GuidePal City Guide to Florence

Posted on December 9, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

As it’s been an unforgivably long time since my last post, I thought I’d take a couple of minutes to point you in the direction of the thing that’s been keeping me so goshdarn busy… the incomparable GuidePal city guide to Florence. That’s right – I did a guide.

As the world’s leading smart phone travel guide application, this is officially the best free downloadable guide to Florence out there. Probably. So if you’re lucky enough to be heading to this cultural capital, why not take my wise words along for company?

Incidentally, if you’re heading to Prague or Edinburgh, I wrote those city guides too…

Killing Time in Europe’s Best Cemeteries

Posted on October 11, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

I’ve had a new travel article published in the latest issue of stalkingElk (a comedy satire magazine, for which I am the ‘roaming correspondent’) about the very best cemeteries to visit in Europe. Here’s how it all starts…

“You can’t beat a good graveyard. An inexorable fixture in every childhood – whether burying your gran, losing your virginity or dabbling in the occult – cemeteries also offer the more adult pleasure of killing time prior to your own pathetic demise. So however you like to do it, from taking a walk out of the grim city to spotting D-list celebrity gravestones, here are ten of the continent’s finest time-killing cemeteries…”

If you’d like to read more of ‘Killing Time in Europe’s Best Cemeteries’ – and you really should, you know – you can click here for the whole article. Or if you want to read more similarly-flippant comedy nonsense, you can visit the stalkingElk website to buy the whole mag for three measly quid.

What’s behind trolling?

Posted on September 15, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

Do you know about ‘trolls’? They’re the rather annoying individuals who anonymously post insults, threats and provocations on online forums, Facebook pages and newspaper comments sections. The BBC has recently published an excellent magazine article on the growing phenomenon, looking at the psychology behind it.

“Online people feel anonymous and disinhibited,” says Professor Mark Griffiths, director of the International Gaming Research Unit at Nottingham Trent University. “They lower their emotional guard and in the heat of the moment may troll either reactively or proactively.”

The article also points out that, thanks to a recent surge in trolling behaviour, there’s been increasing pressure on governments and private organisations to put restrictions on – or even entirely abolish – online anonymity. However, Jeff Jarvis, author of Public Parts, has a far less draconion suggestion. “The answer is for newspaper websites and online forums to employ sufficient moderators to prevent the comments spiralling into petty vendettas.”

Well, that’s one solution – but there are plenty of others too. Shamelessly relating back to an article I first wrote over two years ago, here are ten top ways to keep the trolls at bay. Well, nine top ones and a rubbish voice censor.

For more insight into the world of online marketing, and for all your web copywriting needs, please get in touch.

Top Marx: When Socialism Meets Tourism

Posted on July 22, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

I’ve had a new travel article published in the July issue of stalkingElk – a comedy satire mag, for which I’m the ‘roaming correspondent’ – all about when socialism meets tourism. Here’s how it begins:

“Look at the condition of communism today and it’s easy to conclude that Karl Marx has been forgotten. China is now home to twice as many KFC outlets as giant pandas. Vietnam is famed for its vast income and gender inequalities. And while Laos’ clampdown on the media is a big commie tick, its free market policy is like defecating directly into Lenin’s cold, dead gullet. Each of these states, a mere two decades after some vexed Germans shouted at a wall, are now about as socialist as Joseph McCarthy in a kaftan.

However, not every socialist state has opened its arms and spread its legs to greet rampant capitalism: there are still three corners of the globe where hard-line communism stubbornly prevails. Three of the most unique and alien places on earth. Which makes them three of the most interesting places to visit…”

If you’d like to read more of ‘Top Marx: When Socialism Meets Tourism’, you can click here for the whole article. Or if you want to read more of the kind, you can visit the stalkingElk website and buy the whole mag for just £3. Bargain!

What Makes a Viral?

Posted on July 10, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 4TH APRIL 2009 BY RED C MAGAZINE]

On 10th March 2009, the BBC’s Today current affairs radio programme ventured into the world of viral marketing by uploading a video to YouTube. The ‘viral’ – a video that rapidly gains popularity by being distributed and shared on the internet – was created as an experiment to see how widely the three-minute ad could spread in a short amount of time.

As of 31st March 2009, three weeks after being uploaded, Inside Today has been viewed nearly 55,000 times and has been emailed, instant messaged and blog linked across the planet. So far, so good. But the experiment has had its critics, with many questioning whether the Today promotional video can really be defined as viral. Continue reading →

Socialism & Tourism #3: North Korea

Posted on July 1, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

Prior to the release of my new travel article about socialist tourism, I will be previewing a few of the commie states featured. This last one is North Korea.

If travel is about experiencing other ways of life, then it doesn’t get more ‘other’ than this. North Korea is the most isolated country on earth, cut off from reality by a totalitarian communist government that imprisons its citizens in a 1950s vacuum. This not only means North Koreans have never questioned Lady Gaga’s gender or not shut up about The bloody Wire: they have no idea man has been to the moon.

Consequently, visitors must accept strict limitations on what they say, as well as what they see. But that doesn’t mean the tourism is humdrum – not a bit of it. Visit the Democratic People’s Republic and you’ll get to board a captured US warship, be dwarfed by a colossal bronze dictator and witness the largest gymnastics festival on earth. Oh, and you’ll get sneaky peeks of reality too, like malnourished workers in rice fields and legions of rats scurrying through the metro. Continue reading →

Socialism & Tourism #2: Transdniestr

Posted on June 24, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

Prior to the release of my new travel article about socialist tourism, I will be previewing a few of the socialist states featured. This time, it’s Transdniestr.

Following Poland’s 1989 overthrow of the commies, Soviet states toppled like pissed dominoes. Within two years the USSR had gone and socialism in Europe was finished. Or so you might think. Actually, as Poland and co. marched towards democracy, one sliver of Eastern Europe was left behind.

Transdniestr, a teensy region in the east of Moldova, broke away from the then Socialist Republic in 1990, following ominous rumblings of reform from Chişinău. After a two-year girly fight, a fresh yet familiar socialist system was formed under cuddly, pastry-faced autocrat Igor Smirnov… and it’s one which continues unopposed to this day. Continue reading →

Socialism & Tourism #1: Republic of Cuba

Posted on June 17, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

Prior to the July release of my new travel article about socialist tourism, I’ll be previewing a few of the commie states featured. First up, it’s Cuba.

Let’s begin with the most visited communist state in the world. In many ways, Cuba is your classic Caribbean paradise isle: home to pristine beaches, poncy hotels, sweaty nightclubs and overpriced trinkets. Yet with socialist giveaways on every corner, from omnipresent Che murals to dilapidated American Buicks, it doesn’t take Tony Robinson levels of surface-scratching to see that Cuba is an island unlike any other.

Socialist since 1959, the country now boasts over two-and-a-half million tourists – including law-dodging Yanks – each year. While most stick to the bespoke capitalist bubbles along the coast, sipping mojitos, smoking Montechristos and swaying to samba music, an intrepid few venture inland to see Castro’s Cuba for what it really is: a steaming great mass of socialist contradictions. Continue reading →

Propaganda: Marketing for the Masses

Posted on May 30, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 17TH NOVEMBER 2009 BY RED C MAG]

Have you ever read Nineteen Eighty-Four? It’s about an everyman living under an oppressive totalitarian regime. The ‘proles’ are kept in a controlled state of poverty, living under almost constant surveillance and being ‘educated’ on a daily basis to believe in the inherent good of their government and the inherent evil of others. All in all, it’s a terrifying fiction. Well, if you can call it that. In fact, the regime in the novel closely resembles many real-life regimes of the twentieth century. And, much like the citizens of George Orwell’s dystopian world, the billions of human beings living under these govenments were mostly genuine and wholehearted believers. Their corrupt leaders successfully brainwashed them into thinking they were living the good life, even while terrible things (war, poverty, oppression) were happening all around them.

It’s a mightily impressive feat. So impressive, in fact, that you can’t help but wonder… how on earth did they do it? Continue reading →

The Marketing Might of Music Streaming

Posted on May 11, 2011 by Joseph Reaney

[ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON 24TH SEPTEMBER 2009 BY RED C MAGAZINE]

Do you like music? Okay, stupid question: I might as well ask if you like converting oxygen into carbon dioxide, or Christmas Dinner. Everyone loves a good tune – with the possible exception of Andrew Lloyd Webber – and there’s nothing better than getting it for nothing. Remember how the holy grail of free music lured an entire generation into the open paws of that creepy Napster cat? Until the Recording Industry Association tied the bugger up in a burlap sack and chucked it in the Mississippi, of course.

Now, after a miserable half-decade of having to fork over cash for music, the free tunes are back; and it’s all thanks to applications like Spotify, we7 and Grooveshark. Music streaming services like these have become incredibly popular in an impossibly short amount of time, and they’re already having a big impact on the way music is made, distributed and charted. But forget all that. The important bit for us to realise is this: with all new forms of music consumption come all new advertising opportunities… Continue reading →