A few months ago, I was directed to youtube and instructed to search for “naturally 7” by a friend of mine. Being an avid fan of most musical genres I had to see what all the fuss was about.

Was I disappointed? I was about as disappointed as a kid who’s family won the lottery the week before Christmas. Was I amazed? I was more than amazed. These guys have talent which unfortunately these days we aren’t exposed to enough.

Sad as it seems, record labels are signing lots of vocally incapable kids who’s talent does not lie in music but in their image and markability potential so it’s great to see some real music is still being produced. However this is not your average busking group.

Back to this video I was directed to, Naturally 7 deliver an acapella-style performance whilst travelling on public transport in France. What starts as a couple of people looking over their shoulder results in the whole train absorbed by their musical abilities. I could sing their praises for hours on end, however I’ll let you be the judge of their skills.

But what on earth has this got to do with the internet, web-design, web-development or anything technical for that matter? Well its simple. These guys, before they did this acapella on the train were relatively unknown. Since posting that video up on youtube, the video has received 1,303,687 plays at the time of writing this article. Quite impressive. So through viral marketing, and people passing on this link, it would appear they have gained international fame signing to EMI one of the biggest record labels in the music industry. With the help from websites such as myspace and youtube, real musicians have managed to claw to the top, regardless of their image or personas.

Naturally 7, we salute you.

In an age where we can plan our journeys and travels through satellite imagery provided by Google, it takes quite a lot to wow us. You may think that parting the Red Sea would be impossible but the people over at Glue Society in Sydney have done Just that!

Through photo-manipulation and hours of hard-work they have digitally altered images, to recreate biblical scenes such as:

• Moses and the parting of the Red Sea
• Noah’s Ark
• Christ’s Crucifiction
• Garden of Eden

The ‘satellite pictures’ are currently on show at an art fair in Miami. However, these pieces of art do not come at a small price with each set setting you back $36,000 USD.

Although some may see this as religious controversy, co-founder Jonathan Kneebone would argue otherwise. He said “it was a way to play with the whole idea that if you can capture something from a satellite it must exist”. He further explains that the images were put together like digital “jigsaw puzzles” made from collated images of Niagara Falls to create an illusion of the Red Sea parting.

Either way, we at Score think they’ve definately pulled these ones off! True modern day masterpeices expressing real originality through art and technology.

For more information, visit Glue Society

Steve Rubel over at Micropersuasion has spotted this great post that pulls together a raft of useful websites, tools and tips for anyone looking to write or run a blog. Take a look at this pretty exhaustive list: Blogging Tips

I was one of the generation that sat back and watched as the New Labour Govt put University out of reach for many by introducing fees for degrees. My year was one of the very last to have received a “free” university education (although I still had to take out student loans and take on what was virtually a full-time job in order to pay my way). Ironically we were also the students that went out and voted in droves for the Labour landslide in ‘97 and I’m certain that our trust in the new regime also led many of us to think that whatever they wanted to do would be for the good of the country (see: Iraq).

When the announcement came that the new Government were going back on their manifesto pledge (Namely: “We have no plans to introduce University top-up fees, and have legislated to prevent their introduction") our response was weak, almost to the point of embarrassing. A few protests and a couple of demonstrations, but other than that, a pretty easy time for the Govt.

This always left me feeling a little ashamed of myself for not having done more. I loved my Uni days and would not have swapped them for anything. I was one of those rare students that really enjoyed my course (Politics and Contemporary History) and really enjoyed my lectures and seminars. The fact that Uni was being whipped away from so many people as a result of this measure is one that really concerned me.

I can’t help feeling that if this had happened in the 60’s or 70’s there would have been a massive student revolt with slightly more militant action forcing the Govt to back-down.

It was therefore with great interest that I read about the way in which HSBC were forced to back down on their plan to charge graduate accounts following a viral campaign on Facebook which brought with it a very real threat of chaos in its branches.

Using emails, text messages and social networking sites, the students wanted a legal way of showing dissatisfaction of HSBC’s adding to their existing debts and planned a series of flash-mob type queues in city centre branches which would have effectively brought them to a halt.

Thousands of students signed up to condemn the bank’s new charge and facing the prospect of massive disruption, the bank’s executives decided that it would be sensible to freeze the charging scheme and provide refunds on interest already taken.

NUS vice-president Wes Streeting, who set up the Facebook protest, said: “Using Facebook made a world of difference to our campaign. By setting up a group on a site that is incredibly popular with students, it enabled us to contact students during the summer vacation far more easily than would otherwise have been possible. It also meant that we could involve former members - graduates who were going to be most affected by this policy.”

Read more about the HSBC case study.

With a platform such as Facebook, the possibilities for creating an organized protest and mobilizing large numbers of people to take action is much more viable. I wonder if this would have made a difference had it been around a few years back?

In the 90’s politicians wooed the MTV generation in a bid to win the vote of Generation X. Now, the battleground has moved on: it’s all about social networks and garnering as much support as possible using the least expensive method.

The early stages of the US Presidentials have shown us the way things are going. The 2009/10 UK General Election will see a shift in advertising spends from the main parties from mainstream media to digital media with a marked increase on social networking sites like Facebook. The appeal of building a presence on these platforms is not difficult to get to grips with. One user can reach thousands of “friends” within their network by adding an application that allows supporters to display their party allegiance, receive party updates and election briefings.

No serious US presidential candidate would be without these tools and in the UK both main parties already have their own Facebook applications. At present these have very few active users compared to their US counterparts; however, this will no doubt change over the next 12 months as we gear up to an election.

The London Mayoral race in May should be an interesting UK case study for this trend with Boris already having added his “Back Boris” application to Facebook. A well designed and well executed little app that pushes users towards his campaign website, the developers have used e-bay colours to package their candidate:

The key to all of this, as with any campaign is money. For the cost of one TV or Newspaper ad, you could develop thousands of these apps and the likelihood that they will engage with the viewer is much higher than it would be in a newspaper as the viewer is one click away from becoming a supporter or campaign contributor.

One of the most extreme examples of the political power that these platforms now possess is the recent spoof campaign by Stephen Colbert to run for President. The star of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show has somehow managed to gather over a million supporters via networking sites like Facebook. One recent poll, (taken by Rasmussen Reports October 19–21) had Colbert receiving 13% as an independent running against Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton. Results were particularly high among respondents aged 18–29, where Colbert received 28% of the vote among likely voters in a Giuliani–Clinton contest. One reporter commented that if Colbert continues “gaining over 10% a week”, he should be leading the field before November is out.

The Facebook group “1,000,000 Strong For Stephen T Colbert” claims to be the fastest growing Facebook group in the site’s history, having averaged 78 new members per minute surpassing one million members on October 26, less than ten days after its creation. Colbert’s group grew at such a rapid rate that it led one Facebook representative to tell the New York Times that the group had begun “overloading one of our servers.” The achievement has been given as an example of the networking site’s “uncanny ability to mashup the serious and the silly aspects of everything it touches.” As of October 25, 2007, the group was the most popular political group on the site, outnumbering the 380,000 of Obama’s “1 Million Strong Group”, the 500,000 of “Stop Hillary Clinton: (One Million Strong AGAINST Hillary)” and the 615,000 of “I bet I can find 1,000,000 people who dislike George Bush!”.

UK party strategists take note, the next election will be a whole new ball game.