Matthew Dent recently re-designed the UK’s coinage and in conjunction with this The Royal Mint has just launched a competition to design commemorative coins for the London 2012 Olympics. Entrants choose from 1 of 27 Olympic sports ( but not athletics or cycling, as these will be part of a Blue Peter competition), download a template and get designing. The competition is open until Friday 24th April and you can enter as many times as you like.
Winners will receive £1,000 and get to have their coin in circulation by 2010. The most interesting thing is that this is just a single example of a new growing trend of utilising the public to rebrand, redesign or innovate products and services. Walkers are probably the highest profile example, with the public not just suggesting but also choosing a new flavour of crisp for the brand.
I for one think it’s great. With the ever increasing adaptation of Social Media by all parts of society, this is just an example of businesses showing their willingness to listen to their customers. Long may it continue.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Design a coin
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Sunday Links
Aside from Digitology I also write on the Cybercom Blog, and one of our regular features is Friday's Best of the Web. I love helping to put this together as it gives me a chance to have a good dig around the net to find what's new, innovative, excellently designed or just lots of fun. Unfortunately we only feature four items and I always mind that I have a load of extra sites/ads/virals etc. that don't get used. So I decided to share them with you. Every Sunday I'll stick up links to everything that didn't make it.
So without further delay........
Seed Magazine
IKEA
Johnny Walker - The Striding Man Society
Casio - CA001
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Cybercom wins Agency of the Year
Great news last night at the DMAs, with Cybercom winning Agency of the Year 2009. I'll update with a full list of winners tomorrow.
Valentine's Day from Hertz
A great viral video from Hertz for Saint Valentine's Day. Basically just a slide show of funnily named places in the UK.
Facebook goes after Nokia
It has been reported by The Wall Street Journal that Facebook has aggressively upped it's plans to forge a strategic relationship with a mobile phone manufacturer. Present talks are with Nokia, who are the worlds largest mobile phone maker. The goal would be to have Facebook allowed to embed degrees of Facebook functionality into a range of Nokia handsets.
It's believed that this could be anything from simple contact information merged with Nokia's address book, to more in-depth interactions such as the ability to scroll through a mobile interface to see if Facebook friends were logged in and then messages them or post to their Wall.
According to The Journal these talks have been pending for months but no financial terms have been disclosed. It is suspected that the delay in an agreement being reached is due to Nokia's uncertainty about whether to develop it's own Social Network or utilise Facebook's already developed network.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Google Maps Set To Pass MapQuest
Without doubt MapQuest is still the front runner in the online map world but it's future may not be so bright. Google Maps has been creeping up on MapQuest for some time now and it's poised to leap ahead. Over a year ago in January 2008, Google Maps had just over 20% of market share while MapQuest was some way ahead with a huge 50% share.
However a lot can happen in a year, and as of February 7 of 2009, Google has managed to nearly double it's market share to 36%, while at the same time MapQuest has dropped to 39%.
With the two services now basically side-by-side, what does the future hold? MapQuest seem to have adopted a strategy of adding "features" to the site that allow you to easily search for hotels, restaraunts and other aminities. At the same time Google have expanded the channels through which Google Maps can be accessed and have further developed the integration of Google Maps and Google Search. In truth I think the two approaches are exactly the same - introduce ad streams to increase revenue. Unfortunately it only seems to be working for Google.
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