Want to run a virtual iPhone on your iPhone? There's an app for that. No, really. Aside from complete meta-awesomeness, I'm not sure what purpose it serves. But then meta-awesomeness should be reason enough for something to exist. It exists because it can. (and because then iPhone fans like me will link to it.....)
I watched Hard Day's Night for the first time in a few years at the weekend, and aside from being just as funny as the last time and the many times before, the scene where George Harrison takes a wrong turn and wanders into an audition for Beatles lookalikes to add a bit of product placement into a TV show really made me think that we haven't moved that far in 45 years
This is very very cool: Mapumental by MySociety builds data from GoogleMaps, public transport timetables, average house prices and a 'scenicness' game that has built up a pool of data on the most scenic places in Britain, to make (what looks like) a really useable guide on where to live in the UK. It's in private Beta, which I haven't managed to acquire yet, so I've only seen the video. But having seen the video I can't wait. It really is an incredibly useful, straightforward tool that I can see helping a lot of people. (tip-off from Cory Doctorow at BoingBoing)
How's that for a view on the way to work? Huge respect to the Queensland Tourist Board, whose job ad for a "Caretaker" for Hamilton Island on the Barrier Reef has so far delivered 850,000 visitors to the recruitment site for the so-called 'Best job in the World'.
The premise is that the island needs a resident caretaker/publicist, who will need to explore the land and sea over the course of their 6 month contract, and blog, video and generally show off about the fact that this comes with a £70k salary. Applications will be judged on the calibre of writing and video as well as knowledge and general suitability. 10 candidates will be flown out to Queensland to interview.
So basically, this is a UGC competition with a great prize. Ok, a prize that is better than most. But still, not out of the ordinary as competitions go. The sheer genius is the 'recruitment' spin that gives newspapers, radio stations, etc an easy hook to hang a great story on. This was all over the BBC and the national press on Monday, and back today with the news that global interest has crashed the recruitment site I had a look at the impact this has had on UK interest in Hamilton Island in a few places. On Google Trends, I looked at the impact on the campaign across searches for Queensland as a whole, the Barrier Reef generally, and Hamilton Island specifically. Although the news volume is not really registering, search volumes show a huge spike for each of the destinations, showing that the campaign is having a halo effect across the whole state. On Twitter, we can use Streamgraph to look at the key sentiments the campaign is generating. Interestingly 'pay' is the key outtake: not sure if this says more about Twitter's 20-40 year old professional user base than about the campaign itself though. Forum posts are showing a similar trend worldwide. In the time it has taken me to write about this post, I still haven't managed to get the Island Reef Job site working, so assuming that the demand took the QLD web guys by surprise as well. One of the beauties of Addictomatic is that by searching for this campaign alongside web developer terminology is that it took me straight to the team behind it discussing it on Twitter. So great work @xcommedia and @ckjchambers.
Huge respect to the Queensland Tourist Board, whose job ad for a "Caretaker" for Hamilton Island on the Barrier Reef has so far delivered 850,000 visitors to the recruitment site for the so-called 'Best job in the World'. 
This was all over the BBC and the national press on Monday, and back today with the news that global interest has crashed the recruitment site
I had a look at the impact this has had on UK interest in Hamilton Island in a few places. On Google Trends, I looked at the impact on the campaign across searches for Queensland as a whole, the Barrier Reef generally, and Hamilton Island specifically. Although the news volume is not really registering, search volumes show a huge spike for each of the destinations, showing that the campaign is having a halo effect across the whole state.
On Twitter, we can use Streamgraph to look at the key sentiments the campaign is generating. Interestingly 'pay' is the key outtake: not sure if this says more about Twitter's 20-40 year old professional user base than about the campaign itself though. 
Forum posts are showing a similar trend worldwide. 
In the time it has taken me to write about this post, I still haven't managed to get the Island Reef Job site working, so assuming that the demand took the QLD web guys by surprise as well. One of the beauties of Addictomatic is that by searching for this campaign alongside web developer terminology is that it took me straight to the team behind it discussing it on Twitter. So great work @xcommedia and @ckjchambers. 
