John McGarvey – web copywriter

As you’ll have seen if you’ve been near a TV, radio, Twitter or Facebook, sweary activist rock group Rage Against The Machine have pipped the X Factor’s Joe McElderry to this year’s Christmas number one.

Like many people, I’m pretty pleased about this. And I’m also a bit suprised, because had you asked me a week ago, I’d have said the Facebook campaign to get the song to the top of the charts had about as much chance of success as the Monster Raving Loonies have of winning the next general election.

Why the scepticism? Well, joining a group on Facebook only takes a couple of seconds but it’s getting people to do more that has always seemed like the tricky bit. There are thousands of well-meaning Facebook groups and online petitions that have plenty of supporters but achieved nothing else of note.

So why did this campaign succeed – and make such a big impact – where others have failed?

• It tapped into something people feel strongly about: frustration at the X Factor’s dominance of the Christmas number one slot.
• It went huge on Facebook and Twitter. The sheer amount of support indicated that maybe it could actually happen.
• Mainstream media picked it up in a big way. That lent credibility to the grass roots campaign and fostered a real belief it could work.
• It wasn’t asking for a huge commitment. Sure, downloading the track cost a few pence, but it was easy and cheap to make a difference.

I think a lot of it came down to credibility. It wasn’t until Thursday, when Rage performed live on 5 Live’s breakfast show (swear words and all), that I seriously thought there was a possibility we’d see them at number one. And it was only at that point that I was willing to purchase the single myself. Continue reading ‘Rage Against The (X Factor) Machine’

As you might recall, I’ve been away on holiday. I’m back now, reasonably recovered from jetlag and eager to get back to work. Well, eager-ish.

If you sent me a message while I was away and I haven’t responded yet, hang on just a little longer. I’m working through my emails so I’ll be in touch shortly. And if you’re been meaning to drop me a line but decided to wait till I got back, now’s the time. Knock yourself out.

(Picture: a barely-relevant holiday snap taken at Chengdu panda base.)

Regular clients, look away now. You know this already. For everyone else: I’m off on holiday, so don’t expect to hear from me for bit. I’ll be back in three weeks or so.

I won’t be completely out of touch, so if you were thinking of dropping me a line, don’t let the fact I’m not in the country stop you. I’ll be checking my messages while I’m away – I’m just not entirely sure when or how often. So don’t expect an immediate reply.

It’ll be quiet here till I’m back, but if you’re desperate for updates then check Flickr. I’ll probably upload photos for safekeeping as I go.

The more eagle-eyed amongst you might have noticed a new addition to my list of links on the right: Londonist. I’ve admired this site’s coverage of all things London for a while, and when they appealed for new writers I jumped at the chance.

Unusually, my application was accepted without me having to resort to the usual brown envelope stuffed with cash*, and I’ve since written a few music-related pieces.

My review of Wednesday’s impressive Maximo Park gig in Brixton has just been published. I also previewed Idlewild’s recent gigs in Camden and wrote a bit about Field Day.

I’m planning to contribute lots of other stuff, so if you want to see more of my work or just have an interest in London then keep an eye on londonist.com in the coming weeks.

*only joking – while I accept bribes, I can’t afford to offer them

One of the projects I’ve been working on in my day job is to write a series of interviews with some internet ‘celebrities’ and entrepreneurs.

It’s fair to say that I wasn’t massively optimistic about being able to secure big names, but it’s actually been easier than I expected. So far I’ve persuaded five or six interesting people to take part, and the first piece has just been published.

It’s an interview with Chris Anderson, Editor-in-Chief of Wired and the guy behind The Long Tail. Yeah, I was surprised he had the time to talk to me too.

You can read the full interview over on the 123-reg blog. He talks about the idea of ‘free’ – how the internet is making it possible for companies to make money by giving stuff away – and uses Google as an example:

“It started with search and then software and services of various sorts and now they’re rolling out telephony and communications. They’re a sort of tsunami of ‘free’, which disrupts every industry it touches.”

You’ve got to love a phrase like “tsunami of free”. It could never have been coined if the internet hadn’t been invented.

Although it’s been done to death, we also touched briefly on The Long Tail. And before he dashed off I managed to squeeze in a quick question about what he thought of the Facebook craze:

“Fundamentally, social networking is going to be something that every site has. You’re going to go from having one place for social networking to it being devolved to a very granular scale, where your social network is not a subset of Facebook, but instead something that you expect to find as a feature in every site you visit.”

In all, an interesting chap. And very friendly too.

Just spotted a rather portentous headline on the BBC technology news site: ‘Symbian dismisses Google Android’.

I know that Google has next to no experience of producing a mobile platform. And I know that Symbian has plenty. But given Google’s track record, I do wonder if Symbian might come to be haunted by that headline in a couple of years’ time. Google just seem to be good at virtually everything they do.

Newsnight are going all-out with election speculation tonight. It’ll be really interesting to see what happens early next week.

Michael Crick’s report was excellent. He went round the major parties’ HQs in Chester. And he filmed it in a very ‘YouTube’ kind of a way. It looked off-the-cuff and genuine, with a hand-held camera, Tory party activists interrupting shots and the Lib Dems struggling to find the light switch.

I’m no expert when it comes to video, and not 100% sure it was genuine, but it looked great to me. Really engaging, and maybe an interesting side effect of this YouTube revolution thingy the mainstream press has been going on about.

You should be able to watch the whole show here, for 24 hours after about 11.30 tonight.

I just popped BBC Five Live on before heading to bed, and was met with the breaking news that Jose Mourinho is leaving his post as Chelsea manager.

There’s no official word as I write this, but I imagine there’s a good bit of substance to it if the BBC is running the story.

In all likelihood it’ll be filling the airwaves tomorrow, but does it really merit the current prominence on the BBC News homepage? It’s the top story, with a generic “BREAKING NEWS” image.

Call me old fashioned, but I’m not sure a “football manager leaves club” story should ever lead the news – even if it is one of the highest profile managers at one of the world’s biggest clubs.