NuFormer Digital Media has developed a fascinating way to make custom 3D projections on buildings!
Thanks Emil!
NuFormer Digital Media has developed a fascinating way to make custom 3D projections on buildings!
Thanks Emil!
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:41 PM in Art and Photos, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Thank you Colle McVoy for the tweet about this video.
Most interesting thought I just saw was - The head of social media in your company is the customer.
How true is this!
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:10 PM in Social Media, Web Analytics | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Recently came across multiple articles stating that more people seem content to sit through the commercials than networks once thought. In fact nearly half of all people watching delayed shows on a DVR are still slouching on their couches watching messages about movies, cars and beer.
Here is an overview of the NPR story:
Sources:
NPR (On The Media) - TV's Unlikely Ally
New York Times - DVR, Once TV’s Mortal Foe, Helps Ratings
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 11:13 PM in Facts and Figures, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
How cools is our future. The possibilities here are endless. Even better the cost to commercialize this technology is not as expensive as you think. I love the part in the video when you can view an individual to see their social profile / tag cloud. How funny!
Enjoy!
Source: TED - Talks Pattie Maes and Pranav Mistry demo SixthSense
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 09:02 AM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Google Sidewiki is a way for a visitor to comment on any content within a Web site. When you use side-wiki, you have the ability to leave your comments and associate them with a Web site whether or not the Web site owner has enabled commenting. Since the comments are maintained by Google, there is no direct relationship with the website.
Why am I bringing this up?
The impacts of Google SideWiki are far reaching, now every web page on the internet is social and can have a consumer opinion –both positive and negative. At the same time this tool has the potential to shift the control over any Web site to the consumer.
Below are some other resources to help you better understand the potential impact of this new tool:
Google Blog - Help and learn from others as you browse the web: Google Sidewiki
Jeremiah Owyang - Google’s SideWiki Shifts Power To Consumers –Away From Corporate Websites
Tech Crunch - Google Steps Where Many Have Stumbled: Sidewiki
Read Write Web - Annotate the Web: Google Launches Sidewiki
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:33 AM in Content Marketing, Cool Online Tools, Social Media, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:26 AM in Cool Online Tools, Social Media, Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I recently was in Memphis eating breakfast at the Blue Plate Cafe (I highly recommend) and came across the following rules of life.
What do you think about the rules?
Also if you like this you may like an article I posted a while back - 10 Instant Way To Improve Yourself.
Cheers!
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:07 PM in Inspiration, Management | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
One of my favorite bloggers Jeremiah Owyang recently posted an article on how to kick start a community. In his article he lists out 9 practices he has heard from companies that have built successful communities, but before I go into the practices I would like to make some key points about starting a community.
- Long-Term - When building your social media strategy make it very clear to the stakeholders that there is no quick short-cut in creating a community.
- Make it Easy - Do not create long registration forms. Make it easy to participate.
- Listen - Always, listen for feedback to evolve your strategy.
- Lifestyles - Do not communicate using one channel. Use multiple channels so your customers can choose a channel that caters to their lifestyle.
- Offline - When applicable do not only think online, test offline strategies too.
- Participate / Engage - Do not just create a strategy that just pushes out information / content. Engage your community, show them you are listening, tell them you are there if they need help.
- Passionate - Create a team that is passionate about the social media channel.
Here are the 9 practices:
1. Create compelling content on a recurring basis. Brands sometimes create videos, podcasts, or stories on a daily or weekly basis that encourages members to come back.
2. Reward users who fill out their profile. Folks like to see other friendly faces, so giving them access to premium features or recognition of those who have the most complete profiles should recognized.
3. Invite community influencers and advocates to the community first –giving them first right of testing the system and then inviting others.
4. Encourage interaction through conversations. Ask questions, talk about controversial topics, or host a contest that encourages participation.
5. Reward top contributors: Those that participate the most, or perhaps, are the most helpful should be recognized on a leader board, and thanked in public. Unexpectedly, send them something nice as a thank you, or reward them with premium services – never money.
6. Centralize your community around your real world events. People want to find each other before events, talk about the event during the duration, and then afterwards are key. Use the community in your physical events.
7. Virtual Events integrate community: Don’t just use on your real world events, but integrated with your virtual ones, I‘ve written at length about that here.
8. Integrate with your website –and other customer touchpoints. Remember, corporate sites of the future are aggregations of community discussion, be sure to integrate community in your corporate site. Make sure your call center, email marketing, and external newsletters all integrate community. (don’t forget even the email signatures)
9. Encourage employees to get active. A party isn’t much fun if there’s no one there, so encourage the hosts (often employees) to kickstart discussions by talking, debating, and arguing about the news, updates, or even relevant YouTube videos will trigger discussion. Of course, you have a community manager on staff, right?
Source: Web Strategist
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 10:40 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
I recently came across an inspiring article about David Ogilvy. Mr Ogilvy arguably was one of the most influential advertising man in history. Below are seven of his principles.
Source: Fortune
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 09:54 PM in Inspiration, Management | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
A couple of great tweets I recently came across from Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos.
@zappos: If you don't trust your employees to tweet freely, it's an employee or leadership issue, not an employee Twitter policy issue. @zappos: Spoke on panel this morning about employees tweeting. Zappos employee Twitter policy: "Be real and use your best judgement."
Thanks Dobby!
Source: http://twitter.com/zappos
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 10:54 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
With all of the hype that has been surrounding Facebook this past year you would think there would be many applications that would use information within a social profile to create a customized user experience. This experience would be driven by the data within your profile such as age, sex, interests, and a few other data points that almost everyone will have filled out. Once the data is gathered then business rules would be applied to the information to give you a personalized experience of a product or service.
Well I am excited to say Volkswagen has created an application that taps into the power of Facebook. This unique Facebook application was developed around an ad campaign called Meet the Volkswagens and was developed by Crispin Porter + Bogusky. Using data from a user’s social profile the Facebook application is automatically tailored to each individual user making it more relevant to their needs. In addition to creating relevant content, the application creates a seamless user experience that encourages you to explore the results and then pass it along to a friend.
Check the application out for yourself and please do not hesitate to let me know if there are other unique applications like this one out there.
Source: Meet the Volkswagons
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 10:41 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)
Starting to see a new social media trend where web pages are dynamically created based on user profile ID from a social networking platform. Check out a Web site promoting a video game called “Prototype”. Upon accessing the site, Prototype Experience, you will be prompted to login with your Facebook account. After a lengthy loading period you will watch a short teaser trailer.
This is not a normal trailer. The trailer uses content within your social profile in Facebook such as your profile picture, profile information, and photos of your friends.
Very cool!
Source: Prototype-Experience Web Site
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 11:25 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Recently I have been on a quest to find how social media has had an impact within the healthcare industry. Due to HIPAA Privacy Rule, which provides national standards to protect the privacy of personal health information many hospitals have been reluctant to dive into the social media space. But to my surprise I came across information that showed around 300 hosptials within the U.S. are within the social media space. Here is the breakdown:
As of June 15, 2009:
Here are some examples:
Mayo Clinic Rochester, Rochester, MN
Sutter Medical Center Castro Valley, Castro Valley, CA
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 12:52 AM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Yoostar is a new kind of social entertainment experience that brings together the best video content in the world, an easy to use camera and digital application, and a convenient way to share everything you create. This new technology enables consumers to digitally insert themselves in the place of original lead actors in famous movies and television shows.
Check out the above video and Web site.
Source: Yoostar
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Burgerville is a gourmet fast food chain in the Pacific Northwest that is committed to Fresh, Local, Sustainable practices. The restaurant opened for business in the 1960s and now has 39 restaurants in Oregon and Washington. Although Burgerville certainly isn't the only fast food joint to source locally and act sustainably, it's one of the biggest chains that have gone that direction.
The chain uses local and sustainable ingredients in its food and is now taking its commitment a step further with new seasonal food combinations. Each menu item highlights a single in-season ingredient sourced from local farms committed to sustainable practices.
In addition to looking for partners that subscribe to sustainable practices, Bugerville has other sustainable initiatives such as:
All sustainable practices are based around the belief, and the experience, that it is good business to adopt practices that are good for the local community and environment.
Source: Bugerville
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:30 PM in Green / Carbon Footprint | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)
Fotomoto is an essential online photo commerce solution that enables photographers to sell their photos and while focusing on what they do best, taking pictures.
The online solution enables anyone with photographic content to sell their photos directly from their Web site or blog. From the order processing to shipping a photo, Fotomoto is able to handle the purchase transaction simple by adding a couple lines of code to your Web site or blog. In addition through the Fotomoto control panel, a user is able to set the pricing and availability of their photos, manage their orders and even track analytics data such as how many times a photo has been viewed.
So how does Fotomoto make money? - Only when a purchase transaction takes place.
Once a transaction takes place Fotomoto asks for a 15% commission fee to cover cost and payment processing fees. Simply put you only pay if you are making money as well. This means there are no monthly fees or licensing costs.
Sources:
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 10:50 AM in Cool Online Tools | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
An article in Advertising Age showed some actual results when local businesses started marketing themselves using Twitter. Due to Twitter's low barrier to entry it has a "golden trait that appeals to small businesses: It's easy." Below are a few highlights of two successfull Twitter promotions.
Naked Pizza, a New Orleans healthful-pizza shop
Berry Chill, a yogurt shop with three Chicago locations
Source: Advertising Age
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 07:46 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Recently I am across research that was conducted by Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management on a trending analysis of social media. According to research conducted by Kellogg, there is a measurable connection between what is being said about a product in online posts and real-time customer behavior. Listening to what people are saying about your product can be a valuable method of improving corporate performance. Becoming aware of online comments and learning how to use the information can avert potential downturns in sales and can help companies fine-tune their marketing.
Other key points within the Article:
Source: Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management - People are Talking
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 09:35 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Imagine if you could get online anywhere you liked without using a cellular modems from Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile or AT&T. Even better what if you had a private hot spot, that followed you everywhere you go and allowed all of your gadgets to be online at once? Well starting mid-May Verizon will be offering the Novatel MiFi 2200.
The Novatel MiFi 2200 or MiFi is a portable wireless router that will deliver wireless 3G data network access to multiple users in a small area (about 30 feet radius). Much the same size as a credit card, the MiFi will have the ability to let users select access to different types of high speed data networks.
The MiFi offers Internet connectivity that can be shared not only between users but between devices such as laptops, cameras, gaming devices (i.e. Nintendo DS or Sony PSP), iTouch, iPOD and multimedia players. In addition the MiFi will be able support up to five users simultaneously. Finally, the MiFi's battery is supposed to run for only four hours a charge (it’s rated at 40 hours of standby). However, after 30 minutes of inactivity the Mifi will go into sleep mode to prolong its battery life.
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 10:30 PM in Web/Tech | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
Bizual is a unique online community based platform that helps small businesses and freelancers acquire customers through online offers. The offers usually contain special deals for product and/or services. Some examples of the offers include free strategy consultation or 30% off on design services. Many of the offers found within the Bizual community are useful, not only for businesses looking for great deals or get exposure, but for the general customer as well.
In my opinion Bizual is a much needed service for small businesses and freelancers in today's challenging economic environment. The tool not only allows small businesses and freelancers to creatively market their products and/or services, but it allows them to connect to the Bizual community to form business relationships.
Source: Bizual
Posted by Kerry Manaster at 08:19 PM in Social Media | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)