Frontiering Talk

A team of developer’s funded by Michigan State University and the Office of the Chinese Language Council International have come up with a browser-based MMORPG (Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game) that teaches players how to speak Mandarin Chinese.

“By interacting in the Zon environment you will be exposed to Chinese language and cultural knowledge in a new and exciting way. Everything that you do in the game is another chance to learn new words, phrases and cultural info about China. Never before has learning Chinese been more fun. Once you log in to the Zon Environment server, your avatar will show up in the Beijing International Airport. The airport has everything you need to get acquainted with Zon. As you explore the airport, notice that all interaction is done by clicking on the different pieces of the world. You’ll find a large variety of interactive objects to explore in Zon. You can observe authentic conversation and examine the vocabulary and grammar with the language tools, engage in interactive conversations, solve puzzles, play trivia or just play the games at the arcade for fun.”

If intrigued sign up for the beta

Initiatives like this and social networks such as Live Mocha are proving that you can take some of the advantages of real time interactions and socialisation and deliver them via new and exciting online mediums.

Imagine you are in the delivery business, and want to show that you deliver anywhere in the world.

DHL, with the help of a swedish artist Erik Nordenankar, and a GPS device have managed to create what they describe as the biggest drawing in the world.

The website documents the creation, along with detailed instructions and delivery documents, and even contains video footage of the drawings journey.

In a world of increasing clutter, it takes something unique to stand out and get noticed, and judging by the number of blogosphere conversations, the initiative appears to be something that will help raise awareness for DHL’s global delivery service.

MSNBC have released a NewsWare site, which provides an interesting news spectrum which can also be customised into a widget to embed on your blog, social network profile, or desktop.

The news experience includes this spectrum which is very engaging.

There is also a Newsblaster tool which lets you read the news while you are playing an online game.

To promote this feature, MSNBC setup the world’s first interactive cinema crowd game.

Cinema goers became human joysticks as the collective crowd body movement controls the functions of a game controller.

NBC New’s social education iCue site is also mixing news videos with study guides and educational games in what they hope will satisfy Generation Y’s shorter attention span.

YouTube is introducing a new feature called YouTube Insight. The new feature will entail several new tracking abilities for those who want to advertise on the video sharing site.

YouTube Insight provides insight on how a video is doing over time and geographically.  YouTube Insight will show a breakdown percentage of the countries that viewers are coming from and how long a video takes to perform well

“Effectively, YouTube has become an ad-effectiveness, or an insight-effectiveness, tool,” stated Tracy Chan, YouTube Product Manager. “YouTube has millions of viewers every single day, and has become the world’s largest focus group.”

Brands will also have information regarding the geography of content consumers.  This will enable artists or marketers to target certain audiences for their videos.

YouTube Insights lets you see information on the geography of content consumers, how long it takes for a video to become popular, and ongoing performance. The new metrics are available under the About This Video, which are available to publishers and consumers alike.

Google Analytics is probably having an influence here and upcoming features will include how visitors were referred to specific videos.

There is certainly a growing trend for small companies to support the growing demand for personalised products.  E.g. Brewtopia in Australia allows consumers to personalise their own beverage label.

Vuru.com takes personalization to the degree where it provides customised daily supplement pill packs sent out as several months supply. They have created several starter pack formats linked to lifestyles, but you can also completely personalize your own.  Great for people who are taking several different supplements.  The site also contains a Vitamin Concierge, which is free for consumers that take 15 or more pills per day. 

And now we can add Customised Tea to the list of personalised products, (although it’s currently only available to US and Canadian consumers).  Known as Design a Tea, the company provides the ability for consumers to select a base tea to start with (Black,Oolong, Green, or Rooibos), and then add 1 or 2 flavours from the more than 40 available. The final step involves selecting the tea format (loose or bagged).  A personalised message can be included on the packaging if the product is being purchased as a gift. Pricing starts at USD $4.75 for 10 bags or 22g of loose tea.   And if the choices are too overwhelming, there is an assortment of pre-designed blends.

Sleeveface is defined as "one or more persons obscuring or augmenting any part of their body or bodies with record sleeve(s) causing an illusion"

This unique art-form has inspired over 1400 Flickr photos, a series of Youtube videos, and even a Facebook group with over 10,000 members.

This is a great example of a self powered community linked by the single common objective of creating art from record sleeves.

Absolut loves visions. They love them so much that they turn visions into realities.

In an ABSOLUT World everybody can submit their visions and explore what others have envisioned and realized.  And the website reflects this idea with an interactive navigation using 3D graphics to create an engaging experience.

Realised visions are represented in by boxes that you can drag, spin and open. Each one is different, and because they are generated by consumers, you’ll find all kinds of content inside.

There is even a blog which captures the submissions to "In an Absolut world …."

I’d like the ability to save a vision as a widget and then post the result to a social network, as this would ensure greater syndication of the content.

But the site is well designed and the visions are very powerful.

David Armano is one of the great visual thinkers best known for his Logic + Emotion blog which is full of creative visuals that clearly explain concepts.

Here’s his talk from this years Interaction 08 conference which describes how the convergence of design and experience are having an impact of the roles people play and the way we work.

I picked up this gem of a illustration while chatting to Ian Lyons, Communications Director at Pure Profile.

How does your website rate?

Lots is being written about how the internet will evolve into a semantic web (sometimes known as web 3.0).
The Semantic web promises to provide a framework that will revolutionise how components of the web can connect to establish meaningful actions.

It’s often easiest to explain a future state with an example of how the semantic web will address a challenging problem.

This article by Tim Berners-Lee, James Hendler and Ora Lassila does just that.

The entertainment system was belting out the Beatles’ “We Can Work It Out” when the phone rang. When Pete answered, his phone turned the sound down by sending a message to all the other local devices that had a volume control. His sister, Lucy, was on the line from the doctor’s office: “Mom needs to see a specialist and then has to have a series of physical therapy sessions. Biweekly or something. I’m going to have my agent set up the appointments.” Pete immediately agreed to share the chauffeuring.

At the doctor’s office, Lucy instructed her Semantic Web agent through her handheld Web browser. The agent promptly retrieved information about Mom’s prescribed treatment from the doctor’s agent, looked up several lists of providers, and checked for the ones in-plan for Mom’s insurance within a 20-mile radius of her home and with a rating of excellent or very good on trusted rating services. It then began trying to find a match between available appointment times (supplied by the agents of individual providers through their Web sites) and Pete’s and Lucy’s busy schedules. (The emphasized keywords indicate terms whose semantics, or meaning, were defined for the agent through the Semantic Web.)

In a few minutes the agent presented them with a plan. Pete didn’t like it�University Hospital was all the way across town from Mom’s place, and he’d be driving back in the middle of rush hour. He set his own agent to redo the search with stricter preferences about location and time. Lucy’s agent, having complete trust in Pete’s agent in the context of the present task, automatically assisted by supplying access certificates and shortcuts to the data it had already sorted through.

Almost instantly the new plan was presented: a much closer clinic and earlier times�but there were two warning notes. First, Pete would have to reschedule a couple of his less important appointments. He checked what they were�not a problem. The other was something about the insurance company’s list failing to include this provider under physical therapists: “Service type and insurance plan status securely verified by other means,” the agent reassured him. “(Details?)”

Lucy registered her assent at about the same moment Pete was muttering, “Spare me the details,” and it was all set. (Of course, Pete couldn’t resist the details and later that night had his agent explain how it had found that provider even though it wasn’t on the proper list.)

This is a great story, and just a small glimpse into the many changes coming our way !

Internet access speeds, lower cost of video equipment, and ease of video sharing has lead to an expansion of video content on the web.

3 former Google employees have launched a site that is positioned as a video based “how-to guide” to pretty much anything. In their words, “Imagine an ever-expanding universe of how-to knowledge, created for you and by you. That’s Howcast“.

The site also effectively uses Wiki technology to encourage collaboration / updates from users.  Examples include “How to clean your ipod”, “How to store an unopened bottle of wine”.  The site is well laid out and designed to capture feedback as well as commentary in line with today’s “conversational web”.  The videos follow a similar format where an instructor explains what is needed to complete the task, followed by step-by-step instructions explained in a voiceover. If users want to write their own “how to”, they can use the Howcast template; scripts are then sent to film school students for production.

The “How To” web market has a number of existing players such as Instructables and Expert Village which have been focused on text / image based content.   

Contributors to Howcast also benefit from distribution deals that syndicate content through other channels such as Joost, Verizon’s VCast.  This is a clever business model as it will enable Howcast to grow quickly. 

I couldn’t help thinking of the possibilities this structure has for mainstream education.  Howcast generates the “learning objects” and then effectively uses latest technology tools for teaching.  All you would need to add is a module that tracks what learning objects you have viewed, and testing to measure both the effectiveness of the learning object and to ensure students have grasp the concept being explained.

Super Bowl advertising isn’t cheap, and at nearly $2 million for a 30 second spot it is the most expensive placement you can make.

So if you are going to advertise during the Super Bowl, there are some basic things that you should get right.

1. Create a microsite for the ad and show the URL in your commercial. If you are spending that much on placement, having a microsite is almost mandatory.
This year 84% of ads did this and unlike last year these URL’s led to the right landing pages.

2. Purchase search ads so that consumers can find your site before / during and after the event. 70% of this year’s advertisers did this. 28% purchase Super Bowl related keywords.

3. Call to action. Only 6% of ads had some kind of call to action in their ads. Ads that cost this much to run should link a promotion or competition to the ad to extend the investment. One of the best forms of promotions is one that invites people to interact with your brand.

Proctor & Gamble is doing just that by inviting consumers to submit spoof ads of the Talking Stain ad. The ad features a guy interviewing for a job and a stain on his shirt cleverly translates his comments drawing the interviewers attention. Since the airing of the ad, 5,500 consumer generated spoofs have been uploaded to the spot’s microsite mytalkingstain.com.

These can be viewed on Youtube here. Free ringtones, and related buddy icons are also available. You can also interact with the commercial by “being the stain” which is powered by Oddcast’s lipsyncing tool.

Reprise Media has a full scorecard on this years Super Bowl ads available as a PDF download.

Fixpicture is a pretty cool online picture editor that runs in Flash or HTML.

Like Picnik it allows you to upload pictures, resize and add effects and will appeal to the growing audience of consumers who what a simple, easy to use free picture editor.