Random Culture

Beautiful Sites: Adobe Cards

Adobe has launched a new website at: www.adobecards.com to promote Creative Suite 3. The site starts with a single card, and as you move the scrollbar to the right, advances through a beautiful animation sequence. The site was created by Goodby, Silverstein & Partners.

Love TED? Try BIL

You know I'm a fan of the TED conference, as I post videos here whenever I can. I'd sure love to attend sometime, but the invites are rare and the pricetag is high. BIL is a TED conference alternative that's completely FREE. That's right... all you have to do is show up.

And yes, you can speak, too... learn more at: www.bilconference.com.

Friday Fun: Coke Zero Advergame

Coke Zero has launched a great advergame in Germany. It's a testament to the type of quality entertainment you can create online, leveraging a ton of video and 3D. Yes, the site's in German, but you can play the game without understanding it, and if you choose the "standard" options, you aren't required to register. Visit CokeZeroGame.de to check it out.

Link via Culture Buzz.

Quick Links: February 20, 2008

SXSW People's Choice Awards
Vote for your favorite sites in the 2008 South by Southwest People's Choice web awards!

What's a Charticle?
Great post from Ian Tait... that's not an infographic, it's a "charticle."

Facebook QR Codes: Add to Friends T-Shirt
Wow... amazing use of QR codes and Facebook. I want one!

Barack Obama is Your New Bicycle

Simplicity can be wonderful. Barack Obama is a nice guy, so what better way to pay homage to him than with a website that talks about all the nice things he does...

Visit BarackObamaIsYourNewBicycle.com and learn about all the nice things Barack Obama does for you.

The Future of Mobile: QR Codes

Don't know what a QR code is? Better find out soon... QR codes are being used extensively in mobile marketing campaigns overseas, and are starting to make a breakthrough in the US. Quite simply, a QR code is a "matrix" bar code that was developed in Japan. The QR stands for "quick response", and is being used in marketing for mobile users to take a picture of the code or read the code with the cameras on their phones and trigger an action on their mobile phone. It could be a content download, a message or link to a mobile site.

Companies can create a QR code that's uniquely their own, and implement it anywhere their imaginations lead to do some interesting things. The only caveat is that mobile users who want to interact with the code must have a software on their phone that can utilize the camera to read the code. While phones overseas are beginning to implement these as a standard software on phones, in the US you'll likely have to prompt users to download the software. Don't fret, though, as you can have them send a text message to a short code and download it, if they're on the go.

There have been some cool campaigns using this technology. Some examples include Mind Share's use of QR codes for Northwest Airlines to collect email addresses, Singapore Air and McDonald's have also joined the list of many marketers using QR codes. In fact, recently, I saw an ad in a magazine for Sprint that introduced readers to the QR code. It's only a matter of time in the US before we begin to see this used more extensively. 

One of the more recent interesting uses I've run across is QR Kill, a real-world game where players "kill" one another by taking photos of the other's QR codes, which they wear on their backs. You can read more about QR Kill at this QR Code blog.

To learn more about QR codes, you can also read this article at the Mobile Marketing Association site on QR codes.

Quick Links: February 12, 2008

Shop-Ahead Service for Hotel Guests
Cool online shopping tool that allows hotel guests at a hotel in Dubai pre-order the items they want in their room.

Airplay: Mobile Gaming for Live TV
Company that creates mobile games to be played in conjunction with broadcasts. Examples include games for the NBA, NFL and Deal or No Deal.

Bill Gates Deletes His Facebook Account
What. like 8,000 friend requests is overwhelming? Doesn't he have an assistant or group of assistants to do this for him>

Video and E-Commerce: Knicker Picker

Is it true that underwear could be at the forefront of technology? Knicker Picker is a great example of a company using video as a part of e-commerce. There are a few folks who've been experimenting with this, and I believe it's a harbinger of the future. As video production costs decrease, why wouldn't you have video of your inventory rather than a static image?

Visit the Knicker Picker Dressing Room.

Best Ads: Super Bowl 2008

Kind of a lukewarm year for Super Bowl ads, but there were a few shining moments... As my previous post suggested, there are a couple places you can see all of them, including YouTube.com/adblitz and MySpace.com/superbowlads. Below, I've included a couple of my favorites.

2008 Super Bowl Ad: FedEx - "Carrier Pigeons"

2008 Super Bowl Ad: Bud Light - "Breathe Fire"

2008 Super Bowl Ad: Audi - "Truth in Engineering." Not the world's greatest ad, but the R8 is one good looking car. Find more at TruthInEngineering.com

2008 Super Bowl Ad: Bridgestone - "Scream." Yes, I'm a bit biased since this spot was created by my agency, The Richards Group, but this one stuck out as one of the better spots.

2008 Super Bowl Ad: Tide to Go - "Interview." Loved this commercial, and Tide had the foresight to create a nice website supporting the effort. Visit MyTalkingStain.com.

2008 Super Bowl Ad: eTrade - "Banking Baby." If you get past the whole draw of a "talking baby", I actually liked this one.

The worst ads? Well, Sales Genie has got to be at the top of the list... not only for some of the lowest budget ads of the bunch, but I thought the voice impersonations of Chinese and Indian characters were borderline at best. The Sobe "Thrillicious" ad also struck me as derivative, and should for anyone who's seen the Thriller dance video from a wedding that took the web by storm recently. Under Armour had a horrible ad that they spent way too much money on. It left me scratching my head wondering what the heck the commercial was all about. Cars.com had a few ads, which seemed to try way too hard to be funny, and wound up having the opposite affect on me. In general, I was also disappointed that almost no one really used websites to support these ads.

Super Bowl 2008: Ad Blitz

Want to view a comprehensive list of all the Super Bowl 2008 ads? Want to vote on them and see what people liked the most? YouTube has launched the "Ad Blitz" channel... a comprehensive channel with all the ads from the big game, where users can vote on what the best ads are.

Visit http://youtube.com/adblitz after the game to see them all.

Best in Online TV: Sanctuary

Sanctuary, according the Guinness Book of World Records, is the biggest budget show ever created for the Internet. Why? Because it's a long-form show, which is fairly unique amongst the 3 and 4 minute shows others are creating for the web. It's also shot in HD, so the quality is much better than other programming online. Sanctuary was created by Damian Kindler, who has been previous involved in the Stargate TV shows. In fact, Sanctuary has now been picked up by the Sci-Fi Network for a first season of 13 one-hour shows.

This type of high-quality, long-form programming is the future of online. However, I don't think their business model, requiring visitors to "purchase" episodes, will last. While the longer-form content is more attractive than say, Quarterlife, I think these shows have to find a way to allow people to watch for free online, then buy episodes in order to download them, or buy DVDs when a season is complete.

Visit SanctuaryForAll.com to watch episodes and learn more about the show.