Mark Bowness

As you will see from this blog there has been a period of in activity. The reason for this is that I have taken time out to mull over ideas, to think about my own plans, visions, ideologies, dreams, passions and my personal philosophies! Yes, this has been a hell of a lot to think about but it has been a very exciting journey.

So, into the New Year there will be more from me and I am very excited about what 2010 may hold.

For now, have a very special Christmas!

So, a people led facebook campaign resulted in Rage Against The Machine gaining this years Christmas No. 1 - well done!

I have been thinking a lot about this X Factor v’s the people debate which has had my mind racing at a number of levels:

1) I have enjoyed the irony of Simon Cowell dictating that we should buy Joe’s single verses a couple of facebook dictating that the public should buy Rage Against the Machine’s single, to ensure that this get’s to Christmas No. 1. I am not being cynical but shouldnt the message be - buy whatever you damn well please?

2) It is a shame that Joe McElderry did not get his Christmas No. 1, this would have undoubtedly been the lads dream but clearly he is in the innocent guy who got caught up in the X Fator verses Facebook crossfire - nevertheless,  Joe will still do well, he will have  massive marketing machine behind them and looks set to tackle America anyway, so for him, it’s all good.

3) Rage Against The Machine are signed to Sony, so, from Sony’s point of view - who better to compete with, for Christmas No. 1 than yourself!

Nevertheless, I completely and utterly admire what Jon ann Tracy Morter, the couple who set up  the campaign have done and there is a seriously exiting tension between the corporate world of TV and the grassroots world of the online, a tension that TV channels really need to get their heads around. To me, this is an exciting move towards ‘what could be possible’, it is not simply people power but audience engagement with regards to how we create, develop and nurutre new forms of cross platform multi-media content and, as you can imagine, this gets my pulse racing and my heart-beating!

Ok, its a bit wobbly but I am learning!

Inside the beautiful eco-home

Okay, so what do you do if you are the proud owner of a gorgeous underground eco-friendly house which was featured on Channel Four’s ‘Grand Design’s’[ programme, but in this credit crunch world you cannot for the love of money sell it?

Well, here is what you do NOT do. You do not set up a website called www.pixahome.com, which is a www.milliondollarhomepage.com twist, but you throw in a twitter element because it is relevant, ensuring that one twitter owner wins the house, for free. You may be asking, why, prey tell, you do not do this?

a) a milliondollarhomepage.com project will never work again. The only other guy to make money from this project was the guy who sold the MDH script to others who thought that they could copy Alex’s success. It never happened.

b) the branding is confusing, pixahome.com with no mention of twitter in the title at all.

c) the whole model is completely confusing, something about buying pixels to promote your twitter link, but you dont have to buy anything to win it, or something.

As a result of this, the guy has not sold that many pixels at all and, quite clearly, this is doomed to failure. Not that this is a problem, we learn from our mistakes.

So, what would you do with a house like this? I have some pretty cool, nifty ideas, if the owners are interested to hear about them, get in touch!

Go take a look: www.pixahome.com