• One of my pet campaigns at McCann for Microsoft, the Devsta Challenge, recently finished and the winners just got announced so make sure you check out the top apps
• A study by the Keller Fay Group says that Coke is the most talked about brand in the US
• Windows 7 borrows from OS X, avoids Vista
• Digital Marketing airport analogy
• Download the second Advocacy 2.0 Guide: Cross-posting for Advocacy, An Introduction to Effective Social Media Integration
• Obama’s 30 minute ad that cost him $8m to air on TV
• Apps galore on LinkedIn (finally)
• Youth says No to marketing on social networks but responds to email
• Wired: Paul Boutin reckons blogs are so 2004 with the broad offer in functionality and usability of social networks
• Julian has a leaked video about the Australian internet filter over a his blog Adspace Pioneers
• Last but not least I just finished reading Without Warning by John Birmingham and there’s a great review (with spoilers) on Duncan Riley’s blog

Right. Got back late last night. We drove from Perth to Exmouth and back. 9 days, 8 nights and 3,700 klicks. All up we saw some ridiculously cool things. Took me ages to catch up with my digital life, uploading pictures to Facebook, Flickr and my photo blog, catching up on email and thousands of updates in my RSS feeds.

Best of the best was:

Dolphins that come right to your feet at the beach in Monkey Mia:

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Drift snorkling with tons of fish, turtles and a reef shark at Turquoise Bay in the Ningaloo Reef (which some say is way better than the Great Barrier Reef as the coral is still thriving):

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Standing at a beach where around a hundred turtles were mating in the water and on the beach.

If you want to see more you can do so on my Flickr profile or over at my personal photo blog.

I’m off to Western Australia for 9 days to drive 2,000 klicks up north from Perth and back down again and see the famous pinnacles, swim with dolphins and so on.

In the meantime no posts so here’s a few collected links:

• Client Side Blog post on conversion counting more than ever In digital
• Campaign Brief Magazine online edition for free till end of the year (only July/August issue so far though)
• Will it blend? - interview with Tom Dickson
• Tourism Australia is happy with online sponsorship response
• Save cash on eBay thanks to other people’s typos with Fat Fingers
• Guns and toddlers are just not a good combo
• Minit - parent to parent advice
• 10 most sought-after skills in web development
• Forrester: New 2008 social technographics data reveals rapid growth in adoption
• PriceWaterhouseCoopers predicts that traditional media has 5 years left
• Last but not least: The first minute of Who’s Nailin’ Paylin (SFW but I wonder if there’s a McCain scene in this)

An ad for the 4As Young Creatives Competition.

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A few years ago every man and his dog played the online strategy football game Hattrick. Now here’s the first virtual experience with the difference that you’re not in charge of a whole club but simply one player. The site’s slow as and usability wise it’s a nightmare too but they just scored Reebok as an advertising partner. Can’t say yet whether it’s good as I’m on the waiting list.
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