On a recent trip to Vegas I had a connection at Houston airport and after feasting on a fantastic Wendy’s burger (why don’t we have Wendy’s in the UK? Or do we?) I was strolling towards my departure gate when a larger than normal vending machine catches my eye.

At work I visit a vending machine a few times a week when I get a chocolate craving and feel like a double decker; or maybe a sandwich at lunchtime just isn’t enough and the need of a packet of cheese and onion is the only way to go.

The vending machine at Houston airport though had neither of these snacks on offer, if it had I wouldn’t have been bothered, not only had I just had my Wendy’s burger but vending machines that sell crisps and chocolate are two-a-penny; I certainly wouldn’t be blogging about it!

This vending machine was very different. This vending machine sold SkullCandy headphones, mp3 docking stations, Belkin earphone splitters and Apple iPod touch’s, Nano’s and Shuffles. Yep, that’s right. Your reading ability is not failing you – In the vending machine was 3 of Apples best selling products – the iPod Touch, Nano and Shuffle.

In some ways I thought this was impressive.
Easy access to products, no shop worker hassling you and even a few quid off. But thinking about it further – I just couldn’t help wondering what Apple was playing at.

Just like when I saw Thorntons chocolates for the first time in a petrol station shop, I thought – here’s a premium brand devaluing their most important asset.

Apple prides itself in having knowledgeable staff, a quality in-store experience and the most ‘designer’ brand in the IT world. So to throw it’s products in a ‘best-buy’ vending machine just doesn’t sit right for me.

I could maybe forgive Apple slightly if the vending machine was chrome or black, placed thoughtfully in a designer shopping centre with a stylish Apple logo displayed proudly on all four sides.
But this wasn’t even close – it was blue and yellow, stuffed with several other branded products and sitting in a busy airport.

In general, brands such as Apple are fantastic at protecting their image, with extremely stringent guidelines for anyone using their logo’s in print, on the web or on any merchandise. I dare say they have departments dedicated to branding that oversee all uses of the corporate image. Then they allow their products to be sold wherever without a care.

For me that stinks of maximising the selling opportunities and not protecting the brand. The environment where the product is found should compliment the brand, if it doesn’t it cheapens it, simple as that.

Maybe saying Facebook’s dead is a little premature, but while everyone has been waiting for Google to release Google Me, Apple have sneaked up on the quiet and revealed what could be a killer blow in terms of social networking.

Apple’s Sept 1st 2010 Keynote was in my opinion even better than their June 7th presentation when they announced the iPhone 4. It may be a case of expectations being so high for the new “king of the smartphones” announcement that Steve Jobs was really in a no-win situation back in June. But I think with the grand reveal of their new iPod range, Apple TV (let’s please stop calling it iTV now!) and the sneaky dip into social networking with the announcement of Ping, this was one hell of a keynote.

As a side – I think the new nano looks fantastic and integrating a camera into the iPod touch to enable Facetime is a master stroke, but that’s another blog.

I want to talk about Ping. By integrating Ping into iTunes, Apple have opened up Ping to a mere 160m users in one foul swoop, that’s impressive. It’s what Google will do if they base their new social media offering on YouTube, so they must be watching with bated breath to see what happens.

By integrating social media into iTunes, Apple are saying this is “A Social Network for Music”. But I have to wonder how much this is just to keep Facebook happy, as in reality this is a social network for Music, Books, Films and Apps – many of which are Games.
Lets look at that list again…

1. Muisc
2. Books
3. Films
4. Games

Now if we look at what people talk about on Facebook and Twitter, we can see a large portion of that activity is based around those 4 topics.

Therefore we have the platform for wide discussion. Now all we need is to open this up to a wide audience.
Lets consider Apples hardware with iTunes installed ready and waiting, – First we have Macs (1.6m – 1.7m sold per quarter!)
- iPhones (8.7m sold per quarter)
- iPod Touch (3.2m sold per quarter)
So that’s a lot of platforms running iTunes. But wait. Did we miss something? Something that might open up Ping to an even wider audience. Something I’ve probably even already mentioned in this blog… that’s it… Apple TV.

This is where the killer blow could be made. If Apple market their TV offering with all guns blazing they could revolutionise the social networking arena.

Just imagine people networking over their TV. Talking about what Film they are watching. One word. Awesome. Listen to music your friends are into, after all they’re your friends because you probably have similar taste. Read books they like and watch films they are in to.

We could even go a step further and imagine what could happen if we stick a webcam on top of the TV and open up Facetime for Apple TV users. The possibilities are endless.

Apple has seriously lined its ducks up. They could dominate in so many areas – Music consumption, Mobile communications, social networking, TV. Will there really be any hours in the day you don’t find yourself interacting with Apple?

I love TV adverts, I know many people hate them and feel they interrupt a good program – but I love’em!

There’s simply too many quality adverts to include them all in a list, it would go on forever and anyone stumbling across this blog at work would surely get the sack should they watch them all. I don’t want to be responsible for making a load of people jobless – so instead I’ve decided to focus my attention on adverts solely within an area close to my main interest and that’s technology.

To give my collection of videos some sense of order, I’ve cast my mind back to my technological journey through life. Looking at all the adverts for every computer and console I’ve had the pleasure to own.

Now some of these adverts actually contributed to me parting with my hard earned monies. Others I never knew existed. But one thing’s for sure – there are some classics here.

I’m going to attack this in chronological order, starting off with a tech-defining product from that bloke who is famous for also inventing one of the worst products of all time, Mr Clive Sinclair. Yes – it’s the…
ZX spectrum 48k and spectrum+

My next tech purchase was to be the last before I ventured into the console world. One thing I could remember about this advert was the tune – quality!

Commodore Amiga 500

For any child of the 80s/90s there is one very important decision to make. Sega or Nintendo. There was never a case in these times of Sonic and Mario meeting in the same game. Never should the two meet as they were sole representatives for two of the biggest rival organisations in the world.
My choice was Sega, step forward the…

Sega Master System

I had already made my choice. The next console was a given, bring on 16Bit gaming and probably the most awesome control pad ever invented.

The Sega Mega Drive

I felt again it would be a natural progression, but how wrong I was.
This was the first ad to really sell a console to me.
“The ultimate games console… that changed everything”
“500MB of power – used only for gameplay!”
…who could resist!

Sega Mega CD

Dissapointed by the lack of games for the Mega-CD, I felt let down by Sega and decided to revert back to my old faithful Commodore. So I brought…

The Amiga CD-32

Once again I was let down by the fact there was about 3 games ever released!

Then came along what had to be the first serious step-up in gaming since the Mega Drive. Although, how it was ever a success with this initial launch advert I’ll never know!

The Sony Playstation

It was a case of history repeating itself. Just like the progression from Master System to Mega Drive, I had to progress from the PS1 to the PS2. Unfortunately Sony also repeated history with another terrible advert.

The PS2

You would think form there I would go on to the PS3. But no. I grew up and bought the far less serious…

Nintendo Wii

OK, I hear you. “Neil – you told us it was 10 Awesome adverts!”.
Well I’m afraid I only brought 9 computers/consoles (minus PCs, Laptops, IPads that kind of thing, but those ads are just dull).

I want to still give you 10 of the best and through my searches for the above ads I’ve been side-tracked onto some absolute gems.
From these gems I’ve picked a diamond to finish this post off and here it is.
This isn’t an ad for a console or computer but rather a game.
A game I enjoyed as a young’un and until now a game that I didn’t realise had such a fantastic ad.

Just check out how the game footage is interspersed with real life footage. It really is a wonder they didn’t have to display a caption of “Not actual game footage”.

The game is…

Pole Position

Bet you’re glad I could fit that one in.

I remember working in Wilkinsons in Melton Mowbray and on my break wondering over the road to Blockbuster video for some chocolates. I remember hiring Apollo 13 and Braveheart on VHS in 1995 (maybe 96 – it’s hazy!) from the very same Blockbuster store and quite a bit later (plus many movies later) in 2001 hiring my first Playstation 2 game.

Blockbuster is a fantastic brand – from it’s very simple ticket stub logo to it’s global coverage of its stores and online websites. It may not have been the first company to offer movie rental, but it was certainly the first chain to offer it on such a scale. The Blockbuster concept of a “great night in” which seems to have been lifted shamelessly by Dominoes, altered the way we enjoyed our time infront of the TV at night. Blockbuster cunningly offered up popcorn, chocolate and sweets alongside movie rentals so everything you needed was there in one place.

The first Blockbuster store in the UK opened in March 1989 (Walworth Road, London) and rapidly expanded to it’s 650 stores and over 5,000 staff it currently has in the UK today.

Recently though, the global presence of Blockbusters has suffered, the TV campaigns have halted and stores have closed down. So what went so badly wrong, that has led Blockbuster to recently announce they are working towards bankruptcy?
In my opinion, one word sums up what went wrong for Blockbuster, Innovation.

Blockbuster probably didn’t realise it, but they operated in an area of technology. Or at least an area which has been affected so dramatically recently with the introduction of DVD, blue-Ray, games consoles and more importantly the Internet.

Blockbuster have always reacted to the market and since their launch have never ventured into markets until they are mature.

The killer nail has been the likes of LoveFilm and NetFlix, which have revolutionised the way in which we consume film. Sky Box Office was bad enough for blockbuster, but at least they could be rest-assured they would have more recent films on offer.
Blockbuster.co.uk was launched in 1996! So they were very quick to adopt online. They even offered online rentals as early as 2002, but the one thing they have not been able to master is streaming video. If they had took a risk and been the first to offer streaming, even before home broadband was really good enough for it, with the strength of their brand they would have led in a market that will generate millions in the uk alone.

Just think of the advertising revenue online video streaming will generate once it is commonplace. Blockbuster could have had a slice of that and I would be writing a very different blog.

In the UK all is not lost for Blockbuster. It is a separate company to the US Blockbuster and is not yet staring down the barrel of bankruptcy. It is however, up for sale for a mere £50m!

Problem is, a large portion of the £50m will get you the 650 stores – which to survive is the exact thing Blockbuster don’t want to retain. They want to build on the brand, offer online streaming of movies and pioneer in the integration of targeted advertising online.
To compete with the likes of Netflix is now going to be an uphill battle for the UK Blockbuster, but it’s by no means an impossible battle.

I for one hope it’s something someone somewhere takes on. It will be a real shame if the Blockbuster brand is sent to the great big branding bin in the sky.

I found myself in John Lewis at the weekend while looking for a digital camera when something caught my eye (as well as my ears!). It was a family cooing over a Sony 3D TV set up which was in the form of a mock-up front room. John Lewis had done well setting up a nice sofa, 46″ Sony 3D TV and surround sound, it was easy to see why the family were initially impressed.

The first thing that struck me was the kids arguing over who had the pleasure of looking stupid by wearing a very large pair of 3D glasses, the second was how the father took charge, said “just wait your turn” then donned the glasses himself and the final thing was how disappointed he looked when he handed over the glasses to the first child.

The previous week I had been at the Sea Life Centre in Birmingham where I had the pleasure of sitting in a small cinema for 4mins while we watched “The voyage of the turtle”. This was in 3D, but also had water that sprayed out the back of the chair in front, rumble pads in the chairs and wind pipes in the head-rest. It was a really good experience, the 3D was excellent and the extra 4D touches really impressed me. That said, 4mins was long enough for me.

Once the family in John Lewis had finished I thought I would give it a go. The experience was so far removed from that I had just one week earlier I had to question why on earth anyone would spend an awful lot of money to look stupid in their front rooms and enjoy an adequate experience.

Then in dawned on me. It would be because they have been to a cinema, watched Avatar 3D or Toy Story 3 3D and wanted to experience this at home. Well I’m sorry, but no chance.

Sony, Phillips, Samsung, LG and countless others are ploughing a lot of money into this market and I for one think they are wasting their time. 3D may be a good experience, but it has to be on the big screen in an environment removed from usual everyday life with surround sound and popcorn. At home I’ll be sticking to my plasma screen while only being frustrated i can’t find my remote never mind my special glasses as well. 3D… Keep it in the cinema.