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Good morning, one and all, we’re a bit busy in the office today.  We’ve dedicated our entire staff to building Scriptopus from scratch and will be live-tweeting the entire 12 hour production process here.

Here’s the press release:

What would happen if a web agency decided to get their whole team working on the same project for one day?

Scriptopus will be designed, developed and launched in 12 hours on Thursday, the 18th of March 2010 by digital agency We Are VI.

Join us from 9:00 GMT on Twitter (@scriptopus) to hear about the process in 140 character bursts, with photographs & live video broadcasts throughout the day from the VI design studio near Old Street, London.

By the evening, you will be able to take part in a timed, addictive game of round-robin writing.  Get alerts to see the completed stories, and share with your friends.

How many stories can you write today?

Scriptopus.  Write on.

Keep checking http://scriptopus.com throughout the day.

Big news in the sleb industry as Mitch Winehouse, father of bonnet-burdened Amy, has been signed up by our clients Virgin Media Television to do 13 three and a half minute interviews with famous folk in the back of his London cab, which will all be shown in the Liv player we developed.

The first guest will be the irrepressible David Hasselhoff, of Knightrider (“Michael Knight”), Baywatch (“Mitch Buchanan”) & Euro pop star fame, and will air exclusively on Liv, Living TV’s online video hub – which we designed and built with Virgin partner Brightcove.

Most of the news sites have said to not check out the Living TV website until Thursday, but we know for a fact that the video is now up and running.  And do stay tuned – Mitch Winehouse is due to give an alternate Christmas message in a few weeks’ time.

What is BitTorrent?

BitTorrent is an open-source peer-to-peer protocol designed for the transfer of large files. The central philosophy underlying BitTorrent is that users should upload data (or transmit outbound) simultaneously with their downloading (accepting data or receiving inbound), which maximizes network bandwidth efficiency. BitTorrent is designed to be more efficient and will work better if there are more people interested in a specific file. This technology allows users to download large files without being limited by a host’s bandwidth by using a peer-to-peer protocol.

Who is using it?

BitTorrent have been used to share files (movies, music, software, etc) illegally through the internet but the big companies are starting to see how powerful this technology is and they are starting to use it to speed up downloads.

Below is a list of some companies using it:

• Asus, one of the leading computer product manufacturers, has recently started to offer BitTorrent powered downloads to its customers. With BitTorrent the company says it can speed up downloads and get software to its customers in less time.
• Blizzard Entertainment is currently using a Blizzard Downloader that is based upon BitTorrent to distribute their online game and game patches.
• Even Warner Bros. uses the technology despite losing money through illegal downloads. They say: “If you can’t beat ‘em, get ‘em to the negotiating table”. That’s the sentiment behind the latest deal between movie studio Warner Brothers and BitTorrent. With the number of people sharing files illegally over the Internet still growing, movie studios and record labels are looking to convert scofflaws into paying customers. Under the deal, Warner Brothers is distributing and selling over 200 movies and TV programs through the file-sharing program BitTorrent.

There are many more companies using BitTorrent and this number will get much bigger in the next few years. Will yours be one of them?

- Marcelo

To be honest, I don’t really know about the artist of this remarkable video clip. But there are a couple of things I do know…

This clip has been done using the ’stop motion’ technique which takes absolutely ages and can’t be finished without patience. I’m not sure this 7min clip has done in a day – probably several days with clip editing. If he did finish this clip in one day, he would have had to draw each frame crazily fat.

Although the clip seems kind of unstable, for me, his whole sequences and drawings make me really concentrate and I love it.

I don’t feel any reason to label him ‘urban painter’ or ‘illustrator’, ‘video artist’ or ‘graffiti artist’; he could be all of them or more. Do we really need define his title in this crossover era? I don’t think so.

- Doek

P.S. If you liked what you saw there, check out some of these too!

BLU

http://www.blublu.org

STUDIOCROMIE

http://www.studiocromie.org

http://www.youtube.com/user/studiocromie

http://urbanprankster.com/tag/blu/

http://www.urbanpainting.info

As VI’s resident copywriter, I find myself writing about a range of subjects daily, inserting semi-colons and commas where necessary, making sure I spell properly and stay in the correct tense. However, three weeks ago when I was given an assignment that I wasn’t quite expecting, my job description changed slightly. In just under two weeks, I became an expert in the Equine field. Random but true; I know a lot of horsey facts now.

I was sent to Switzerland to work with one of VI’s busiest clients, the FEI http://www.fei.org.FEI stands for Fédération Equestre Internationale; it is the international body governing equestrian sport. Essentially, they are the people in the know about horsesport. Me? Well, I’ve never ridden a horse, nor am I particularly knowledgeable about the species. Not being an animal-lover myself, I wondered how I would adapt to this assignment, but surprisingly, I quite enjoyed it.

I spent two weeks writing about the FEI; what they do, their structure, the different disciplines they govern, their worldwide links and their main values. I also had to write about the veterinary requirements of the sport, working closely with the FEI Official Vets. Although the subject matter was alien to me, the copywriting was not. This is an organisation that needs to be accessible to the public. If I write copy that can only be understood by equestrians, then I am not writing copy for the web.

I needed to write copy that could be understood by both equestrians and non- equestrians, whether they were looking for information out of interest, or whether they needed it for competition purposes. I’ll admit, I was left completely confused by some of the jargon, for example ‘Dressage’. What the hell is Dressage?! But you live and you learn. Dressage is in fact an equestrian discipline where the horse learns a series of a series of ‘moves’ and then gets scored on them. Think strictly come dancing, horse-style. Ok, it’s not quite like that, but you can see what I mean. There were a number of instances when I had to refer to an equine dictionary to ensure that what I was writing made sense, but that what was so interesting about it was the fact that it was a challenge. To think that there would be people all over the world reading my copy and understanding FEI’s intents and purposes through it was a very satisfying proposition.

As well as all the horsing around – excuse the pun, but I had to make at least one horse-related joke – I had a good 12 days of full on Swiss culture. I ate enough cheese http://www.igourmet.com/swisscheese.asp and chocolate http://www.lindt.co.uk/ to last me a lifetime, spoke poor French to every shop assistant I encountered…and got on the wrong bus…twice. Nevertheless, I had fun. It was my first experience working for an overseas client, and it definitely was a challenging one. Well, I guess that’s enough of my horse-tale – I know, I know, I promised I’d only make one joke, but I couldn’t resist! I’m back in London now and although I loved Switzerland, I missed a lot of things about the City…just not the tube!

Nileeka x

Me and Social Media Guru Lisa back at VI HQ enjoying a Monday morning brew