New York Festival's International Advertising Awards

For over fifty years The New York Festival's International Advertising Awards has represented the pinnacle achievement that any advertiser or creative could receive. The awards honour the World's best advertising from over 70 different countries, across all media and platforms: television, cinema, print, outdoor, interactive, design, mixed media, collateral, radio and student advertising. The 2010 deadline for submissions has now passed and the countdown is on to the Oscar's of the advertising world.

There are two things that make the awards stand out from all others. First, the awards draw on the experience of over 250 jury members from 60 countries. Secondly, the awards are judged completely online with each entry assured it receives the proper amount of time and attention, free from outside distractions and unsolicited opinions. The system is specially designed to prevent any scam ads, with the judges encouraged to flag suspected scam ad and write confidential comments supporting their suspicions.

This year the awards have expanded to include the 'Boutique Agency of the Year' award that honours agencies that are not affiliated with a network and have less than 75 employees. A second addition sees the creation of the 'Best New Agency' award to recognise new agencies that have started up in the last 24 months. The new award allows " agencies in business for less than two years to compete and be recognised for their creative achievements, their ability to garner international exposure and the impact their work has on the marketplace".

Details on the 2010 New York Festivals International Advertising Awards for Digital and Interactive can be found here. To get an idea of the calibre of entries that the awards pull in, just take a look at the judging panel!

Digital & Interactive Advertising GrandJury:

• Mark Addy, Digital Creative Director, JWT, Auckland, NZ
• Fernando Barbella, Interactive Creative Director, BBDO, Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Ana Caralt, Creative Director, TribalDDB, Barcelona, Spain
• Orlando Cristofalo, Digital Planning & Creative Coordination, GLUE, Argentina
• Christian Daul, Creative Director, Scholz & Volkmer, Wiesbaden, Germany
• Pal Dobloug, Creative Director, Mediafront, Oslo, Norway
• Niklas Fransson, Creative Director, Rebenga, Sweden
• Martin Garrocho, Interactive Creative Director, Grey, Santiago, Chile
• Niklas Fransson, Creative Director, Rebenga, Sweden
• Srdjan Gulic, Chief Creative Officer, Zagreb, Croatia
• Kevin Lee, Executive Creative Director, OgilvyOne, Shanghai, China
• Jungwon Lee, CEO/Strategic Director, PostVisual.com, Seoul, Korea
• Anto Noval, Director/Chief Creative Officer, Hungry & Foolish Creative Products Pvt. Ltd., India
• Edu Pou, Creative Director, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
• Frédéric (Fredo) Sanz, Executive Creative Director, DoubleYou, Barcelona, Spain
• Doug Schiff, Executive Creative Director, OgilvyOne, Beijing, China
• Gabor Spielmann, Executive Creative Director, Grey, Budapest, Hungary
• Raphael Vasconcellos, Executive Creative Director, AgenciaClick, Sao Paulo, Brazil
• Greg Whitham, Interactive Creative Director, Ogilvy, NZ

Google Xistence

Too busy to Tweet?

Feed up with Facebook?

Just not enough time in the day to record and upload a new video blog?

Or. perhaps all you want to do with the web is play computer games and send emails?


Well fear not, Google Xistence is here to help you out...

Ok, so Google Xistence isn't real, but this video does beg the question... what if it were real? Would you actually know whether it was your friend updating their various Social Media profiles? With the development of the Semantic Web (Web 3.0) and the ever increasing sophistication of artificial intelligence programs, could we one day find ourselves unsure as to whether we were talking to a real person or not?

Probably. At least in my opinion.

Augmented Reality: T-Shirt

Ever wanted to play Rock, Paper, Scissors with your t-shirt? Well, maybe not, but it's a pretty odd idea at the very least. Well guess what, the clever folk over at T-Post, the world's first wearable magazine, have brought their 51st issue with this augmented reality, 3-D interactive game...

For those asking themselves, what's T-Post? Here you go!

Cheers to Nick to this one :)

Foursquare, in Your Newspaper?

The Metro News, Canada’s free daily newspaper, has unveiled a huge partnership with everyone's favourite geolocation-based, mobile, Social Media toy, Foursquare. Following in the footsteps of Harvard University and San Francisco's BART, the partnership with the Canadian newspaper will see Foursquare populated with an abundance of new content such as restaurant reviews, city tips and to-dos. Foursquare automatically offers up tips and to-dos for nearby locations when you 'check-in' somewhere. The programme will see Foursquare turned into one of, if not the largest, travel guide to Canada, with content constantly being added to and updated by the public itself.

Part of the deal has also seen the introduction of a new Foursquare badge especially for Metro. The badge is awarded to users who 'check-in' to locations that the paper is distributed from. To celebrate the launch of the new badge, the publication is giving away an iPhone 3GS to five lucky users who unlock the badge.

For me this is a major milestone and shows a new use for Foursquare that I've never heard anyone suggest. While there are many pubs and restaurants that have realised the potential of the service to draw in new customers, we (in Ireland at least) have yet to see anyone beyond this sphere of businesses even consider Foursquare.

Foursquare had been previously restricted to a set number of cities that it was steadily growing in short bursts, and essentially only users in these cities could use the service. However, following a recent fundamental change to the platforms backend engine, the service has seen a rapid growth as users have become able to 'check-in' and tag locations anywhere in the world. On the back of this, Foursquare has without doubt been looking for a way to fully capitalise on this new truly global audience.

Injustice: The Ballad of Sharon Ní Bheoláin

If you're not Irish you'll miss a few of the references, but I'm sure the humour won't be lost. This is perhaps one of my favourite YouTube videos of the last 6 to 12 months. A fantastically well written and well produced song, and video, celebrating one of Ireland's favourite RTÉ Newspeople, Sharon Ní Bheoláin.

The song was written by Katie Holly, and the video produced by Evelyn Quinlan. Major hat tips!