Compare how many Tweets are posted by Sydney-siders versus New Yorkers in real-time with the Tweet-o-Meter.  An online monitoring tool created by the UCL Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis that measures the amount of tweets (in Tweets per Minute or TPM) received from various locations around the world.

Currently in beta mode the Tweet-O-Meter updates every 10 seconds displaying the city with the highest number of Tweets. While innovative, this tool may be somewhat inaccurate, with the Tweet-o-Meter only registering Tweets by people that have there geolocation turned on in there Twitter preferences.

“the Flyfire project sets out to explore the capabilities of this display system by using a large number of self-organizing micro helicopters. Each helicopter contains small LEDs and acts as a smart pixel. Through precisely controlled movements, the helicopters perform elaborate and synchronized motions and form an elastic display surface for any desired scenario.”

Ok then.

flyfire

A neat little digital crossover activity monitoring device that rewards you for… activity. Aimed at the kids, Switch2health makes these little coloured bands with a small insertable device/pedometer that generates a unique code which you then punch back into the site to redeem your points/rewards. Great! It will also give you a smiley or a frowny based on your current activity. Russell writes a great little thing about it here… where I may or may not have pinched the pics from…

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Beck’s Festival Bar w/ Music

Malian guitarist/singer/songwriter Vieux Farka Toure is the son of African music legend, the late Ali Farka Toure.  Drawing on Malian traditions and incorporating his father’s signature desert blues style, Vieux’s ear for the future also sees his music traversing reggae, funk, rock and RnB.

Playing no-frills blues rock, Sydney duo The Mess Hall are renowned for their raw, explosive live performances.

With a sound that is equal parts blues, soul and country, Dan Sultan’s songs showcase his knack for storytelling. DJ Russ Dewbury mixes up the heaviest Afro-soul sounds.

When: 8pm

Cost: $38

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Music/Vieux-Farka-Toure-The-Mess-Hall-Dan-Sultan/

Saturday 16 January

Circa 1979: Signal to Noise (A day of free talks)

From 1979 to 1985, parish halls, abandoned warehouses and run down apartments rumbled and screeched with new sounds during one of the most creative periods in Australia’s music history.  Avant garde, post-punk, new wave and early electronic styles of music cultivated a thriving underground scene, heard on Sydney-based labels M Squared and Volition. Circa 1979: Signal to Noise is a celebration of this unique and influential period.

(Excerpt from http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/)

Cost: FREE

Where: The Seymour Centre, Cnr City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Talks/Circa-1979-Signal-to-Noise/

Sunday 17 January

Lynette Wallworth (Sensory Exhibition)

A little too real to be dream-like and a little too dream-like to be familiar, Wallworth’s environments are an exercise in unexpected concentration and unusual exploration, often involving wordless narratives that attempt to emotively fertilize a sense of intimacy and empathy between the moving image and the participants moving body. And although the Wallworth experience is usually no roller coaster ride, it may offer a moment of sensory gratification and some time for healthy reflection.

(Excerpt from http://concreteplayground.com.au/)

Where: CarriageWorks, 245 Wilson St, Eveleigh

More Info: http://concreteplayground.com.au/event/483/lynette-wallworth.htm

Monday 18 January

Joanna Newsom @ Sydney Opera House (Concert)

“This extraordinary harpist has a glorious, untamed voice and a sheaf of tricky song-poems…conjuring one startlingly vivid image after another.” – The New York Times

After beguiling audiences with her performance with the Sydney Symphony last year , California-based harp virtuoso Joanna Newsom makes a much anticipated return to Sydney Opera House for one Sydney show only.

Cost: $49-75

Where: Sydney Opera House

More Info: http://www.sydneyoperahouse.com/whatson/joanna_newsom_2010.aspx

Tuesday 19 January

Tot Mom

Steven Soderbergh has created Tot Mom – a compelling look into how a crime can come to grip an entire nation through intense media and public attention. Tot Mom seeks to hold up a mirror to our society, raising ethical questions about the way in which such a case is dealt with in the public domain.

(Excerpt from http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/)

Cost: FREE

Where: The Seymour Centre, Cnr City Road and Cleveland Street, Chippendale

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Talks/Circa-1979-Signal-to-Noise/

Wednesday 20 January

Where the Wild Things Are @ Moonlight Cinema
as recommended by our very own Siouxzi Mernagh

The highly anticipated adaptation by director Spike Jonze (BEING JOHN MALKOVICH, ADAPTATION) of Maurice Sendak’s beloved children’s story. When Max, a young boy acting out, is sent to bed without his supper, he creates his own world – a forest inhabited by ferocious wild creatures that crown Max as their ruler.

(Excerpt from www.moonlight.com.au)

Where: Belvedere Amphitheatre, Centennial Park

More Info: http://www.moonlight.com.au/main.php?location=Sydney

Thursday 21 January

Dark Matters (Dance)

Dark Matters is a haunting portrait of the unknown, a performance that pulls itself apart in an attempt to discover what it’s made of.

When: 8pm

Where: Sydney Theatre, Walsh Bay

Cost: $55-$70

More Info: http://www.sydneyfestival.org.au/2010/Dance/Dark-Matters/

Ongoing Exhibition

Seen and Heard (Film Festival)

A free film festival that battles the celluloid ceiling, celebrating the diverse and extraordinary work of women filmmakers and their not-to-be-underestimated diverse and extraordinary audiences. Seen and Heard in 2010, its second year, will follow on from a showcase of questions on class, race, ability/disability, gender and sexuality.

(Excerpt from http://seenandheardfilms.com/)

When: 14 – 17 January

Where: Red Rattler, 6 Faversham St, Marrickville

More Info: http://seenandheardfilms.com/

A testament to how effective this interactive piece is from Intel is whether you feel like touching your computer screen when you’re watching it…

http://www.contagiousmagazine.com/2010/01/intel_1.php

Direct You Tube link:

Intel InfoScape Double HD Touchscreen Internet Experience

a message from ‘dorkbot: people doing strange things with electricity’ 

http://dorkbot.org

I want to invite you all to an exciting event taking place at the Powerhouse Museum at the end of this month. Over the weekend of Jan 29-31 forty game designers, developers and artists will volunteer to be locked away in the basement of the PHM and not allowed out until they have made a game! 

That’s right: its Game Jam Sydney, part of the Global Game Jam that is
taking place simultaneously in over 100 locations around the world. It’s 48 hours of intensive game development with an aim to produce innovative and exciting new games. It’s also part of the Powerhouse’s “80’s Gamer Weekend”so there will also be talks and presentations by some veterans of the Australian game industry, and some up-and-coming indy designers.

To find out more, visit http://www.gamejamsydney.com/

Spread the word!

 

 

SPECIAL REQUEST: We will need some tech-savvy people to volunteer as network administration for the event. Do you have familiarity with running a LAN of 40-50 computers? We’d like to hear from you. Even if you can’t make the whole 48 hours, having you to help with setting/packing up or being on call for some of the time would be really valuable.

Contact: dorkbotsyd-blabber@dorkbot.org

That was 2009, sunshine.

But it kinda went by so quickly I missed most of it…

Too late, anyway we’re steaming on with 2010, Krubrick style.

C’mon just a recap?

Nup… listen every man and his social media NOOB has done a yearly wrap up and most have already pumped out a 2010 trends/predictions/tea leaf futurism piece…

Please?

Psssssffffff… OK just a quick one then let’s you’ll have to let go, it’s over.

First.

Banner Ads.
Banner ads are still alive! Yes of course they are and here’s a great article about the constraints they’re breaking out of… Beyond the banner And probably the most simple banner and “yet” most engaging banner ads of the year this little cracker for Pringles…

Right here, right now and in 3D.
Location based services and Augmented Reality… how many times did we hear those buzz words last year (and the year before that)? Well we did because they’re starting to make (or have well made) the leap from gimmick town to useful utility city… and we’re holding it in our hands Layar (now 3.0) probably being the leader on this front and the platform seems to be expanding… (see also: wikitude & twitter-360). Need to find a Stellar quickly… you might need this…

Then there was the foursquare too much info weirdness, which will make more sense when you’ll start getting free beers…

Plenty of brands had a dabble in the webcam augmented reality space with very few producing anything of real value… there were some exceptions such as… this

The Cloud brought to you the Googles.Realtime Search, Chrome, the Wave… next up the the android explosion and the OS. When do we wave the white flag? Maybe when their interfaces get a little prettier. Seriously the Cloud is a great thing and products/services such as Google Wave (although slightly over-hyped and a little lonely at first) are/will get us working as collaboratively as a finely tuned beehive… it’s like all my wildest hopes for yammer coming true… remember yammer? er… no…

Memes
These things power the internet… last year we had Kayne and “I’mma let you finnish” but the winner had to be… Keyboard Cat. What will the memerverse throw up this year?

Semi-Translucent Aggregation
Everything from anywhere, anytime for anyone overload. First we had skittles.com which was basically an overlay interface (where have we seen that before) on top of various social sites, so if your tweet contained “skittles” it would basically end up on the skittles home page. Which is great when people are saying nice things… to their credit Skittles let go of the fear and the site is still up. The never media shy Crispin Porter + Bogusky took the concept a little further and turned their own agency site into an aggregation portal. So if you were talking about the agency it would end up on their homepage etc… the neat thing they did though was to have a filter where you could select individual clients and then get a live social media snapshot of the buzz around that brand (buzz that they’re generating apparently).

A couple of weeks before they launched theirs tho’ we squeezed our own aggregation baby out of the coding test tube… and introduced Whitegoods

Here you can follow the twitter, delicious, flickr and blog feeds from le white agency… sweet.

Decks of the year (or presos that were worth while sitting through).

Or Aaron Koblin’s amazement.

The best by far… by a long shot… by a country mile was this WHY I LOVE THE INTERNET… there’s no pictures tho’

Campaigns N’ Stuff

This was a great simple one Shocking Barack (electric motorbikes) I wrote some words about it here.

Nikes Chalkbot got talked about (almost rhymes).

+ (nice pun) Although it was done a little while ago Adweehnamed this as “Digital Campaign of the Decade”

Now does that look like an ad to you?

Mos Def released an album as a Tshirt

RA DIOHEA_D and google made a film clip with LAZERS!

Something Something Twitter.

The White Stuff

I wore a the same t-shirts a lot.

So did some other people.

@kukestar produced a stellar performance for our Christmas Card…

Our peeps in Melbourne moved into a new Crib.

We cut a tralier… a first!

We made a showreel! woot!

B&T rated our site numero uno of digital agency sites… not bad if that the sort of business your in

We got all data vizzy for our super swell friends at The Commonwealth Bank (+ commbank.com.au won yet another round of awards)

We went hybrid in the pursuit of perfection for Team Lexus (+ we gave their site a super tune up)

We gave parents a helping hand when it comes to talking to their kids about drinking.

We helped people to “choose pink” for a good cause

And did we mention Whitegoods?

So kinda there it is…

Done.

This year tho’ is going to be another whole level of awesome… grrrr.

Google and Apple both unveiled key mobile initiatives yesterday, underscoring the collision path the two companies are on, and how long-term, video is poised to benefit from their battle.

First, as you no doubt already know, Google introduced the Nexus One, an Android-powered smartphone that it is selling directly to consumers. It is Google’s first foray into consumer devices and many more products sure to follow. Meanwhile, Apple, in a rare significantly-sized deal, acquired Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising company, for around $300 million. Quattro represents Apple’s first real push into advertising, an important shift from its traditional iTunes-driven paid media model.

With its own device, Google is primarily looking to compete against Apple’s iPhone, which has practically owned the U.S. smartphone market since its introduction 2 years ago. And Apple, with a toehold in the exploding mobile advertising market, is positioning itself to disrupt Google’s planned dominance of mobile advertising through its pending $750 million AdMob acquisition. If Apple were to make additional acquisitions, particularly in the online video advertising space, that would further strengthen its position.

Mobile video is poised to be a real winner in the Google vs. Apple face-off. At a minimum, the two companies’ considerable marketing spending (plus those of competitors Palm, RIM, Nokia and others) will mean smartphones in millions more consumers’ hands, dramatically expanding the video-ready universe. In addition, the experience of watching mobile video will just keep getting better. For example, the Nexus One’s screen resolution (480×800) surpasses the iPhone’s (320×480), which only means Apple will need to up the ante even further with its next generation. The range of video applications is sure to surge as more and more players stake out their ground.

Importantly, because there are no powerful incumbent distributors in mobile video – as there are in the living room, with cable/satellite/telco – I believe there is more flexibility in how premium video can be distributed to smartphones. Until recently mobile was an “on-deck” world where everything had to be approved and carried by the wireless carrier. But mobile is quickly evolving to take on open Internet-like characteristics, where applications and services are not gatekeeped by a distributor. In short, mobile looks to be more like online distribution than traditional video distribution. As power in mobile shifts to players like Apple and Google, it should also be a wake-up call to the FCC, whose planned wireless carrier-focused net neutrality paradigm already looks out of date.

While there have been recent rumbles about Apple doing something with subscription video for the living room, instead the company likely has more latitude in mobile to go well beyond the pay-per-use iTunes model, especially if it can also bring in advertising. Meanwhile, by having its own device and operating system, Google is optimizing the YouTube mobile experience. As this YouTube blog post points out, the Nexus One is an improved way to search, view and upload YouTube videos. With YouTube enjoying such benefits not just on Nexus One, but on all Android phones, YouTube becomes an even more valuable partner for premium content providers looking to generate mobile usage.

Google and Apple will be jousting for years to come in the mobile space. The opportunities for growth for both companies are sizable. I fully expect that video is a going to be an increasingly important part of the battle.

Credits: Everybody @ White + Andrew M for the name

You may have seen a lot of the 87 things in this presentation… but it’s great to see them all in one place.

Maybe not breaking news anymore but we came out on top in a B&T review of Australian digital agency websites.

So then another digital mob from Newcastle (didn’t quite make the B&T review unfortunately) ran their ANLYZR tool over the same candidates and we ranked a paltry 10^th based on the more reportable stuff like SEO and search scores.

Now I know which one I care about more but it raises an interesting question: Do Marketing Directors of switched on brands really google ‘digital agency’? The findablilty v experience is an old debate but for an agency site, surely it’s more about conveying your personality and your work, no?

San Diego.

Yeah! We’ve just helped launch The Commonwealth Banks new YouTube Channel… As Mathew McBertie McBertros says in his own words… Special mentions to Rachael M who delivered a wonderful watertight strategy and to the man of science for his platybank sketches, creative vision, and getting the word awesome into a final live design multiple times… T_E_A_M  youtube.com/commbank

So you thought search had all but been wrapped up by the folks @ 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, California. Right? Well think again. The thinkers @ One Microsoft Way, Redmond thought they might reinvent the “I’m trying to find something on the internet” wheel. Those crazy Microsoft tinkerers felt that the internet has well… evolved (overloaded). So why shouldn’t search? The result is badda boom, badda bing. Mmmm many have tried so let’s wait and see on this one… anyone remember cuil?

And in other search news (not really in the same space… and released a little while ago) is the nerdtastic Wolfram Alpha. As they say “Wolfram|Alpha is the first step in an ambitious, long-term project to make all systematic knowledge immediately computable by anyone” Go on give it a tickle.

A search engine with a sense of humour… what?

PS: More Easter Eggs here…

PSS: Wonder if Google has anything up their long sleeves?

It’s a turbulent time in the world of global economics. As tempting as it is to retreat to a cave in the hills and hibernate until it all blows over, it’s always best to face a crisis head-on, which is why we’ve been working on an exciting new project with the Commonwealth Bank. The Bank is reaching out to Gen Ys to find how they feel about the current financial uncertainty and the effect it’s having on their lives. The central focus of this initiative is a forum to be held at the Mint in Sydney, on Wednesday 27th May 2009, kicking off at 5pm.

The forum will give Gen Ys a chance to share their thoughts and also pick up practical tips and information for managing their money day-to-day. It builds on the success of a similar event held in 2006 but now includes support from various social media channels and digital PR.

For more info you can check out the site www.ymoneymatters.com.au or follow the twitter account @ymoneymatters

For those who can’t attend the event, there will be a live webcast on the night with on-demand video and additional research released afterwards.

Sure it was announced a couple days ago… but good news is good news. Yes as mentioned a couple posts ago Australia.com was in the running for a People’s Voice (Tourism category) @ the digitally prestigious  Webby Awards. And guess what? It won. As the marvellous mUmBRELLA reported much closer to the announcement…

“The australia.com site – designed by The White Agency – was the People’s Voice Winner in the Tourism category of The Webbys, which were announced earlier today, Australian time.

The Webby Awards have run for more than a decade. One of their unique points is that when winners make acceptance speeches they are limited to just five words. In 2005, failed presidential candidate Al Gore’s was “Please don’t recount this vote.”

Tonight White Agency boss Miles Joyce said: “Had a taste? Come walkabout.”

Well done to all involved on this very high profile project that deserves the accolades. Go Team!

Twitchhiker is a blog set up by a guy named Paul, who attempted to travel as far around the world as possible in 30 days, relying only on the goodwill of people using Twitter.

He managed to get all the way from the U.K. to New Zealand. Pretty impressive – but he’s probably wondering:

1. What do I do with my 11,566 twitter followers now?

2. Do I really have to go back to the U.K.?

Very happy to announce that that our design for Tourism Australia’s consumer travel site, www.australia.com, has been nominated for a Webby Award in the Tourism category!

This also means that australia.com is eligible to win a Webby People’s Voice Award, which is relies on votes from the world wide community. Please feel free to jump over and vote any time up till April 30th at http://pv.webbyawards.com. Go on, get in there. You know you want to.

You can check it out, along with the other nominees here: http://www.webbyawards.com/webbys/current.php?season=13

Taking it to the streets is so 2008. Want to effect change 2009 style? Social media should be your first port of call confirming that the pen (or keyboard) is indeed mightier than the sword.

Nick Galvin, writing in the Sydney Morning Herald, says, “TWITTERERS, bloggers, podcasters and Facebook users are getting behind Earth Hour in unprecedented numbers as event organisers embrace the explosion of interest in online social networking.”

With almost 700,000 online friends in 80 countries, Earth Hour’s John Johnston says almost anything goes to send the Earth Hour message viral and reach the target of one billion participants.

Galvin continues, “The latest effort to push the Earth Hour message is through a new social networking service called 12 Seconds. The 12 Seconds service, likened to a video version of Twitter, allows users to post 12-second videos about any subject that catches their attention. Earth Hour organisers are asking supporters to make 12-second promotional videos and put them online.”

Social revolution is just a click away.

Read the full article here.

A top post from Mr Iain Tate (9 reasons japanese interactive work is awesome) who after Judging the One Show Interactive Awards recently became a little bit of a Digital Nipponophile (that sounds much ruder than it really is). I don’t agree with everything in this post, but its good to take a step back and look at digital on this scale sometimes. I rate the politeness and craft as the two most distinguishing features – they just don’t throw stuff in your face as much, and they always seems to have incredible polish on their stuff.

Speaking of things from the land of the rising sun, these guys are one my top 5 digital agencies in the world… informationarchitects (iA) The digital trends maps they out are amazing, next one due out soon, but latest one here.

(From Adnews March 13th 2009)

How is 2009 shaping up for digital agencies?

Bring it on!

More and more companies are now realising the power of digital as a key business driver. In this environment, can companies afford to choose a generalist over an expert?

Our promise to clients – Better, Faster, Cheaper, Flexible – has never been more on the money than right now.

What’s more, our ability to deliver against these pillars is in stark contrast to some of our larger integrated agency competitors.

We have seen from the fully integrated agencies’ claim after claim, restructure after restructure and senior hire after senior hire, that, if you scratch the surface, they are the same old mainstream agency with digital tacked on…..animating print ads, TVCs online.

Unless every ounce of your agency’s DNA is digital, you are behind the curve and subsequently your clients are chasing not leading.

Technology is no longer just that guy in the corner playing Dungeons and Dragons, it is the gateway between business, marketing, customers and prospects. Your agency must live and breathe technology, developing the best solutions, aware of all innovations and, equally, the limitations. This is the pedigree of digital agencies, minimising risk, saving time and money, creating innovative solutions and improving speed to market.

Digital creates rivers of data, and you can sink or swim in this data. It comes in real time, wave after wave of information. Digital agencies are accustomed to this immediacy of information, turning on the taps, filtering and optimising the work. Data sits across all departments. It is no longer about post analysis – it provides insight, it informs and it enlightens.

Interaction is so much more than just a click or a person voting on their favourite viral piece. Interaction is a way of thinking beyond the traditional; broadcast/reaction, cause/effect – it is about capture and engagement. Digital agencies grab the interaction possibilities; taking a great idea and making it live and breathe online.

As digital finally lives up to the promises extolled for years, clients should expect more than just window dressing. 2009 could well prove the year that truly steels the future of digital agencies, the year that sets the direction for years to come.

As I said at the outset, 2009 bring it on!!

For more information contact:
Craig Galvin – Executive Director, Partner, the white agency

It’s a really nice example of a quick to produce/cost effective solution that leverages different social media sites, all linked together through a really simple primary navigation/promo space box that floats in the top left corner of each section/site you navigate to.

Their ‘homepage’ and ‘products’ pages are actually their www.wikipedia.org page, their ‘chatter’ section of the site is the brand’s twitter page, the ‘friends’ section of the site links through to their Facebook fan-page, and their ‘media’ section links through to their YouTube & Flickr pages.

This is a fantastic approach that intelligently leverages existing consumer and brand generated content, bringing together communities of brand advocates.

_

It’s another great example of brands needing to be increasingly brave and letting go of some control, as true brand ownership shifts to sit with consumers. Skittles recognises that they can only participate in these conversations.

It’s a huge step for a brand – nice one Team Skittles!

Do you Poken? Now this might seem a little bit cutsey and there might be an easier way to do this… but still. Little RFID chips in these toys swap social networking information (or any contact details) when you Hi-Five them, you then plug them into your computer device thing and manage the level of engagement you want to have with that person. You could do it other ways sure, but the interaction seems nice. Grown up applications to come. Via: Springwise

Hungry? How hungry? Would you sacrifice 10 of your Facebook friends for a Whopper?
If this neat little campaign was running here in Australia I would have a smaller number of friends…
without hesitation. Most likely the work of those damn CP+B’ers.

Full of inspiration and food for thought of what is and what will be, it is definitely worth a watch

But, if you don’t have a spare hour up your sleeve, we have prepared the 60 sec snapshot for you

Virtual Identity

You are no longer really in control of your digital destiny. Aggregating tools and the move from search to findability, your digital identity is not only made up of what you have created for people to see (active collaborations) but also what you have done (passive collaborations). Something you may want to remember when you next consider time you look for yourself on Hot or Not.

For the voyuerists amongst us, there is My First Tweet which looks at people’s first week of using Twitter and gives us a window into how people start using new digital channels - who tests the waters & who dives in head first.

And for the digital show ponies amongst us – lifestreaming. Check out Storytlr – a tool which aggregates all your social media activities

The analog & digital worlds

Once considered warring parties where ultimately in a battle for supremacy, digital would come up trumps, we are now seeing them coming together and beautiful things are happening.

Take the Wii or Guitarhero – these let us to interact with the digital world in an analog way – it makes sense to our engrained behaviors and as creatures of comfort, it was always destined for love at first swing / strum.

Mobile internet

The mobile web is finally taking off and it is succeeding by pulling the web apart, apps let us find exactly what we need, when we need it – whether that is a recommendation for the best pizza with 100m and how to get there or something cool to watch while we are waiting for the bus.

Social Media Today has compiled this list of the current Top 25 free ebooks on Social Media:

1. Belonging Networks Corporate Social Networking
2. Social Web Basics
3. The 2009-2014 World Outlook for Advertising for Social Media Web Sites
4. Social Media and Customer Service
5. Center For Social Media – Youth As E-Citizens
6. How Blogs and Social Media are Changing Public Relations
7. Social media and the banking industry
8. Social Media: 40 Places to Find Web 2.0 for Your Web Site
9. Social Media Marketing Strategies Guide
10. Nielsen – Pharma & Social Media
11. The Need for Speed – Using Social Media to Speed Innovation
12. What is Social Media?
13. ComplexDiscovery – User Generated Content, Social Media, and Advertising
14. Social Media Guide Release
15. Social Media & Marketing – Online Networking & Advertising February 2008
16. ebook: The Art and Science of Social Media and Community Relations
17. What is Social Media? – Book 2
18. Social Media Maps
19. Social Media Manifesto by Brian Solis
20. New Media Case Studies 2008
21. The Impact of Social Media on Innovation – Josh Bernoff
22. The Secret Underground Guide to Social Media for Organisations
23. Customer Service: The Art of Listening and Engagement Through Social Media
24. The Social Web Analytics eBook 2008
25. The Essential Guide to Social Media

British Social Media Case Studies from the IAB:

BBC Learning G.I. Jonny (334k)
British Heart Foundations ‘Food 4 Thought’ (754k)
P&G Being Girl website (754k)
Brands in social media (734k)
Burnout series, Burnout Dominator (782k)
BBC, Doctor Who (248k)
Nickelodeon, H2O (767k)
Hotel Chocolat (556k)
Sony BRAVIA Paint (750k)

Peter Kim’s fabulous list of companies using social media. Last count (November 23) was 324.

Forrester’s Jeremiah Owyang and David Armano:

Video clips at Ustream

That would be Australia.com… for Tourism Australia. As in the site people all around the world go to when thinking about popping down under for a little poke around or that massive transforming voyage of self discovery to experience the vast majestic beauty that is Terra Australis, New Holland… Oz

Or you may have come across it searching for some little movie that may have just come out starring that little red headed girl from BMX bandits and that Wolverine dude. Anyway…

Continuing our theme of undertaking some of the biggest site launches in the country this year (trumpet blown) we have another high profile project that should leave everyone involved with it, walking a little taller this week. And if that wasn’t enough how about throwing in the design and build of Tourism Australia’s media site as well. Are these people robots?

No they’re not, just a swell bunch of talented, hard working clever people.

Hat Tip to: Fiona, Heath, Daniel, Duncan Pete V, Cearns, Mr David Carson esq and Mike Barry*

The photo below sums up the whole “vibe” of the project.

* I’m sure more peeps were on this… tell me…

A little while ago we completed a small project called “CBA Webolution Phase 1″which meant we did a quick refresh of the personal banking section of a new up and coming bank who you may of heard of before, The Commonwealth Bank of Australia, anyone? No? Didn’t think so. Anyway they seemed to like the pixel polishing we did for them so they asked us to work on another project called “CBA Webolution Phase 2″ No problems, easy, should knock that one off on a Monday morning before lunchtime. Right?

(Puts joke aside)

Seriously now. Wow. 12 months later and several lifetimes of work have been lovingly poured into the redevelopment of CBA’s Business and Corporate banking sections. And it shows. Top, top work from all those in the agency who touched this project with extra hat tips to Matt, Kathleen, Ellie, Mike, Fabulous, Luke, Jamie, Penn… and (thank god for blogs as I will have to update this list several times). I hope everyone involved feels all warm and tingly, because it really is a massive achievement. Well done guys!

With all the weird and wonderful information out on the web, its a wonder how we get anything done.
As Mitchell Kapor writes:

Getting information off the Internet is like taking a drink from a fire hydrant.

Giants like Google and Yahoo have spent a lot of time helping us find what we’re after,
and services like Tumblr and Delicious can help us find similar content. But what happens
to your own little nuggets that you want to track?

Storing and indexing your own content is, for me at least, the next great frontier on the web.
Steppping into the ring with an excellent service is Evernote.

You can clip content in the traditional way with broswer add-ins, run a desktop application with drag and drop functionailty, and even take voice and image notes with the iPhone application. It’s got the standard features like tagging and grouping content for later but you can then retrieve the information from any of the three platforms.

One of the coolest features, beyond its portability, is the text recognition. Written a page of notes and don’t have the time to type them up? Snap a quick shot and they’re permanently saved. It’ll even pick up text within documents, including handwriting.

Solves so many issues for me with notepads, clippings and ramblings all over the place.

Whilst we’re on the indexing trip, a recent article on Marketin Pilgrim talks about recent advancements in video searching. New services are not only searching out tags and external data attached to the clips, but digging into the video to pull out dialouge and even characters within the clip.

So it’s not only the way we access information that’s changing, but they way its stored and shared. Makes it such an exciting time, can you think of where we will be in another 12 months time?

Let me google that for you.

Great quote from a Paul Buchheit presentation.

Gmail now with themes, like this wonderfully retro “terminal”. Eyes hurt now.

And a great little “digital in the wild” observation from Iain.

A neat site for Sprint’s mobile broadband product… this is now.

Gizmodo has been doing a great weekly wrap up of the latest and greatest iPhone apps released that week.
Like Bryan Enos Bloom or the trippy RJDJ, or how could you go past the instant rimshot/cricket soundbite generator. Seriously, people are buying this stuff. Except maybe the last one… it’s free.

Boom-tish.

Now this is something remarkable, MTV is getting back into (gasp) MUSIC, by posting every music video in its archive. Looks like the “Hulu halo” is finally making its way into the music video business.

The good part for all web/blog-o-philes? They are embeddable too! So now, when you blog and you make a David Bowie music video reference, you can embedd it… In High Quality!

See it all go down here: http://www.mtvmusic.com/

Now the only thing that I missed is the possibility to create a playlist… How can we party without one?

Tin Eye, an interesting “visual” search engine. As in you upload an image and it’ll will return searches of similar images. It has some interesting uses, such as say you have an image of a cityscape somewhere in the world but have no idea where it is. You could then upload it to Tin Eye and it will either find that same image with details or a similar one. Or… if you were an image creator you could upload your work and see if anyone has ripped it off. The company who makes it ideeinc have a whole bunch of other “visual” search engines as well. Neat.

Online Divas – Online Business Networking Group

At last, somewhere where entrepreneurial women can come together, and share a common vision – running an online business.

I have just watched a local TV news report on this site, and was pleased to discover that The White Agency’s Kate Chatfield is already there making her mark as one of the Diva’s. What a great way of sharing online knowledge with like minded women eager to succeed in the digital world.

So many times we tell ourselves, if only I had done that. It seems with the Diva’s help your idea could be creating the next ground breaking, money making sites.

Buckle up, get your stilettos on and get ready for digital dance floor.

Where: onlinedivas.com.au

The iTunes App store where you can download/buy new apps for your iPhone has turned into a boonaza for small time developers who armed with good idea now have platform that can propel them in supedevstardom . And along with the fame comes the money, small time success stories are talking about profits of $250, 000 in two months. The full story from Wired.

For the entourage fans. You know the show Jonny Drama is famous for ‘Viking quest’? Well here’s Viking Quest the game. Keep in mind this show does not and has never existed, but all done in the interest of engaging more fans in the story. There’s even a link to buy the non-existent 6-disc dvd set.

PS: Check out the warning copy @ the bottom of the page

Is NCF the next missing link?

Wiki: Near Field Communication or NFC, is a short-range high frequency wireless communication technology which enables the exchange of data between devices over about a 10 centimetre (around 4 inches) distance.

Kinda like a mash-up between a RFID Chip and a smart card but a little bit smarter than that. Locally Telstra and NAB have been working with it to develop contactless mobile payments (here). You know buy some “stuff” at the “supermarket” and instead of using your “plastic” to “pay” for it, you just “swipe” your “phone” past their “thing” and hey-ho you’ve just “paid” for it. Now it can go a little bit further than this as people have been using the technology in smart posters, so the user just waves their phone past the poster and “holy-digital-content-delivery-system-Batman”

Hat Tip: Rubbishcorp

Netflix Origami a neat little site that has instructions on how to create origami using the tear off piece from the Netflix DVD envelopes. Netflix of course being the online/mailout DVD monster in the states with the distinctive red envelope. From all appearances it looks like an endorsed thing from Netflix, until you read the disclaimer assuring us that they are in no way connected. Shame. This would be perfect for them them to bring in house, have little competitions, simple bit of the ol’ UGC. But no. Missed branding opportunity No. 3,242.

It’s been around for a little while but still a great read. A wonderful article by the Japanese company information architects on how your interface can be your brand or vice versa, mehbe? The interface of a cheese burger.

Great story about what happens when you get an interactive company to do billboard (as they say, IRL).

From those crazy Barbarians

This stock licenced image ( a $5-10 fee) , an illustration by Yiying Lu, is the image you see when Twitter is down. It is called the “Fail Whale” and has moved as a meme into early adopter culture in a big way:

Wikipeda currently redirects searches to find information to the Fail Whale to the Twitter entry. Sensitive!

Using Compete.com, Garry Jenkin looked at Twitter’s analytics and saw that in April users had increased 42% and over 1,000% for the year. That’s some big time uptake.

BuzzFeed has a mass of links to follow including these:

• Fail Whale, the Fan Club- failwhale.com
• Fail Whale, the Gear- zazzle.com
• Fail Whale on Wikipedia
• What Twitter Users Are Saying -summize.com

Is the whale an endangered species? The Guardian’s article last week”Twitter searches for the next step” mentions that “now might be a good time to grab one, before the fail whale swims out of sight for good.”

And really does it matter? Does it matter that a new technology is fragile and falls over through massive uptake? You can only be let down by something that you have already given your expectations to…

It reminds me of a great quote from the late great Randy Pausch:

When you see yourself doing something badly and nobody’s bothering to tell you anymore, that’s a very bad place to be. Your critics are your ones telling you they still love you and care.

A great presentation from Iain Tate, on how the band Radiohead have such effective and relevant experiences online that they have taken him from being someone who disliked Radiohead into being someone who may not love them, but certainly likes the idea of them. His ultimate point being that this is the outcome that a lot of brands want out of the online experience, but to do this you really have to experiment with the medium and to a large extent re-invent the medium regularly. This means you really have to do new things and not wait until you see someone else doing it first successfully before feeling comfortable about doing it. Remember they only give out medals for bravery.

Apparently Lego are already using this as digital POS.
You can have 3D objects and or video playing in the same space.
Mmmm…

>>>>>Large Kittens Below<<<<<

UNIQLOCK

By PROJECTOR For UNIQLO
It’s a fusion of dance video routines, time signal music and clock utility, so the description on the entry says. But it’s more than that. It’s a brand and it’s collective agencies who have for the last little while produced some amazing work with such an articulate digital focus. If the GAP was born a decade or two later and had some imagination this is who they could be. But won’t. They also have a solid grip on the widgetisation of your brand and where it can take you, or more importantly where people can take you.

NON-STOP FERNANDO

By LEAN MEAN FIGHTING MACHINE For EMIRATES
Audacious idea. Have this Brazil nut gabber on for the time it takes to fly from Dubai to Sao Paulo. Lean Mean Fighting Machine also takes out Interactive Agency of the Year beating out Crispin Porter + Bogusky, all this with a staff of only 20 proves that they really are.

PET SHOP BOYS – INTEGRAL

QR codes, QR codes, QR codes… Now even a Pet Shop Boys film clip has got em’ but with a little twist. The QR codes appear throughout the clip embedded in a pixel animation. So when you pause on a frame (there are over 100 of them in the clip) and point your phone at them you’ll be taken to civil liberties/social rights sites that provide more information on the songs moral message. Neat.

ORANGE UNLIMITED

By POKE For Orange
Good things should never end. Just like the site. Which didn’t, the more you scrolled it just kept on going. Full of whimsy (break out the toffee) and instantly embeddable sized bits and pieces to take away for later not to mention FREE THINGS hidden in the site. The awards for this thing seen to be unlimited as well so far…Cannes Cyber Lion Silver > Webby Awards – People’s Voice Award > Art Directors Club of New York – Silver > One Show Interactive – Silver > The Clio Awards – Bronze > IAB Creative Showcase – Grand Prix > IAB Creative Showcase December 07 > FWA – Site of the Month > D&AD – Nomination > Design Week – Commendation > Creative Circle Certificate… enough.
Yet it doesn’t seem to be enough for these guys, their latest effort play balloonacy looks set to capture the collective attention of the internet again. The results they must have for some of their sites must be staggering. BTW check out the interior designed toilets from the London office.

BFD BUILDER

By CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY For DOMINOS
You build the pizza, you save the pizza, you order the pizza and then you track it all the way to your front door (almost). Now I’m glad this won, because it’s a utility. You know, something you can use, and through its usefulness it becomes a really good ad/brand promise. Smells like the olden days.

SEE SOMETHING. FEEL SOMETHING

By SOAP CREATIVE for FOXTEL
You know the one, where you’re inside the telly, watching people watching you. Getting all emotional.
Nice work from the local Soaperheros.

GET OUT AND PLAY

By FARFAR for NOKIA
Great simple game play, wonderful stop motion and superlative production values.

THE KEY TO RESERVA

By JWT SPAIN For FREIXENET CARTA NEVADA RESERVA
Really it’s a long form TVC featuring Martin Scorsese. Beautifully produced tho’

SIMPSONIZEME

By CRISPIN PORTER + BOGUSKY For DOMINOS
40 million people had a go of this thing. Brilliant take away content.

GET IT STRAIGHT

By JUNG VON MATT for BOSCH
One of the many motion sensor entries. I think this one was the best as it’s useful to boot. The others weren’t bad though.

READ A BOOK AT WORK

By COLENSO BBDO for NEW ZEALAND BOOK COUNCIL
Beautifully simple idea. The fullscreen site looks like the generic windows desktop, yet it’s not, it’s the minisite for the New Zealand Book Council where you can read books (short stories, poetry etc) at work as the content appears as wonderfully terrible powerpoint slides.

TITANIUM

MILLION

By DROGA5 for THE NEW YORK CITY DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
Now this is really something, a program whereby kids in New York High schools are given specially built phones that function as learning devices during school hours (teachers can send out assignments etc) and all the normal distracting features are turned off. After school hours all the calling/txting features are turned back on and it’s just a regular phone again, other than that the credits etc are then linked to student performance, so it’s incentive based as well. Sure there are brands involved in this but it really is for the greater good. It’s these type of ideas that really belong in the Titanium category, not just campaigns that don’t fit in any category because they defy the genre, but for ideas that rise above advertising itself.

It reminds me of this idea and that’s not a bad thing.

Ahhh…

That said, this is advertising and it’s hard to go past a good beer ad. Really you have to see this, it’s amazing.
It’s what this whole content thing should be about. The Speights Great Beer Delivery.

The extremely entertaining Mark Pesce presenting at the Next Wave festival.

More of his thinking on the 3.4 billionth phone, his MAD twitter army and a social experience of the China earthquake.

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I presented this to the APG last night as part of their Ideas Exchange sessions.

It’s a love story, an ode to my favourite digital story teller Marcus Brown.

The google killer? Mmm maybe not, but could be interesting. Powerset searches wikipedia and can bring the information to you instead of you to the information… if that makes sense. Watch the demovid.

MSNBC’s 3D newsreader. Spectra is in the house.

Time Tube, a yo’toob mash-up with a time-line/life streaming thingy called dipity.

What if the digital agency developed a new wonderfully intuitive site for the brand and all the other channels were used to promote it. Not just slapping the URL at the end of the TVC, but putting the site at the centre of the message (and still being about the brand to boot). The great thing is that the site does really deserve it. It’s tops.

So Google is giving all homeless people in San Francisco a permanent phone number and voice mail.
Good for giving people a contact number when looking for work.

1. Simplicity: make it quick & easy;
2. Participation: get people involved;
3. Personalisation: let people make it their own;
4. Unexpected: surprise people;
5. Humor/Entertainment: evoke an emotion;
6. Distribution: use ALL media to tell a story;
7. Communities: make the consumer your marketer;
8. Portability: weave your content into their digital life.

Digital Marketing Worst Practices:

1. Lengthy introductions: get to the point or users moves on;
2. Overcomplicating: more technology isn’t always better; know your audience;
3. Replication of traditional ads: consumers are savvy and avoid disruptive ads
4. Expecting people care about your brand: if you don’t bring a bottle of wine to the party,
you won’t be invited back;
5. Forcing your brand: consumers are in control, so let them come to you.

Via: Contagious Magazine

Maybe it won’t just be all QR codes, these guys (daeminteractive) seem to be going past using barcodes and instead are using MMS and image recognition to create the all important link between the static ad and interactive content… all via the mobile device. THX: PSFK

I read recently that we seem to be increasingly outsourcing parts of our brain. So here is a little digital helper in that process. See a little detail online and think hey I’d like to remember later… offline. Well step back from that post-it-note. Instead, just click on that little beamme.info icon, enter your mob number and voom  that recipe (insert small detail) has just been sent to your phone. No one keeps the number and it’s free for the user. Neat huh? beamme.info