Site review
Skittles.com Ends Social Media Experiment
Less than a year after Skittles launched their social media centric clone of Modernista.com they have re-designed the site yet again. This new version again looks to go against traditional conventions by foregoing navigation in favor of a long scrolling web page. I found it surprising that in spite of the page length there is very little content and even less interaction available. There are some photos include a clown in an astronaut suite, links to their Twiiter accounts and a YouTube video but that is pretty much it. Wrigley’s also launched a new microsite called ShareSkittles.com where you can upload video to a randomly paired interactive montage of two people sharing Skittles.
Though the content is light it looks to create a strong interactive platform for the brand that looks to make much better use of the medium than what we saw with the previous generation of work. It is also worth noting that this work is the first to come out of Wrigley’s new roster of digital agencies after they replaced Tribal DDB, Agency.com and Digitas with Firstborn, Big Spaceship and EVB. The three agencies collaborated on the Skittles work, with Big Spaceship handling Skittles.com, Firstborn building ShareSkittles.com and EVB doing their soon to be launched Facebook campaign.
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Use Facebook to tune your hetero-dar
It’s said that to find out who someone really is you should look at their friends. Stockholm Pride used that thought as the foundation for their new site that focuses on heterosexual norms affect the everyday lives of homosexuals, bisexuals and transpersons by gauging how “hetero” you are by analyzing your Facebook friends. The number is generated by giving the site access to your Facebook account and then it takes a minute to go through all your friends and give you a hetro percentage. It is also interesting because when you number is generated you can also see all the hetro percentages of your friends.
After going through the experience and getting my percentage I was left feeling that the site could have been a lot more impactful and effective if it would have exposed the logic and stereotypes that were used to generate the percentages. The promise of the site was to deal with the heterosexual norms affect the everyday lives of gay society but telling me I am 59% heterosexual without the context how that stereotype was created makes the number feel hollow. It’s only effective if I am so prejudiced that the mere suggestion of not being 100% heterosexual would effect me. So while the use of Facebook data is new and unique, something as simple as a report card style breakdown would have given me some insight and enlightened and that would have been much more effective. I hope they grow and revise this foundation to make it more hard hitting because then I think it will really turn into something special and effective.
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Social media content compose Grammy nominated artists
I can say with almost complete certainty that the launch of a new awards show Web site has never created the least bit of interest on my part until today and the launch of the Grammy Awards new site WereAllFans.com. The site creates pseudo photo mosaics of 11 featured artists from Dave Matthews to Beyonce out of YouTube, Twitter and Flickr content that was tagged with each of the artists. Each image only borrows from the photo mosaic aesthetic but is more of a semi-transparent image imposed over top of all of the content. Putting the social media content into this format takes it from the thing we have started to overlook because it is so ubiquitous on every site to an interesting and compelling experience that makes it fun to explore. You can look at all the content at once or narrow it down to just site through the simple control interface at the bottom of the page. ‘Join the Conversation’ lets you sign into any of the sites and post your own content with the correct tags so that your content will appear on the site for your favorite artist.
The other half of the site is the The Fanbuzz Visualizer that is a real time data visualization that monitors the daily and total social media buzz for each of the Grammy nominated artists. This experience isn’t nearly as well done as the social media mosaics as I found it littered with technical and design problems. I started with Today’s Posts and was only able to drag and scroll down the 3D list once in 10 tries. Frustrated with that experience I switched over to Total Posts that changes the view to a 2D list and I found that I could click and drag to scroll the content. That relief was quickly replaced by a new frustration as I found that if I kept my browser window in it’s normal more vertical shape the artists and the results were cut off to the point where I couldn’t read a lot of it. After some exploring I realized I had to change the window to a more horizontal shape and that would force the content to zoom back so I could read it. So while it would have been nice to see the same level of innovation and polish put into both halves of the site, the social media content mosaics make it worth checking out.
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JimCarrey.com – more Eternal Sunshine than Living Color
The rubber faced comedian Jim Carrey has just launched JimCarrey.com, a new personal web site documenting his career and based on his slapstick comedy stylings it’s an experience that is nothing like what I expected. The visual design is at times like something out of a Salvador Dali painting with elements of a Tim Burton movie sprinkled in. It is extremely visual with minimal navigation and a lot hidden content and interactions sprinkled throughout the extensive video and animation. One example of this is the Ace Ventura headed bird that is his Twitter link found on every page that spouts his latest Tweets one word at a time. I have to honestly say that this is the first celebrity site I have ever wanted to spend any time with and I applaud him for actually creating something that gives some credit to his fans for being able to enjoy something more challenging that the usual headshot laden celebrity dribble.
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Tobi.com uses AR to bring the dressing room home
Everyone hates having to wedge themselves into a cramped dressing room flooded with never flattering fluorescent lighting but you now have another option. Zugara’s has created an augmented reality dressing room app called Fashionista and is being used by online clothing retailers like tobi.com. You turn on your web cam and then move an AR marker forward and back in front of you to scale the clothes to fit your body. Once that is done you can use positional gestures to see other clothing options, approve or disapprove of your choices or take a photo of your favorite outfits. Your approved choices are moved into your basket and the photo can be uploaded to Facebook to get your friends opinions of your selections.
In the past we have seen augmented reality used in mildly useful ways like the United States Post Office box sizer where you can determine what box you need to ship you gift but this starts to take it to another level. You can clearly see the potential of what this could mean to online shopping as it takes the content off the flat page and makes it interactive and more importantly – makes it personally relevant. I find the opportunities for this type of augmented reality execution really exciting unlike previous executions that were more gimmick than concept.
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What do you think of the new MSN.com?
I was contacted by Microsoft today asking for my opinion of a preview they just launched for a redesign of MSN.com. I took some time and went over the design and come up with the feedback I have listed below but I wanted to open it up to hear from all of you. You agree with what I have to say? You think I missed something? You think I got something wrong? Click here to see the new home page and post your thoughts in the comments and I will pass them along to the team at Microsoft.
My thoughts on the new MSN.com:
I think this minimal problem carries over to the drop down menus where you have minimal menus with a lot of white space over minimal content with a lot of white space and there isn’t enough visual separation between the two and it makes the menus hard to read. I would consider carrying the colors used in the main nav over into the drop downs to create that separation and also help reinforce the different content groupings which could be stronger than having colored nav that all the menus that look exactly the same.
I would find a way to expose the content in the hero image and content area of the page so you can see all of the stories at one glance instead of having to click through them one at a time. I know from experience that the first story in the rotation will get the lion share of the clicks and it will fall off sharp;y from there.
I think it is smart to use ‘bing’ instead of ‘search’ in the main form field to try ad make it a branded verb.
There needs to be a stronger separation between the tier 2 content (Latest, MSNBC, FOX Sports, etc.) and the third tier content below it as I was expecting all the content from the tier 2 tabs down to change.
The search field at the bottom of the page just seems odd as it goes against the engrained user behavior that would tell them to scroll to the top of the page to do a search.
I wish I there were ways to be able to customize the content shown on the home page through content filters as well as the ability to add/remove tabs and change content placement.
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Burger King wants the truth from Tony Stewart
Crispin Porter created a nice online extension of their Tony Stewart School of Endorsements TV spot (see below) with BK Finds Out The Truth About Tony microste. The site is a video stream of a polygraph test that was given to Nascar driver Tony Stewart as he answers consumer submitted questions about he is he really loves his primary endorsement – Burger King and the Whopper. I have always believed that advertising needs to work out from a core concept and that the interactive extension of a campaign should take advantage of the medium and not just be a straight port of the offline creative. When you watch the TV spot and experience the site you clearly see that was the case here and the benefits of this approach are obvious. The total video is about an hour long and you will have to watch it to see the final results for yourself.
It is also a small thing but orange home bar that runs down the left edge of the site that opens to the content of the BK.com home page is a really elegant way to keep micro sites like this one from developing into individual islands that are disconnected from the main brand site.
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2010 Ford Mustang drives at something new… individuality.
I have always been a car guy and one of my earliest memories is of a bright yellow 1964 Mustang my dad’s friend owned and took to car shows around Pittsburgh. I always loved the design of that car and it has gone through a lof of design changes over the years to arrive at this years incarnation. Firstborn has created the site celebrating the new 2010 Mustang and with the economy and car sales that seem to be headed south faster than a Lynyrd Skynyrd tour bus this sales year has obvious importance for the Ford brand and the Mustang model.
The first thing you notice is that the sites design breaks the traditional online car design structure of a white background with an over retouched hero photos and numerous small info boxes underneath it. This sites goes with the full bleed background image that makes transitions between the content more interesting than watching a loader bar crawl across the screen. I also like the site navigation that is a split navigation that has drop downs on top and all the options exposed on the bottom of the page.
The site has the standard content like photo galleries, model features and even webisodes but the most interesting part of the site for me is the Customizer that isn’t the ‘build your own’ feature that has been on every car site for as long as their have been car sites. It is instead an experience that looks to capitalize on the trend we have seen for years from brands like Scion where you can take the base model and through paint and after market accessories create a truly unique look for your car. This is the first time that I can remember seeing that type of customization encouraged and featured by an American car maker on one of their showcase models. The creation experience on the site has a lot of options so you can create the look you want and then save it the community of over 60,000 other creations. I expected that functionality for a site like this but I didn’t expect to see a link to a car summary where they list out the accessories you have chosen and links to the manufacturers so can create your masterpiece in real life. It will be interesting to see if this new focus and encouragement of individuality will take hold in this bastion of classic and traditional car design and culture. Check a parking lot near you in the not too distant future for the answer.
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If pixels could give you high cholesterol…
Wisconsin Cheese wants you to use their cheese for your cookouts this summer so they have launched the new CheeseAndBurger.com that chronicles the 30 greatest cheeseburgers ever made with Wisconsin Cheese. The main navigation is a horizontal slider flips the main content area like a Rolodex. Each page has the recipe for the burger, cheese info and corresponding voice over work is done by Patrick Warburton who will recognize as Joe Swamson from Family Guy.
The site had a large social media tie with with almost every page sporting Facebook and Twitter sharing capabilities but the Facebook integration rarely worked for me. It looks like have been working that angle well as the Facebook fan page has over 37,000 fans but it is unclear if they are a fan of Wisconsin cheese or cheeseburgers.
I am a huge foodie and cook this content is right up my alley but there isn’t any substantial information about what makes Wisconsin cheese different or better than other cheese, what brands are Wisconsin cheese that I should look out for and wasn’t that the point of all of this? If I like a recipe the chances are very high that I am going to take it to the grocery store and buy whatever brand they have because you haven’t educated me on why I should seek out only Wisconsin cheese. On top of that it is hard to go through this site without wondering what they were thinking because so many of these burgers gleefully highlight ingredients and portions that are insanely high in cholesterol and calories.
I wanted this to be a fun and great food site but between the lack of education and the lack of personality or humor or something to draw me in beyond the photos it didn’t change my shopping habits and I am probably the core demographics they were going for. Maybe the site and content should have been a little cheesier (sorry – couldn’t help myself).
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We Choose The Moon is out of this world
I have to give a belated shout out to Domani Studios and The Martin Agency for their fantastic work on We Choose The Moon that celebrates the 40th anniversary of the historic Apollo 11 mission to the moon. This was one of those projects where it would have been easy to just throw together the archived video and audio into a slide show and call it a day. If you spend time with the site you will be able to see the massive size and scope of what they created instead and how serious they were about paying tribute to the momentous occasion. They were so serious that they launched not just on the same day as the anniversary but at exactly the same time as the original rocket launch. From that launch time the the site mirrored the original mission timeline over the next 4 days telling the story in real time minute with a minute account of the mission. It was done with the first ever assembly of 110 hours of audio transmissions, 400 photographs, 44 archival videos, 3D animation and live Twitter feeds in the voice of the astronauts. I find this site impressive not only because of the presentation and amount of content but that they created the experience to play out in real time. I think that decision was really smart because it allowed people to be able to absorb that huge amount of content in manageable bites which allowed them to focus and not gloss over only hitting the highlights. If you missed the initial launch you can still go through the whole experience as the site has transitioned to a more traditional presentation that is still really worth experiencing.
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