Hi. Read the below. Then read on.
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Onwards… TO THE THINGS!
1. THE GIRL THAT GAVE ZERO F***S
An old drinking/industry pal of mine (and much-missed hostess of the top-secret underground dance venue ‘Club IAB’ – if you remember it, were you even there?), Amy Kean, has written a book.
Not just any book, mind. No no.
In her Kean’s words, TGTGZF is ‘A fairy tale of everyday bravery and beautifully illustrated feminist handbook for the modern day’.
And it looks lovely.
It’s on UNBOUND* right now, about 40% backed already, and you can secure your copy (and more) from £20 and up.
*It’s like Kickstarter but books. See?Â
2. PAYMENTS ARE COMING TO FACEBOOK MESSENGER (UK)
This is kinda live already for me. Ish. But yeah, very soon (like, in the next few weeks or so) those of you in the UK will be able to send money back and forth to your friends via the medium of Facebook Messenger.
As reported by the BBC:
The service was launched in the US in 2015. The social network says it has been widely used to split restaurant bills, pay babysitters and simply send gifts. It says most users
“Facebook has chosen the UK as the first country outside the US to get its Messenger payments service. Later on Monday, local users will be able to send each other money in a message.send less than $50 (£38).
The company says the service is coming to the UK because it has so many “mobile-savvy consumers”.
Facebook is collaborating with all the major banks and credit card firms to launch Messenger payments, which will require both the sender and recipient of money to register their payment cards.”
As I intimated above, this doesn’t seem to be completely live yet but you can check on your phone right now and see if it is.
> Open Messenger
> Open a one-to-one chat (not a group chat)
> Hit the blue plus icon on the bottom left
> And see if you get something like this:
> Hit that payments button, see if it works.
> And then let me know how you get on
Woo.
Money!
3. THE CHARLATANS GO MOBILE
Cheers to Graham for the tip-off on this one.
Indie Brit band, The Charlatans, have launched this fancy mobile website (open on mobile – it won’t work on desktop) that emulates your phone screen (your iPhone screen) to give you a new way to experience the huge back catalogue of work that they have at their disposal.
This is really nicely done.
I’ve had a play with it and there’s TONS of content in here. If you’re a fan, you probably know about this already. If you’re not, go play and see how a nice bit of EXPLICITLY MADE FOR MOBILE CONTENT can actually be done really well.
Side note: it reminds me of this vertical movie/mobile takeover video from awesome J-Pop group, Lyrical School (any excuse to play this anytime, honestly).
4. AISLING BEA
I don’t have too much to add here save:
Aisling Bea writing about her father’s death when she was three years old is one of the most moving things I’ve read this week.
Read it.
5. THIS WEEK IN ‘BLACK MIRROR EPISODES ARE LITERALLY HAPPENING IRL ALL AROUND US’
“On June 14, 2014, the State Council of China published an ominous-sounding document called “Planning Outline for the Construction of a Social Credit System”. In the way of Chinese policy documents, it was a lengthy and rather dry affair, but it contained a radical idea. What if there was a national trust score that rated the kind of citizen you were?
Imagine a world where many of your daily activities were constantly monitored and evaluated: what you buy at the shops and online; where you are at any given time; who your friends are and how you interact with them; how many hours you spend watching content or playing video games; and what bills and taxes you pay (or not). It’s not hard to picture, because most of that already happens, thanks to all those data-collecting behemoths like Google, Facebook and Instagram or health-tracking apps such as Fitbit. But now imagine a system where all these behaviours are rated as either positive or negative and distilled into a single number, according to rules set by the government. That would create your Citizen Score and it would tell everyone whether or not you were trustworthy. Plus, your rating would be publicly ranked against that of the entire population and used to determine your eligibility for a mortgage or a job, where your children can go to school – or even just your chances of getting a date.
A futuristic vision of Big Brother out of control? No, it’s already getting underway in China, where the government is developing the Social Credit System (SCS) to rate the trustworthiness of its 1.3 billion citizens.”
Not at all concerning in any way, shape or form.
It’s totally worth reading the whole WIRED piece, btw. They’re calling it ‘Gamified obedience’ – yeah, that shiver that just went down your spine. I had that when I read it too. Eesh.
For reference – here’s the wiki for that Black Mirror episode.
Dark.
BONUSES:Â
So yeah, about this section. It’s bloody massive this week. Blame me for taking a couple of weeks off. I’m really sorry for what I’m about to do to the tabs in your browser.
They may explode…
GOOD LUCK!
- Pixel 2 vs DSLR: Honeymooon Edition.
- Truly solving the great 💩 problem of our times.
- Kleptopredation. It’s a thing.
- The AMAZING Trollhunters is coming back to Netflix on December 15th (Trailer for Season 2). It’s a cartoon. For kids. But it’s awesome and, if you have kids, make them watch it. If you don’t have kids, watch it anyway – because it is awesome. Last thing: did I mention that it was awesome? It’s really good!
- It’s 2017 and we’re still discovering stuff about the Pyramids of Egypt.Wow.
- Related: ^ this ^ is an old theory, apparently. So much so that the new ASSASSIN’S CREED game, set in Egypt, already has this stuff already coded in. Amazing.
- Can you work out what would get you sacked as a Minister?
- New Star Wars comes out next month. If you’re starting your countdown to THE LAST JEDI by rewatching ALL the movies. Maybe you should consider the updated Machete order? Worth a punt. Maybe.
- Nevertheless is a new podcast celebrating the women transforming, teaching, and learning through technology – put it in your ears.
- This list of superhero movie nerd details made me smile (mainly because I knew most of them already)
- The great MOTHERLAND is back on TV (the pilot was amazing) so here’s a great interview with its star, Diane Morgan (you may know her better as Philomena Cunk).
- ‘25 things we learnt from analysing billions of tweets‘ – via Brandwatch.
- Snark central: ‘Marketing agency now experts in VR‘ – I genuinely lol’d. Â
- This week I was reminded of the out of office games we played at my last agency, 1000heads. I found them all via the wayback machine. Go read. They’re probably not as funny as I think they are.
- Grim reading of the week: how Reuters bought human body parts and the stories it discovered thereafter…
- The world according to Jeff Goldblum (wonderful).
- Pokemon Go makers, Niantic Studios, are doing Harry Potter next. You thought Pokemon was massive? Just you wait…
- This interview with the CEO of Cambridge Analytica is in-depth and revealing. There’s a lot they understand. There’s a lot they don’t. A worthwhile read.
- Here’s the trailer for ‘Jim (Carrey) & Andy (Kaufman)’Â – the BTS look at Man on the Moon that Universal didn’t want released.
- Lauren Duca is one of the best writers right now. Here she is on ‘Understanding the Fox Propaganda Machine‘.Â
- ‘Travel Oregon‘ feels like something a cool agency would make because it seemed like a cool idea at the time. I wonder what it’ll actually do for Oregon’s tourism.
- What it’s really like to have Borderline Personality Disorder – this really affected me this week. I’m fairly sure a significant person in my life suffers from BPD. I’ve never addressed it with them directly and I wouldn’t know how to. Reading it from a sufferer’s perspective is something I found helpful. Maybe you might find it helpful too.
- Go Kate Nash, Go!
- Rob Blackie has a great article on just exactly how many people see your CONTENT in each SOCIAL CHANNEL? Really well thought out stuff here.
- Twitter doubled its character count. Need to tell your client? Here’s how.
HOLY HELL YOU MADE IT TO THE END.
YOU BEAUTIFUL PERSON.Â
Hello to the fifty-odd new people that signed up over the past fortnight – I hope this newsletter has fulfilled all your dreams.
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I hope you have a gorgeous weekend,
Whatley out x
