adidas Originals - Star Wars Collection

Back at Christmas I posted about adidas's new range of clothes and shoes inspired and featuring Star Wars. Taking the most iconic moments and favourite characters from the Star Wars story, adidas have translated them for the streets. To do this, the sports brand launched a virtual 3-D world that is accessed through the new line's men’s shoes through three Augmented Reality games. Basically, each shoe design gives the user access to the virtual world and acts as the controller for interacting with it. Chris Barbour, head of digital marketing for adidas Originals, described the new initiative as, “[taking] a real world item and adding a fantastic virtual world on top of that." He added, "We are not trying to mimic a real-world look, we have a more stylized, pop-up book creative approach.”

For the next stage in the new Originals 'The Street where Originality Lives' ad campaign, adidas is kicking off 2010 with three fantastic developments in the campaign. Not only is the adidas Originals site packed with a whole heap of exciting (and exclusive) videos from Estelle, the Ting Tings and Method man & Redman (just to mention a few), not only will the Star Wars range of clothes and shoes be launching in the Irish market through Champion Sports, but there is also a new addition to the online campaign in the form of a seriously cool, Facebook Connect enabled, online app that lets you take control of the Death Star and blow up the homes of your closest friends.

For all the information you'll need, just go to the official adidas Originals Facebook Page and check out this video of the Imperial March remix; featuring Snoop Dogg, David Beckham, Calle 13, DJ Neil Armstrong and Daft Punk...

Social Media & SEO

Last August Adam Singer wrote this excellent post on how Social Media has become inextricably linked to SEO. Adam talks about the reinforcement that each gives the other, in a continuously, self-perpetuating cycle. In the last five months I've seen Adam's theory proven true time and time again, both on commercial endeavours and private websites and blogs. Very simply, the links between Social Media and SEO are undeniable.

The 10 key points that Adam laid out are:

• Search Engines become more sophisticated and powerful
• An active Social Media push of content builds ever stronger links
• Regular, original content creates more opportunity to be found through search
• Search Engines like very regularly updated sites
• Social Media use drives increased successes
• Social Media can be build on
• Beyond links it's also about Digital PR
• Social Media Communities help grow themselves
• Content discovered through Social Media is more likely to be shared
• Engaging, well thought out content is the best

Whether you have your own website or work on a website(s) as part of your job, I highly recommend going and reading Adam's full post.

The Rise Of Google

A great little video showing the story of Google...

"A (very) quick look back at the Google story over the last 11 years. From Stanford to Mountain View and around the world, featuring many different products, starting with BackRub (Search) up to Google Wave, StreetView and Chrome." - Google

Where Do You Go

Where Do You Go is a cool mash-up by Steven Lehrburger that creates a heat map of your Foursquare check-ins.

This is my 'Where Do You Go' map of Foursquare activity...


The app runs on the Google App Engine and was created for the Mashups: Remixing the Web class on New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program.

Besides his blog, Stephen can also be found on Twitter.

Google Toilet

They know what you search for, they know what you email, they know who you call. What's the next step for everyone's favourite global mega brand?

Google Toilet!

via Geeks Are Sexy - cheers guys :)

Nike True City iPhone App

Last week Nike launched a new iPhone App, True City. The App provides users with user-generated content on six European cities. Nike bill the app as "making the hidden visible through the knowledge and insight of Nike Insiders—local tastemakers". Basically local 'experts' provide the information on each city. Nike considers these individuals as being at the forefront of their cities.

I downloaded the app and had a play around with it, and it's definitely worth a look. My only negative would be that it's only six cities and there's no immediate indication that it will be expanded. On the plus side, however, the app does integrate very well from a social media point of view.

You can download it here.

For those that don't want to download the app to have a look, check out the following video...

Guardian iPhone App

On the 14th December last year, The Guardian Newspaper launched an iPhone App offering users full access to all Guardian content through the convenience of their iPhone; including news, comments, features, photo galleries and audio. There was never a question that this was a smart move by The Guardian, what was a question for many people was the fact that The Guardian were not going to offer the App for free. It would be paid for. Admittedly this is not a unique situation for a news provider; BBC World News Live, BBC News Mobile, iCNN News Reader and even the Irish Independent and Irish Breaking News, all offer iPhone Apps that are paid for. However, it's also worth noting that Sky News, ITN News, Thomson Reuters News and The New York Times, all offer their Apps for free.

Was it the right move?

In short, yes it was very definitely the right move for The Guardian.

Since its launch, The Guardian iPhone App has been downloaded nearly 70,000 times. That's over 2,300 times a day, every day! That's extremely impressive for a paid App.

Emily Bell, Director of Digital Content, Guardian News & Media, said: "We are thrilled with our download figures for the first month of the app. The feedback we have received from users has been excellent, yet also extremely informative in terms of features and functionality that can be improved in the future. Over the Christmas break the app became available in many areas of mainland Europe, as well as in Canada and Australia for the first time, so we hope our global audiences will enjoy using the app as well."

The App was designed by The Guardian's in-house team and then built by 2ergo. It is available for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It is available for £2.39 and can be accessed by users in the following countries:
Finland, Latvia, Romania, Austria, France, Lithuania, Slovakia, Belgium, Germany, Luxembourg, Slovenia, Greece, Malta (Republic of), Spain, Czech Republic, Hungary, Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, Poland, Estonia, Italy, Portugal, Australia & Canada, UK, Ireland, US.

The App is available for download here, and the following video demonstrates all the App's features...