Web Seer visualizes peoples innermost thoughts. This project by Fernanda Viegas and Martin Wattenberg is said to let users explore the “Web Oracle” and gain insight into our fears, curiosities and prejudices.
Whether you choose to explore the existential or the mundane, this is a nice usage of Google Suggest beyond a means of supporting search.
Another interesting case for crowd-demand on the web, Groupon is a high-value, daily coupon that becomes available to users in a specific urban area only if enough people sign up for it.
The coupons are typically a 50% off deal on something to eat, do, or enjoy in your city — a much sweeter deal than a typical coupon. They only come to fruition if enough people sign up.
People can also comment on the coupons on the site, starting consumer conversations. Like other social networks, it’s important to make sure you’re playing to your audience. A recent Blockbuster coupon wasn’t quite a great deal and it received a negative response from users. (see Ad Age article on Groupon).
That said, this could be an interesting online venue for a client to explore, if we had something that would fit well with the space.
Bit.ly labs has launched Bit.ly TV: See what videos people are tweeting most.
Living Stories is an experiment by Google labs to present the news in a different way. They have partnered with NYT and Washington Post to test it out by delivering their content via this platform. What do you think?
Gliider is research tool that lets you gather and save travel info from across the web.
About a year ago, Amazon introduced an “Add to Wish List” tab that you can add to your browser. Your wishlist goes beyond Amazon as you can surf the web and pick out anything you’d like, then click the tab to add it to your Amazon wishlist, kind of like a registry. Amazon wouldn’t benefit directly from having you buy products from other companies, but there are certainly benefits to having a user return later to their site to check out their whole wishlist.
This is not new technology, or a new functionality for Amazon, but just a good example of using existing functionality to make your UX (user experience) easier and better. Just another company making their brand more valuable to people, by making their lives easier.
Bantr - This firefox extension turns your banners into your friends tweets.
Foodspotting is a ‘visual local guide that lets you find dishes, not just restaurants, thanks to foodspotters who report sightings of foods they love.’
A short animated film telling the story of Google Chrome and how it inspired an operating system. Produced by Epipheo Studios. (Thanks Prescott enterprises!)
RichRelevance is the first to use Zugara’s Webcam AR shopping app in an online retail setting by launching ‘Fashionista’ today with online clothier Tobi.com. Read more here.
