Thursday, July 31, 2008

TripWolf - The Social Travel Guide

TripWolf was recommended to me by a friend, and from what they said I was pretty excited to check it out. Basically it's a social media travel guide. It has all the regular stuff you'd expect - restaurant reviews, information on local attractions and more or less everything else I generally expect from a travel site. The difference is that everything is user added.

Essentially TripWolf provide a template and you upload the rest. Sure it doesn't sound particularly ingenious but by adding to the existing content, you're helping to build a wiki travel encyclopedia.

The biggest plus for me, however, was that you can integrate with Facebook, using the same login details and importing your existing Facebook details to create your Tripwolf profile - super simple!

Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Snackr

I just StumbledUpon something pretty sweet - Snackr is a new adobe air app that takes RSS feeds and streams them across your desktop. For those of you who just don't have the time to log into iGoogle this is a life saver!

Tuesday, July 29, 2008

The Next Generation of Social Marketing

I'm not entirely sure if Social Marketing (in its digital form) has been around long enough to get a 'next generation', but either way this is a must see slideshow from Nedra Weinreich's Social Marketing University.

Correction
Nedra was kind enough to contact me to clarify that Social Marketing has been around for about 30 years. It strictly refers to the use of marketing to address health and social issues. This presentation is about incorporating social media marketing into social marketing programs.

cheers Nedra - Chrisatian

Monday, July 28, 2008

More Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett

Following on from my post this morning on the new BBC Olympic Idents, check out the downloadables available on BBC Sport. Again this has been produced by Damon Albarn and Jamie Hewlett (of Gorillaz). All of this is based on the classical Chinese novel, "Journey to the West", in case you were unaware.

As with my earlier post....... this is brilliant!

Jamie Hewlett to create Olympic idents

Some fantastic news I just found...... Jamie Hewlett has been commissioned by the BBC to create its Olympic idents. This is fantastic animation and will bring a really nice change to the usual drivil we're put through. Check out this promo of what can be expected:

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Looks like it's been a video week!

"Creature Discomforts"

The Leonard Cheshire charity have just released a series of ads, created by Aardman Animations. The creative idea was to produce a suite of ads to "help change the way people think about, and respond to, disability".

Overall the concepts are great. As always, Aardman have perfectly mixed humour with a serious topic to create something which is enjoyable, memorable, impactful and still fun to watch.

The following is probably the best (imho) but you can also check out the making of the ads and the people behind the characters.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

100th Post

I can't believe this'll be the 100th Blog Post for Digitology. Well there you go! I must say, I'm fairly happy with the content and hopefully anyone reading this, is too. Cheers folks.

Friday, July 25, 2008

Fxxxing Churchill.....

There's been a bit of a ruckus in the UK over the new Churchill ad. Wait for the final 'Ohhh yes!' Does he say it? It sure sounds like it.

Thursday, July 24, 2008

If Fonts Were People.....

College Humour that got me giggling!

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Awesome Illustrator

Although I work in digital, it's still necessary at times to present illustrated storyboards and graphics. This coupled with the fact that I like to sketch (doodle!), I'm always looking out for great work. Kevin Kobasic is one of the best I've ever seen. I love his style and think each piece captures mood and tone perfectly, as well as being instantly evokative. Check him out here.

Tuesday, July 22, 2008

The Plaid Nation Tour

The Plaid Nation Tour has hit the road. Darryl Ohrt, author of Brandflakes for Breakfast and "Band Manager" of one of New York's most sought after agencies, is off on the annual road trip. Their aim is to meet the people behind the brands and to get an insight into what they want, what their customers want, and how Plaid can deliver it all.

PlaidNation describes itself as, “a rolling celebration of creativity and a demonstration of social media in action. It's a Plaid van driving through the country meeting creative, marketing, brand and internet workers, and sharing Plaid love”.

If you want to check it out, the tour is broadcasted on plaidnation.com; they have three live video streams, a GPS tracker and a Twitter stream.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Super News Special

Super News brings us another fantastic special report: an insight into the Social Network phenomenon. I'm not sure if it's because it's Monday morning or what, but I found this hilarious!

Sunday, July 20, 2008

Time for some Campaigning

JibJab do what they do best and take a poke at the political system and it's participants across the water

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Watch our Rock Band

Guitar Hero are stepping up to the plate in a big way with the launch of Guitar Hero: World Tour. New guitars with enhanced controls, mikes and drums. Full length albums, singles and track packs. This is going to be the mother of all music gaming experiences, and to top it all off the game is going to be driven by downloadable content. We can expect a constant stream of new material.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Boydy's Bits


Check out Stephen's blog - a commentary of mainstream media and a host of other must see titbits!

Thursday, July 17, 2008

3G iPhone Madness

If you said it went off without a hitch, you'd be lying. The iPhone 3G launch has suffered widespread activation problems, yet Apple was still able to sell 1 million units by Sunday! That's just 60 hours of business. WOW!

"iPhone 3G had a stunning opening weekend," said Apple chief executive Steve Jobs. To say the least.

Just over a year ago, Apple sold just over 270,000 iPhones during the first two days of release. Beyond this, sales figures were never very forthcoming but we do know that it took the company nearly two and a half months to sell its one millionth unit.

"It took 74 days to sell the first one million original iPhones, so the new iPhone 3G is clearly off to a great start around the world," Jobs added.

The big difference of course is that last years opening weekend iPhone sales took place exclusively in the United States. This year there was a simultaneous launch in 20 addition countries, including Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the UK.

Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Micro Interactions 2.0

I StumbledUpon this slideshow over at David Armano's Logic + Emotion and I was pretty impressed. In the digital world it can become all to easy to forget that good customer care is still primary to any business activity. I regularly find that the calls I am promised will be returned, never are. That the emails that will be sent 'shortly' never find their way to my inbox. Whether you deal with the public or with other businesses, you're outward serving interactions define who you are. This is a great example of the movement towards microinteractions, and how to do it well.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

RA DIOHEA_D - HOU SE OF_C ARDS

Radiohead have just released their new video for the song House of Cards (from In Rainbows). In themselves Radiohead videos are usually worth a watch, but this one is particularly interesting.

Imagine making a music video without using cameras or lights.

Instead the band have used Geometric Informatics and Velodyne LIDAR to capture 3D images. Using 64 lasers rotating and shooting in a 360 degree radius 900 times per minute, all exterior imagery was created. Check out this 'how the video was made' documentary.


Monday, July 14, 2008

What is love to you?

The Cartier foundation recently commissioned a number of young artists, from across the world, to explore and reflect on the idea of love. Each artist interpreted love through musical compositions, a series of twelve love stories on film, photography and drawing. The results were used as part of Cartier's Love Day (June 19th 2008) website.

This year twelve international artists and performers also worked with Cartier with an aim to combine charity with musical expression and fine jewelry.They created twelves original songs. These songs are now available online where they can be listened to and downloaded for free.

So, the question posed by each work is, how far would you go for love?

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Soft link - Glossy

I stumbledUpon these guys during the week and I love their work. The design is really sweet. Definitely worth 5mins to wander around the site and check it out.

Saturday, July 12, 2008

Many Young Engineers

I know this is a bit old but I reckon it's worth a re-run.

Friday, July 11, 2008

Going to Munich?

It's been a long time since I was in Munich but this seems like one very good reason to go back. This is a moving sculpure in the BMW Museum. 714 seemly weightless metal balls moving in precise coordination. Even on a small scale (if that's possible?), I imagine this must be completely captivating.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

Cadbury and a love of nature?

Flux Animation in Auckland, NZ, produced this old style ad to promote Cadbury Museli bars, and..... wait for it....... a respect for nature. Not quite sure how I see these two things fitting together, but I do like the old Disney style animation.



Check out Flux's site for some really nice 2D and 3D work.

Wednesday, July 9, 2008

Last time, I promise....

I know I joked about it before, but this really is the last time I'm posting about USB keys. Honestly! Pick this up here.

Star Wars USBs
Cake USBs
Sawed Off USB

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

The Girl Effect

I found this at Neil Perkin's Only Dead Fish blog. I'm not sure why but there is something about it I like. The message is strong (and the website isn't too bad either) but mostly I really like the use of typography. It's basically all text and copy. It's not often you see any sort of advertising driven solely by words. Powerful stuff.


Monday, July 7, 2008

The Muppets 4th of July

Hilarious stuff......

Sunday, July 6, 2008

How would Google Tour de France?

With the start of the Tour de France on Saturday, Google have launched a couple of really cool sites and site features. Now you can follow all 21 stages via the new European Street View. This is Google's first Street View imagery in Europe, and they've incorporated their new ground-filling and face blurring technologies. So pop over to tourdefrance2008 to get an intorduction to how it all works, or go straight to Google Maps.

Be Kanye!

It's an Absolut campaign without any Absolut branding. Strange!


Saturday, July 5, 2008

Another USB!

I'm somewhat shocked that this is the forth post I'll be making about USB keys, but seriously.... this is pretty cool!


Friday, July 4, 2008

What is Social Media?

Having read my post yesterday, a friend asked me, "what is social media anyway?"

How to explain..... I did a bit of searching, looking for something that would help my friend easily understand the whole domain of social media, and I found this great slideshow by Marta Kagan on the Liberate Media blog. This is definitely worth a look.

Thursday, July 3, 2008

'The' Social Media Blog

David Griner,a writer and social-media analyst, and his agency, Luckie & Company, have just launched 'The' Social Media Blog - The Social Path. This is a simple down to earth blog that strips away the mystery and bewilderment behind today's social media digital landscape. As a big fan of Adweek's blog, AdFreak.com, which David contributes to, I was very excited when I heard about this.

This blog does exactly what it says it will, and the tone is that of a colleague not a tutor. In short, I wasn't dissappointed. Do check this out if you have any sort of interest in social media.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Hancock whale toss game

I'm not sure if it's one of those things you keep to yourself, but I'll admit I'm a bit of a Will Smith fan. Fresh Prince - excellent. iRobot - really enjoyed it. Legend of Bagger Vance - well that I should probably be embaressed to admit I liked. Seriously though, he's had some great movies, and I think Hancock looks like it could be fairly watchable.

I digress, what I wanted to say was, check out this is a pretty cool example of an in-banner game:




Worst lip-syncing ever?

I think so......

Tuesday, July 1, 2008

eBay pay up €40m

Ebay has finally paid the price for the countless counterfeit goods that populate the website. A French court has ordered eBay to pay Louis Vuitton €40m. This is a landmark in both online sales and counterfeit goods actions. The LVMH (Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton) claim was based on eBay not taking proper measures to prevent the sale of counterfeit goods and to continually allow genuine products to be sold outside their proper retail channels.

The case has been with the Paris Tribunal de Commerce for over two years. The actual payment will be split between Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior Couture. The company's fragrance brands were awarded around €3.75m.

Although Ebay will appeal the ruling, and have made a counter claim that LVMH is attempting to "protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers every day", it is doubtful they will receive any leniency.