Friday, August 31, 2007

Wonderings: could your website do with an "oo"?

After two complaints within the past twenty four hours at my lack of blog posts I decided to post something short and sweet about the things I've been wondering about over the past month.

1. Whether some video mashups/remixes (forget musical brilliance such as Jay-Z's grey album) are a manifestation of a rule of comedy - repetition. Take, for example, a small excerpt from a video showing a rodent with a strange expression on its face that has spawned many, many different versions; does that make this an ancestor of the Spam sketch?

2. If success online is predicated by an "oo" sound e.g. Yahoo, Google, Youtube, Facebook (strictly speaking only if you're from Liverpool or the Midlands), Joost and now Hulu? Yeah ok, there's eBay and Skype but c'mon... isn't there something pleasurable about making an "oo" sound? These corporates are playing with our minds! Although there was boo.com... and oops, maybe Hulu wasn't such a good choice after all.

3. About the origins of the word documentary, and how the blend of images, film and words online is the perfect fusion/medium for the communication of new information. This thought was inspired by the LA Times homicide map (imagine pieces of film integrated into that instead of just news stories). I'm thinking of this in comparison to "downtime" entertainment which possibly "sit-back" video content will always be the purest form.

4. On change in general - my boss, Andy Taylor, left Channel 4 today and New Media as a department is shifting within Channel 4 to merge with all our technology teams. Although I am desperately sad to see Andy go as he was one of the main reasons I wanted to join Channel 4, these are all good moves, I think - but changes to get used to all the same.

A theme which excuses me quoting one of my favourite lines about change from the excellent but sadly axed after three series, Strangers with Candy (n.b. don't bother with the film, try to get the DVDs)

"I've changed. People change. Changes… I'm not the same Jerri Blank who informed on those blind orphans. I'm not the same Jerri Blank who revealed the hiding place of those Guatemalans … such as yourself. And I'm not the same Jerri Blank who took a crap in the Fleishmann's holly bushes … last night."

Can you see how troubled my mind is now? Do you really want me to write some more now? Huh?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I think you can trace memes in successful names - first "oo" then a lack of e (flickr, dopplr), followed by the return of e (twitter). Last month the buzz was for pownce. So maybe the next trend is for onomatopoeic names spelled phonetically.

I wonder if comedy memes go through a similarly evolutionary process (witness lolcats, loldogs, lolwalrus and now lolgeeks).

Louise Brown said...

Well I was considering that Channel 4 online might be screwed without an "oo", maybe we could get by with a "phwoar"?