If anyone is still interested just come across another article, an interview with Julian Assange, who apparently came out of hiding on Monday.

Julian Assange, who the feds fear may publish State Dept. secrets, talked to Philip Shenon about his outreach to Washington, his fear of criminal charges—and why Bradley Manning is a “national hero.”

The elusive founder of WikiLeaks came out of hiding in Europe Monday.

Julian Assange told The Daily Beast in an interview that while he will remain outside the U.S. indefinitely, his lawyers have opened a line of communication in Washington with the Obama administration in recent days about the website’s plans to release a leaked Pentagon video of the “carnage” of an American airstrike in Afghanistan last year.

The lawyers reached out, Assange said, in the wake of statements from American officials and news reports that the U.S. was desperate to track him down and prevent WikiLeaks from posting the video and other classified material reportedly leaked to the site by a 22-year-old American intelligence analyst now in custody in Kuwait.

“The law can be used in a number of ways if there is the political will to,” Assange said. “There is a history of abusing the legal process.”

Assange said that, whatever the public expressions of outrage in Washington about the leaks, the Obama administration had so far not attempted in any formal way to block WikiLeaks from posting additional classified material. The State Department and Pentagon raised no formal protest to site’s lawyers, he said. Nor has there been any formal threat that he faces arrest.

For more info go to:

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-21/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-speaks-his-outreach-to-the-pentagon/?cid=hp:mainpromo8

Since we rarely / never practice what we preach when it comes to telling the, ahem,  “Carve story“,  we thought we’d break with tradition with a quick snap from our Christmas party on Friday, held in soho’s Floridita, which is where Mezzo used to be. So it was Mojitos all round, followed by dinner and lots and lots of.. shouting. Clearly being unable to hear a word anyone says is a major draw for a fair proportion of the Friday-soir clientele.

Thank you Maddi for organising an amazing night.

Btw, for the fashion-watchers out there, I can exclusively report that Animal prints and 4-inch heels were resoundingly in. As the picture below illustrates however, attempting to smoulder an ill-fitting DJ that you forgot you owned, that is most definitely out.

xoxo Gossip Guy

Brian Solis on his PR2.0 blog has collated and published this amazing list of the top 100 ways you can use Twitter.

Twitter Client Market Share

1. Web,40.945%
2. API,11.6418% (custom applications, scripts or bots)
3. TweetDeck,6.635%
4. UberTwitter,4.288%
5. twitterfeed,3.9538%
6. txt,3.9254%
7. mobile web,3.567%
8. TwitterFon,2.4622%
9. Tweetie,2.1434%
10. TwitterFox,1.3588%
11. Echofon,1.3356%
12. Twitterrific,1.2322%
13. twidroid,0.886%
14. twhirl,0.8756%
15. movatwitter,0.8398%
16. TwitterBerry,0.835%
17. TwitPic,0.7806%
18. Seesmic,0.5524%
19. Tween,0.5414%
20. HootSuite,0.5258%
21. Power Twitter,0.3556%
22. Twit,0.3358%
23. gmedtwitpost,0.3188%
24. Snaptu,0.3018%
25. Twittelator,0.3%
26. POLLpigeon,0.2868%
27. FriendFeed,0.275%
28. P3:PeraPeraPrv,0.229%
29. DestroyTwitter,0.2188%
30. Perl Net::Twitter,0.2154%
31. Ping.fm,0.2128%
32. LOL quiz,0.1792%
33. TwitterGadget,0.1758%
34. Facebook,0.1722%
35. Twitter Tools,0.1558%
36. Tumblr,0.144%
37. RSS2Twitter,0.1412%
38. Sidekick,0.1386%
39. twitRobot,0.1338%
40. Google,0.1326%
41. dabr,0.1304%
42. CoTweet,0.129%
43. Blip.fm,0.1276%
44. Fun140,0.1274%
45. Gravity,0.1264%
46. SocialScope,0.1116%
47. Tweed,0.1074%
48. YoruFukurou,0.1064%
49. Mobile Tweete,0.106%
50. BlogTalkRadio,0.106%
51. WP to Twitter,0.1058%
52. bit.ly,0.0962%
53. iTweet,0.0914%
54. PockeTwit,0.091%
55. Tweetbots,0.0902%
56. PhotoShare,0.0862%
57. TwitterRide,0.0854%
58. NatsuLiphone,0.0794%
59. Mobster World,0.0784%
60. SimplyTweet,0.0672%
61. TinyTwitter,0.0664%
62. Digsby,0.0642%
63. Twitter4J,0.0614%
64. Reuters.com,0.0608%
65. Ustream,0.0606%
66. Tweets60,0.0584%
67. Movatter,0.0572%
68. MySpace,0.0568%
69. twibble,0.0562%
70. TwitZap,0.0526%
71. Twitter4R,0.0518%
72. Twaitter,0.0484%
73. Twitterizer,0.048%
74. Nambu,0.0464%
75. TwitterBar,0.0426%
76. Twikini,0.0412%
77. Epic Pet Wars,0.0386%
78. Twitme for WordPress,0.0368%
79. Photomemo,0.0356%
80. Mixero,0.0356%
81. yoono,0.0332%
82. Netvibes,0.0328%
83. TwitBin,0.0326%
84. Flock,0.0316%
85. Twidget,0.0312%
86. Spaz,0.031%
87. WordTwit,0.0308%
88. Twitterena,0.0304%
89. Post to Twitter,0.0298%
90. 140 Mafia,0.0298%
91. TweetSG,0.0292%
92. Fantasy Sports,0.0292%
93. Gwibber,0.0276%
94. TwiXtreme,0.0276%
95. Posterous,0.0274%
96. m.slandr.net,0.0272%
97. TwitKit,0.0264%
98. Twitter Opera widget,0.0264%
99. Tweet-U-Later,0.0264%
100. Twibbon,0.026%
101. Splitweet,0.026%
102. schuelerVZ,0.026%
103. ShareThis.com,0.0258%
104. TwitterMail,0.0256%
105. twittai,0.0252%
106. Identica,0.0236%
107. Adium,0.0228%
108. Brightkite,0.0224%
109. モバツイッター,0.0224%
110. Stickam,0.0218%
111. HTC Peep,0.0218%
112. BeTwittered,0.021%
113. TweetLeads,0.021%
114. Adjix,0.0208%
115. Twitstat Mobile,0.02%
116. TwitterIrcGateway,0.0198%
117. Viigo,0.0188%
118. EventBox,0.0186%
119. TweetGenius,0.0184%
120. twitthat,0.0184%
121. blu,0.017%
122. TwInbox,0.0168%
123. Matt,0.0166%
124. TweetPhoto,0.0166%
125. buzztap,0.0166%
126. TweetGrid,0.016%
127. Bird Feeder,0.0158%
128. JTwitter,0.0158%
129. LiveTweeter,0.0156%
130. TwitThis,0.0152%
131. TypePad,0.0152%
132. Spymaster,0.0152%
133. Flickr,0.0152%

Mind boggling really isn’t it? (More on that later…)

And what is the best one? Is it simply the one used by the most people? Obviously it depends on for what purpose you are using it for, those just keeping in touch with friends will have far different requirements than those actively monitoring their brand’s reputation.

However, I’d be interested to know if you have a favourite Twitter application you use all the time?

My personal experience is that I swap and change all the time between a few different applications, but having said that I’m not surprised really…. as a total aside (read: stop reading here if you are just interested in the Twitter story), someone asked me the other day which arm I put first into the armhole when putting on a jacket - apparently it has something to do with which side of your brain is dominant and makes a huge difference if you ever have a stroke - and, I realised I use both…but I’m still not sure what that means if I do have a stroke? Best not to think about that…

But it does reminds me of a really interesting little test we posted ages ago which determines which side of your brain you think with: Creative or Practical - here’s the link to the old post - have a go it is pretty cool. And yes, in case you were wondering she turns a different way everytime I look at her…now my mind is truly boggled.

Saw this on ReadWriteWeb and loved it.  Great photo from Mykl Roventine on Flickr

For those of you read the Guardian this morning, you’ll certainly be aware of the 10:10 initiative.  What is it?

10:10 is an ambitious project to unite every sector of British society behind one simple idea: that by working together we can achieve a 10% cut in the UK’s carbon emissions in 2010.

10:10 was launched at the Tate today, and was by all accounts a big success. We couldn’t make it (I was with Ghana farmer-owned Divine Chocolate, another important cause we’ll come back to another day) but we all followed events closely via the Twitter #1010 tag and via Scribble Live

Carve has signed up as a 10:10 partnership, and hope you’ll do the same.  Get involved here: http://www.1010uk.org/

As a small firm, we hope to make our 10% cut primarily through cutting our use of electricity - computers left on 24/7, and so on - and through using public transport whenever possible. How will you save your 10%?

You guessed it - it’s the Daily Mail-o-matic headline generator.

To those of you (read: everyone) I’ve been boring about the renovation of our new house in Camberwell, here’s a picture of (what will be..) the kitchen / diner.

And no, we didn’t imagine it would need this much work. And yes it does put me in mind of that seminal house rennovation Hanks vehicle, The Money Pit

So on December 27th 2007 I was skiing in beautiful Les Houches when - trying out a new ski / boot combo - I stupidly fell.. and the saga with AXA Travel Insurance (via Lloyds TSB ‘Premier’ service) began.

Whilst the problems with my knee continue (ACL broken, but re-attached to PCL, if you’re interested) the AXA travel insurance claim should have been straightforward. I’d called the overseas number the same day and made them aware of an upcoming claim. I’d religiously asked for, kept and copied every receipt and hospital report. On return to the UK, I filled in their from (that can’t be done online for “procedural reasons” - excuse me but WTF? Why not?) and then waited. And waited some more. And then some more.

When I called, they then noticed that whosoever had entered my details has reduced my address to (I exaggerate, but not much) Paul Harrison, London. So we put that right. And I waited some more. I called up again. Again - ha ha, how silly we are! - Axa realised they hadn’t in fact updated my address when I was on the phone with them. So they may have sent me stuff but - weirdly - the postal service couldn’t deliver these crucial documents without a house number, street or postcode.

To cut a long story short, finally the papers arrived. And they were the one’s I’d already completed. But now everyone was happy at least and the claim could proceed - it had only taken 5 months.

Then in May - nothing

June - nothing

July - still a whole lot nothing, nada, zip, zilch, zero.

Just got off the phone to them. My claim is being ‘presented to the payment department tomorrow’ ( yeah, right ) and they’ll call me back if any more problems. Well let’s see. Whilst I wait, lets see if we can get to the top of Google before they pay me. But what phrases should we aim for? Something a bored ted top headline writer might come up with:

“So I married an AXA Murderer”
“AXA a stupid question?”
“ThAXA for nothing”

but I feel like settling on something more prosaic:

AXA Travel Insurance, terrible customer service
AXA Travel Insurance, difficulty making a claim
AXA Travel Insurance, long wait for claim payout

and, indeed from the heart

AXA you *****, pay me my money now

Lets see how we get on.

AXA, if you’re unable to set up an online form for claims, I doubt you track your brand in the blogosphere, but a bonus point to you if you read this and comment below (two bonus points if you can come up with a dumb AXA related headline)

Rant over.

This came through on email today and is quite interesting.

Depending on what side of the brain you use, the lady spins either clockwise or anti-clockwise.

What does it all mean? According to Almira, most people will see this dancer moving counter-clockwise because they use more of the left side of their brain and tend to be more logical and practical.

People who see the dancer moving clockwise are right brain dominant and tend to be more risk taking and imaginative.

LEFT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
uses logic
detail oriented
facts rule
words and language
present and past
math and science
can comprehend
knowing
acknowledges
order/pattern perception
knows object name
reality based
forms strategies
practical
safe

RIGHT BRAIN FUNCTIONS
Uses feeling
big picture oriented
imagination rules
symbols and images
present and future
philosophy & religion
can ‘get it’ (i.e. meaning)
believes
appreciates
spatial perception
knows object function
fantasy based
presents possibilities
impetuous
risk taking

People often wonder why you might use an external organisation to help with your marketing, PR or design. I mean, you have to spend a lot of time briefing them on your business, all the while hoping that the people you’ve retained will come up with something that - hopefully - you’ll love.

We’ve just been retained by leading London IT support company, the internet group - welcome guys! - to help them define and articulate their brand, so I thought it might be instructive to describe how we arrived at ours.

Even though (we like to think) we’re experts in brand development, trying to do something like this in-house can be really difficult. As well as the battle of wills that can sometimes negatively influence the process (sales vs. marketing vs. senior management, etc) it’s tough to step back and take an objective view of your organisation and your marketplace.

And we believe that objectivity - a sense of disassociation if you like - is critical to the development of a brand it in its purest form: the DNA of an organisation, which differentiates and engages with every interaction.

So, when it came to developing our own DNA, rather than sit around navel gazing, we commissioned our great friend Simon Lee to do it for us. Simon recently had an interview with a top Australian advertising agency: this is the way we described how Simon helped us…

Development of the Carve Consulting brand

When we originally approached Simon about creating a distinctive look and feel for our advertising and PR agency, we weren�t able to provide him with a company name, let alone anything that could be described as a brief. At that time, the company mostly existed only in our heads; it is not an exaggeration therefore to stay that the agency Carve has become is in no small part thanks to the name, logo and visual identity that Simon created for us.

Our agency is a one-stop shop marketing services company; we are retained to manage �joined up communication strategies� and create impact / �leave an indelible mark� on our clients� behalf.

It is with these concepts in mind that Simon came up with the name of Carve, and it�s precisely that idea of joined up marketing solutions that Simon has managed to convey with the typographical logo he created for us which you can you see below.

We loved the name immediately, and from there Simon worked with us from the bottom upward to design our entire visual output including our stationary, business cards, document templates and our website, www.carveconsulting.com

Carve is an engagement agency based in central London, with clients including Hemscott, the Olympic Delivery Authority, and the Evening Standard. Whilst there are a huge number of factors that go to making a successful business, that people are always commenting on our business cards convinces me of the value of Simon�s contribution to ours.

Paul Harrison | Managing Partner | +44 207 324 1504

So, thank you Simon!

The PS to all this is that Simon has actually forgone a glamorous career in advertising to work in the wine trade in Melbourne. The French woman sitting next to me thinks you made the right decision