirm that they are “not aware of any such legal action”.

For now, no legal case is pending.

This year’s Flashforward Conference is not to be missed (unless you live on the wrong continent of course). A showcase and competition for the “most innovative and compelling examples of Flash work available”, it’s being held in San Franciso later this year.

For more information visit www.flashforwardconference.com

For those of you unable to make it to sunny California, fear not. There are still tickets available for Flash on the Beach, the premier Flash conference in Europe, which takes place in Brighton this September and October.

For more information visit www.flashonthebeach.com

That’s plenty to keep you flashing.

The low down on Twitter..

Thanks Paul Dervan for the original post on this.

Sir Martin Sorrell, the chief executive of advertising network WPP, has proclaimed a bounce back in the advertising market in western Europe after a slight downturn in March.

Shares of WPP, which owns ad agencies such as JWT and Ogilvy & Mather and media agencies such as MediaCom and MindShare, fell sharply in April after the first quarter trading update showed a slowdown in western Europe in March.

However, Sorrell said the US market had performed better than Europe for the first third of the year.

He importantly added that the dynamics of advertising were changing: “Sweden this year will be the first country where internet advertising outpaces television and we think next year Google will be a bigger advertiser in the UK than ITV and the internet will outpace television in the UK,” he told the Media and Telecoms Summit in New York.

To put this in comparison, Sweden had a broadband penetration rate of 30% in Q4 2007 – Ireland currently has a rate of 18%.

Our thanks to the Guardian for referred quotes.

Even here in Cybercom, we take a break from digital marketing every so often. We swear – it’s true!

If you haven’t checked out TheBubble.ie recently, it’s definitely worth a lunchbreak or evening on the couch this week! The guys do a weekly video podcast that covers arts and culture events happening in Ireland – everything from art, music, design, theatre, literature, performance, science and technology.

The Coca-Cola Worldwide Marketing Awards recognise excellence in marketing internally within the Coca-Cola Company globally. With some of the world’s top marketers working in within the brand teams across the globe this stands up as a highly competitive environment and a coveted recognition of marketing excellence.

This year, Powerade ‘Never Give Up’ (2007) took the Award for the ‘Best Marketing Communication Campaign’ (Active Lifestyle category) and the ‘Best In Show Award’ (Still Beverage category). From over 169 entries in 19 categories, this is a great achievement.

The Powerade ‘Never Give Up’ campaign delivered massive brand cut through with sales uplift of 42% and strong advertising recall. Visit last year’s campaign microsite here.

Also check out this year’s campaign here!

Are you a highly respected SEO expert and PPC strategist who understands the unique opportunity that Universal Search presents? Have you excellent client facing and copywriting skills?

In Cybercom, it’s simple – we are the leading strategic search marketing agency in Ireland (and one of the best in the UK) so we always aspire to have the very best talent under our roof.

We’re looking for a Search Marketing Manager at present so get your skates on…

With the release of ComScore’s April 2008 online activity report, Google have finally beaten Yahoo for most web traffic. April saw Google Sites attain the number one spot for the first time in its history with a total of more than 141 million visitors. Of the top 50 US properties, Google nudged it’s way to first place passing Yahoo! by just over 450,000 visitors.

The main content categories which showed gains included job search, career resources, and television sites. This is a significant development considering that Google has held the most used search engine title for some time but has always fallen short in its content properties. Yahoo! had previously taken the top position in the monthly listing since November 2003.

So how did they do it? Not surprisingly……. YouTube!

“April was a very active month. Google took the top property position, thanks to continued search growth and rapid growth at YouTube,” commented Jack Flanagan, executive vice president of ComScore Media Metrix.

ComScore also recorded a 35% increase in traffic to the IRS and other tax-related sites during March and April.