Tate's outdoor ad uses live data to show different works of art

Love this:  Our sister agency Posterscope is one of the creators of this campaign for Tate Britain, that uses a variety of live data sources, including weather, traffic flow, and flight arrivals to show different works of art on a large digital billboard on the A4 Hammersmith Flyover.  For example it might show Turner’s ‘The Storm’ during bad weather.  It also changes language, depending on recent flight arrivals.

It's a more sophisticated version of this one for BA that I highlighted a few weeks ago.

I'm sure these are only going to get more complex and creative!

Full story here

Virgin America's new Boarding Card

A nice 'explainer' Vine



See the rest of the new Virgin America site (in beta) here

(See also: Rethinking the Boarding Pass by Peter Smart)

Save Metafilter

People don't often ask me what my favourite website is any more, but if anyone does I always say it's Metafilter.

(My favourite app is CityMapper - place your bets now on whether they be bought by Facebook or Google)

Metafilter is a forum populated by interesting, intelligent people.  anyone can access it, but you pay a one-off fee to be able to post or comment.  There are usually about 30 posts a day, and each post has comments on it, usually greatly adding to the discussion.  It's moderated, so any posts that seem to be spammy, or comments that don't really add to the discussion, are removed.

This is an example of a good post - speculation on today's Apple World Wide Developer Conference.

(I've made a few posts - this is a post on Grayson Perry's Reith Lectures from last year)

But...  Now Metafilter is losing money, and may ultimately be under threat.

This very frank post on Medium by founder Matt Haughey details the problems, including falling ad revenue, falling traffic due to Google algorithm changes, how they saved costs by moving the hosting to the cloud, and how they've had to cut staff.

However the article ends positively - once the problems were known, users started to donate money of their own volition, to help the site.  You can donate here - either a monthly payment, or a one-off amount.

So far nearly 3,000 of us have donated - the site has been very open in listing numbers - and I think there is a lesson for other online businesses.  Advertising income is declining, and becoming dominated by big players like Google and Facebook.  If people are asked to donate, some (hopefully enough) of them will.  But let them know about it, rather than just announcing a closure.

Please donate, and help Metafilter survive.  I probably visit the site more than any other on the web, including online newspapers, and if you haven't yet discovered it, please try it and you may love it as much as I do.  While Matt Haughey's post lists falling ad revenues and traffic, the quality of the site has remained incredibly high, unlike other forums like Popbitch for example.

Here's the link to the donation page.

McDonald's Augmented Reality World Cup App

About 5 years after we first swooned to this, is augmented reality finally going to go mainstream?



Get the app here (iOS & Android only)

Danny MacAskill in Epecuén

Red Bull does these so well.



Also on its own site

Book Review - Without Their Permission by Alexis Ohanian

Read this book!

Alexis Ohanian founded Reddit with university friend Steve Huffman in June 2005, and sold it to Conde Nast in October 2006, having been on a whirlwind start-up experience.  Since then he's spoken at TED (all about Mister Splashy Pants - see below), marketed travel site Hipmunk, set up a not-for-profit company Breadpig, and campaigned for internet freedom, all in a mission 'to make the world suck less'.



All of this makes for a very entertaining, readable and inspiring book about what it's like to be a tech and media pioneer in the age when 'software is eating the world'.  While he's an acknowledged geek, he also confesses that he stopped coding about a month into Reddit - his strengths in other areas are arguably more important.

Alexis is clearly a great marketer, and willing to put this to good use, whether it's showing comic book writers or musicians how to run Kickstarter campaigns, or explaining the number of jobs being created by the open internet for politicians in Capital Hill.

He also gives insights into what it's like for a start-up to be incubated by someone like Y Combinator (I never realised that the sign of a start-up that will make it is growth of 8% a week or so), and you can see all of the ones that he invests in personally on his own site here.

Finally, as you'd expect with such a book, it's littered with footnotes, giving links to articles, videos and other sources to illustrate or back up what he's saying.

Buy it here

L'Oreal's Make-up Tutorial with Google Glass

This is a good use of Google Glass - get to see a make-up tutorial from an expert's POV, using the built in camera.



From our clients L'Oreal

Cisco's Speed-targeted Billboards in San Francisco

This is a great example of creativity in data.  Cisco has a billboard in San Francisco near to the airport, where the message changes depending on the speed of the car approaching.

The faster the car, the fewer the words, as the driver will have less time to read the message.

There are 4 speed ranges, but I'm sure this could be done with much more granularity

Not rocket science, clearly, but very clever.

See more at AdAge here

The first ads on Pinterest

Ads on Pinterest are finally here, according to a blog post.

I haven't seen any yet, but launch brands include Kraft, GAP, Target, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, and Expedia.

More here

Inspired by Vine

Turkish Airlines has just produced this


Clearly inspired by this



& Lowe's has commissioned Vine expert to make more of its' #FixInSix films, with tips crowdsourced on Twitter.


I think Vine isn't for everyone - you need far greater technical ability than you do for Instagram for example - bit it's clearly a huge hit.

Using Mixed Martial Arts to raise awareness of domestic violence in Brazil

Quite astonishing.  Amazingly brave work; the client (Disque Denúncia) could have lost it's nerve at any point.

Coca Cola's Happiness Drones

An imaginative extension of the Happiness Machines theme (earlier, earlier, earlier, earlier)



(Except when do 'remote controlled helicopters' become 'drones'?  & wouldn't it have been easier if the camera crew have taken the Cokes up up with them?)

See also this one where Coca Cola bottle tops can be used as payment for phone calls home for migrant workers.