What’s the deal with liability for things I say here on this blog?

If I dropped the suggestion that Julian Cole and Jye Smith do more than just blog together, am I financially liable if it is deemed slanderous? Is Blogger?

If you do sue me all you’ll take is my beer money for the next fortnight and maybe a weekly train ticket but maybe something I should be thinking about.

Can my law peeps help?

I’ve started writing for a few different publications (exciting news coming soon) which has lead to a slight decrease in content on my blog. Which is not a problem, just giving you the heads up that some of my future posts will simply be links to articles I’ve written elsewhere.

Unless anyone objects..?

I don’t know what it is, but lately a lot of content that has had me in tears. I feel like someone finally understood my sense of humour and is tailoring productions to meet my comedic needs. The latest is a series of posters by Craig. Pretty funny stuff. But turns out the idea and even the copy belongs to Chris.

If he were a brand I’d tear him to shreds. I don’t know where my moral compass stands in regards to non branded/commercial content. I’m leaning towards not cool.

But what’s is cool is the response. I’ve seen a few online, but here are two I spotted walking down Chapel Street today.

Admittedly they weren’t quite as funny as the originals (or fakes) but love the user generated responses that a popping up everywhere. Couldn’t get a better high resolution version, maybe if they’d written less and printed it bigger they would get more coverage online?

But what is rad, one of these was from a local bakery who wanted Craig to to join a club they started. For ten minutes work, what a great idea for a small business.

I was sitting in a tutorial today keying an assessment date into my iPhone calendar. The tutor walked up and told me I shouldn’t be text messaging in class and to focus on the task. I explained to him that I was doing nothing different from the student next to me writing the date into her paper diary.

He smiled and asked what question I was up to.

Yet another example of the University demonstrating just how far behind they are.

The fact I was actually on Facebook because the tutorial was terribly boring is irrelevant.

Just because your video has a few million page views doesn’t mean it’s gone viral. It just means a few million people have seen it.

Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. Of course it depends on your objectives. So when Avril Lavigne’s Girlfriend video (not available to Australians) passed Evolution of Dance for the All Time Most Viewed video on YouTube earlier this year, it’s hard to argue her video had the same viral qualities because she cheated.

When a campaign runs a microsite with a video on the front page, you can earn millions of pageviews. This doesn’t mean the content has been spread, especially not virally.

Therefore you can’t measure if a video has gone viral just on hits. Instead look at how many people are talking about it and ultimately their influence on those listening.

I just watched ABC’s Lawrence Leung’s Choose Your Own Adventure. Seriously funny shit. My perfect genre of comedy. Instant favourite.

Side note before I start, how fucking awesome are the ABC? Not only are they producing the best television content in Australia but they’re doing a killer job in the transition from old to new media. Podcasting, online content, iView. Awesome. They continue to lead the way, in fact my second ever post 18 months ago said something similar.

Anywho, in the show, Lawrence was looking at some techniques for picking up girls. One guy suggested the use of phonetic ambiguity, which is when you say something that can be interpreted as something else but more subtly.

The example they used was the term “below me”, which can sound like “blow me”. So when you say to a girl about something being below you, she’s apparently meant to drop to her knees.

I’m struggling to see this actually work but more interestingly has it been done in marketing before?

Or can you think of your own to use in a TVC or radio spot?

When I think of those “classic” marketing campaigns and examples, the majority of them are from when I was running around as a little tacker or even younger.

But here’s something a bit more recent. Hungry Jacks and their two handed Whopper salute. I read about it a couple of times in this week’s marketing magazine readings (Marketing, AdNews and B&T) and realised how deeply that symbol is now embedded in consumers’ minds. Even more incredibly, it only took a few months.

Now it would be cool to see a UGC element, maybe a Flickr competition with people doing the salute. And I’d give it an official name to concrete it in everyone’s mind. And a quick look on YouTube shows heaps of people trying to order in stores using the salute… utilise that.

On the 2nd of March, Victoria Police sent out a mass SMS to everyone in the state saying the follow…

“Extreme weather in Vic expected Mon night & Tues. High wind & fire risk. Listen to Local ABC Radio for emergency updates. Do not reply to this msg.”

What a fantastic use of technology. A great move by the Victorian Police, an organisation I would expect to be more bureaucratic than my university. But I have a problem.

Thankfully, legally the message is not considered spam, which was my first worry. But I am worried about the weather that actually occurred on the 3rd. Besides some slightly higher winds, it was like any other day.

Now while I’m all for being safe than sorry, what has this message done to the credibility of the next? Will people take the next message as seriously? It’s like the Government saying two drinks is a binge, bringing down the level of “binging”, giving it less of an impact.

I also have to question why wasn’t a message like this sent out a week earlier on Black Saturday?

I always assumed my Melway (directory of Melbourne’s streets that sits under every car seat in Victoria) would be replaced by a GPS system. Turns out it was my iPhone.

I’ve now had my iPhone for three months and I can’t believe how much it has changed my daily behaviour.

It’s changed my life and made me a better person.

Maybe I should look at getting a Mac.