July 17, 2009
Staff Picks: Mobile Photo Art, BurdaStyle, Klickable Jay-Z, Palm's Mojo SDK and More
Laura
In a brilliant collision of old and new, sewing has gone open source! This is the social network for the Singer set - offering a ton of free patterns (simply print as .pdf files, cut and glue together) and a slick interface for the young and crafty to compare notes. But my favorite part is the site’s emphasis on original design: users are encouraged to share their interpretations of patterns in an effort to inspire fresh visions. From photo galleries to one-click Etsy store setup (they do share office space in Brooklyn, after all), Burda is the word-a when it comes to a smart idea, executed well. Here’s hoping my A- in eighth grade home ec lives on.
Reming
To introduce its new Exilim Mobile camera phone, Casio gave its phone to 14 different artists and asked them to chronicle a week in their lives. The photos were on view this week at the Stephen Weiss Studio in NYC and according to the review in the NY Times, these pics “highlighted the rise of the camera phone as a totem of cool.”
Regardless of if you care about being seen as “cool,” the artists cited the imperfections of the photos as part of their charm as well as the ability to capture intimate moments you would otherwise miss. To see pictures from Casio commissioned artists check out the review at NY Times.
Andrea
Pingwire is the newest procrastination tool this week and is aimed at, you guessed it, Twitterers. (What isn't these days, right?) In theory, Pingwire sounds incredibly boring but it had me hooked for at least a few minutes. The website pulls in a live feed of images being posted to Twitter with Twitpic, yfrog, and Twitgoo. It's a little hard on the eyes as pics are constantly moving but better than staring at real work during your lunch break.
David
It seems that phones are just getting greener and greener by the week. Behold the latest from Japan’s uber-carrier NTT DoCoMo: Solar Hybrid –a phone that can be recharged by both electricity and sunlight. According to the press release, ten minutes of solar charging equates to a minute of talk time – a feature that would be great to have on the power-hungry iPhone. Of course, this being an NTT DoCoMo handset, it also comes equipped with a high-resolution LCD screen, an 8-megapixel CCD camera with face-detection auto-focus, digital TV, a WMA music player, a mobile wallet, and a 7.2 Mbps HSDPA connection! The Solar Hybrid tops a previous post of mine on self-charging phones for the simple reason that the phone has already launched them and in fact will start selling in Japan this September.
Valerie
While so much of the attention paid to apps has focused on their novelty (the "it's cool factor") or their brand associations, probably 99.9% of the discussion also has focused on apps for the iPhone. However, the majority of the population does not have an iPhone and can only wish to have enough apps available for their handset so as to be called "appnoxious". Thus, I welcomed Palm's news yesterday, announced via its blog, that its Mojo Software Development Kit is now available to any developer who wants it. Now I just wonder how long it will be before I get the chance to call a Palm-toting friend "appnoxious."
Tristan
The original idea behind chat services (like AIM, MSN, Yahoo) was to connect you to people you knew, right? Well, not anymore. Flychat is an iPhone app that lets you attach a message to a "fly" (looks real on the iPhone) and send it to anyone, anywhere in the world. Your messages can carry certain themes (Sports, Travel, Music...) in order to narrow who they are sent to. Each profile has a picture, friend count, and a wall, so you know who you are communicating with. There are even awards depending on your number of friends. "It's like a party in your iPhone".
Matthew
When I was a kid, I played a lot of video games (from Mario and Sonic to WWE and Madden). However, I’ve noticed that my 11-year-old brother and his friends do not have the same affinity towards traditional video games that I once did.
This is a larger trend: Monthly sales for hardware and software have fallen 31% in the past year, while 4 million new gamers have entered the market place in the last year.
The problem may be the widespread distribution of cheap and free games via the internet and mobile phone applications. Until the gaming industry can figure out a way to retain their loyal base and attract a new gaming generation, consoles across the country may continue to collect dust.
Jeremy
Over the course of the last few weeks, the New York Times has been featuring galleries of user submitted photos taken on mobile phones, all part of a larger examination of the changing way digital and mobile
culture has been affecting the creation of art. Not only are the photos excellent, it's a great example of how media companies and brands are increasingly empowering the followers to interact with them using mobile devices, enabling lifestreaming in real time.
Michael
We all know Steve Ell’s mission to serve “Food With Integrity” at his founding company Chipotle Mexican Grill. Now, Chipotle has taken a more direct approach and sponsored a new film “Food, Inc” which poster you will notice on your next 40-minute wait for a burrito bowl. The company is also hosting free screenings of the film. A great promotion to reemphasize the passion point of this 16-year-old-looking CEO.
Marketers still miss the boat on why Chipotle is successful. They’re successful because they strip the consumer of concerns, anxiety and complexity. You have a simple menu choice, a simple yet ascetic retail design, a clean homepage, transparency in food preparation (just watch that chicken sizzle) as well as where it originated. This simplicity is exactly what consumers want.
Allison
Last week, Roc Nation / Roc4Life released a klickable Jay-Z video for Death of Autotune that's grabbing people's attention. The concept is like an interactive version of VH1's old Pop-Up Video show--click on the video to get more information and fun facts--but it also links to products. So, for example, you can buy Jay's Rocawear shoes straight from the video. According to Klickable, the average number of views per user is 2 (which means most people watched the video a second time) and the average number of klicks per view is 15 (out of 46 total). Check it out on ROC4Life.
Adam Quick of Wreck & Salvage has a new educational video series in development called Tangent that depicts how everything in life is connected and related, with a focus on history. It's written to attract a web audience, and watches the same way that someone might surf the web, following links to other bits of information, and eventually connecting everything together.
In an effort to fund the project, Quirk is appealing to the public for investment. Supporters can buy $10 shares to help Quirk raise money for the production budget. Investors receive a cut of all the revenue the show generates until December 2010, in direct correlation to the percentage of ownership.
This is a small example of micro-financing initiatives sprouting up on the web. Sites like Kickstarter, Popcuts, and Society6 are all founded on this idea that people will want to back smaller cultural/creative projects they are personally interested in. And given the lack of faith in investment banks and institutions right now, I think we'll continue to see this sort of microfinancing migrating towards personal networks.
