I used to write about all kinds of digital goodies here. Now sometimes I write about UX and product innovation here. If you can somehow find me more time to write — I'd be happy to do it more. :)
Had an amazing “reverse the flow” moment this AM while listening to k-rock. Opie and Anthony had the “Myth Buster” guys over to promote Discovery Network’s upcoming “Shark Week”.
Opie and Anthony where getting into it and really had done their homework. They spent time asking all kinds of questions. The lot of them got around to the subject of capturing Sharks on film:
Oh man have you seen this video? (He then describes a video where a woman gets her leg eaten and was caught on film).
“no, maybe next year…”
Oh well this one, you must have this on the show? (Host then calls up YouTube and shows this clip of shark bait surfing.) Which is totally awesome:
“hmm. nope. missed that too.”
No really. You must know about about this one! (shows another)
“no. that would have been awesome.”
It was a total shit show. Finally one of them says, “Damn, YouTube has better stuff than you do!”
“hey man. we haven’t seen them. can you stop?”
Awesome.
Speaking of awesome, if you really want to see some interesting shark week video, try UPL8.TV/shark+attack It’s always shark week there. And you’ll get better clips. Tee hee.
Popular new social networking services like Twitter, where users write extremely short messages about whatever’s on their minds, present a challenge: How can you intelligently get across a complex thought in just 140 characters without needing to use ugly abbreviations (e.g. “w/o needing 2 use ugly abbrev’s”)?
If only there were a service that helps with the struggle of rewriting a 146-letter message to fit in a 140 character limit. Well now there is: Thsrs, the thesaurus that only gives you synonyms shorter than the word you’re looking up. Just enter one of the longer words in your message, and Thsrs will suggest shorter words to use instead.
Try the tool out and bookmark www.thsrs.com so it’s always handy when you need it. There is also Thsrs available as a plug-in for your browser!
Seems this thing isn’t getting much of a welcoming party. Personally, I expected a more business-like approach from Google with some sort of tie in to their other existing structures such as Google Earth, etc. If you could connect with corresponding shops at their corresponding addresses then you might have something closer to real interaction (Not to mention an new idea). Could be interesting I guess.
While I too am not a fan, all this Lively hub-bub inspired me to tell you my one and only virtual world story.
Back when I was at Agency.com there was this push within the strategy group to “learn all we can about social media.” Well, the only way I know how to learn is to “do” so I went home and signed up for second life.
I wasn’t there but five seconds (orientation island) before I noticed this peculiar avatar there all dressed all in black (read: Matrix) running around torching, shoving and generally messing with people. Neat! I hung out for a bit, just watching this guy - so far pretty well fascinated into the first 5 minutes of my SecondLife virginity).
Moments later this guy runs off and starts filling my screen (and everyone else’s) with smoke (and this horrible explosion sound). This goes on for about 10 minutes. I can see on my panel that people are fleeing. One by one. But not me. Nope. I stayed.
Approximately 5 or so minutes later the smoke clears and everyone is gone. Except “TheScorcher_12” or some shit and yours truly. He’s standing there staring at me. So I stare back and say what any other self respecting SecondLifer would: “Whoa. Awesome.” :)
He says, “I like you. Want guns?”
Um, fuck yeah I want guns! So I say “Yes” and the next thing I know he’s filling my drawer full of ammo, bombs, guns, landmines, knives, grenades…I mean seriously. Everything I need to start a war. (Which apparently he already had done.)
One by one I accepted the weaponry offered to me thinking…Jesus what did I get myself into?
“Ok, hop in. Lets blow shit up”
Oh, that’s what. And off we went in his spaceship. Yes, his flying saucer. We floated slowly around the 2ndwebs while “TheScorcher” danced. In his spaceship. In front of me. Floating. In his spaceship. Dancing. Are you getting this? We went to a few Casinos and chased some people out. “Blew up” a few screens and called it a night.
I spent the next day laughing and talking about my experience - and I must admit - there was a curiosity that drove me to go back. Or was it the last 24hrs of incessant emails from “Scorcher”? Anyway, I get home, get comfy and I log back in.
Bam! There he is just like magic. “Are we blowing more shit up tonight, Scorcher?” I asked. “Nah.” he said. “Follow me.” I followed him to what looked like a clearing and a lake that had little pyramids all around it. “Grab one,” he said. So I did and what happened next I will never forget.
This PayPal dialogue box pops up and asks if I’d like to purchase it. (When I first signed up for Second Life I entered in my PayPal info - so it was active on my account). I bought the pyramid - 7 bucks or something. It then splits into little pyramids and Scorch says, “now drop those - everywhere.” This guy hasn’t really steered me wrong so far, right? So, you know, I listened. “Why am I doing this?” I asked. “You’ll see,” he said. I followed him around for a bit, got tired and logged off. I never went back.
What happened? Did you catch it? It was a visual/virtual pyramids scheme. I was one in a chain of many. People who came after I had left, found my pyramids, picked then up (and payed for them) thus sprinkling a little cash to everyone in the chain before them. Till this day, I am still making money in my PayPal account from this scheme he got me into - sometimes as much as a couple of dollars a day. I’m not going to retire on it - but damn. Crazy right?
Update on 2008-12-11 15:19 by Meat
…aaaand I’m out
Welp…didn’t see that coming. It looks like Lively will be shutting down on 12/31. Read more.
The digital world has created expectations that you’re not living up to.
It is human nature to expect access. (Just ask your mom how many times you pulled on the cabinet door under the kitchen sink when you were a rugrat). See? We want it. All of it, (dammit). It’s true, always been true and it’s never going away.
And now _sheesh_ we want more.
More information, services, ideas, more of each other and more value from you, the brand we grace with our attention. We also want to manage our relationships with your company, and to have_among other things_ instantaneous transactional capabilities. These expectations are increasing, not going away. To matters worse…
Less emails, less hold times, less crap snail mail and really - less interaction with you. That is of course, unless we want more interaction with you. Then, you know, give us that too.
What is interesting to us however, is how big the divide is between companies/brands that understand us and those of you that still seem to cower or struggle in the digital dark. Even more oddly, some of YOU have been fighting this movement. You’re hiding. You’re desperately holding on to an analog world. You’re running the risk of alienating and becoming irrelevant to the very person that some day you’ll have to sell burgers, health care, computers, baby clothes, and a new car to.
What you seem to be missing is the fact that this digital movement is putting more power at not just the consumer’s but ALL OF OUR collective fingertips. Even BRANDS LIKE YOU in this “Always-On” age are empowered. So why so fearful, Mr. Brand?
If you’d find it difficult to live with out Google, Netflix, Twitter, you see our point. If you get the point, how are you going to change your behavior?
Showing and not simply telling is the foundation to forming Rich Ideas and marketing as a service. This neat little ad is a Smart Car “vending machine” giving the user a choice between coupe or cabrio information. Pushing the button on the vendor doesn’t relinquish a car, but it does dispense a branded tube containing pamphlets on the new models, dealer information, and a sheet of Smart Car stickers featuring the available colors.
experiences not messages
Holding a full-size Smart Car, the faux vending machine is a nice idea that fits right into the Japanese love for instant gratification on-the-go. In not sure there are many other automotive brands that can pull this off (saving Mini perhaps). And in true Rich Idea fashion, the user walks away smiling - having felt different about the brand because it involved them in a valuable and information-based experience.
Fantastic idea conveying the quirkiness, size and simplicity of Smart Car ownership.
This is just another fascinating demonstration of the power of voice each and every one of us have. The same blog entries that can engage, inspire and unite can also ignite a scuffle, destroy an ad campaign, create a PR nightmare, shut down a company and even cause a divorce - the list goes on.
will it go too far?
It’s funny how “mass media” are regulated - dramatically. But the individual can say what ever they want. (Obviously the reason “people journalism” is so amazing to begin with.) This power is a double edged sword.
We (as bloggers and digerati) are also a headache and a nightmare for our very clients and brands we work for. There are already cases where the blogger’s that haven’t exercised self restraint have gotten themselves (and others) in danger. Will it go too far? In some cases it already has.
Somehow this seems cooler/more viable than the apple TV. The new Netflix Player by Roku (about 100 bucks) lets you watch movies and TV shows from your Netflix queue, right on your TV. Bummer that it is yet another set-top box I have to plop on my TV, (ditch my SlingBox??) but it provides instant access to a library of 10,000 Netflix movies and TV shows (Currently 10% of the library and counting.)
The player features Wired Ethernet and Wi-Fi, HDMI and Component Video, and comes with a simple remote control to boot.
what’s the rich idea??
Wait for it. Waaaaiiiit for iiiit… NO EXTRA COST. Bam! You just have to buy the box and have a Netflix subscription. Awesome.
Most times thinking richly doesn’t require a ton of code and a massive design team.
Here’s two sweet examples:
1. Weallhatequickbooks.com
A company by the name of Less Accounting set out to create a “Quickbooks beater.” Then they created a interactive billboard of sorts by taking a one page landing page titled and URL’d “We All Hate Quickbooks” and then piped every mention of Quickbooks (usually negative) from Twitter into the page. Not the nicest thing to look at, but I think it works really hard as a pithy and valuable landing page full of tips, collective consciousness and commentary.
2. Coroflot Job Feed
RSS on steroids. That’s pretty much how I’d sum this up. It is only been up a week and is already nearing 100 followers.
What if jet ownership were re-thought to a point where overall travel costs could be reduced to a level that’s actually comparable to first-class commercial travel? What if you could come and go as you please and take off from airports that still have parking spaces? What if you had access to travel the way it was meant to be?
What if you were friggin’ loaded? Well then, the creators of JetBlue (my favorite way to travel) might have yet another refreshing air travel idea for you. It is an interesting alternative to small chartered flying. JetSuite is assembling a fleet of 100 Embraer Phenom 100 jets, with the twist being that the company is lobbying private buyers to buy the jets. Did you catch that? You own the jets. Then, when you don’t need your aircraft, JetSuite charters it to someone who does. The new idea? Unlike the private time-share competition, no matter how much (or how little) your plane is flown, you’re guaranteed a monthly revenue stream.
How? JetSuite will pay the owners $25,000 per month in exchange for allowing JetSuite to use and maintain the jets during their down times. (You know, when you’re not frolicking from coastal golf course to strip club on the weekends. Sure, you’ll have to drop $3,000,000 but that $25,000/month could pay for your fuel costs to Cabo.*
Full disclosure: I have spent much of my career creating marketing programs, interactive ideas, brand launches and web redesigns for brands like JetSuite in the Travel and Hospitality industry. It is by far my biggest corporate passion. Couldn’t be happier to see a new idea like this in the wild.
Newzflash. You can now add OpenSocial applications to your Orkut profile (kinda like facebook).
Currently the Orkut directory includes only a limited number of applications but one thing that Orkut has is the ability to congregate people into interactive sessions (like a physical chatroom of sorts - think network gaming).
One such app that I stumbled upon today is called TypeRacer - a typing game that lets you race your Orkut friends, in real-time, using your hard-earned keyboard skills and compare your typing speed with other Orkut friends in real-time. The faster you type, the sooner your car will hit the finish line. I’ll be honest - at first I thought this was a terrible idea. Until I used it. It’s fun and kinda addictive! What’s more, it kinda teaches you to type a helluva lot better than that Mavis Beacon crap back in the day. My own speed went up in the 5 minutes I was messing with it.
You start with a little car on the left side of the screen, and you type the given text to make your car move all the way to the right as quickly as possible. Your score will be saved, and your Orkut profile will show how you rank among all of your friends. You know, so they can know how fast you type I guess.
It seems you can add a maximum of 25 apps to your profile. Unlike Facebook, where you can clutter your own profile page beyond recognition with “It’s Brittany Bitch!” iconography. :)
Oh yeah, and if you’re like the rest of North America and not on Orkut, just head to typeracer.com to play for yourself.
I Love this radical move: Radiohead’s new single “Nude” can be remixed in GarageBand. (Full disclosure: I still haven’t bought the album.) I know…I know.
The separate sections (bass, voice, guitar, strings/fx and drums) are available for purchase iTunes in the same way that you purchase any other song.
Remix galore.
Finished tracks can then be uploaded to the Radiohead site where Radiohead faithful can vote for their favs.
I couldn’t be more of a High Fidelity-esque music geek. I love to make top-five lists and my music library seems more like a generational patchwork quilt than 31 year old’s typical music collection. Music surrounds my life..from friends bands to going to shows to playing guitar hero. It fits my moods, it makes my moods and in many ways defines the emo dork I am. I mean, who among us hasn’t turned to music when we’ve felt sad(or happy), or wished that Bruce Springsteen or Thom Yorke would talk to us directly like they speak to us through their music?
Growing up with music in my life was a huge deal for me and the mix-tape (and most recently “play-lists” always captured all of that and more. Recently I discovered Muxtape. I love anything that’s dead simple and useful. And you can’t get anymore simple than Muxtape. The online service does one thing — let you create and share mixtape-like MP3 playlists with friends. The signup is quick and the value is deep. Music geeks like me should definitely give it a spin.
One of my favorite actors is John Cusack. He sums Mix-tapes up wonderfully for me.
“To me, making a tape is like writing a letter. There’s a lot of erasing and rethinking and starting again. A good compilation tape, like breaking up, is hard to do. You’ve got to kick off with a corker, to hold the attention (I started with “Got to Get You Off My Mind,” but then realized that she might not get any further than track one, side one if I delivered what she wanted straightaway, so I buried it in the middle of side two), and then you’ve got to up it a notch, or cool it a notch, and you can’t have white music and black music together, unless the white music sounds like black music, and you can’t have two tracks by the same artist side by side, unless you’ve done the whole thing in pairs and…oh, there are loads of rules.”
Mix-taping is an evolved form of messenging. So. What are your mix-tapes? Do you have rules? Does any of this make sense? Go whip something up at Muxtape. My username is Meat99. Rok.
Kick Ass.Viacom is STARTING to catch on to Rich Thinking. They’re going open. They’re engaging their audiences like active participants instead boobing us like mindless sheep. They’re giving us what we’ve been waiting for. Viacom and SouthParkStudios delivered on the promise they gave last year, and gave us all South Park episodes ever created for free. You can find them all at Southparkstudios.com.
Finally, the day has come…sorta. :)
You can’t embed the entire episodes (only the 3000 available clips), but it’s a step in the right direction.
El Camino :)Call me a dirty hick, but this thing is friggin’ awesome! Sadly, this post isn’t about design. (You can read me lusting after this thing here.) So what else is awesome? The smart peeps at GM’s Marketing department took advantage of the obvious naming surge (for the record I’m supporting, “El Camino”) that this thing would cause online and created a community naming site. Cool!
The site is up ready to go for auto-show season. So guys, head over and give this baby it’s rightful name :)
This article talks about the video-game-as-forum-for-debut as though it is the only new move/trend in music. Funny, it seems to me this phenomenon is almost mainstream at this point. Music today has boundaries that stretch far beyond what gets on the radio or in the music store (wherever that is). We all know this. Or do we?
If you want really obscure stuff, it’s out there but you’ll probably have to look further than even video games. If you prefer ambient/electronic music with few or no words, a lot of artists have cropped up in this genre thanks to the bit-torrents, filepilez and gnutellas of the world. Electronic music took advantage of (arguably created!) this distribution mechanism as the genre’s relatively niche´ sound has proven to be difficult to effectively promote outside of its small fan base.
Just because things like iTunes exist, doesn’t mean you’re still getting access to obscure, different or incredibly “indie” music. Like anything else, for the real gems, you’ve gotta dig deeper.
For a second I thought the post was about “Rock Band Experts starting Real Band.” I wonder why hasn’t this happened yet! LOL. Seriously, anyone want to be in my band?
Hmm. Here’s another Twitter app. IMHO, (sorry Foamee, which i kinda dig) this is a much better use of what Twitter has to offer. And frankly (did I just say “frankly?”) it really speaks to me seeing as I spend somewhere between 8 and 20 hours week held hostage by some sort of train or car.
Hokay soh, you’ve heard of navigation systems now with updated traffic info, yeah? Cool.
but what if they crowd-sourced that data?
Enter Commuter Feed is a free service that lets you post reports on traffic and transit delays in your local area using Twitter.
For those of you in NYC - heres the feed for our area. Nothing much up there yet - but as it goes with crowd-sourced data the machine relys on user input. Let’s see how this one goes…
Just came across Dropio. A drop is a ‘discrete’ chunk of space you can use to store and share stuff (pictures, video, audio, docs, etc) privately, without accounts, personal registration, or an email addresses. Drops are not ‘searchable’ and not ‘networked’, they just exist floating in space, as points for exchange for individuals or groups.
really worth a peep.
You can create as many as you want in what seems like a ridiculously easy 1-step process. Things like a password, whether others can add to the drop, and how long you want it to exist all make this thing really flexible for both family and business public and private situations. The Drops are a simple platform for sharing which are by default private, but can be flexibly used in a range of ways from sharing family photos and videos to collaborating on work documents.
Each drop has three primary input methods – the web, email, and voice – and a few secondary ones like ‘widgets’.
I’ve noted up there that each drop gets its own dedicated email address (for input) phone conference # and its own fax #. You can Fax documents right into the Drop feed! This thing is a huge innovation (and seems like an amazing extranet tool…) I bet a zillion bucks it blows up at SXSW this year…
would you add him?Assuming by now you have heard of semacodes or QR codes. No? QR codes are a new type of bar-code you can scan with your cell phone to get the phone to execute some sort of function. It is most often used to get the phone to open a webpage. Just scan (shoot) the code and the phone opens the URL. QR codes are widely used in europe and asia but are slowly starting to appear in the americas.
This little app connects your code with your fbook profile - then uses Zazzle to throw it on a tshirt! (The shirts encode the URL of your mobile facebook page.)
Awesome. Now I can go to advertising industry parties and literally speak to no one. :)
Had an amazing “reverse the flow” moment this AM while listening to k-rock. Opie and Anthony had the “Myth Buster” guys over to promote Discovery Network’s upcoming “Shark Week”.
