Archive for February, 2008

Flavorpill + BuzzD = Flavorpill Mobile

Feb 29

Posted by Richard Ting in Mobility

flavorpill_mobile.jpg

This has been out for a minute, but I finally gave Flavorpill Mobile more than a quick glance over and I have to say I’m quite impressed by what Flavorpill and Nihal Mehta’s crew at BuzzD Mobile were able to cook up. It’s an ultra-useful mobile version of Flavorpill’s multi-city nightlife and event guide available completely for free. However, the big added benefit of Flavorpill Mobile is BuzzD’s location-based social commenting system that is layered on top of the site’s experience. It’s a great forumla for success, not only is the site providing tremendous utility for it’s users, the site completely harnesses the power of what the mobile medium is great for — location and time relevant information. To access Flavorpill mobile, just point your WAP enabled browser at http://m.flavorpill.com

Buzzd is currently finding its way in the mobile web world via partnerships with Citysearch, Flavorpill and Time Out New York. The service basically allows you to find an event near where you are, then ’shout out’ to friends to meet you there. There is a social networking component, whereby you can meet other users at the events.

1 Comment

Absolut Vodka Mobile

Feb 10

Posted by Richard Ting in Advertising, Mobility

absolut_mobile.jpg

Absolut Vodka recently launched a new service that lets consumers find alcoholic drink recipes on their mobile phones. The service encourages consumers to create different drinks by downloading a free recipe book that contains 1,000 drink ideas to their mobile phone. The service is an extension of the website and it’s delivered to the mobile device in the form of a 217kb J2ME download. The J2ME application was created by the folks over at Golden Gekko. The service is available to anyone above the age of 21 and is being marketed through Yahoo on the Sprint portal and MoPhap through the Go2 portal to AT&T customers.

2 Comments

USB Pedometer

Feb 10

Posted by Richard Ting in Interactive

usb_pedometer.jpg

Pedometers and on-line training systems are all the rage these days. This USB pedometer clips on to your waistband and counts all the steps you’ve taken throughout a day. Once you’re done walking for the day, you can plug it directly into your Windows-compatible PC to upload your step count to an interactive program that tracks your walking and can easily chart your progress. It comes with a Pedometer (2″ diameter), USB cable, and Software (Windows only)

Check it out on thinkgeek.

5 Comments

Tonium Pacemaker

Feb 10

Posted by Richard Ting in Interactive, Music

tonium-pacemaker.jpg

The Pacemaker by Tonium shrinks a standard dual set of turntables and mixer into a pocket sized player. It’s essentially a portable media player that comes with a host of in built audio manipulation features allowing for on-the-fly, professional track mixing between two separate audio channels via a device small enough to pocket. The device comes with a 120GB hard disk, supports multiple file format support (MP2, AAC, WMA, WMA Lossless, WAV and even VBR – and the much under rated Ogg format), sports a crossfader as well as pitch, bend, loop, split loop and EQ/Gain filters and it all fits into a gadget measuring 164 x 69 x 23 mm in size. The Tonium Pacemaker is currently selling for approximately $760 and will begin shipping this month.

Check out the Tonium Pacemaker

1 Comment

Google Introduces Physical World Hyperlinks to USA

Feb 7

Posted by Richard Ting in Interactive, Mobility

flytip_qrcode.jpg

The above 2D barcode says http://www.flytip.com in the QR code format.

[via Stevepoland.com]
Google has announced that 2D barcodes (called a “QR code“) can be included in their Google Print Ads program. Here’s how it works — you’re reading a magazine and there’s an advertisement for something you’re actually interested in. Most times you’d just turn the page and forget about it, because you’re not near your computer and don’t feel like stopping what you’re doing to go find out more information on the product/service in the ad by logging onto the Internet. But now, the print advertiser can put a 2D barcode in the ad, and you can simply whip out your cell phone, take a picture of the 2D barcode (using specific software installed on your cell phone that recognizes/decodes the 2D barcode) and then your phone’s web browser opens and automatically takes you to a corresponding website with more information on the product/service that you’re interested in. It’s quite an interesting proposition for advertisers, because it allows them to use unique barcodes for all of their advertisements and thus track which ads are providing the highest ROI (or at least the highest engagement). An advertiser could have a different tracking code for one magazine (Fortune) vs another magazine (Forbes) and determine which publication to purchase ads in again; one newspaper vs another in the same city; etc.


Read the full article here.

2 Comments

Poke Greases The Wheels of Romance

Feb 7

Posted by Richard Ting in Advertising, Interactive

ky_poke.jpg

[via Creativity]
With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, paramours have a newfangled avenue to express their love thanks to K-Y and agency Poke, New York. Promoting the Johnson & Johnson brand and its product line including the newly-introduced variety Intrigue, Poke developed the “Keep Life Sexy” site that lets visitors submit their definition of sexy and broadcast it to the web-surfing world. “This is a Valentine’s effort, which is their biggest period of the year as you could imagine,” says Poke, NY partner Michael Kantrow.

Check out the site.

2 Comments