Then I found some articles about people who really don't like American Apparel ads.

And then I found some images that suggest that I might.

NSFW; over the fold

Sometimes they show a bit of bum to, you know, be a little cheeky.

Sometimes it's about manliness and style.

One campaign featured a Canadian pornstar.

And the rest are just sexualised garments.

The great thing is, American Apparel know they do good ads, so you can find their archive of it here.

After news broke that Cheezburger Network's Ben Huh was offering to buy the ailing Reddit, it was natural to investigate what role Ben Huh plays and what he did to capitalise on something I'd dare say is phenomenal on the internet: lolcats (cat memes). Reading through his blog, he posted up a talk he did at a Ted conference in Seattle around April about the "19 debts" he owed himself; i.e. his 19 goals he has set himself out to do.

I was really touched by the moment just under 8 minutes in where he choked up, reflecting on his failings and his struggles, most likely for his first start-up after he graduated.

There is nothing harder than waking up in the morning, look in the mirror and seeing a failure.

There is nothing harder to realise that you've let people down, your family down who put money in you, let your friends down who you hired.

But that kind of struggle, getting out of that struggle means that you've become a person with character and moral values and a person who has a centre that can not be shaken.

This is personally one of my biggest challenges and something I always wanted to largely avoid and not be a burden to society. It's that relentless pursuit of making things work, and that determination of refusing to ever take no for an answer, but there are times when the stars align to say "fuck you, not today it ain't". But it is so important to remember that a true test of character and entrepreneurial craftsmanship is when you go through all that and pick yourself up. Pick your fucking self up.

I wasn't a big fan of him, considering he was making money off an idea derived elsewhere, but I do admire the rags-to-riches entrepreneur who recognised the opportunity and brought an idea somewhat wholesome from 4chan into the mainstream which I believe partially makes the internet what it is today. Macroed memes are such a huge part of internet subculture now and some credit is due for Huh to brand it and make it recogniseable.

Directed by Swedish director Jessica Nilsson, caught this one at Flickerfest two years ago at a best-of compilation screening.  It's pretty morbid, but everything about the pace, the music, the vintage film filter and the fact that it made very little sense made this a crowd favourite. Towards the end there is a cat on a piano. Yes.

spotless

Jessica Nilsson | MySpace Video

It's a good idea to be inspired by your favourite music.

It's available on a mixtape that you can find on their website.

Source: http://blog.iso50.com/2010/08/17/slowdive-washed-out-violens/

Barbra Streisand

Barbra Streisand.
Barbra Streisand.
Barbra Streisand.

You can now dance/ rave/ bob your head with joy, hearing Barbra Streisand's name. Over and over again. Heaps of play time on triple j lately; but damn it's catchy!

Barbra Streisand (Original Mix)

This is mildly confusing. Is this brand affiliation at work here? Does this now make her... cool,  hip and appealing to young folk now? Does listening to this change the way you listen to her old songs? Will she have hipster cred?

BASIC SUMMARY
471 tweets, including retweets
100 twitter accounts
27283 readership reach

TOP WORDS TWEETED
Not surprisingly, the top five (relevant) tweeted words were:

1. Cosplay
2. Going
3. Awesome
4. #anime
5. photos

A convention just isn't a convention when people aren't dressed up. Attendees really like to spread the word (going to the con!) and have an affinity to the word awesome to describe something they like.

SENTIMENTS
Majority of tweets lied in either positive or neutral; and stayed consistent between the two days. Sentiments were all manually labelled, considering the majority of the demographic like to be sarcastic and describe failings as a positive thing.

Some of the top keywords surrounding positive sentiments include:

1. Cosplay
2. Pocky
3. Gundam
4. #animeidol
5. Press

Attendees get really excited over Pocky; and I believe the Gundam is related back to the Pocky one, as explained further down. An #animeidol hashtag started and people seemed to enjoy the event; and a lot of people loved bragging about getting press passes.

The words used in negative sentiments was pretty interesting. To summarise:

1. Body odour
2. Some people weren't particularly pleased with guest Spike Spencer
3. Queues and waits
4. Traders

These would be the things the organising committee will probably address for their next show.

MOST RETWEETED IMAGE
The Pocky Gundam via @DYoshii http://yfrog.com/n0v4qtj. It's pretty neat.

TOP TWEETERS

by Frequency

1. MobilesuitRX87
2. elizabethdanger
3. DYoshii
4. ctudball/ AspieSincerity/ pjf

by Impact

1. pjf
2. MobilesuitRX78
3. DYoshii
4. Joelsk_
5. neilcreek

3 NOTABLE TWEETS

someone here smells so bad that i'm feeling sick. thanks asshole. #manifest #everyconever - elizabethdanger

---

cosplay photographers are the best people. the press pit at the #manifest cosplay comp is awesome!! xd2 - neilcreek

---

This one is a personal favourite; best cross over tweet between the election and manifest

The entire Yaoi panel at #manifest seems to have voted for @aussexparty. Probably not a huge surprise. #ausvotes - ctudball

CONCLUSIONS TO MAKE

Whoever thought of the Pocky Gundam deserves a medal, cosplay is probably the most important element to the show and deodorant companies need to take note of this market!

This wasn't an isolated incident of my behaviour;  various statistics suggest that 74% of all online searches are local in nature and that between 40%-50% of those searchers are looking for a local merchant to buy from. With search engines like Google being so ubiquitous, it’s not uncommon that we use it as a part of our day-to-day lives to quickly look for goods and services within our vicinity. Recently, I’ve also pinpointed an Adelaide hotel conveniently located close to the Convention Centre for a tradeshow, bought movie tickets on a whim and looked for the nearest takeaway shop to satisfy a massive craving for Thai food. All up, $800 was spent on goods and services, found through 4 local searches. Picture the millions of local searches being conducted now and the transactions being made as a result of it.

It's not surprising that the job at hand may seem daunting being a small business and trying to promote yourself online amongst millions of other websites, as well as compete with your fellow neighbours. That's why it’s so important to take into consideration some basic local search engine marketing and optimisation principles to efficiently and effectively place yourself within search results, without spending your life savings competing with large companies. Search engines have an active interest to ensure that users find what they want; after all, if people can’t, they will move onto other competing search engines. Once they realize users are after local results, the search algorithms adjust accordingly and that’s when the ball is in your court. This is the slingshot you're after a la David vs Goliath.

Some quick notes to improve local search:

1. Continue conducting your regular SEO practices for organic search, such as building backlinks, provide meaningful content, maximising your social media presence and being mindful of the keywords that your customers will most likely use in a search and applying them within your listing or website. It may also help that your domain name contains the specific keyword for your service, e.g. plumber, accountant, etc.
2. Incorporate the cities that you service into title and meta tags, and your business address into your website body. This is so that search crawlers can identify where your business is located and list you accordingly. You can take another step further and also list specialisations within your service, e.g. water heater repairs, renovations, 24/7 service, etc.
3. Utilise local business centres for all the major search engines, such as Google, Bing and TrueLocal. This includes getting yourself listed and having the option to conduct any paid search to gain that extra traction.
4. If you are aware that a customer has found you through local search, ask them to drop a review for you. Nothing looks sexier than being rated 4-5 stars and having over twenty positive reviews next to your name That's something money cannot buy.

With mobile computing convenience taking over traditional directories and geolocation platforms pinpointing visited businesses being the hottest trends in the digital space now, one can only wonder how important, yet easily overlooked, a role local search optimisation can play in making a small business stand out from the pack.

Krome studios, one of Australia's largest game development studios, let go of over 100 staff last Thursday, closing down their Adelaide office and shaving off employees in Brisbane and Melbourne. But that did not stop the Mana Bar, a gaming-themed bar in Brisbane, from offering their condolences by posting on facebook that they would be offering drinks on the house for those that got laid off.

A total of 160 reactions (112 likes and 48 comments) was noted for the single status post for a facebook page sporting a bit under 15,000 fans, with nothing but positive sentiments.

Sometimes you don't need a beautiful manly man on a horse (ok, I take it back, we do need a beautiful manly man endorsing a body wash),  give away over a hundred of copies of Microsoft Office or scare the beejesus out of everyone on chatroulette to get your idea across.

All it takes is a genuine act of kindness and shout your fellow fallen man a drink.

Kudos to the Mana Bar, and keep your chin held high ex-Krome bros!

What if she puts her tongue too far into my mouth? What if I throw up? What if I throw up all over her? What if I throw up in her mouth?

One thing did come out of this though; it was one of the most talked about things to happen at the event, and people enjoyed it. People interacted with one another as the event unfolded and became engaged and participated in the discussion.  I received a modest amount of post-event feedback looking at instigating DS 'hotspots' for people to play multiplayer games and to chat over the DS. I know it's weird; why chat on devices when you should be socialising amongst everyone else in the convention hall. That's the nature of our niche demographic; they are introverted and proud of it.

The Pictochat jig was successful for numerous reasons:

1/ There was an available and commonly owned platform to disseminate their messages
2/ The nature of anonymity gives users free rein on what they wanted to say or draw, creating a lot of interesting content
3/ There was an element of socialising and engagement involved.

Fast track to now, and the most commonly used platform to provide a live conversation during an event is a twitter stream utilising a hashtag. I can imagine a twitter broadcast at a cosplay event being able to emulate the same experience Pictochat provided: where the audience can have a united conversation about what's happening on stage. The problem is that it currently doesn't live up to the first two reasons why Pictochat was successful.

PROS, CONS & CONCERNS

Pros
++ Interactive audience participation will provide a means for attendees to be more involved with what's happening on stage by tweeting questions and sharing immediate feedback.

++ The interactivity extends out to participants who can't attend the show; they can be following or participating in the conversation online.

++ A new revenue stream for sponsored tweets can be introduced during a broadcast to further support the convention financially

Cons

++ Lack of participation - how many people in our demographic have access to a smartphone, have a dataplan and use twitter?

++ Heavy and careful moderation would be required; you want to filter derogatory remarks but also keep relevant tweets.

++ Event cannibalisation - Can this be an incentive for people not to attend an event and merely participate from home?

Concerns

++ PR control - this can be a godsend or a nightmare for event management and really depends on how they handle it. A dedicated management team focused on customer service and an active understanding of social media practises would be able to turn a potential PR nightmare into another positive review by addressing negative feedback and sharing positive feedback, whilst an undedicated management team might not be able to follow up and thank their customers on good event reviews.

Moderation is probably the biggest question mark on this initiative. The anime convention's demographic is the impressionable 16-21 year old who have had some experience with 4chan, a safe haven for anti-censors, and a peculiar brand of humour only understandable by someone who is online at least 14 hours a day. It's often celebrated and in many ways has shed some light on the wonders of the internet, no matter how appropriate or inappropriate it is relative to mainstream civilised society.

But where do we draw the line between genuine criticsm and downright slander? How do we tackle this unique sense of humour? Is there room for tactful conversation at these family-friendly events? Once we filter out everything, is there any room left for a conversation? Can we talk about lolcats and goatse at the same time? Can goatse even be mentioned?

Can we expect convention attendees to change from talking like this...

@Pinindaimono: what a fat cosplayer! #auscon

to this...

@Pinindaimono: this cosplayer needs to carefully monitor his/her diet. #auscons

or from this...

@Pinindaimono: what a hot cosplayer! I totally want to have sex with her #auscon

to this...

@Pinindaimono: what an attractive cosplayer! I would love to take her out for a walk on the beach #auscon

Should we even approve messages like above? The user is entitled to their opinion; but at the expense of the other person. Should there be a disclaimer? A warning perhaps? What's the responsible thing to do?

With nothing but questions and moral dilemnas, this is only the beginning of what is going to be a complicated yet challenging and wonderful trend in the popular culture industry which is going to open doors to a lot of online conversations. There is no doubt that it is a question of when and how, and not whether it will or won't. Despite the problems of distinguishing what should and shouldn't be publicly broadcasted, one important thing remains; everyone should be allowed to talk and be responded to, no matter what language they're using.

And just so that I can say I wasn't lying about the blog title, here is a Miku cosplayer.