The team at Boone Oakley have taken the Modernista [see "The website is dead!"] concept a step further. Instead of distributing their company information across a number of media hosts such as wikipedia, Flickr, etc they have plumped for just one with a YouTube only experience. Certainly a first as I know it. Interestingly, this approach allows their web presence to exists on other sites to, as it does here…

Recent takeovers by Honda and Nintendo Wii on YouTube and Vimeo show new ways in which companies are generating advertising revenue streams and hint at a future where product placement plays a supporting role on content sharing platforms.

Both are engaging and on-brand examples of their craft and best viewed on their respective sites to get the full take-over experience.

See Honda “Let it shine” on Vimeo
See Wii Wario Land on YouTube

Love these cards.

They look spot on for the guys and girls at Modernist and would be the perfect accompaniment to their web presence [see earlier ramblings on their site]. For if you no longer need a website per se, it stands to reason that your corporate stationary should go too and with Google being the font of all digital knowledge it is the obvious replacement.

Get your template Google here

Just got my music shop up and running online – already had a couple of purchases so am sure this is going to make me the next Richard Branson, well actually there is no chance of that as any tunes that I sell gain credits to buy tunes – so I guess I better put the private jet on hold!

No.3 of an occasional series

It’s been a long time since I wore hi-tops but these are cool, and brown, and the dogtooth adds an air of seniority I think might just work. Available, I believe, as limited edition in stores soon.

Just thought this is a nice idea. People are so serious when they are commuting.

Shame they had to take it down at the end but I guess someone would have nicked it eventually.

Check out this PDF from Nokia’s Research Center outlining their vision for mobile technologies over the next seven years. Simply put and nicely grouped, my two favourites are:

If you have a spare 20 mins check out this video by Alain de Botton about the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus and how modern advertising taps into our Epicurean need for friends, freedom and thought. Early followers of this philosophy created a kind of advertising of their own to remind contemporaries of the rules for a happy life.

Add Art

I am sure that modern day Epicureans would throughly approve of the Add Art project from artist Steve Lambert who has developed a plug-in for Firefox Browsers that replaces banners advertising with art. With an evident lack of imagination in most current banners campaigns I think this could be a big hit. However, it poses the question: If no one is going to see the ads, who is going to pay for the content? No ads – no fee: no fee – no content. I wonder will anyone pay for content they currently consume for free? My guess is no, so before we reach an impasse we must begin to look at alternative ways of capturing audiences’ imaginations with methods that are more subtle, intriguing and more useful than those currently in use. A popular solution is the ‘Content is King’ approach: give consumers something they actually need and in return they will interact with your brand/products. There are already examples of this strategy beginning to work on the web – but not really with Banners.

As display advertising as a whole begins its inevitable path towards digital delivery and networked control we begin to encounter digital banners in the real world. These ads, if not fully interactive, will at least be re-active via mobile technology. Could it be that eventually traditional platforms such as ad shells and billboards will be forced to adapt and deliver to our Epicurean led sensibilities and if so what sort of content might they begin to deliver?

It’s a long time since I have heard this phrase mentioned. Not since before the “Dot Com Bubble” burst were terms like this banded about and in the interim it has become passé. It is almost as if the phrase alone was reflective of the shameful excesses of the late nineties.

But behold, the times they are changing, or maybe just revolving. Today’s web users are much more comfortable with playful interfaces and the profusion of broadband negates the old [lack of] bandwidth disappointments. Yes, there is a time and place for everything: If I know what I am after then I should be able to find it ASAP. However, if I am in a more explorative mood then an intuitive experience that allows me to discover products in a fun way can be very engaging.

A project of mine that recently went live for our client Euroffice is based around the concept of a Virtual Office. It was designed to promote their huge range of products [30k+], which may otherwise be overlooked. Initial user testing has been very positive, with some participants actually preferring the experience to more traditional navigation options.

I think that there is a place for experiences similar to this to exist alongside guided/faceted navigation systems and traditional menus. Ecommerce experiences should start to respect customers choices and allow them to engage with brands and products in ways that are reflective of their mood.

This is an article: “Getting a great website: a step-by-step guide“ on the Design Council website that I recently contributed to. The article is aimed at helping business understand the process and pitfalls of commissioning a website.

During the interview for the article we talked quite a bit about pricing projects and how businesses should be realistic about the work they want to achieve and the cost of that work. There was some nostalgia [on part] for the time when a lot of work was done by rate-card, a practice that has lost traction nowadays in favour of fixed quotes. Without the rose-tinted specs I can see how the rate-card system was open to abuse, but really don’t think that the current system is much better as it forces higher prices up-front in order to cover future pitfalls. Perhaps we need more honesty on both sides. More transparency from agencies when there are cost savings and more acceptability from clients of the need for contingency, that way a fairer system may yet develop to everyones benefit.