Digital culture
A Dribbble of creative
I found Dribbble.com today which is an interesting spin on the creative portal where artists can show off their work. The difference here is that you only share a sneak peeks of your work as small screenshots of the designs and applications you’re working on. Membership in the site is entirely driven by our users so all members of Dribbble have been drafted (invited) by other members.
The screenshots or “shots” are organized by tags but there is no real cohesive navigation to help you sort through all the work. Once you find a piece that looks interesting you can click on it for a slight larger version that you can like, Tweet or Rebound which is a shot in reply to another shot. But for me this site has a huge miss in that there is no way to get real feedback on such a small screenshot and I couldn’t find any way to track the progress of the work. How do I know when it is done? Where can I see it? How is this site anything but a tease for small windows of partial inspiration? Maybe all of this is hidden away only for members but it felt me scratching my head. I found a few artists who were smart to see this problem and posted links to the final work in the comments but this seemed to be rare. I am working to get an invitation to try out everything on the site but check it out and see if these little glimpses do anything for you.
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Flipboard: The iPad’s social media powered magazine
Thanks to my job I have spent some time over the past few weeks with a fully loaded iPad which has been enlightening to have the chance to experiment with it and confirm my feelings about how useful it would be for me. Putting my feeling about Apple’s application creation and approval process aside I can see it’s potential but in it’s current form with the current portfolio of applications I still feel that it’s the spork of computing.
To be fair, the one thing I consistently liked about it was the size of the device useful on my train ride into New York City because the seats are like an airplane and too close together to let you open your laptop comfortably. I could surf the parts of the Internet that worked on it but it didn’t come close to being able to become a light weight replacement for my laptop. I was frustrated that I was never able to do any real work on the thing aside from starting to write a few blog posts through the WordPress application.
I did experiment and try out a lot of applications and was really disappointed to see how many of them like ABC News, Gilt and Wired were just iPhone applications with new layouts or repurposing print content with a little interaction sprinkled in. The one application I was really impressed with was Flipboard and you may recognize the development crew from the mobile sales tool called Square (new video here). The application is only for iPad and takes your data from Facebook and friend’s Twitter photos and links to create your own personalized, social media powered magazine. I love the concept because each ‘edition’ of the Flipboard application is unique based on the fact that every person is going to have a unique collection of friends. Should you have boring friends there are also a few collections on various topics that Flipboard has put together similar to what you would find in an application like Cool Hunting. So in the end this new take on the magazine that is powered by dynamic media is really interesting and starts to pay off on the potential of the iPad. I only hope more publications bring this kind of innovative thinking to their digital versions and applications.
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Kmart In-store Gaming Reviews
In an effort to make the Kmart brand more relevant to a wider and younger audience they have decided launch a new initiative focusing on the gaming community. The brand is turning to gamers to post game reviews on MyKmart.com and snippets of the best ones will find their way to actual store shelves next to the games themselves. The space on the shelf label is limited so you have to treat the review almost like a Twitter post and they ask that it is helpful, constructive, well-written and will keep in mind a broad audience beyond diehard gamers. It is an interesting attempt to extend community building beyond the digital space but with the huge amount of existing gaming communities I think this will drive marginal game sales among existing customers instead of shifting new consumers to shop at Kmart.
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YouTube uses Apple’s playbook to launch mobile re-design
YouTube seems to have gotten tired of waiting for Apple to update their application on the iPhone and iPad and taken matters into their own hands. They just launched a redesign of the YouTube mobile site with a promotional video highlighting a number of new features that you would normally find on the non-mobile version of the site. The interesting thing is that they did it by taking a page from Apple’s product launch playbook and snubbed them while doing it.
Steve Jobs has always loved the technique of ‘let’s put someone down without naming names or coming right out and say what we are doing’. He lets you fill in the blanks but he does it in a way that we all know exactly who he is talking about. Google follows this technique to near perfection with the launch of their new mobile site and they started right out of the gate with the video description that echos my first thought and reads “As we make improvements to YouTube.com, you’ll see them quickly follow on the mobile website, unlike native apps which are not updated as frequently.”. From there you see a few other interesting details when you watch the video.
The first detail is that the video starts by showing the new site on an iPhone and it does it by launching Safari instead of the pre-installed YouTube application that is clearly visible in the upper left hand corner. For me this was so reminiscent of the iPad launch when Steve Jobs pulled up the New York Times web page with that large blue Lego symbol showing it could run Flash. Every second of his presentations are choreographed to the smallest detail and that was done to make a point without him having to say the obvious. The video ends by showing you how easy it is to replace the YouTube application with a Home Screen bookmark that will let you easily launch the site just like the application – only better.
More than the implied slight to Apple I think this is an important development because it’s the first major brand and content provider I have seen take a stand against the mobile applications with their slow and restrictive approval systems. The message is clear that YouTube wants you to ditch their application all together and go to the mobile web instead. I wonder how long it ill be until Steve Jobs announces that the bloated and closed system that YouTube runs goes against the peace loving Apple universe and must be destroyed.
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MapQuest finally gets some direction
Mapquest was one of the early originators of online mapping but the brand and it’s site have been dormant for a very long time. They are trying to change all of that and close the gap on Google by making a comeback with a new site and some new branding.
New branding – It’s a logo, it’s an equation, it’s a character?
Let’s start by taking a look at their new logo / icon which is a departure from the old color palette and design with the addition to a new logo mark. When I saw the new logo for the first time I honestly thought it looked like M to the power of Q. I know other people either simply see the letters M and Q or get far more creative and see the letters forming a dog or elephant like character with the Q as the head of the animal. I can see how you could all of those interpretations but I keep debating with myself how I feel about the logo. On the one hand it is unique and I can’t think of another logo where you are able to see it so many different ways but I’m not convinced all that interpretation leads to a lasting or positive brand impression. MapQuest is trying to embrace all as these different forms as they acknowledge and explain them all in their new brand video but I think their explanations go too far into overreaching marketing speak trying to give every form meaning that relates to the site. If the three it would seem that the brand may be favoring the creature interpretation because on the new site the logo can be seen tapping its feet while content loads.
MapQuest.com – Differentiated or redecorated?
Google Maps
For me a new logo is nice but the real question is what are they doing on the new MapQuest.com that is going to differentiate the site and pull it ahead of Google Maps? I started in the obvious place by pulling up both sites and searching for the same address to do a side-by-side comparison. It was a bit of a disappointment when after all the build up I couldn’t really find any significant differences. I went down the list of features on both sites. Zoomable map – check. Street views – check. Live traffic – check. Search nearby – check. While MapQuest had a slightly cleaner design with more modern interface buttons the only real difference I could find took a page from a few popular iPhone apps and added an icon bar where you can quickly display restaurants, parks, movie theaters, etc. near your chosen location. They have also gone those basic markers to ass time sensitive content like ‘July 4th events’ and paid branded content from companies like Holiday Inn so you can find the nearest hotel.
It was only after I did some digging that I did find one interesting feature on the site. You can plan your trip online and save the results to the My Maps section and then either customize the map with your own information or pull up the route you want to take on your iPhone through their application. It’s a useful feature I would probably use when I travel because I don’t always 100% trust my car’s navigation system. The problem is that I NEVER saw one mention of this feature anywhere on the site outside of an extremely short mention of it in their new brand video. This is a huge miss for a brand trying to create some differentiation from a competitors who has a huge market share over them.
So when I look at this re-launch as whole I don’t see how they are going to gain any ground on Google. Using language like ‘started designing with a blank canvas’ sound promising but then you need to deliver something that is truly breakthrough and takes advantage of an opportunity like that and doesn’t have that canvas look more like a xerox than an a new original work of art.
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Adobe Museum of Digital Media
An interesting development at the Canne Advertising Festival keynote today as Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen and members of Goodby, Silverstein & Partners unveiled the new Adobe Museum of Digital Media which is described as the world’s first virtual museum dedicated to digital art and innovation. The mission of museum was stated as showcasing and preserving groundbreaking digital work and expert commentary to illustrate how digital media shapes and impacts today’s society. It also seems that it will also work as an artists colon where artists and innovators will be able to create work that wouldn’t be possible in a traditional museum. They have already announced that the first exhibition will launch on August 2nd and video artist Tony Oursler, RISD president John Maeda and Japanese artist Mariko Mori are all working on exhibits. The teaser site has a video about the museum space but nothing that really gives you any idea about how you will experience it. The whole project really intrigues me because of the fact that it is focused on creating new and experimental content as well archiving great work which has been done for years on other sites like FWA or WebDesignFile. We will see on August 2nd when can all experience the virtual museum for ourselves.
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Giving FourSquare some Assisted Serendipity
It is always interesting to watch as new social media platforms are taken and used as the underpinning for new ideas. The latest one i found is Assisted Serendipity that uses Foursquare’s check-in data to give you updates on the male/female ratio at your favorite local hangouts. You define the places to watch and the gender ratio you are looking for and when the numbers turn in your favor the site will let you know. While it certainly seems like a more male centric service it is still in it’s infancy so there is no hard data to knowhow well it is really working and if we will see Assisted Serendipidy commercials competing with eHarmony any time soon.
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Will checking-in to a Pepsi bottle be the next big thing in social media?
Success in online advertising for large brands is usually determined in equal parts by having an idea that creates revenue or brand buzz and the ability to execute it in a way or on a platform that no one has ever done before. Those two things are linked because when you pioneer a new media or platform it translates into millions of dollars in free press which translates into brand buzz which translates into revenue. It’s a trend in advertising that is unique to the digital world because TV, radio and print ads live within the strict parameters of their mediums and don’t have the ability to create new advertising platforms that can connect with consumers in a totally new way. So as a result huge amounts of ad agency and client time are spent in the constant race to find the new shiny platform that will help set their brand apart from all the others in the increasingly crowded digital landscape.
Because modern branding is about having a conversation with the consumer and social media doesn’t require each brand to build their own unique platform to have that conversation much of this effort recently has been focused on that medium. The challenge for marketers is that you can see a trend over the evolution of social media where we need to participate less and less in the social media platforms to generate content. For the majority of society social media started with Facebook and it’s a long form check-ins and the ability to let you determine the list of friends that could see your updates. Twitter then shortened that check-in to just 140 characters and removed approval process so anyone could see your updates. Four Square then removed the need to type anything to create a check in by making it all location based and split the approval process so you can have some friends who see all your check-ins but at the same time anyone can see a check-in for a specific location.
So where do we go from here? What is the next evolution in social media? I am going to bet that we are going to continue to see the trend I outlined before continue and we are going to move from location based check-in to a more product focused approach with object based check-in. Enter StickyBits which launched at South by Southwest Interactive in March. It’s an iPhone and Android based application that lets you associate videos, photos, text or audio to real-world objects through barcodes.
Stickybits made the very smart decision to base their platform on something that that every product in every store already has. North American consumers aren’t as accepting of new technology like what you see in Asia. When you used a QR code you first had the challenge of having to create awareness among your consumer base to what the code is and then how to use it. From there the technology was hindered by never having an internal unified platform and each experience varied wildly after you scanned the code. You would usually receive some form of simple mobile experience that was very light on content instead of the rich content you get with Stickybits.
You download the free StickyBits app and scan a barcode which is either a unique codes obtained from StickyBits or from barcode already on a product. The application processes the code and then you can upload a geo-tagged piece of content that is tied to your social media profile or view what others have already uploaded. The problem with this when it first launched was that there was no ability to differentiate between brand and user created content and content was simply listed in the order in which it was posted. That problem was fixed the week with the release of their updated application that can distinguish between the two types on content and now lists ‘branded bits’ accordingly. PepsiCo has signed up to be the first sponsor to take advantage of this new feature so when you scan can of Pepsi you now get a video about the Pepsi’s Refresh project before seeing all the bits associated with that object. Other Pepsi products like Lay’s potato chips will soon be joining in as well.
So while no one can predict the future, I think the combination of using barcodes as a universally available entry point, rich media content and having packaged goods clients means this technology has the potential to explode far faster than what we have seen with other recent social media darlings like FourSquare.
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Toyota creates a four wheeled computer mouse
Toyota in New Zealand needed a way to demonstrate the agility of their super compact Toyota iQ car so they turned into a four wheeled computer mouse that could move a cursor on a giant screen and operate a desktop computer. They did it a lot like motion capture that is used in 3D animation where a camera captured the car that had a light strapped to the top of it. Software interpreted the data from the camera and translated its position into X-Y co-ordinates. The co-ordinates were then sent to a second laptop 30 times per second which read the data and moved the cursor in real-time. The image on the second laptop was then projected onto a large screen.
The whole thing is reminiscent of the BMW Expression of Joy campaign where they used a Z4 as a paintbrush but in this case they went for something more revenue centric by using the car to create a print ad for the car itself. You can see the whole thing in the video above or at their microsite and they have made the code they used to create the event available to everyone as a free download.
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Should We Like the Facebook ‘Like’ Button?
The latest social media add on that has everyone buzzing is the new Facebook ‘Like’ button that has now landed not only on Facebook.com but is also finding it’s way out to regular web sites as well. On Facebook.com the Like button has replaced the long time ‘Become a Fan’ button and when it is used on other sites the Like button lets users make connections to your pages and share content back to their friends on Facebook by click on a small. light blue ‘Like’ button. It also become a kind of popularity meter like the ‘Retweet’ and ‘Digg’ buttons where can see how many people have clicked the button.
I get their strategy to try and move the Facebook experience out beyond the site itself which they have not been able to really do before now but should we like the ‘Like’ button? Having tried it out on a few sites and even putting in on this blog for the past week .
The first thing I found out after I implemented it on my blog and asked some people about it was no one cared about it or used it. They felt like it was just one more thing that was late to the party in the already crowded sea of social media.
But when it comes right down to it the biggest problem I have with the Facebook Like button is that I ‘m not going to invest time, resources and money into something that they can change without my input at any time and they have a horrible track record for sticking with a direction like this for the long haul. It used to be all about the Boxes on your personal page that we all developed mini applications for and then those were buried and slowly phased out. Then it was all about grouping users into networks as the core of the site until those got disbanded. It was all about having your community as a group page until they changed that to pages instead. I would start in on the changes to their rules and permission but we would be here all day. And on, and on, and on… These things in themselves have been frustrating enough but they have been contained to just their site. Now that they are pushing that out to other sites it has to have more stability than what they have shown in the past. For right now I don’t believe this going to be any different other than the newest flavor of the moment that is going to leave a bad aftertaste when they go a new direction a year from now.
So for now my advice is to continue to drive traffic to your Facebook community group or page on Facebook.com where the problems and changes can be contained and don’t effect your site.
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