With brands spending so much money trying to build communities I find it amusing that one so popular should announce that it is to die. JPG Magazine announced recently (Jan1) it would be shutting up shop by Jan 5th. Wow 4 days to clear your desk and take down your personal photos. Harsh.

What brand will come in and save the day for little old JPG Magazine?

Kodak, Canon, Nikon, Yahoo!/Flickr, Sony hell even Microsoft with their Expression suite could jump in and save the day and buy themselves a ready made community and have them kissing their ass for doing so. Kodak already sponsor the site in some way so why not take the reigns and own that sucka?

Why not start 2009 with a pre-made community and use that to help snowball what ever you had planned to do later int he year. You might even be able to buy it, put a proper revenue model in place (easier said than done) and flip it.

The community response has been huge check out the Save JPG!!! page which is asking if people want to pay a membership fee.

JPG Mag seem open to ideas so fingers crossed someone with some cash and some vision can step in. It's a bad time of year to try and round up some quick cash though.

All I can say is if you buy it slap the people at 8020 Media as they are obviously have no business sense or respect to their community for wanting to pull the rug from the site so fast. Also it seems Minor Ventures (the backer of 8020 Media) doesn't have the moxy to make a sale or maybe wanted too much?

Note: If you're in trouble then ask for help earlier. Oh and losers cant be choosers. Why let the community die. Take any offer you can get hand over the keys and be thankful.

Update: Techcrunch have posted that a number of buyers are in talks. Smugmug is one but this site charges it's users so JpgMag users can expect to get hit with a fee if this goes ahead.

mUmBRELLA is a new Australian based marketing blog by Tim Burrows the former editor of B&T magazine.

It's actually quite good with more than the regurgitated press releases which you'd expect from someone with a magazine background. Sorry Tim :)

B&T missed a a good opportunity to compliment their mag with a blog like Creative Review did with their blog. They have changed the format of the magazine so it works hand in hand with the blog.

Oh Christmas eve BlueFreeway investors got a nice present when then found out BlueFreeway has bought the remain shares in Mass Media and sold their stake in Deepend.

What I found interesting was they sold back their 50.1% share of Deepend and then told everyone "while giving BlueFreeway 50.1% equity, actually did not provide us with management control"

I wonder how many other deals like this they did? Why buy 50.1% and not have management control? Why not just buy 50% or 49%? Oh the 50.1% implies you control it without doing so. I'll have to remember that.

With BLU sitting on 4c and HYO on 2c, 2009 will either spell the end two these two listed companies or it could be the year they were looking for. The credit crunch and economic downturn doesn't bode well for companies looking for a hot cash flow injection but it could also mean they actually try and turn a real profit. I hope they either both start kicking some ass or just die already as this prolonged death curdle has gotten old.

Full Disclosure: I used to work for Hyro from 2000-2002 in the previous incarnation of the company (before they were sold to Ferrier Babcock in 2000 under receivership) owed me $10,000 which went unpaid as I (among others) was an unsecured creditor. I did get to keep my job though.

I am also not a financial advisor nor do I own shares in either company. We only have 5c coins here in Australia. The 1c and 2c went out long ago ;)

Geez - TV is so bitchy these days.


There was this article in the Australian today about how Ford are scrambling over rights for art direction on a yet to be released here (but live in other markets - UK, SA etc) TVC for it's next model launch over a new Freeview TVC promoting a wider range of free to air channels.


There's foul play afoot, both are claiming to own an approach:


Ford - This is Now
Freview - Coming in 2009


I especially like the comment: "It's not the TV screens, it's more the way they're animated"... and "We may have to reconsider our media position as it relates to free-to-air TV,"


GREAT!! Mr Lillie, pour those millions you'd save into a competent digital campaign. Young girls drive fiesta's right? Young girls are the most active digital group there is - there's some rich fields to plow there sir, and even richer pickings.

The beautiful thing about digital is that there's such a rich and changing landscape to position ideas and executions that unless you are a complete marketing nuff-nuff it's difficult to replicate anything thats been done already - with exceptions of course. The NAB/AFL's longest kick for Auskick based on the Original Joga Bonito chain campaign for example (global by the way, launched well over a year - maybe 2 - earlier). "But they're both video's and TV is regional" you may say - the TV wasn't the core of the campaign, more a lead in and/or outcome; kids were encouraged to submit their "passes" as recorded footage to a site which then placed them into an ever increasing continuous film.

So that example (and others) aside, the sheer number constantly evolving formats, media, methods of interaction, social engagement areas, outlets, combinations, tricks & technology that are available for brands to promote themselves gives us digital creatives a wonderfully exciting palette with which to paint now and forever.

So you never really need worry about someone else beating you to it or wasting valuable time crying about it.

Agency Fair was recently launched as a way to showcase digital agencies and what it's like to work for them. Almost all the big guns are there with Profero, Holler, Mark, Visual Jazz, Reactive, Soap, Gruden and Naked and others all getting profiled.

It's an initiative from Digital Transfer who is new to the recruitment world in Sydney. This is a different take on the usual way to promote a recruitment agencies services.