The Name of the Game
The new Virgin F1 Racing car (or "VR-01" for those in the know) was revealed yesterday at Silverstone. As part of the launch hullaballoo, we're asking fans to name Timo and Lucas' rides.
The Twittersphere seems pretty interested, so why not give it a try? Just include the #namethevirginf1car hashtag and tweet away.
Winners will get to be part of F1 history (well, for 2010 at least) and some autographed swag to seal the deal.
Welcome to Santa's Lap. Do not move.
Events would not be the same without Stuff Club creating a childlike-joy-inducing object of entertainment. (You might remember the Quick-Draw Saloon back in July, also courtesy of Stuff Club.)
For Christmas, we were presented with Santa's Lap, an oversized pair of legs that dish out 'naughty' punishments and 'nice' treats. Upon setting yourself down on Santa's knees, you are rather alarmingly told not to move while a naughty-or-nice-ometer decides your fate.
The results are posted for all to wince at on www.naughtyornice.tumblr.com.
Pass the Gauloises
Poke has teamed up with Stella Artois and The Auteurs to bring you some serious Francophilia. Classic French films from the 1960s by Truffaut, Godard, Marker, Demy, and Resnais are playing exclusively from the online cinema, The Auteurs. And you can watch a free film every day for a week from 15th - 22nd December. Très bien.
www.theauteurs.com/stellaartois
Branson's Sexy Beast
Richard Branson took the lid of the F1 world's worst kept secret as he unveiled his new racing team, and simultaneously we launched the world's biggest holding page™ ;)
Hacked
We were on lock down here at Poke while all chaos ensued during hack day. Enter 24 hours of sweat, tears and custard pies.
Here’s a round up of the creations:
The Holy Sandwich www.theholysandwich.com: A never-ending stack of user-generated sandwiches.
Egg Watchers www.eggwatchers.com : An egg timer that sources decent YouTube videos of exactly the right length you need to cook your egg. (Notice, reader, how we steered away from the “eggactly” pun. It wasn’t easy.)
That’s a Cappuccino www.thatsacappuccino.com: Campaigning to make Britain’s coffee better with a nice, simple thumbs up or down.
Tracka2 www.tracka2.com: A high-fibre cereal bar with a GPS tracking device buried in it, so you can track your “load”. Delightful.
Al Pieda www.al-pieda.com: A Saw-style ‘death mask’ that releases a custard pie on the face of the wearer on the receipt of one million clicks on the Al Pieda website.
TasteBuddi www.tastebuddi.es: Randomly generated sweet and savoury food combinations for the more adventurous palate.
The Holy Sandwich took the judges prize, winning a five-course meal at the Chef’s table at Corrigan’s. The second prize winners, with the largest volume of traffic, will be announced in March.
Big thanks to Russell Davies, Nic Howell and Yotam Ottolenghi, the discerning judges who gave up their afternoons to be pitched bizarre ideas by sleep-deprived, over excited Pokers.
Poke Hack Day
From tomorrow lunchtime we're shutting the doors for 24 hours to encourage a bit of rapid R&D. We're holding our first version of a 'hack day'.
The whole company is being split into small teams and we're being given 24-hours to create an online thing. The over-arching theme of "food" has been provided, but within that theme we can create anything. It could be a new bit of technology, a service, a blog, a channel on YouTube, whatever, as long as it's broadly food related.
A team of guest judges will award a prize to the best team. A second prize will also be awarded in March to the team that's generated the most unique views of their 'thing'. Sound simple(ish)?
The idea is to push people to be as resourceful, entrepreneurial and hacky as they can - each team will have £100 in cash, and nothing more. Who knows what will happen, maybe we'll create a bunch of amazing things. Or maybe we won't. Whatever happens we'll remind ourselves of some useful stuff about doing things fast, cheap and dirty.
We'll share what's come out it on the blog...
Christmas is coming for The Teens' Speech
The filming's done and we're into the editing suite. Over 20 hours of interviews are being distilled down into the final footage that will make up The Teens' Speech film. It premieres on the front page of Myspace on Christmas Day sometime after 3pm. If you'd like to follow the final stages of this exciting Barnardo's project over the next few weeks, then just check into the blog:
http://www.theteensspeech.org.uk
It's Twitterific
The Manchester City Twitter feed has scooped the public vote award at the inaugural Golden Twits (the BAFTAs of the Twitter world) beating off close competition including Aleksandr, the lovable TV meerkat and spokesman of a certain, well-known price comparison website.
Hundreds of social media enthusiasts and marketing experts gathered at Fabric in London for the awards which are the first of their kind to be held, recognising the importance of Twitter as a tool in the digital age.
We’d like to thank and dedicate the award to all the supporters who voted for @mcfc.
To follow the MCFC Twitter, visit www.twitter.com/mcfc
