Pitchfork is featuring its POV Concert Series that allows users to seamlessly switch between six camera angles of the same music video. The seamless transitions are impressive, though the inability to view fullscreen (and then use the keyboard to switch angles) feels missing.
Mayorama, a new iphone app designed by Daniel Luxemburg, makes it easier than ever to maintain and multiple your Foursquare mayor-ships.
With the 99-cent Mayorama app, you can check on your current mayorships, find out how many more check-ins will earn you mayor at your favorite spots around town and, using the smartphone’s GPS, you can see all the Foursquare venues around you in a list and plotted on a map.
When viewing these nearby venues (dubbed “targets”), the application will also display how many check-ins are required in order to become mayor. This lets competitive users easily find new venues in need of a mayor.
For those interested in capitalizing on the deal function of Foursquare, Mayorama gives you added ability to protect and increase your current deals. For those interested in location-based gaming, Mayorama opens up entirely new territories for conquering.
There are more social platforms than we can count now. Some with dashboards that are easy to populate but super difficult to navigate. Most collect lots of data, but offer little instruction on what to do with all the details. Some offer tools but without adequate explanation of how to use more than 5% of the functionality.
CoTweet, takes a simpler approach. This could be the PR agency of the future: a dashboard for Twitter sentiment and co-tweeting management. The enterprise system is quite snazzy. Take it out for a free trial.
Usabilla is a really interesting web based service that allows for immediate feedback on prototypes, design, wireframes, sketches, etc. It allows for quick, down and dirty, portable usability testing. And one version of the product is FREE. Try it out on your next round of design.
In 2009, Urban Screen and artist Daniel Rossa teamed up to create 555 Kubik, a facade installation meant to transform the way spectators engaged with O. M. Ungers “Galerie der Gegenwart.”
Exciting to see facade projection made with the building involved in mind.
The Facade Printer enables users to reproduce simple pieces of art on vast facades, using paintballs. The creators explain,
The Facadeprinter is a simple software controlled robot. It consists of a turn table with two axes and an air-pressure print head. The printer shoots the artwork from a distance dot by dot onto the chosen area. Using this method, inaccessible and uneven surfaces can be used for large scale prints. Artworks can be printed on buildings without costly scaffolding.
The Facadeprinter is a large scale communication tool. Print-aesthetic and method are notably different from conventional print and advertising techniques. Artworks are applied directly onto walls, like the drawings of a ‘magic pen’. At present, the maximum print distance is 12 meters, the maximum print height is around 8 meters. The shooting frequency is up to 5 dots per second.
EpicWin is a new iPhone app that transforms mundane tasks into an immersive role playing game.
Interesting to see the badges model being used to motivate useful activities. The app is scheduled to be released on the 19th, but you can get the latest updates from the EpicWin twitter.
A lot of pop musician’s videos are being shown on Youtube via a video player from a company called Vevo. Vevo gives label artists an opportunity to deliver more engaging, higher quality content than a normal Youtube video would allow. For example, Vevo has been used to deliver live concerts by The National and others.
Not only does this increase the fan experience, it creates a more polished environment that Vevo hopes will bring in ad dollars:
One of the reasons cited for the launch of Vevo is the competition that music videos have in the form of YouTube. Warner Music Group apparently removed its content from YouTube in March 2009 for this reason, but is said to be considering hosting its content on Vevo. The concept for the site is described as being a Hulu for music videos, with the goal being to attract more high-end advertisers. It is believed that some advertisers are ambivalent to hosting advertising on the YouTube site alongside user-generated video.
Vevo streams pre-roll before every music video it plays; a great opportunity to target media at a specific fan base. (Just think of all the tweens who love Justin Beiber!)
Beijing’s Water Cube, the site of Michael Phelps dominating 2008 Olympics performance, has been transformed into a waterpark of Alice-in-Wonderland-tastic proportions.
Many worried the building would become an empty blight, but a Toronto architecture firm has turned it into anything but. The park replaces the pool which people could swim in for $7. Now it is more of a monument to Michael Phelps’ recreational habits than his professional ones.
