blog.

Google and Youtube announced one of the most far reaching and ambitious (and ruddy exciting!) user generated content experiments yesterday.

Life in a Day is a film project, asking people the world over to upload a film of a day in their life - specifically July 24th, 2010.

The idea is to get as many people as possible to upload their films, which will then be sifted through by such illuminati as Ridley Scott (no less!) and edited down to a feature length film to take to the Sundance Film Festival.

Never ones to shy away from a challenge, we'll be weilding our acting / production / general 'luvvie' skills and winding up to the big day on 24th July.

Keep you posted with any storylines as they take shape, and of course any news of irreconcilable artistic differences!

Any ideas of what we should do, or if you want to submit something for us to include, get in touch!

Everybody knows the value of social networking these days, right? Any commercial organisation worth its salt will have a social media strategy in place, and be falling over themselves to implement and update it. (There's nothing sadder than a neglected Twitter feed or blog).

But how do you keep track of all your followers? How can you measure the effect - the buzz - created by all your hard efforts and updates? Simple. Addictomatic.

Branded with the strapline 'inhale the web', Addictomatic does just that. Whether for ego searches or general interest, Addictomatic 'listens' to the web, seeking out your search term, and delivers you real time results from Twitter, blog posts, YouTube and news articles. You're left with a snapshot profile of exactly what the web thinks of any given topic at any given time.

Now Addictomatic is not the only provider to offer this service. Google has recently launched its real time search, and while it is largely limited to search results returned from news sites currently, in theory it has the ability to monitor social networking sites too.

The beauty of Addictomatic is that you can personalise your page, moving, editing and deleting areas as necessary. Save it to your favourites and there you have it - a real time snapshot of what everyone on the web has to say about any given topic. With the season of Easter upon us, I searched for 'master chocolatiers' Lindt, and came up with all sorts, from recommended outlets to stories of those who'd been 'saved' by the chocolate.

Fun stuff, if a little addictive!

YouTube is 5 years old!

No, we couldn’t believe it either. Hasn’t it always been around? Whether it’s for watching music videos (which we’re now allowed to do again), prison inmates dancing to Thriller in unison or just for giggles, YouTube has well and truly ingrained itself into our lives. And with TV broadcasters such as Channel 4 enabling users to view their 4OD content  through the channel, it continues to pioneer the way for free video content online. Even if the newspapers are all looking to start charging!

Happy birthday YouTube! Here’s to another 5 years...