Casey Neistat's Snapchat Stories

Snapchat recently introduced 'My Story' - pictures and videos grouped together - and 'Our Story' - similar for groups and events.

If you're not an active Snapchatter (I'm not) you might struggle to visualise how this works.  As an example here's American social media celebrity Casey Neistat, who posts his Stories onto YouTube to archive them:

For example:



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Nescafe's Alarm Cap

Nescafe has made a jar lid that works as an alarm clock, waking people gently with sound and light.  It's part of a bigger trend of brands making interesting things - see also Coca Cola's 'second life' bottle tops, and Budweiser's Red Lights.

This is lots of fun, and it's easy to snark (Where can you get one?  How many of the 'opinion leaders and media personalities' drink instant coffee? Or sleep in the same room as a jar of coffee?) but it's an interesting idea.

See more here

Brands' 'Louis Suarez' Tweets

Lots of brands posted humourous tweets after Louis Suarez' apparent 'biting' incident in yesterdays World Cup match between Uraguay and Italy.

Including:

Hola @luis16suarez, si te quedaste con hambre vení a darle un mordisco a una BigMac ;)
— McDonald's Uruguay (@McDonalds_Uy) June 24, 2014

Translation: 'Hi, Luis Suarez, if you are still hungry, come take a bite out of a Big Mac'


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Should've gone to Specsavers #SHGTS #ITA vs #URU pic.twitter.com/9LZxluxVCW
— Specsavers (@Specsavers) June 25, 2014

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Hey @luis16suarez, if you're that hungry, why not get your teeth stuck into something really tasty? pic.twitter.com/TPrPoC6ljt
— Nando's (@NandosUK) June 24, 2014

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Hey @luis16suarez. Next time you're hungry just grab a Snickers. #worldcup #luissuarez #EatASNICKERS pic.twitter.com/3RAO537HjW
— SNICKERS® (@SNICKERS) June 24, 2014

& even

Fangs for the memories, Uruguay. #URU http://t.co/Uhx0XqyAem pic.twitter.com/S2fzMsLhPQ
— JCPenney (@jcpenney) June 24, 2014

Lots more here

Works with Nest

A video from Google Nest showing examples of things working with the Nest thermostat technology - washing machines, cars and more.



It's a bit reminiscent of the 'things for business travellers and other rich people in the future' sort of videos - see a classic here - but I think that what Nest is trying to do is will be much more mass market soon.

See more examples of how other objects could talk to Nest here

Animated GIFs on Twitter

You can now use animated gifs in Tweets - for example:

Is there something on our cheek? http://t.co/MqyQYAFckr
— Wendy's (@Wendys) June 18, 2014

Boo - sadly it down't seem to work on embedded tweets, but see it in its full glory here

Budweiser Red Lights

This is a bizarre 'internet of things' example from Canada:  Budweiser has created a device that ice hockey fans can put in their homes that will react when their team scores a goal...

"Then there are gimmicky applications such as the Budweiser Red Light, a unit that ice hockey fans can install in their homes, which flashes and emits noises when their team scores. As the Budweiser Canada website puts it: "We are not joking: It’s real, it works and you can buy it." Imagine a pint of beer that bleeps when your football team scores a goal, or offers you a free second pint if they get through to a higher level in a competition."

See the site here

See a Red Light 'in the wild' here

Facebook's Slingshot App

Facebook has just launched Slingshot, a new photo and video-sharing app.  It's a bit like Snapchat in that the photos & videos will self-destruct, but the interesting new twist is that to see something you must first send something back, thus guaranteeing engagement.  The clock is ticking to the first brands to try it...

Facebook's had a bit of a rocky ride with some of its mobile initiatives - both 'Home' and 'Paper' have been flops - but this one might just work...

More info here.

Fifa's World Cup 'Voting' Twitter Card

Fifa is using a very useful 'Card' for some of its tweets at the World Cup.   Cards let people put more information into a tweet - for example a form to collect email addresses.

Fifa's card lets people vote for a man of the match (sponsored by Budweiser) during the match, listing all of the players.  Man of the match is chosen exclusively through online and Twitter voting.

Who’s the @budweiserfc #ManOfTheMatch for #MEXCMR? Click 'View Details' below to vote for your favourite player - http://t.co/HUfgDzKncW
— FIFAWorldCup (@FIFAWorldCup) June 13, 2014

See the screengrab below - as it reverts to just showing the man of the match as soon as he's picked.

Buy via Instagram with Like To Know It

Like To Know It is a new piece of technology that lets you buy from Instagram.  Vogue is one of the partners - like a pic on Vogue's Instagram that uses the technology, for example the one above, and you will be sent an email with direct links to buy.  In addition to Vogue, most of whose photos aren't 'shoppable' lots of other brands have signed up - browse some here, or seem them on LTKI's Instagram here

So it's not exactly directly selling on Instagram, but it's a nice workaround, and one that will let Vogue monetise their feed, albeit on a small scale.

Of course this also shows a feature that Instagram themselves could add, making it easier to buy directly with fewer stages.

More details here (with some pretty wild estimates of how much Vogue might be making)

Coca Cola's Second Lives

Brilliant in its simplicity...  Why has this not been done before?  (Or has it).  The bottle tops are currently being given away in Vietnam, then to be rolled out to the rest of Asia.


I also love how it uses the 'workarounds' idea of making do and mending, because people have been doing this with empty plastic bottles for years.  (I use one as a cocktail shaker, because I was thinking of buying one, and then realised that I had lots of perfectly usable plastic bottles lying around).

It also reminds me of this nice stunt from Coke from a couple of years ago - turn a magazine ad into a loudspeaker

Full story here

Update - Coca Cola is also a partner in a new 3D printer that will use old plastic bottles as one of its raw materials in making new products

TBS & Family Guy Hijack Rihanna

A nice stunt by broadcaster TBS 'The home of Conan, Cougar Town, Ground Floor, Sullivan and Son, King of the Nerds, Deal With It, The Big Bang Theory and Family Guy':  On Monday Rihanna wore a very revealing dress to the CFDA awards in New York - and soon the pictures were being shared everywhere.

TBS posted this photo on Wednesday of Peter Griffin in Rihanna's outfit

That awkward moment when you and your bestie are wearing the same thing. #OneOfUsNeedsToChange @Rihanna #FamilyGuy pic.twitter.com/1DWk4MB1qh
— TBS Very Funny (@tbsveryfunny) June 4, 2014

...  & then on Thursday Rihanna tweeted this.

He gets it! pic.twitter.com/bWLbcFw32B
— Rihanna (@rihanna) June 4, 2014

(Check out the number of RTs and favourites)

Very good, very opportunistic work!

Sainsbury's 'Food Rescue' site with Google

This seems like a very obvious idea:  Sainsbury's & Google have collaborated on a site that lets you search for inspiring recipes to avoid wasting food.

For example, if you have some broccoli in the fridge that you need to use up, it recommends 20 recipes that you could make.  You can search through your keyboard, or through voice, and also include multiple items, and also exclude items (it was sadly unable to come up with any recipes that included both broccoli and chocolate).

I should also point out that any recipe site worth its salt also lets you search by ingredient; but well done to Google and Sainsbury's for seizing the moral high ground on this.

See the site here

LEGO on Vine and Instagram Video

Nice work for our client LEGO.  Note that it's the same character, but a different treatment on the different platforms

Vine



Instagram




Full story & credits

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.