What's at Stake for Mozilla with Firefox 5's Rapid Release

What’s this? A preview of Firefox 5 available already? Technically labeled 4.2a1pre, ConceivablyTech reports this embryonic browser is none other than Firefox 5 at its earliest point. And since Mozilla is moving forward with its [new] 16-week development process, now dubbed Rapid Release, we’re 3-4 months away from an official Firefox 5.0 successor to the browser that just launched last week.

Full article: http://www.tested.com/news/whats-at-stake-for-mozilla-with-firefox-5s-rapid-release/2089/.

Storytelling

Great commercial that tells the story without one word being spoken. Creates a lot of emotions without speaking one word. very cool.

Zippo: Heirloom, 60 second version from M. Keegan Uhl on Vimeo.

Foursquare 3.0 – So What?

Foursquare is stepping up its game with new features that make it an even bigger player in the social media arena. The two year old platform now boasts over 15 million venues and more than 1/2 a billion check-ins amongst it’s 6 million users. And it is definitely something we should be talking with our clients about.

Here's a breakdown on two of the new features – the Explore tab and new Specials – and what they mean for the marketing professional.

Explore

The new Explore tab allows users to, wait for it, explore the area around them based on some different criteria. By selecting what you’re looking for, either by choosing a category and searching or by search alone, Foursquare will return a list of suggestions. According to the Foursquare blog, the list is compiled from a number of things:

• Places you’ve been
• Places your friends have been
• Places that you are loyal to
• The types of places you go
• How popular each place is with all users
• What day/time you are exploring
• What tips each venue has

Foursquare then takes it one step further by showing you the reason why that particular place would be of interest (you've been to related places, your friends have been here, etc.).

So what? 
The most common question people asked me about the "old" Foursquare was "what's the point?" And beyond showing off where you've been and maybe some friendly mayorship competition, there really wasn't one. But people value good recommendations – especially  recommendations that are tailored to their preferences, so this added functionality has the potential to draw a lot of new users. And an increase in new users will also increase the activity amongst existing users, meaning more users will see (and hopefully interact with) your company's Foursquare program.

New Specials

As I alluded to above, the key to Foursquare’s initial “mainstream” success was the Mayorship special that rewarded users for being the most frequent visitor to a particular venue. Now Foursquare has rolled out five new types of specials and a new interface to make the platform more valuable to businesses.

These new specials include:

• Flash specials – The first 3 people to check in get X. A typical door buster deal.
• Friends Special – check in with a certain number of friends and get X
• Swarm Special – check in with a large enough “swarm” and everyone gets X. Different from a Friends Special in that the other users don't have to be your Foursquare friends.
• Newbie Special – check in for the first time and get X. Great way for businesses to attract new customers.
• Check-In/Frequency/Loyalty check-ins – Get X every time you check in/Check in Y amount of times in a week and get X/Check in X amount of times and get Y on your return visit, respectively.

So what?
There are now several more ways to get people in the door. These new specials allow for more creativity, and a really creative special can increase word of mouth buzz around your business. Plus, on the Places screen in the app, users now see a list of all the Specials nearby, so new customers are more likely to see your business's special and visit your venue.

The business end is also becoming more streamlined. Businesses will now have access to an analytics dashboard, which displays all of your information, gives you the ability to manage and run multiple specials at once, and allows you to track performance both during and after a special is run. Running and managing specials at a business remains free. With all the new options available and the ease with which a business can implement them, it’s likely that even more brands will come on board.

Once you go SVG you never go back.

Check this out, SVG graphics have been around a long time, but I've rarely seen them implemented because of Flash—but this is the first site I've seen that uses them heavily, and with great effect. They're using web fonts heavily as well. Disgusting(ly awesome).

http://www.voltagefashionamplified.com/

Ads Worth Spreading

TED recently released it's Top 10 list of ads worth spreading - evidence that the success of an ad is no longer defined so much by its likelihood to make you purchase a product or consider a service, but by its talkability.

Which begs the question: what are the rules for making a viral video or ad?

First of all I would argue that the goal should never be to make a viral video, because something can't be viral until it is, in fact, viral.

Second, if you're following the rules, you're doing what has been done before and ultimately being boring. If you create an ad or video that follows some pre-set formula, I can almost guarantee no one will pay attention to it, much less share it.

There is no one theme among these 10 videos that proves there are rules around viral ad success, other than they're all based off a cool/compelling idea. 

Bottom line? Focus not on getting shared, but on creating something worth sharing.

Here is one of the videos that made TED's Top 10 list.

See the full article for the other nine.

Can you be a web designer - Flowchart

HTML5/CSS Animation Examples

Here's a site I've been using as a resource to build simple CSS animations:

http://css3.bradshawenterprises.com/

Now you know all my secrets. ;)

QR Code Generator

Here's the QR Code generating for Roman Candle Pizza:

http://keremerkan.net/qr-code-and-2d-code-generator/

You can output codes in multiple formats, even EPS. We're experimenting with these codes to see what we can all do to them creatively, and still have them work, using different colors, etc. It is possible to put the black over a color other than white and still have the code work.

Volkswagen - Test Drive in Interactive Print Ad

From Norway an augmented reality application that allows you to experiment a Volkswagen test drive by moving your iPhone over a print ad. The video that presents the initiative is very nice, the app itself is less cool than it could have been tough.



The marketing action is rather demanding to consumers in terms of attention (find the ad, make sure you own an iPhone, download the app etc...). However sometimes generating talkability could be more than enough especially in the over crowded automotive industry so, in the end, I like the idea :)

We Can Do Better: The Overlooked Importance of Professional Journalism

The Web is a galaxy of information that is rapidly expanding. Blogs and online magazines are helping shape the future of this Information Age that we live in. Those of us who read, write and design blogs and online magazines possess extraordinary power and potential. How will we choose to use it?

If you use your website to publish news, events, opinions or interviews, you should familiarize yourself with the basics of journalism. These tools can help us develop and share information that is exciting, intelligent, and responsible. They can provide guidance and support as you pursue a career or hobby writing online.

This article is accompanied by examples of photojournalism, which is the practice of communicating news through photographs. The above photo of a 1940′s newsstand in New York City was taken by photojournalist Ruth Orkin

We, designers, go on all day about the usability of our WordPress layouts and the readability of our typography, but all of those things have been considered in vain if our writing is poorly spelled, riddled with inaccuracies, or based on second-hand assumptions that will leave our audience misled, confused, or worse. Even if you’re just casually writing about why you personally love/hate the iPad (for example), you can do so in a truthful way (truthful to your own opinions and truthful to the information you are discussing).

Whether or not you strive to produce writing that you consider journalism is not all that important. What is important is that no matter what writing genre you specialize in, you have a responsibility to your readers to publish high quality writing that is truthful, accurate, and readable. Oh, and this applies to your professional Twitter stream and Facebook updates, too. All of these elements have a reflection on you and your brand.

Trained professional journalists spend years studying the complex techniques and thorny philosophical values that define the trade of journalism, so don’t expect to receive a Master’s degree from Columbia by the end of this article. What this piece can serve as is a crash course designed to introduce concepts that will improve your writing, pique your interest, and instill a sense of respect for the fundamentals of a noble profession.

What is Journalism?

The most familiar function of journalism is ‘hard news’ reporting you’ll see on the front page of the New York Times or the Washington Post. But journalistic writing also extends to editorial writing, cultural reviews, interviews, and more.

According to The Elements of Journalism (written by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel), “Journalism’s first obligation is to the truth.” Journalism is the pursuit of truth, accuracy and fairness in the telling of a story. Journalists serve and inform their audience by investigating and reporting on news, trends, issues, and events. Much like designers, journalists pride themselves on a duty provide their audience with useful, high-quality content.

What’s the difference between Journalism and Blogging?

CNN.com delivers journalism. Your cousin’s homemade Twilight fan fiction site, on the other hand, is a blog. However, somewhere in between lies a hotly debated grey area.

So can blogs be journalism? According to NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen, “They can be, sometimes.” How can you tell the difference? Depends on who you ask. Rosen himself is both journalist and blogger (he runs PressThink, a weblog about journalism and the press). In his essay ‘Bloggers vs. Journalists is Over’, Rosen decides that the sometimes indiscernible difference between these two forms of writing is less important than the implications of massive shifts of power in the media. Rosen acknowledges what Tom Curley (Chief Executive of the Associated Press) called “a huge shift in the ‘balance of power’ in our world, from the content providers to the content consumers.” What does that mean for those of us in a position to take advantage of our newfound power?

It means we should move forward with a spirit of responsibility and immense excitement. We live in a revolutionary time when just about anyone with access to a computer can make his or her writing available to an enormous international audience with the click of a button. As Web designers and online writers who are experienced with the Web, the potential of our medium is tremendous.

Journalistic Tools for Bloggers

This photo comes from a series chronicling Paris street dancers practicing dance styles including breakdancing and capoeira. This photo, by Denis Darcazq, was acknowledged by photojournalism foundation World Press Photo in 2007

Write Compelling Leads

A ‘lead’ is the first sentence of an article. The lead is your first and best chance to compel the reader to stick around and read more. A sentence that is humorous, provocative, or curious can be extremely engaging.

To learn more about captiving leads, you can’t beat the literary titans of fiction. One classic first sentence comes from Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis: “Gregor Samsa woke from uneasy dreams one morning to find himself changed into a giant bug.” Who wouldn’t want to know what happens next?

Use the Active Voice

The active voice is much more compelling than the passive voice. To say ‘I am designing the website’ is a clearer and more powerful statement than ‘the website is being designed by me.’ According to The Elements of Style, “The habitual use of the active voice… makes for forcible writing. This is true not only in narrative concerned principally with action but in writing of any kind.”

Full Article

Why User Experience Cannot Be Designed

A lot of designers seem to be talking about user experience (UX) these days. We’re supposed to delight our users, even provide them with magic, so that they love our websites, apps and start-ups. User experience is a very blurry concept. Consequently, many people use the term incorrectly. Furthermore, many designers seem to have a firm (and often unrealistic) belief in how they can craft the user experience of their product. However, UX depends not only on how something is designed, but also other aspects. In this article, I will try to clarify why UX cannot be designed.

Full article here: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/03/15/why-user-experience-cannot-be-designed/

Literal Mobile Marketing

Interesting video about the Good Food Truck in Atlanta and how it uses social media on the move. Would be awesome to build a similar reputation for the RC - where people look to them to find out what cool/fun stuff is going on in the neighborhood.