A Google Image search for Atari Breakout

Another brilliant Easter Egg from Google.

How long has this existed..?

Get a discount by tagging on Instagram

I love this simple discount mechanism used by the Sweden Calling pop-up shop in Spitalfields.

Just use their hashtag in a pic of you in their shop, and you get 5% off.

Here's an example of a photo using the tag:

It also shows, I think, the growing ubiquity of Instagram, especially among young women.

VW plays with YouTube features

This is a follow up post to this one, a couple of weeks ago.

VW Brazil previously played with the form of YouTube by posting a short 5 second at that looked like a pre-roll, and faked 'skipping' on behalf of the user.

Now they've done a new one, using the YouTube hover feature to show off another feature.


What next..?

University campaign projects Facebook timeline into the future

A case study from a very good campaign for Ozu University in Istambul, both to recruit students, and to award scholarships.

I've never heard of anyone projecting the timeline into the future before, but I'm assuming that it really did happen.

Has anyone got any examples of the 'future' videos that were made?

Lowe's Top Tips on Vine

An exemplary use of Vine by DIY chain Lowes, who made a series of short 'top tips' films:

Stripped screw? No problem, just use a rubber band. #lowesfixinsix #howto vine.co/v/bU61aqq2YOp
— Lowe's (@Lowes) April 21, 2013

&

Shoe organizers are also great for storing cleaning products. #lowesfixinsix #lowes #favthings vine.co/v/bxIgIKPzAiL
— Lowe's (@Lowes) April 29, 2013

&

Keep squirrels away from your plants with a dash of cayenne pepper. #lowesfixinsix #howto vine.co/v/bU6WWdXtEYn
— Lowe's (@Lowes) April 20, 2013

See them all here

They also used the hashtag #loewsfixinsix which was very clever.

Taco Bell on Shapchat

Last week Taco Bell joined Snapchat, alerting its Twitter followers, and then used it to send a pic of the Beefy Crunch Burrito to its friends, to tell them that it was being re-introduced to the restaurants.

It's a good use of it, because you get the message in the 10 seconds or so that you can see the picture.

This makes Taco Bell the first major brand to use the service, although smaller brands have also used it.  Let's see how they build on this.

Also - Beefy Crunch on Facebook, and on Twitter

More at Techcrunch

Spock Vs. Spock

An amazing ad from Audi:  It's not affiliated with the new Star Trek film, but *just happens* to come out the week of release, with two Spocks bantering & battling away.

It's very well done, with lots of in-jokes that I don't get (but the fans on the forums seem to love).  It also has a bit of the feel of Jerry Seinfeld's Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, and that's a good thing too.  I'm not sure why they put Leonard Nimoy in a Mercedes (it's an Audi ad, remember), but it's getting serious numbers of views and comments.  (According to the AdAge article below it's meant to be a comparison ad, comparing Audi to Mercedes, but this seems a bit odd to me).

In fact it's got nearly 30 times as many as the Damian Lewis Jaguar ad in less than 24 hours, which must say something.

More background at AdAge

Good Re-Targeting Example from easyJet

Last week I looked at prices of flights to Barcelona.  Today this add appeared as I was looking at The Onion on the same computer.  I like how it's quite knowing and chatty, although it's still a bit clunky.

I know people who would be quite freaked out by this, although I also know that people are getting to be more aware of how this works.  Over the weekend one of my friends was talking about how he clears his cookies after doing price comparison to get the best deals, for example.

Update - another one, on The Guardian.

(The flight was for the Interact Congress.  I'm still not sure if I'm going, but say hello if you see me there)

Star Trek's Blippable TV Ad

Last night Channel 5 showed an ad for the new Star Trek film that let you use the Blippar app at the end to get additional content.

I really love new, ground breaking things, but this seems a bit over-complicated.  Since there's so much search and social interaction with TV, why not simply give people a keyword or hashtag to search for?

Not that many phones have the Blippar app; all smart phones can do search, and most have social media apps on them.

The benefit is that, as with Shazam and QR codes, you can determine exactly what link you send the phone through to.  But what you gain in this you are likely to lose in engagement levels.

More here

Conference Links - Login 2013 in Vilnius

I go to a few conferences, often to talk at them, and I've realised that it would be a good idea to summarise some of the things I see and hear.

The Login conference takes place in Vilnius, Lithuania every year.

The single best thing was Steve Wozniak's keynote.  Steve, co-founder of Apple, was an amazingly inspiring speaker, talking about how he grew up with technology in Silicon Valley - 'we were electonics kids' - and then leaving Apple to be a school teacher (with no publicity) because 'education is really cool'.

He talked about how what he was inventing when he was at school wasn't covered in any books, and were beyond the knowledge of teachers, and described these as 'inside projects', projects that existed inside you.  Incredibly inspiring - read his book iWoz.

I also found James Whelton incredibly inspiring.  James created CodeDojo, which teaches kids coding.  He started it in 2011 in Cork, and has since grown it to a movement of coding clubs around the world.  (James is only 20, but he's already done a TEDx talk - see it below).


One of the success stories of Coder Dojo is Harry Moran, a 13 year old, whose PizzaBot iPad game made it to the top of the iTunes chart in Ireland.

I also went to a few start-up sessions, where education was also a strong theme.  For example I saw companies like Skillshare, Voxy, Udemy, Bliu Bliu & CloudCampus

Finally I went to a session called 'Is there an app for everything' by Tomas Dirvonskas of Lemon Labs who showed a whole range of interesting apps & devices for measurement, including...

Shine - A bit like something out of a sci fi film.  It's a small object that you synch with your phone by putting it on the screen, and then use to track your physical activity

Vaavud - a device you plug into your phone that tells you wind speed

Cardiio - an app (again like something from science fiction) that meausures your heart rate by looking at the patterns of reflection on your face

Lapka - a device that tracks your local environment

& he also told this great stat about Airbnb

As for me, I presented an updated version of this trends deck

10 Trends for 2013 from Dan Calladine

& got a write up in this newspaper

A really good conference!  Thanks very much to the organisers, and my colleagues in the Baltics for making it all happen.

Next Generation Media Quarterly - April 2013

My new presentation is now on Slideshare, looking at key stats & stories from the past 3 months.  Find out why Airbnb loves hearts!

Next Generation Media Quarterly April 2013 from Dan Calladine

LG Stage Fight

Yes, this would put you off...



Very good way of illustrating the quality of the picture.  Watch to the end!