middledigit.net | jonathan hopkins

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

PR Blogger has a good post on the entertainment industry and news that Lonelygirl15 is set to star in a movie (!), along with other examples where the line is blurring between the on and offline worlds.

I also came across this today which is a really great example of digital media content making its way into offline media - Creative Review turning a rather nice blog post on Noisy Decent Graphics into a full page feature a month or so later.

As Russell Davies points out (as does Ben when he posts about the above) sooner or later everything real becomes digital and everything digital becomes real. Bring it on I say and make it quicker.

My colleague Katy jut pointed me in the direction of this, an article in the LA Times interviewing Marshal Cahill, political officer of the Second Life Liberation Army. Crazy that war exists even in SL. Why can’t we just sort it out in our “first world”?