My First Blog

In earlier times when diaries were priority for young ladies nobody was allowed to read them. Some writers and composers kept diaries. Their diaries are now published but it wasn’t their aim to allow everyone to see their inmost thoughts. Diary is for private use.

But what about electronic diaries?

Now electronic diaries become very popular. But I always ask myself question how frankly writers are. There is an expression that you can hide and stay anonymous in big city easier that in small town. Probably it works here. Users write under pseudonyms that help to hide their identity. But on the other hand most of the users have friends that comment their posts.

I’ve never kept a diary. I was always scared that someone would read it. That’s why the idea about having a blog was shocking. I still don’t feel that it is entirely mine! But it is definitely the most intimate assignment I’ve ever had.

I don’t know if I’ll keep on writing here but I hope it is not the last day for my blog.

Anyway, I want to say thank you for Richard Bailey for this great idea to make it compulsory and I hope he has the same pleasure reading it as we have while writing our posts.

And of course lots of thanks for everyone who commented here. Especially for my friend Kate! Thank you for always being the first to comment, for lots of ideas and support! I really appreciate it!

Is it time to say “Goodbye”? Maybe just “See you later”? Have a nice holiday guys and good luck with dissertations!

Now we store and share photos via Internet. Our computers are full of photos but our photo albums are empty.

Can you remember when you last time printed photos?

I stopped probably because of cost and it is a time-consuming process. Nowadays if you need to stand up, go to the shop, give the film and come back later to take it back is VEEERY time-consuming.

But my mum still does, she prints photos and put them in the album. And I really like it. It is the same as books, you flick through the album and feel a history, feel emotions, not just see them on the computer screen.

What is photography? This term came from two Greek words – photo and grapho. Photo means “light”; grapho is similar to the verb “to write”. So photography means an art to catch a moment and fix it on a paper with use of light. I like the phrase “catch a moment”. I think it is the most important thing in the whole process. This is the art! This is where you can show your talent!

But! Art of photography has also changed its meaning. We evaluate beauty of picture, not a moment or sense of photo. Different software turned photos into just beautiful pictures. Most of the pictures are edited in Photoshop. Ease of use made it accessible for majority of us. But for real photo-artists format of photo doesn’t make any difference.

Usually we can meet photo works in glossy magazines. It is a PR for celebrities and photographers, like symbiosis for both of them. But benefits from this symbiosis are higher for celebs. If you ask reader about photographers that are published in magazine, he can hardly remember one of them. Well, actually I don’t…

In modern world countries have their own currencies as one of the national symbols. Have you ever thought about names for these currencies?

I’ve looked at some of them. The most frequently used names are dollar and euro. Also I want to bring to your attention some other types of currencies.

Dollar. Etymology of dollar is very old. This word came from Dutch/Low German daler. It is version of German taller that was shortened from Joachim staler. Those coins were minting in Sankt Joachimsthal, Bohemia, Czech Republic. This word came to North America in 17^th century, when Danish and Sweden colonists founded their settlements. Colonists used daler for silver coins that were in mass circulation in those times.

Euro. It is relatively new word. You can easily guess that it stand for European. Before Euro European union used ECU (European Currency Unit). In 1999 they decided to reject ECU and introduce Euro. First notes were issued in 2002.

And now a little bit more currencies.

British Pound. As you know pound is a currency in GB. This word came from Latin pendere that means to weight. Originally it was a pound of silver. First meaning was 12 ounces, than it changed to 16 ounces. Sometimes you can meet pound sterling. Sterling meant silver penny. There are some propositions that sterling come from star that was used for design of these coins. A pound sterling was originally “a pound weight of sterlings”. It was approximately 240 sterlings.

Japanese Yen and Chinese Yuan. Both words in each language means round object, circle. The Yuan was silver round coin introduced in the end of 17^th century. Also Yuan/Yen is used to name dollar.

Spanish Peso. This currency is used in many countries in Central and South America. Peso is also from Latin synonym to weight – pensum. Peso was introduced as Spanish currency in 16^th century. There were two types – silver (peso de plata) and gold (peso de oro).

Russian Ruble. There are a lot of discussions on the etymology of this word. The most possible one is that ruble was formed from Russian verb rubiti that means to chop, to cut. This proposition was based on that fact that first mention (14^th century) was found in region where silver bars were cut as needed and used as money.

I’ve mentioned only small part of possible currencies. But I think that tracing currency etymology we can find history of trading and possible equivalents for money. Do you agree?

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is to be loved and love in return”

It is right words for all love stories. If you try to remember them, you’ll end up with a figure with six zeros or more. One more love story is presented in musical Moulin Rouge.

Moulin Rouge is probably the most famous cabaret all over the world. Cabaret opened its doors on 6 October, 1889. One of the founders was Charles Zidler, who can be seen in the movie. Nobody can prove that this story was true and nobody needs it. Great actors, wonderful music and cancan make this musical popular for ladies and gents. Musical helped Moulin Rouge to improve its performance.

It will be nothing without a story. It is a story about love. Love that will live forever. For love doesn’t matter who you are, where you are from and how old you are. Christian and Satin don’t suit each other. It was clear for everyone except Love. Someone will say that they loose in fight for Love. No, their Love is still alive.

A little bit more about music. Charming tango Roxanne is full of Argentinean temp and French atmosphere. It was alternative version of the whole movie’s love story.

Another story also took place in Paris, but in place on a level higher than cabaret. It was Paris Opera House. It is Phantom of the Opera. Love story of singer and vicomte, singer and Phantom. Music of Andrew Lloyd Webber perfectly support Gaston Leroux’s novel. Reading a book it is a mystery for reader to solve whether Phantom is real or not. Musical solved it. He is real. Phantom will be always alive in Christine’s mind. It made some people to search for evidence of his existence. Romantic and mystic story disturb our imagination. He can be a Phantom for others, but she and her love made him as he is.

What is in common between these two musicals? Location? Music! It is charming and involves you in action on the screen. After two hours in Parisian atmosphere I don’t want to return to real world.

And what about you?

What do you know about Cannes Lions? Have you heard about it? I’m sure you have.

15 – 21 June will be hard time for Cannes. International Advertising Festival comes here. Festival celebrates 55^th anniversary. Leading companies from different countries across the world are trying to get into shortlist. Great, isn’t it?

A few people in far 1954 could suppose that adverts are as interesting to watch as movies. But after the first Festival in Venice attitude to it has changed. And now a lot of people want to be there.

Some interesting facts

Probably, you will ask why Lions? The answer is easy. The first place for Festival was Venice that has winged lion as a symbol. First awards copied its symbol. Now awards have changed a little bit.

These awards are adjudged in several categories. Category list of Festival includes Radio Lions and Cyber Lions. Despite the fact that radio adverts appeared earlier than virtual reality Cyber Lions ( 1998 ) were introduced 7 years before Radio Lions (2005).

If you want to see Cannes Lions 2007 winners, they are here.

And below is the advertisement which has won 8 awards in Cannes:

Social networks… What comes into your mind when you see this word-combination? Facebook, MySpace or LiveJournal? Or, probably, you thought about WordPress.com?

Social networks as a term appeared in 1954. This term was used to describe relationships in society. Social network means circle of acquaintance. Interesting point in this theory is theory of six handshakes. It means that you can reach each person in six steps. Two strangers are separated from each other by only five people. Now this theory is used as applied to Internet networks.

It won’t be wrong to assume that everyone who reads this blog use LiveJournal, Facebook, MySpace or services similar to it. It is not a secret that it is a trend among teenagers to meet on-line using MySpace or Facebook. At the beginning these services tended to help in search and communication with friends. Now frameworks are much broader. People can share video, music or photos via MySpace. This leads to several implications in real-life.

Head – hunters use social networks for their purposes. You can easily find professional networks in web. The reason for using these sites as a path to work is that it is easier to get work through acquaintance. So people use it.

Video and music sharing service allows users to post their own creations. Others evaluate it and some day you wake up famous. Stars use MySpace and etc. to chat with their fans and introduce new compositions.

Also it is a good service for PR people. Information spreads very fast if you put it in a social network. We make people know about something new through these networks.

P.S. One question after all. What networks do YOU use?

As I wrote in one of my previous posts an average person receives about 5000 advertising messages a day. And almost 20% of all advertisements we see contain sexual appeals.

The controversial topic whether sex sells or not has appeared when non of us were even planning to exist. And it is still arise lots of questions!

So why do companies use sex to sell products?

There is an opinion that usage of sexual appeals only gets customers’ attention but doesn’t always help to sell the product. Especially when product is irrelevant to the sex.

But I think it’s not only about getting attention to the advertising. Dr Freud came out with a great idea. And it really seems to work in marketing world!