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More and more often developers are skipping the PC when designing consumer applications. The latest example is Google’s new Flipboard competitor: Google Currents. Like Flipboard, the application is designed to make a tablet or mobile magazine reading experience better and more interactive. The one interesting wrinkle is that it’s also set up to import your Google reader feeds, taking that content and making it beautiful. It’s good enough that it makes me want to read the content on my phone instead of on my laptop.
Also this week, Twitter released a new version this week. The trick to get the new look and functionality? You had to download it to your Android or iPhone first.
This collection of motion infographics from Bloomberg is pretty amazing. Each takes a single, complex issue and explains it using brief, animated infographic. Beyond simply being a visual expression of data, each video tells a story, leaving the viewer with a full understanding of the issue at hand. Granted, not everyone has the expertise (or budget) to employ motion infographics, but there are little lessons to be learned in each. Enjoy.
Infomous is a dynamic and intuitive navigation solution – perhaps soon to pop up on websites you visit. Web developers for content-rich sites have integrated word cloud and tablet-style flip navigation over the past few years, but this is a solution that seems to combine aspects of both: reference triggers and dynamic script. The tool is currently available in preview/beta version through a relationship with the provider, but will roll out later this year, ready for embed. More info at Infomous – they have a demo up for world news, a version for sports news, entertainment news, science news. It’s easy to explore and find links to try.
The quality of the ads we’ve seen during the Superbowl in the last few years has been dodgy, at best. If this is indicative of the quality of the ads we’ll see this year, it may not be so bad. Enjoy!
It’s that time of year when the bitter mid-winter chill and moody gray skies inspire us to clock in more time on our couches than outdoors. Inevitably, this frees up some mental space for absorbing media-a few good books, some quality television, even a few blog posts. When in the “couch zone” you may feel like a sponge, soaking up the warmth of a cozy blanket along with the plot lines and characters streaming across your screen. But have you ever stopped to think that what you choose to absorb might actually say a lot about who you are as a person? Or more specifically, what type of consumer you are? Could your DVR or Tivo reveal insights into your personality?
Marketers and advertising agencies certainly think so. A recent study by psychographic ad targeter, Mindset Media, outlines their “consumption personality predictor” theory. The agency analyzed self-reported data from about 25,000 TV viewers across more than 70 TV shows to find out what personalities are attracted to what shows. The results revealed some strikingly similar personality traits among a show’s viewers. For example, if you’re a fan of AMC’s Mad Men, you’re a creative type. Love Family Guy? You’re likely to be a rule-breaker or a rebel. Are you a Gleek? According to Mindset Media, you’re very open to new experiences and are now classified as a so-called “experientialist.” (For a more in-depth analysis of personalities by TV shows click here.)
But are people’s media consumption choices clear indicators of their personality? More often than not, our personalities are unpredictable, consisting of multiple angles and hidden motivations. A person who tunes into WWEs RAW may also tune into PBS Masterpiece, resulting in a conflicted “consumption personality predictor” forecast. But a good research analyst knows that simplifying someone’s mindset is diving into dangerous territory. Still, this new psychographic predictor trend appears to be gaining momentum among advertisers who often approach the study with enough caveats to remain wary but enough fortitude to push forward. Mindset Media plans to continue analyzing consumers TV personalities in 2011, so if your favorite show was neglected (Big Love anyone?), then maybe you’ll get diagnosed next time ’round.
We’re not gourmet anymore…or are we? A recent article in the New York Times serves as an interesting follow-up to a recent W5 blog post regarding the cancellation of Gourmet magazine. According to the NY Times and publishing company Conde Nast, we haven’t see the last of the lauded foodie mag.
Gourmet’s second chance at survival arrives neatly wrapped in a digital package as an iPad application called “Gourmet Live.” The app will be fully loaded with recycled cooking tips and recipes from Gourmet’s current archive while an occasional sprinkling of new content will be used to spice things up.
Interestingly, the app is not intended to serve as a digital form of the magazine, but as a new way for consumers to engage with the brand. Given Gourmet’s dedicated following and the widespread disappointment with the magazine’s cancellation, repackaging the magazine in the form of an app appears to be a brilliant move. Not only will the app reintroduce a trusted brand in an entirely new way, it will fill the void for dedicated readers who have yet to find a satisfactory substitute. In addition, the app well help the brand reach a younger, tech-savvy audience. The trick will be keeping the content fresh enough to attract new readers and familiar enough to satisfy older fans. With Gourmet’s culinary legendary expertise and reputation, balancing old tastes with new textures should be as easy as cooking “Easy Seafood Paella“.
Since everyone else seems to be talking about this spot, I figured I’d throw my two cents in. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s simple…Tiger stares into camera. Tiger’s dead father provides the voiceover. Cameras flash. Simple.
Most of the comments I’m seeing are critical, to say the least. Take this New York Times article:
“Did you learn anything?” Earl Woods asks. A valuable question, and one that his son has attempted to answer in his no-questions news conference in February; his brief interviews with ESPN and the Golf Channel last month; and his pre-Masters news conference on Monday.
But the answer to the father’s question appears to be that serial philandering and addiction rehab can be positioned as a commodity — and that you can roll it out in phases leading to the Nike amendment to the 12 steps: a TV commercial.
Personally, I like the spot. It’s an apology, a glimpse into Tiger’s conscience, and a return to the spotlight all rolled into one. When I read the criticism, I have to wonder what people expected. Short of keeping one of their marquee endorsers on the bench, or cutting him loose altogether, this was the only thing Nike could do.
Nike frames him as the fallen hero. Anything else would have been an outrage.
“I found one remaining box of comics which I had saved. When I opened it up and that smell came pouring out, that old paper smell, I was struck by a rush of memories, a sense of my childhood self that seemed to be contained in there.” Michael Chabon
Until recently, the most accessible and practical means of cataloguing memories was through photography. Pictures became the medium through which we told stories about our past and thus became our most cherished possessions.
The irony is that the amateur, point-and-click photographer in all of us is not very good at taking pictures. Our natural impulse is archival rather than expressive. Our subjects are often posed and detached from the experience, as if they are taking break from the moment to stand and smile. Only a rare photographer can capture the depth of emotion that happens in a given moment and tell a story that exists outside of the frame.
Thus, pictures are a starting point for memories, a prompt for thinking about our past. Our strongest memories are actually associated with our “chemical” senses, taste and smell. Our sense of smell is overlooked, but the human olfactory sense is controlled by the limbic system, the part of the brain also responsible for emotion, memory, pleasure, and motivation.
This is the Scenter, a project of the Kawamura-Ganjavian architecture and design studio. It stores smells in tiny cartridges and releases them when the bellows are squeezed.
We tend not to notice our sense of smell except in cases when an odor is surprisingly strong, pleasantly or unpleasantly so. But there are also moments when a scent is so familiar, so close, that you feel as if you are experiencing something again.
The Scenter is a remarkable achievement then: a sensory device that can capture a tremendous part of our daily experience where technology of the pixilated sort cannot.
