Lonely Planet Google Wave App

Google Wave has exploded in the last month with round after round of invitations growing its user base rapidly. However, one thing has alluded the service and driven a charge of companies to be the first to overcome it: the introduction of a Wave App.

Following a number of beta trials, it looks like Lonely Planet may be the first to get there. The guidebook maker has created a trip planning tool that works through Google Wave, to allow users to create trip itineraries in real time with advice and collaboration from other users.

The application, Trippy, loads a map that contains Lonely Planet recommendations and reviews. Then using a drag and drop interface, points of interest can be selected and assigned dates and times for your trips.

Chris Boden, Lonely Planet's director of mobile and innovation, said, "The Trippy gadget turns trip planning into a collaborative activity, enabling a group of users to create itineraries together in real time."

Lonely Planet has also recently launched a series of augmented reality apps for Google Android handsets. The apps provide Compass Guides that highlight points of interest in various cities, through a visual real time interface. Combined with Android's GPS, the app detects your exact location with the internal compass determining where you are looking. These apps are, unfortunately, only available in the US via the Android Market.

Eyeblaster Research Global Benchmark Report 2009

When it comes to display advertising there are a multitude of different formats that can be used; different dimensions, different formats, different engagement techniques. However, when it comes to producing really special, highly engaging, richly interactive ads that users will remember long after a campaign has ceased, there really is only two words to remember - Rich Media.

Rich Media refers to ads that have a much higher file size (300kb plus) then standard flash ads. They usually incorporate interactive and engagement techniques that focus on delivering in-banner content. This may be video or gaming, or any number of other interactive techniques that were once confined to websites. The downside is of course that Rich Media adserving is generally much more expensive. So you're left with a decision: do I spend more on development and adserving?

Well the question then becomes, what are the real advantages of using Rich Media when it comes to cold hard engagement metrics. Basically, how much better will I engage with my target audience if I use Rich Media?

A new study conducted by Eyeblaster reinforces the idea that video and 'expanding' are the key factors in driving increased engagement. The Global Benchmark Report 2009 shows that expandable ads have the highest interaction rate of all rich media formats. The report goes on to show that keeping content fresh by continually changing the imagry, copy and sound or video, will increase your interaction rates even further.

The report is divided into two parts: The first provides an analysis of the benchmark’s numbers in the context of a prevalent industry question. The second provides a general overview of the benchmarks and a review of changes from the last edition. The report was written based on the analysis of data from more than 250,000 ads in all sizes and formats served in the 12 months starting July 2008. The full report can be downloaded here.

LinkedIn & Twitter Join Forces

Yesterday LinkedIn announced the formation of a new partnership between LinkedIn and Twitter. In the following video, Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone, gives a run through of why the partnership is so important to both companies, and what uses can expect to get out of it. Joining Stone, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, describes the partnership like peanut butter and chocolate. For those of you who don't like peanut butter, the rest of us think this sounds delicious!

In the last year the adoption of Twitter by businesses and marketing agencies is well documented and the number of case studies starting to come out of the woodwork shows numerous highly profitable ways for Twitter to add real value to campaign activity. Moving on from this, Twitter has spent a considerable amount of time in the last year looking for different avenues to integrate Twitter with other platforms and services, and it looks like this might be the one. Stone remarks, "[Twitter is used on a] personal level in business and that Twitter has essentially become part of your resume". He adds, "The general idea of putting a little twitter in everything is being able to inject into LinkedIn a little bit more of this fresh here's what's going on with these other things, but with a little bit of a curated sense in terms of your professional life."

So what exactly does this partnership mean?

When you change your LinkedIn status you can now tweet it too. Simple really. Over the next few days LinkedIn will rollout the service and it will be available through two touchpoints:

1. On LinkedIn
First you need to connect your Twitter and LinkedIn profiles, allowing them to share articles you’re reading and alerting people. Doing this will be fairly easy by ticking the Twitter box on the LinkedIn homepage.

2. On Twitter
When setting up your connection you can choose to either send all tweets or selected tweets to your LinkedIn profile as a status update.

Augmented Reality: Tele Scouter

The Japanese consumer electronics company NEC have unveiled something seriously cool. You probably know how excited I got about Nokia's recent Augmented Reality concept, and even the slightly more bizarre Augmented Reality Contact Lenses I recently wrote about, but this is a practical everyday application of AR that actually works, and that's better then anything concept.

Meet the NEC Tele Scouter...


The Tele Scouter is NEC's Augmented Reality glasses, which project real-time language translation directly into people's eyes!

The system translates conversations in real time, and projects the translations directly onto a user's retina as a stream of 'subtitles'. Using built in voice recognition,the self-contained translation programme allows you to complete cut out the need for human translators. The system is also capable of delivering audio translations. Tele is due for release in Japan next November, and will be sold (initially at least) in packs of 30, at a cost of €65,000.

The Golden Age of Video

This is just about one of the best YouTube videos that you will ever see!



Ricardo Autobahn has spliced together a whole heap of movies from every genre and decade of the last 60 years to create an original song. The beat, the rhymes, the rhythm; all of it perfectly pulled together. This is just brilliant. What makes it even more fun is if you can spot all the movies, and name them.