Aquila Online

Tech Blogging Duncan McLeod Style

// April 4th, 2007 // 6 Comments » // Media, News

Spotted this on the MyADSL Blogs this morning. Many will know Duncan McLeod as a respected, experienced and award winning ICT journalist, currently working at the Financial Mail. Well, it seems as though he’s branching out and has started his own blog, FM Tech.

FM Tech is a blog by Duncan McLeod, technology editor at the Financial Mail, South Africa’s leading weekly business magazine. Conceived by McLeod, it is endorsed by BDFM, the company that publishes the Financial Mail, and is an experiment in marrying traditional and online media.”

It’s always interesting to see journalists who blog and I’ll be watching with keen interest. Good luck.

There’s A New Alpha On The Blog

// April 3rd, 2007 // 5 Comments » // Blog Stuff, First Tuesday, Media

A new Alpha emerged today on the Blogosphere and it’s called Afrigator. Visually leaked this morning at the first, First Tuesday meeting during Mike Stopforth‘s presentation and then later via our ever nimble bloggers, Rafiq, Tyler Reed, Matthew Buckland and Chilibean.

Just like Matthew, I checked out the link for Afrigator on my HTC to find a damn slick looking site. Kudos to Mark Forrester for the design and co-founders Mike Stopforth and Justin Hartman for what looks to be a pretty neat social media aggregator for the african blogosphere (afrosphere they call it). It has a nice ring to it…

So, in this new world of social media, the alpha is the individual in the community whom the others follow and defer to. I’m looking forward to see how this site develops and grows. Guess we will soon see what happens to the betas of the world…

Axle Grease Oil Slick

// March 20th, 2007 // 2 Comments » // Cars & Bikes, Media

Yep, that’s what happens if you go over to the Hammer & Coop site and enter Aquila Online into the action name generator.

The mini-site for Mini Cooper (mini-site geddit?? hehe) features the new 2007 USA Mini Cooper as the automotive sidekick for a “man with no past” who kinda resembles someone that’s been mashed up between Corne & Twakkie meets Starsky and Hutch.  Nice ‘tache there bro.

Unfortunately there’s not much in terms of interactive elements, in fact, the only real interactive mini-game is the action name generator.   The rest of the site is focused on a series of webisodes staring the talking Mini Cooper S (Coop) and our unlikely hero, Jim Turtledove (Hammer).

Funny…but little longevity.

Worth a visit if you’ve got nothing else to do, like me.

30-second trailer below courtesy of YouTube.

Traffic Light Food Labelling

// March 12th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Media

It appears that traffic lights could save your life in more ways than one.

The Brittish Food Standards Agency (FSA) launched a series of ads to raise awareness of traffic light front-of-pack labelling, which allows shoppers to see at a glance if a food product contains high, medium or low amounts of saturated fats, sugars and salt.

“The quirky 10-second TV ads, which each have a slightly different twist, reflect the straightforward and easy to use nature of traffic light labelling, with a red light meaning the product is high in fat/saturated fat/sugar/salt, an amber light meaning medium and a green light meaning low.”

The actual labels on the products may look different, but they all mean the same. An example of McCain traffic light colours look like this:

The 10-second TV ads about traffic light labels can be viewed in Quicktime, Real and Windows Media formats.

Thanks to Duncan for the heads-up.

Chilibean Interviews Aquila

// February 25th, 2007 // 3 Comments » // Blog Stuff, Media

I have been receiving some emails from some friends lately, asking what’s up with the lack of content over the last few weeks. Well the cat is finally out of the bag and things will return to normal in terms of regular updates.

I’ve been quite busy collaborating with Victoire and Paul over at Chilibean on the launch of their New Media business and did some videography and editing for their announcement video.

Surprisingly and in a bizarre twist of fate, the Chilibeaners decided to interview me on my take on some social media topics. You’ll notice that I’m definitely better behind the camera than in front of it, but it was great fun to chat about the developments in online marketing. As mentioned on the Chilibean site, the video is part 1 of 4. They will post the remaining episodes over the course of the next few days, so stay tuned.

For your viewing pleasure (ahem)…it’s posted below. Enjoy!

If you’re still here after viewing that, I guess it’s only fair that someone buys me a drink now that I’m famous. Anyone, someone?

PS: This is also the first time that I’ve posted a Google video on Aquila Online. Let me know your comments if I should post similar videos on the blog.