After watching the news report of a journalist throwing his shoes at George Bush this morning, I waited for the inevitable response from the web. Usually it’s from individuals able to move quicker and smarter than your average brand which most likely wouldn’t be up for doing anything Bush related and therefore politcal/risky in the first place or would just take days if not weeks to sign something off. However, today I’ve seen three Bush/Shoe related things pop up in my Twitter stream from PopJam, Lewis PR and Zappos.

First up we have my favourite and by far the best – Sock and Awe from PopJam founder Alew Tew (he of milliondollarhomepage fame).

This feels completely right, has an awesome name/domain and does a nice job of subtly bringing in a link back to Popjam and a fairly discreet email entry box.

Nicely done. I certainly had a few goes and signed up for more info on PopJam. Job done.

Secondly, we have the Bash a Bush ‘viral’ from Lewis PR.

To be honest, the fact it was referred to as a viral in the URL string automatically put me off it. It’s digital content that is hoped to go viral, blah blah blah . . . Anyway, having got over the ‘viral’ thing the gameplay is itself pretty straightforward and pretty slickly done, as much as can be for a tried and tested (and therefore more tired ) basic ‘bash the rat’ type of format. But, again – at least they did it and moved petty quickly.

Finally, we have a video from the guys at Zappos. Very quickly turned around, but all in all not that funny or posted on their blog. Still, top marks for trying and having the balls to just put it out. Oh and for tagging it with Bush, Irag etc !

So, yet again another reminder that brands (and agencies) need to move at lightning speed these days in order to ride on the waves of excitement that follow an event like a journalist throwing a shoe at George Bush, a BNP list going astray or something else that’s just around the corner. And – that competition really is fierce for people’s attention. You’re quite literally up against the world.

More here and here.

[via Tom (who needs to get a website/blog!)]

BUT – the film bizarrely doesn’t show you how it ends. And you can’t easily share the film or embed it – other than emailing it to a friend. It appears to be on YouTube (see below too) – but this isn’t linked to on the main site, which I find a bit odd if you want to remove all potential friction that might stand in the way of something going a bit viral. Anyway, enjoy it if you haven’t seen it.

[via Ars Technica which quite rightly asks if Microsoft should be doing stuff like this. Answer? Just focus on making great products and software that talk for themselves.]

No embed (boo!), click through to watch at Fast Company.

PS I asked for a smiley face too and by the sounds of it, they’re about to do one (will update if it happens).

You see, surely a better thing to have done would have been to have created two groups “We love Marmite’ and “We hate Marmite’? That way the two groups – each fuelled by the passion of the people in them – could have battled it out. As it stands (link to group here, actually it’s a Page but there we go) the love or hate aspect of the call to action gets a bit lost in the action. The official Page for Marmite could have been created for ‘true’ fans and used to fuel and update the battle for love or hate across both groups.

Also – I went to the main Marmite site today and there was no mention of the Facebook group anywhere (obvious) to be seen. Again – little bit sad to see that given the fact that they would have known the online coverage would be appearing.

Anyway, I actually love Marmite and am no hater, I just felt compelled to write this as I assumed that the second I read the headline, that’s what they would have done. Wonder why they didn’t or if anyone else has any other ideas? Or maybe I need to worry about something else.

Oh, disclosure – Facebook is a Bite client but then I think I’ve mentioned that a few times so you probably knew that.

For me, the fact that my father-in-law-to-be has bought a Wii after playing mine at Christmas and now has not one but four Wiimotes so that the whole family can play tennis on his plasma is a sure sign of its success.

Having updated the Intenet Channel, I pointed my Wii browser towards TV Links and hey presto, everything works. And everything works amazingly well – you really should check it out if you own a Wii. And if you don’t then here’s just another reason to get one.

TV shows, Movies, Anime, Cartoons, Music videos and Sport are all on there. First movie of choice was “An Inconvenient Truth” and it ran just fine. All the way through with no stutters. Second up was a few doses of Alan Partridge, Peep Show and even a couple of “How is it Made?” episodes from the Discovery Channel (helicopters and glass = awesome).

On further inspection, some of the movies appear not to work properly but then even if a small percentage of what’s listed works – it’s still well worth it. So Check Ch-Ch-Ch-Check it out, as the Beasties might say.

And speaking of the Wii – the Art of Wii is OK, but feels a bit “yeah, yeah”. Thoughts?

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.