Put the pedal to the metal. #digitalgokarting

We’re organising a Go-Karting trip for online marketing / digital creative types around Manchester. As long as we get enough people – quite a few have signed up so far – there’ll be some form of endurance challenge. We’ve got teams from Moo Marketing, Fudge, KMP Digitata and Orchard competing, along with a healthy amount of freelancers.

Race-day is going to be Thursday the 12th of August. We’ve set up an eventbrite page for it, but the order form is at the bottom of this blog as well (because we know what a lazy lot you are). The race will be taking place at Three Sisters in Wigan; check out their website – looks pretty good, doesn’t it?

As well as a chance to zip about in a 70mph twin-160cc-engine Go-Kart, it’ll also be a good opportunity to catch up with some other marketing and design types. We’ve already had confirmations from people from a number of other agencies around here, so you’ll be in good company.

Fancy it? You know you do. We’ll do a follow-up blog afterwards – with pictures, if someone remembers a camera – so the winners will get the recognition they deserve. And we’re talking about it on Twitter, as you’d imagine. All the tweets are being tagged #digitalgokarting. Have a look, join the chat on Twitter, and come down for a race.

Online Ticketing for #DigitalGoKarting at Three Sisters, Wigan powered by Eventbrite

Property Search: Right Move For Google?

Google’s sometimes controversial Maps service has a new feature. Property search allows people to find houses or flats for sale or rent within the Google map interface. Google have identified and implemented this enhancement in the way they always do – and the way which has ensured their success – by spotting an application for their service which suits both individual and commercial users… and by making it really easy to use.

“In a survey conducted just before Google Street View launched across the entire UK, a fifth of those surveyed said they had used the service for househunting [source: YouGov Plc February 2010].”

That’s from Google’s Lat Long Blog. Which is also quick to point out the ways in which property search syncs with other Google Maps services:

“Search can be refined by choosing features like sale or rent, bedrooms, bathrooms, and price. The map will update to show the properties matching those criteria – and also dynamically update as you scroll and zoom around the map…layers and features like Photos, Videos, Satellite, and Earth view can be turned on as well.”

Not that we’d expect anything less.

Google Property Search Map

It’ll be interesting to see how Google develops property search from here. They’ve been testing location tagging in the USA, which allows business owners to Tag their premises with extra information and custom messages on Google Maps. For a fee, of course. How long will it be before Google launches paid upgrades to property search listings?

Tonight’s The Night.

Well, it’s come around a lot quicker than we expected, but Outlook Calendar doesn’t lie; the Big Chip awards ceremony is tonight.  We’ll be heading to the Palace Hotel in Manchester for the awards this evening, and we’ll be in good company; some of the best agencies and freelancers in the northwest will be there as well.

Big Chips Shortlist 2010

We’re really excited about it, and not just because it promises to be a bit of a party. The 2010 Big Chip awards are the first awards that we’ve ever entered, and to make it on to the shortlist is pretty good going. At Moo we’ve just begun a very exciting stage in our growth as a company, and we’re looking at our shortlisting for Big Chip 2010 as a sign that we’re heading in the right direction.

There’s already a lot of chat happening on Twitter about the Big Chips; people are using the tag #BigChip2010. It’s more than likely that the tweeting is going to go on all night, so have a look if you want to find out the results as they’re announced, or read tipsy nonsense as the night progresses.

We’ll post another blog tomorrow to let you know what happened – fingers crossed! – but until then we’ve got some work to do. Good luck again to everyone else who made the shortlist. We’ll see you at the Palace.

MADLAB BLAB BLOG

Northern Digitals’ BLAB event at Madlab last night was pretty special. As well as an opportunity to meet a fair few like-minded digital people, it provided a chance to see a couple of presentations from some remarkable digital creatives.

Andrew Brooks talked us through some of his insanely detailed photographs, and generally dazzled/inspired everyone with his skills and the results of the hours he puts in to each piece. It was interesting to hear from someone who is straddling the worlds of both commercial projects and artistic commissions. We can safely say that pretty much everyone in the room was stunned by the attention to detail in his hyper-real digital art. Wonder how many office and studio walls around Manchester will be featuring one of his prints sometime soon?

After a brief break, during which everyone flooded out into the street for some fresh air (Madlab is a cool place but it was very busy, which meant that it was very warm) the second speakers of the evening took over. Hellicar & Lewis took us through their background, their impressive achievements so far, their ethos in general – including some big statements about selling software – and what’s on the horizon for them.

It was a great event, and the hot weather (and much appreciated refreshments supplied by the event sponsors) provided a rare opportunity for some “continental-style” outdoor networking. Keep an eye on the Northern Digitals site for more info about the next one; we’ll see you there.

Sometimes It’s Cool To Be Proven Wrong.

Way back in 2007 we posted a very excited blog about Cisco’s annual report and its projections for the future of internet traffic. By 2012, we reported, internet traffic was set to reach half a zettabyte. That’s a huge amount. As we explained three years ago:

“What is a Zettabyte? Let’s start with the more commonly known gigabyte and work from there.

Gigabyte = 1000 Megabytes

Terabyte = 1000 Gigabytes

Petabyte = 1000 Terabytes

Exabyte = 1000 Petabytes

Zettabyte = 1000 Exabytes or 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 bytes”

Fastforward to now, 2010. According to the latest figures available, the “digital universe” is currently approx 0.8 zettabytes; around 300 exabytes larger than we estimated it would be by 2012. It’s forecast to exceed the zettabyte at some point this year.

While we may have got the figures wrong – and by quite a margin – we were right on the causes behind the increase in information on the internet. In our 2007 blog we pointed out the huge impact of “Web 2.0”. Web users have embraced social networking. The increasing prevalence of rich-media content being created and shared by both individual users and organisations has also had a massive impact. And that’s not to mention the mobile web explosion…

So, yes, we weren’t exactly spot-on with our estimates. But in this instance we’re more than happy to be proven wrong. We’re excited about the implications that the web expansion has for the creative and analytical aspects of our industry, and also excited on a purely geeky level; a zettabyte is an insane amount of data.

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