Feb 26
[from adrant]
Apparently, Burger King is going viral again with PimpMyBurger, a site which contains a video featuring some dudes rapping about a chicken burger getting pimped. Some Whois research revealed the site is registered to Munchen, Germany-based Omnicom agency start-munich which list as one of its clients Burger King. At the end of the video, the date of March 1 is mentioned indicating, perhaps, the date all will be revealed.
[from mediapost]
by Shankar Gupta
NOT CONTENT WITH its massive television, Internet, and radio advertising blitz to promote its newly released proprietary search engine MSN Search, MSN apparently has released a viral campaign, “MSN Found,†to promote the search site.
An MSN spokesperson declined to comment on the viral campaign, other than to say: “There is a lot of great content to be found out on the Web. ‘Found’ complements MSN Search by finding more of the unique content on the Web.â€
When the MSN Search marketing blitz was being announced, an MSN executive told OnlineMediaDaily that an agency called 42 Entertainment would be creating virals to promote the search engine.
42 Entertainment declined to comment on the campaign, and referred any questions to MSN’s public relations firm. An MSN spokesperson confirmed that 42 Entertainment worked on the viral campaign, saying: “MSN works with a number of third-party companies, and 42 Entertainment has worked on this and a number of other Microsoft projects.â€
Read more.
Check out the msnfound.com site.
What is iPodder? If you want to listen to internet audio programs – music and shows — but can’t listen to them when they are scheduled – this program is for you.
iPodder allows you to create your own custom online audio content from the thousands of audio sources on the web. It helps you select and download shows and music and to play whenever you want on your iPod, portable digital media player, or your computer. And it’s all done automatically after you specify which music or shows you want.
Amplifier will set up and run your online shop, warehouse, and customer service.
Pizza is just a few key strokes away. While playing EverQuest II just type /pizza and a web browser will launch the online ordering section of pizzahut.com. Fill in your info and just kick back until fresh pizza is delivered straight to your door.
Check out the new book written by Jeff Chang. Here’s the review from Booklist.
Hip-hop aesthetics pervade not just pop music but also pop culture, though many still find their appeal a cipher. Chang details the rise of hip-hop and rap from their origins as cultural expressions of the marginalized underclass in Kingston, Jamaica, where bass-heavy, stripped-down sounds and pointed lyrics predominated. There DJ Kool Herc, the nearly undisputed founder of rap, found inspiration and brought the freewheeling Jamaican styles to the Bronx, where they and he found favor with the locals at mid-1970s street parties. Herc’s “four hip-hop elements”–DJing, B-Boying, MCing, and graffiti–quickly took hold, and hip-hop culture flourished as a youthful underclass’ DIY mode of expression. Hip-hop didn’t grow or operate in a vacuum, however, and Chang shows how political and social events affected and were affected by hip-hop’s progress. For instance, in Loop (i.e., chapter) 1, he strings together Jackie Robinson, Adam Clayton Powell, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King, Reggie Jackson, Billy Martin, and rampant arson in the Bronx to explain hip-hop’s U.S. emergence. A fascinating, far-reaching must for pop-music and pop-culture collections. Mike Tribby
Feb 23
[from the NYPost]
Talk about sneaker wars. Customers on the Lower East Side were duking it out in the street yesterday over a limited-edition Nike Pigeon (NYC) Dunk skateboarding shoe.
Not even Big ‘Twoine — the 300-pound bouncer hired to keep order — was able to control the dozens of “sneakerheads” who rushed the door at The Reed Space store at 10:30 a.m. yesterday.
When tempers flared, cops were called to restore order. It was all in the name of target marketing and the desire to be the first.
“It was kind of crazy,” said Nico Reyes, a store manager. Reyes said a fight broke out after a bunch of people tried to skip the line that snaked outside the Orchard Street store.
Straight outta the t-dot comes crash!media, an interactive entertainment agency. Recently nominated for a favourite website award, this site uses z-depth to nicely lay out their work portfolio in an interesting faux spatial environment.
Feb 23
Those Crispin & Porter guys are back with another faux-site for the Counter Counterfeit Commission. Here’s the mission statement of the CCC taken directly from their website. “At the CCC, we’re dedicated to putting an end to the victimization associated with purchasing a counterfeit MINI Cooper. We cooperate with MINI and international law enforcement to pursue criminals. But there’s one other crucial partner we need to recruit: YOU. We can’t do this without YOU. Educate yourself about the problem. Learn how to detect a fake. Know when you’re being hoodwinked. Together, we can put an end to this appalling injustice. Together, we can make our streets genuine once again.”
Feb 23
Feel the thrill of Sony Ericsson WorldQuest.05.
6 candidates. 6 world cities. 6 challenges. And only 12 days to complete them. Your goal: to claim the title of Master Of Mobility and become mobile for life. But you’re not in this alone. The latest Sony Ericsson mobile phones will help you – use their stunning features and WIN!
[from nytimes.com]
By NAT IVES
During the early days of Internet advertising, skeptics often argued that Web ads would never sell prosaic packaged goods effectively.
As more Americans become comfortable with the Web, though, major marketers are increasingly asking agencies to produce elaborate, interactive online campaigns – even for grocery store goods that hardly anyone researches or buys online.
One of the shiniest lures online is the developing field of viral advertising, in which companies try to create messages so compelling, funny or suggestive that consumers spontaneously share them with friends, often through e-mail or cellphone text messages. The goal is the exponential spread of ads that are endorsed by consumers’ own friends.
The best-known viral success may be the offbeat “Subservient Chicken” site, created to promote a Burger King chicken sandwich. The site, which shows a person in a chicken suit who seems to follow typed commands from Web surfers, has drawn 13.9 million unique visitors since it went live in April 2004, according to the agency that created it, Crispin Porter & Bogusky in Miami.
TIM, Nokia to launch video sharing in Italy
Mobile operator Telecom Italia Mobile (TIM) and mobile handset maker Nokia are planning a mass-market launch of the video sharing service in Italy in the second quarter of 2005. Video sharing is to be initially available to TIM customers with the Nokia 6680 3G imaging smart-phone. Video sharing is a multimedia service that allows people to view a live video or a video clip in real time during a normal voice call on their mobile phone. Sent from one phone to the other, both speakers can see the same video and discuss it, and then end the video sharing without ending the voice call. Video sharing is based on standardised 3GPP and IETF technologies. TIM and Nokia have been working together to commercialise the solution on the Nokia 6630 terminal. TIM offers the video sharing service under the TIM Turbo Call service brand.
The video sharing concept is based on the 3GPP IP multimedia subsystem. The Nokia IP multimedia subsystem (IMS) core network infrastructure, in use in TIM’s network, is to be complemented by IMS network provisioning and OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) device settings management systems, so that video sharing can be deployed to the TIM customer base, together with other IMS peer-to-peer applications.
Here’s an excellent interaction design resource from Amsterdam. It’s a massive archive of common interface concepts and conventions.
Feb 16
The first search engine that allows users to search TV across news, sports, and entertainment programming.
Phonemaker to use Microsoft products in digital music headsets; Microsoft agrees to open standards.
HELSINKI (Reuters) – The world’s largest mobile phone maker, Nokia, and software giant Microsoft struck a deal Monday to make it easier for consumers to buy digital music online and play it back on their handsets.
In a comprehensive agreement, involving a separate deal with digital media company Loudeye, Nokia agreed to put Microsoft’s music player software into its handsets. In return, Microsoft, will introduce open standards for digital music compression and piracy protection in its Media Players for personal computers.
“Some big ‘religious’ positions have changed at a high level at Nokia to make this happen,” said industry analyst Ben Wood at Gartner market research. For many years, handset vendors have allied against Microsoft because of its market dominance. But Nokia’s chief executive of multimedia devices, Anssi Vanjoki, said at the 3GSM mobile communications trade show it would be hard to find a better partner than “The King of PCs.”
Consumers keep a lot of digital music in personal computers and will be able to simply transfer those tracks to their phone. “This agreement makes it easier for consumers to download music they want to listen to, without having to worry about whether or not the file format is supported,” Vanjoki said, in an interview, adding that the mobile world was simply taking a lead from the success of music download services on the Web.
The deal brings together two long-time rivals, with Nokia previously using either in-house or RealNetworksmusic and video software. The Finnish firm sold 10 million phones in 2004 with an integrated music player, and a spokesman told Reuters Nokia would launch a phone in 2005 that would support Windows Audio.
Feb 12
Here’s a great resource for anyone working in game design and development. It’s the Video Game Yellow Pages and it’s a comprehensive online directory servicing every market segment of the electronic gaming industry, from ad agencies and PR firms to developers, retailers and distributors. The site is comprised of a simple database designed to supply users with relevant information about companies involved with and related to the interactive entertainment industry.
Feb 11
First came Flickrmappr, now comes Flickrgraph. Created by the same people who brought us Google Newsmap and Social Circles, Flickrgraph is an application that visualizes the social relationships inside flickr.com. It makes use of the classic attraction-repulsion algorithm for graphs.
Feb 11
Here’s a nice experiential site that allows the user to navigate across multiple rooms from a bird’s-eye perspective. Each room houses a different story that is served up to the user in an embedded rotoscoped video. The experience is nice, the execution is smooth, but the storytelling and narrative are bland.
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