Jan 23
Here’s a useful Mobile 2.0 company directory. It’s a wiki space started by rudy@mtrends.org that categorizes so-called mobile 2.0 companies. Since it’s built on a wiki tool, companies can add their own information directly into the directory, you just need to make sure that you’re logged in.
Media disruptors Niklas Zennstr”m and Janus Friis just launched Joost, the Web TV venture formerly known as “The Venice Project.” Zennstr”m and Friis are the co-founders of KaZaa, the open file-sharing network and Skype, the voiceover IP phone service.
Joost is a new way to watch TV, free of the schedules and restrictions that come with traditional television. Combining the best of TV with the best of the internet, Joost gives users more control and freedom than ever before – control over what they watch, and freedom to watch it whenever they like. Joost is provding a platform for some of the best television content on the planet – a platform that will bring the biggest and best shows from the TV studios, as well as the specialist programs created by professionals and enthusiasts. It’s all overlaid with a raft of nifty features that help you find the shows you love, watch and chat with friends, and even create your own TV channels.
Aside from good quality, Joost is a functioning real-time social network. Watch a show then rate it, share it, and chat with friends using its IM platform. As usage ramps up, there will soon be community chat, letting legions of, say, cricket fans across the globe gather to watch matches together. It’s customizable too, so if users only want to share the experience with a few friends, they could. The vision for Joost is to merge each of these ideas into a universal on-demand TV system running on a hybrid peer-to-peer platform. This creates millions of networked TVs fortified like KaZaa-like video (instead of file) servers.
Mini USA recently launched an outdoor campaign in Chicago, Miami, New York and San Francisco. The outdoor campaign featured digital billboards that flashed personalized messages to Mini drivers as they motored by. To kick-off the campaign, Mini USA sent emails to select Mini owners, inviting them to join a pilot version of a new program called Motorby. Once the Mini drivers submitted basic information about themselves, Mini USA sent them a special key fob. The special key fob would then identify the Mini drivers to the billboards as they pass by and the billboard would then deliver a personal message based on the personal information provided.
Jan 21
Gather is a social networking and media site for adults. It’s a place for users to connect with people who share the same passions. It’s a place where users can contribute thought, art, commentary, or inspiration. Becoming a Gather member can also be profitable. For your participation, users can earn Gather Points, which can then be redeemed for gift cards to well-known merchants or for charitable donations. Active members may even earn cash.
At the current moment, Gather is partnering with Simon & Schuster for the First Chapters Writing Competition. Unpublished writers can submit a manuscript for a full-length fiction work. The first chapter of each entry will be posted on Gather, and users will vote for their favorites for four rounds, with the top favorite receiving a publishing contract and $5,000 from Gather.
Jan 21
I found this story on Coolhunting.com. Banksy if now offering free downloads of some of his art pieces in his on-line shop. All of the images can be downloaded in small, medium, or large for print or for use as a desktop. It looks like Banksy is offering up his works for free in direct response to the many hustlers that turned his work into unauthorized t-shirts.
Jan 21
Shop It To Me is your free personal online shopper. Select your favorite apparel brands (such as Armani, Prada,Theory, Tahari, Juicy Couture, Seven Jeans, DKNY, BCBG) and sizes. Shop It To Me will then scour the websites of leading retailers. Instead of missing the deal of the century, you’ll receive either weekly or daily emails alerting you immediately when that perfect pair of (previously overpriced) jeans suddenly becomes affordable. If you’re too busy to spend hours each day searching the web for the latest deals, then check out Shop It To Me for free.
Alltel Wireless recently announced a proprietary technology called Celltop that will change the way its subscribers interact with their cellphone screens, making it easier to find sports scores, weather forecasts and other news updates. The innovation also aims to help users sort out text messages and voicemails. The interface is based on a widget concept similar to those on Apple operating systems. Alltel currently has 11 million subscribers. 10 free “cells” — or widgets — will be pre-installed on Alltel phones.
Jan 21
Japanese dance crew, Woomin, just recently teamed up with the new to New York City retailer Uniqlo to produce this high quality dance & sound mixer. Choose from up to fifteen sound and video combos and save it, send it to a friend, or post it to YouTube.
Jan 21
NJ Transit customers can now access essential information, including train status, train schedules and fares—when they need it and wherever they are—through any web-enabled mobile device. Customers can now easily make informed decisions and identify their best travel options. With the new My Transit feature, NJ TRANSIT will send an alert directly to a customer’s cell phone, pager or email whenever there is a delay affecting their designated itinerary. Signing up is quick, simple and free at www.njtransit.com. Customers select their preferred method of notification—pager, SMS (text message) or email—and enter information about the rail, bus or light rail trips they take each day.
Win your share of L$1,000,000 by becoming Second Life’s ultimate hired assassin. Players can join the Smokin’ Aces: Second Life Assassin by visiting the Nomad Hotel in Second Life to pick up game instructions, a hitlist, and weaponry. VirtualNBC.com is running the in-world promotion for the Universal Studios action movie “Smokin’ Aces.â€
This is one of the first notable game-within-a game concepts in Second Life and shows that marketers are intersted in more than just setting up static marketing messages in Second Life. CBS also recently announced a Star Trek Second Life project. The Electric Sheep Company is working on both the Smokin’ Aces and Star Trek projects.
Here’s a video of an interactive signage system designed for Nike Osaka. The project was done to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the AF1 shoe. The signage system is touch screen based and consists of (2) 60″ HDTVs. Anybody know who’s responsible for this? AKQA? Charles Duncan?
Jan 11
Nike+ recently launched a feature that allows users to make a New Year’s resolution. Users can show off their resolutions by scraping the resolutions widget and dropping it on to their blog or social network profile page (see below). Users can also get text messages from Nike+ to help stay on track towards achieving their resolution. Looks like Jill’s going to be serving a lot of coffee during the month of February.
Jan 11
I snagged this image and story off of techcrunch.com. Today, Facebook added a new feature that lists all of it’s mobile tools in one place. The tools include a mobile optimized website at m.facebook.com, an easy way to upload photos and notes to facebook via SMS and MMS messages, and a tool to receive new Facebook messages on your phone via SMS.
From January 21 – April 22, 2007, The Contemporary Museum in Baltimore City will be showcasing the exhibition, “Cell Phone: Art and the Mobile Phone”. The exhibition will explore some of the groundbreaking works that are being created by artists today using cell phone technologies. These works engage such features and technologies as camera phones, video phones, global positioning systems, Bluetooth technology, ring tone sounds, and messaging. Artistic interest in mobile phone technology lies not only in producing artworks for individual handheld devices, but in the potential of mobile phone technologies to create works that can be performative and participatory. The exhibtion is made possible by a sponsorship from Nokia NSeries. Some of the participating artists include: Beatrice Valentine Amrhein (Paris), Blast Theory (London), Steve Bradley (Baltimore), Jonah Brucker-Cohen (New York), Tim Redfren (Dublin), Duncan Murphy (Dublin), Ursula Lavrencic and Auke Touwslager (Amsterdam), Paul Notzold (Brooklyn, NY), and Mark Shepard (New York)
Jan 4
The NYTimes.com just ran a nicely designed infographic called the Casualties of War. The image above is an analysis of the war. Users can drag the slider to investigate the demographics and military status of U.S. service members who have died during the war in Iraq. In the ‘Faces’ tab, users can learn about individuals that have died since the beginning of the war.
The Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Project seeks to outfit Tokyo’s high-end shopping district, the Ginza, with 10,000 RFID tags and other digital beacons. The project, led by Ken Sakamura, a professor at the University of Tokyo, will bring location-based information to people carrying prototype readers developed for the trial. The tags and transmitters will provide location-related information to people carrying prototype readers developed for the trial. The system works by matching a unique code sent out by each beacon with data stored on a server on the Internet. The data is obtained automatically by the terminal, which communicates back to the server via a wireless LAN connection and requests the data relevant to the beacon that is being picked up.
Sakamura envisages the system will be able to provide users with basic navigation and information about the shops and stores in the area in at least four languages: Japanese, English, Chinese and Korean. Shoppers can either rent a prototype reader or get messages on their cell phones. The tags and transmitters identify a reader or phone’s location and match it to information provided by shops.
Jan 3
Now you can take your favorite player profile with you. Simply click the snag-it button on the NBA player web widget above and copy the widget directly to your preferred social network site or blog or copy the embed tag and paste it on your website.
Accoring to Wikipedia, A Web Widget is a portable chunk of code that can be installed and executed within any separate HTML-based web page by an end user without requiring additional compilation. Web Widgets can be utilized by end users to enhance a number of web-based hosts, or drop targets. Categories of drop targets include social networks, blogs, personal homepages, and operating system desktops.
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