Guinness Storehouse: Weather Cam

This week saw the launch of Guinness Storehouse's brand new 360 degree, online, live streaming weather cam. The newest addition to Ireland's number one visitor attraction, offer a stunning view from the highest viewpoint in Dublin City - The Gravity Bar. Now people from all over the world can enjoy a bird’s eye view of Dublin city in real time.

Speaking about the weather cam, Valentina Doorly, Guinness Storehouse Marketing and Sales Manager, said, “The Guinness Storehouse is known all around the world for the panoramic views available from the Gravity Bar. With the introduction of this new, innovative technology we are delighted to be able to bring this view to everyone in Ireland and throughout the world.”


Beyond just a simple view, as stunning as it is, the weather cam also provides a real time weather report. Fitted alongside the 360 degree cam is a host of weather instruments showing current weather conditions, temperature and wind speed. What makes the weather cam truly special, however, is the unique features that the weather cam is equipped with - such as an automated wiper that detects levels of rainfall and the 360 degree rotation that covers the entire city of Dublin.

A big hat tip to my colleagues in Cybercom who worked on the project. A great idea and a really nice addition to Dublin's best tourist spot. All that's left to do now is to pop over and check it out!

In related news, Guinness Storehouse has also introduced an “Interactive Dublin City Tour” on their website, which allows you to get even closer to the city and its treasured landmarks. The virtual tour features 24 city landmarks, viewable from the webcam including Christchurch Cathedral, Aviva Stadium, the Wellington Monument, Croke Park and the Spire. The City Tour also shows views of the St. James’s Gate Brewery, Wicklow Mountains, the Sugar Loaf Mountain and Howth Head.


Weather cam facts:
The Guinness Storehouse weather station can operate from -10 degrees C to +50 degrees C.
The weight of the weather cam is 7kg.
The weather cam is a Ganz C-AllView equipped with a low light level CCD sensor.
The weather cam has a 36x optical zoom facility

About Guinness Storehouse
Guinness Storehouse welcomed over 1 million visitors in 2008 from over 25 countries making it Ireland’s number one visitor attraction.
Guinness Storehouse spans across seven floors shaped around a giant pint, which, if filled would contain 14.3 million pints of Guinness.
The highlight for many visitors is the Gravity Bar, symbolically the ‘Head of the Pint’, where visitors can enjoy unparalleled panoramic views
of Dublin city.

Specsavers: Christmas Viral

Following on from Specsavers highly popular Postman Pat viral, this is there Christmas offering for 2009.




Agency: Specsavers Creative
Advertiser: Specsavers

Project name: Xmas Viral 2009
Client: Richard Holmes, Marketing Director
Brief: Seasonal fun
Copywriter: Simon Bougourd / Neil Brush
Art director: Simon Bougourd / Neil Brush
Planner: In-House
Production company: In-House
Director: Chris Denton
Post-production company: In-House
Editor: Chris Denton
Audio post-production company: In-House

Google's Real Time Search

There's been talk and speculation for quite some time now, and various blogs and news services have "leaked" information about Google's next 'big thing', Real Time Search. For those of you perched on the edges of your seat for the last year or so, good news, you can now sit back and relax. Not only is it solid news but it is coming straight from the horses mouth.

Google has launched Real Time Search integrated into its search results pages. Now you can use Google to see real-time updates of various things happening around the Web, including tweets, Yahoo Answers, news articles and Web pages. What's also pretty cool is that this will also work mobiles (well, iPhone and Android anyway).

For many, however, the real use of Real Time Search comes through in Social Media. Thankfully Google has confirmed that deals have been signed with Facebook and MySpace to allow Google to pull in live data. For Facebook this will be limited to public Facebook Pages (though that's still excellent news for businesses and brands using the platform). For MySpace it will cover any data stream that is publicly available.

All of this is of course on top of the partnership that Google went into in October with Twitter.

For an example of Google Real Time Search just click here. Alternatively Google have also created this video to show how it will all work.

Sony to Show World Cup Matches in 3D

Sony has announced that they will be using next year's World Cup to showcase their new 3D television technology. To do this, Sony have agreed to film as many as 25 of the tournaments matches using 3D cameras. Sony will then screen these games in seven cities, including London, Paris and Berlin. These special showcases will be called Fan Fests and will be hosted by Fifa. Sony has also said it will be demonstrating the technology in its stores.

Fujio Nishida, president of Sony Europe, said: "3D will undoubtedly transform the way we enjoy content in the living room."

Following this news, announced their own plans for the launch of a 3D channel next year.

Starbucks (RED) Love Project

Last Friday Brand Republic reported that Starbucks will be running the world's biggest Facebook ad campaign ever. The campaign is Starbucks (RED) Love Project

The campaign aimed to bring the world together to sing about the one thing we all have in common; love. People from all over the world were able to log on to the campaign microsite and sing-along to The Beatles, All You Need is Love, on 7th December 7. The global karaoke is part of Starbucks efforts to help fight AIDS in Africa. The campaign microsite also allows you to watch streaming videos of everyone who submitted a video of their contribution. There is also a gallery of drawings that people submitted to the Love Gallery. For each drawing or video added, up to one million, Starbucks and (RED) donated five cents to the Global Fund.

The is the campaign promotional video:


On Saturday over 16 countries saw Facebook ads go live for the advertising campaign to promote the microsite, including the US, UK, Canada, Turkey, France, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Ireland, Brazil, Korea, Thailand, Hong Kong, Singapore and Indonesia. For the two days, every user logging on to Facebook for the first five times would have seen the ad.