middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

I love cats and especially pictures of cats when you’ve got a pretty good idea of what they are thinking. Katy sent me this today. You may have been sent it too. Wonder what it’s thinking?

This is what happens when you:

1) have nothing to do, 2) own a sharp knife, 3) have a large lime, 4) own a patient cat and 5) drink too much tequila

Twitter on the front page of the FT today. World of Warcraft a cover feature for times2 today. Lord of the Rings Online just round the corner (April 24th in US). Blimey. It’s all go isn’t it?

Ask is getting lot of stick for this. If we all joined the “revolution” then wouldn’t all online information just go through another company?

Also - think some of the copy is very dodgy on the site itself (smells a bit of “tracked changes”) and annoyed me that when I remembered the URL having seen a poster, I Googled it and the paid-for result looked like it was pointing to ask.com and not the site I was looking for. I actually gave up and waited untill I saw the poster again . . . when I realised it was .org. Then it was just a bit of a let down.

PS - Sorry for being rubbish on the blog after a flying start. You can blame DIY and a lot of work for that one.

Nice summary of the Internet People event from Jemima Kiss at the Guardian, including some thoughts from Bite client isporty.

I wonder if Facebook really will be sold for $4bn within 4 years? What will the web look like by then? You can only imagine . . . [and I do!]

Simon Fox of HMV is quoted all over the place in today’s papers, talking about recent poor performance and his 3 year plan to turn HMV around.

“Waterstone’s and HMV are great brands but have not adapted quickly enough to the way customers are now buying and consuming media.The markets and the way we operate are both challenging and undergoing structural change. We have to address this with urgency”.

Quick reminder - the original Napster launched on June 1st 1999, nearly eight years ago. I can’t believe people are having the same conversations about the future of the music industry and the “urgent” need to address it.

A whole week has passed and I can’t believe it. As with everyone else, I’ve been super busy doing lots of exciting stuff - including helping Zopa celebrate its second birthday. Zopa is a Bite client (see full disclaimer in the About me section) and is a genuine joy to work with.

The concept is simple - cut out banks to save money (borrowers) and make money (lenders). I get it 100%, am hugely passionate about it and am even an active Zopa borrower to prove as much - I borrowed some money to pay for an engagement ring super quick after popping the Q on holiday.

So, If you haven’t done so already then check it out. You even get £50 right now if you sign up through me (as do I!).

Also, you’ll see some nice coverage on Zopa over the past few weeks via the homepage. We’re very proud.

Just a quick one while I’m thinking of things I love. It’s old now, but still fascinates me. The ultimate combination of old school and new school. Bring on more stuff like this (nice video of it in action). Enjoy it if you happen to have not seen this before.

Also, I’ve found ImageWell an incredibly useful little app to do quick image manipulation such as changing sizes and turning TIFFS into JPEGS for the blog. Download it here (Mac only PC peeps. Sorry).

Love this. Nice live project using humour and art to tackle a very difficult issue. Plus the beauty of the web allows the impact of it to travel much wider, more quickly.

Via Wooster Collective.

So, a couple of weeks into my blog and I’m starting to realise that it’s pretty tough posting everyday. Well posting something worth reading that is . . . so I’ve decided to try not to worry if I don’t post something everyday. It’s not the end of the world.

Anyway, last week I met up with all the other agencies across Europe that also work with Getty Images. During an evening checking out the latest Renoir exhibition at the National Gallery and having dinner, I asked Martin (a really interesting guy from here) what was hot over in Germany.

We had a chat about all the usual stuff - Second Life, Twitter, YouTube, Berlin techno etc. Then he dropped me a quick mail on Friday with some really interesting links to some good stuff going down in Germany which I thought I would share (including comments by Martin).

Thanks Martin. I’ll return the favour some day soon.

Music:
Deichkind - a band from Hamburg which plays a mixture out of hip hop and electro with a very strange but cool live performance… just watch the videos, eg. the one from the Melt festival 2006
Melt Festival - the best festival in Germany right now…
Voom Voom from Vienna / Berlin (ex Kruder & Dorfmeister and Fauna Flash) You will find them on the label site K7 under artists & catalogue / artist or directly here
International Pony - also from Hamburg. Not really new but still cool
Headbangers

Some currently successful German web communities:
lokalisten.de - community with a strong local focus
nachtagenten.de - club and nightlife portal for some cities in Germany
studivz.de - student network
openbc.de - business network like Linked In
myvideo.de
clipfish.de

What’s going on?