Great presentation by Jesse Schell called  “Design outside the Box”

It provides some profound insight into how everyday life is becoming a game

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State of the Internet

I never tire of watching videos which highlight the incredible statistics surrounding the penetration of the internet, and I’m still surprised by the growth in some of these statistics.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from Jesse Thomas on Vimeo.

Frontiering Shopping cart
Having used X-cart at the shopping cart solution at Gourmet Shopper, I was interested to see that the X-cart developers have released a new AJAX style shopping cart solution called Ecwid.
Here’s an example shopping cart that I have been testing, which as well as working inside Wordpress.

The Cart tool is reasonably simple to setup and configue, and whilst there are some limitations, it promises to be an excellent option for shops wanting to syndicate their content across their growing range of interaction points.
Here’s an image of how it looks in Facebook (see example)

GS facebook_

Personalised Soccer Commentary

Be a Football Hero allows you to create a personalised audio commentary.

Select your name, country, and age, and then listen to the professional soccer (football) commentary of yourself performing the ultimate football heroics.

footballhero

If you like what you hear, you can order the soundtrack as a CD for 14.99 pounds.

The soundtrack is very realistic, and you get to hear your surname and age as you score the match winning goal in the dying minutes.

3D Desktop
bumptop

bumptop

Here’s a very interesting utility that transforms your windows desktop into a 3D environment, much like a desk.  It allows you to place icons in various sizes depending on importance, as well as having them on the wall.

Bumptop also has some clever techniques for sorting and grouping the various functions in an effort to make life more productive.  Moving photos between applications is rather cool, and the following video provideds an excellent demonstration.

Australian Sports Commission viral

Here’s the video Bullseye produced for the Australian Sports Commission to encourage the development of young Australians sportspeople on this promotional site.

Already the viral has been picked up by many of the mainstream press both here and in the UK.

Australia Press Coverage

Marketing Mag

Livenews

Sydney Morning Herald

Sydney Morning Herald (2)

Sydney Mornging Herald (3)

Adnews (subscribers only)

Brisbane Times

Canberra Times

UK Press

The Times

The Sun

Countdown to the Blackmores Sydney Running Festival

Blackmores is a client of ours, and we have created a new website called Byourbest, which contains lots of tools and information about the Sydney Running Festival.

I’ve decided to translate some of these tools into widgets.

 

A new way to learn Chinese

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.

Biggest drawing in the world

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.

image image

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

News Gaming mashup

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.

Snapshot 2008-05-06 08-34-56.jpg 

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.

You-sight

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.

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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

Personalised products

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. 

Sleeveface

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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"

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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.

Absolute world

image

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.

Experience Design and Convergence David Armano

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.

 

0-1-2-3 of Web design

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

0 Change in behaviour
1 Single sign-on
2 Seconds to load
3 Clicks to find the information you need

 

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