My web work has gone out of the window of late mainly due to my 360 taking up 90% of my time. I have recently started branding Forza cars and racing them to try and promote brands but found that to be a little tiresome so I have opted to try and recreate famous paint schemes from the world of Nascar.
I love doing this and a site may well be in the making (although I want to make a league first) dedicated to forza car designs, so if you want a design providing they are not too complicated email me or leave a comment and I will try and do you a scheme (not too complicated though)
I finally started on the dark quest of giving up the fags on Monday and done really well until Saturday when I had a sly one and haven’t touch one since. Smoking is bad we all now that its like saying shit stinks, but still a lot of people do it all for different reasons and I reckon about 80% would want to quit but it is hard especially when your trouble and strife smokes.
My breaking point was on installing Windows Vista and trying to get PHP and MYSQL installed and working ( a head ache at the best of times ) and also getting rid of the php.ini-reccomended with no fucking errors attached. In the end I cracked with the help of a great web site installation guide http://blondr.blogspot.com/2006/11/set-up-iis-7-w-mysql-and-php-5.html Kudos mate great effort.
On other news the new project has yet to find any real pace as I can see AJAX, PHP no smoking a few errors a very bad for my system combination, so in the mean time loads of Forza and racing online. I have had ideas to set up an online league so if you are intrested give me a shout.
Happy days
Well if you have read my last posts about online branding in particular games then you know what the potential is for this. I recently purchased a xbox 360 game called Forza Motorsports 2 a driving game with a huge online community. I saw this as a chance to brand my cars and throw them in the face of the world in attempt to drive traffic, so I set it up at first a VW Golf and then a Ferrari 435. Its not only fun to play but puts a brand out their.
Well i told you not long ago about a up coming project which has now been canned. I have since had a facebookey kind of idea which will be very bespoke to a certain community. I think these sites are great I just don’t have many friends on them. I am not a social guru ( Or i just pissed everyone off ). Even so this will be a blinder of a site when its done ( probably fall on its arse ).
In this modern day world where the technology just seems to be getting better and better with broadband speeds averaging in most households at 4 megs online communities are becoming massive especially the gaming/online worlds.
Take Second Life an online community which has some seven and a half million members turning over 1.7 million dollars a day a massivley popular online world that allows the user to meet and do pretty much whatever they want. Its potential has been seen world wide and now the likes of Reebok are getting involved. Second Life also allows the abillity to set up shops and all manner of weird and wonderful ways to promote your self just check out their success stories.
Second Life may not be for everyone in fact I should imagine that anyone that hated the Sims would hate this whole concept but I cannot comment I have yet not indulged in the fruit of Second Life and don’t really have the desire. I have however played with World Of Warcraft and Battlefield 2142 and am astounded to know that you can pay people to play you charchter (WOW) while your at work so you level up quicker ( seems a bit daft to me ). Battlefield 2142 took it all a bit far by incoporating advertising boards throughout the game. Most people got pissed off with this and hacks have been found to get around it but it still shows great online marketing potential, Sure a spotty fourteen year old isn’t going to go and buy a 42″ Sony HD Plasma hows your father TV but someone might especially if you advertise some kind of promotinal code or discount.
Branding appears everywhere and I have been guilty in the past of promoting companies using online gaming as a platform. I use to play NASCAR Racing 2002 online in a league and found that a whole host of companies where banging their liveries across cars to promote themselves, Alienware was a great example they actually gave drivers of their team cars gifts as if it was a real life event. It is not unheard either for companies to pay for the privelage of having the best online gamers promote their brand, I attempted it branding a Dodge Nascar for a diecast retailer based in the UK called Road2Race Models it was quite popular so I was asked to design other liveries for other drivers and brands ( free of charge, unfortunatley). The Road2Race models did get some web traffic as a result of this advertising as their range of diecast was a niche market for the UK consumer, I dont think it actually transpired into sales but the traffic went up. I like to put it down to the style of the car but it was probably because I pissed everyone off so much with my online driving that they all wanted to smash me off the road thankfully I had the web address on the bumper.
It is only going to get worse with online games offering the abillity to make your own flags up and driving games to add your own liveries to cars it will be a corporate free for all, but as such it is an untapped resource. I am going to give it shot by designing my own online car for Forza Motorsport 2 on the Xbox 360 just to see what happens.
