FYI - This Blog Will Be On Hiatus For A Few Weeks...

...while I learn what life is like as a new parent.  Exciting times.

Google Chrome- World Wide Maze & The Peanut Gallery

The past couple weeks have seen the launch of two more excellent Chrome Experiments.  One from the Google Chrome team in Japan & the other from the Data Arts team in San Francisco.

Chrome World Wide Maze, developed by the Google Chrome team in Japan) turns any website into a playable 3d maze where you control a marble ball and must navigate it around a multi-dimensional course.  By syncing with your Chrome browser on Desktop and mobile your smartphone becomes the controller.  It's a great way to demonstrates the benefits and syncing functionality of using Chrome across devices.  All the user needs to do is open Chrome on their mobile (provided they are signed in) and the desktop tab becomes the mobile game controller.  For signed in users, it's an incredibly powerful way to show the seamless transition from desktop to mobile when you use Chrome on difference devices (which is often the biggest pain point for any media bridging experience).
Check out the video below or head on over to chrome.com/maze to have a play.

The second Chrome Experiment that I'm excited about is called The Peanut Gallery.  Developed by the Creative Lab Data Arts team in San Francisco, 'PEANUT GALLERY is a Chrome Experiment that lets you add intertitles to old film clips using your voice, then share those clips with your friends. It uses your computer's microphone and the Web Speech API in Google Chrome to turn speech into text.'

The Web Speech API functionality in Chrome has a ton of potential.  My team has been working on various prototypes that allow users to control different sorts of experiences using voice control, particularly in situations (such as certain video tutorials) where the users hands might be occupied.  It'll be interesting to see how various brands can carry this idea forward in creating voice controlled experiences using just the baked-in functionality of the Chrome browser.  Anyhow, check out the video below or (as always) have a play around yourself over at Peanut Gallery Films.



Posted by: Reuben Halper

Happy Egg Company - Chick Cam

Since Easter just passed, I thought it'd be worth highlighting something a bit different this Easter.  In the run up to Easter, the Happy Egg Company (and their agency, Hypernaked) developed this lovely Chickcam campaign, showing again that you don't need a big budget to have success in the digital space.  The Happy Egg Chickcam used a Google+ Hangout On Air & YouTube livestreaming over the course of four days to show the hatching of 17 eggs into cute, fluffy chicks. A livestream of eggs waiting to hatch would've been as excited as watching grass grow, so they also included a slate of activities throughout the four days to keep viewers watching.

As the good folks over at the Inspiration Room describe: 'On Monday the Chickcam campaign provided an opportunity for live Q&A on hatching chicks with Madeline from the Happy Chick Company, using Facebook, Twitter or Google+ event posts. On Tuesday viewers were given a chance to send in suggestions for the 17 Chick Cam eggs. On Wednesday questions and answers focused on egg farms with Happy Egg farmer JP. On Thursday, the final day of Chick Cam, a golden egg was sneaked into one of the camera views. The first five people to email the competition received a bundle of Happy Eggs goodies.'  Check out the highlight video below.
It's interesting to see more and more brands and content creators use Google+ Hangouts On Air to create either a) an always on, long duration livestream, or b) use Hangouts on Air akin to episodic programming.  In both cases, it gives users a reason to return back to the livestream(s) on multiple occasions.  For example, the Pet Collective YouTube channel runs multiple, always on Hangouts On Air of various animals including a Kitten cam, a Puppy cam a Golden Eagle cam, a Husky cam and many more.  One of my colleagues (who shall remain nameless) has actually bookmarked the kitten cam and fires it up whenever she's having a bad day.

hat tip: Inspiration Room



Posted by: Reuben Halper

HP - Photo Ball

Blow up beach balls bouncing around the crowd are an inevitable part of any music festival.  In a brilliantly simple idea, HP and their agency, AlmapBBDO, created a massive blow up beach ball that includes an HD camera & wi-fi hub in the ball itself.  The photo ball demonstrates HP's new positioning, 'Making Memories Last,' and was used during the Planet Terra music festival in Sao Paulo, Brazil.  Throughout the festival the ball filmed and took photos of festival goers as it bounced around the crowd.  The video was streamed live both to the stage and online.  At the same time, still photos were uploaded to Facebook where people could find and tag themselves.  What's incredible is that the live stream from the photo ball reached over three million people as well as the people who tagged and shared those photos on Facebook.  Additionally, festival goers could have prints made at the HP festival booth throughout the festival. It's a great example of taking an existing behaviour and amplifying it with technology in a way that enhances the experience for both festival-goers and the online viewing audience.  I'm sure we'll be seeing photo balls make more appearances as the summer festival season gets into full swing.



Posted by: Reuben Halper

How To...Anything At All

My colleague, Dr. Joe Adam Fry, has kindly volunteered to write a guest post for 5 Cool Things, highlighting a little prototype that our team has been working on.  Take it away Joe...

So the idea was that as we work with YouTube content and Google Search data every day, we know that there is a how-to video for pretty much EVERYTHING in the world. 

So, how would you go about learning everything? Well, head over to How To Something and start learning all the things!

The world’s biggest and longest tutorial loads a random how-to video which you can either watch, share or skip if you already know how to do that particular thing. The results are generated from a randomized list of 600 verbs which is then contextualized by returning the top query phrases around that particular verb (using the suggest API).  So you too can learn, in one continuous STREAM OF AWESOME, how to marry a millionaire, how to skin a squirrel, or how to sneeze on command and much more.

The result? Serendipitous learning at its best.

VW - Slowmercial & 2013 Golf Auto Show Reveal

Here are two nice, but unrelated pieces of work for Volkswagen from the past couple weeks.

Volkswagen Beetle Slowmercial
According to DDB Brussels, more than a third of Belgians regularly timeshift their TV viewing and of those viewers, more than 80% of them fast forward through commercials.  So how do you get your commercial message across to viewers who are watching at 2x, 4x, or even 8x the normal speed?  DDB Brussels created the Slowmercial for the new VW Beetle.  It's essentially a static TV commercial, not unlike a moving print ad.  Kudos to them for rethinking the existing TV format to take into account new viewing behaviour.  Check it out below to see what the ad looks like at both normal speed and 8x viewing.

VW Golf & Golf GTI
The new 2013 VW Golf & Golf GTI were unveiled at the NY auto show with a very cool projection mapping event that traced the evolution of the Golf through a cultural timeline.  Delightful.




Posted by: Reuben Halper

A Man Like Me In A Place Like This

Here's a fascinating usage/display of personal location tracking.  Rather than place himself on a flat map a la Foursquare, Facebook Check-In or Google Latitude, Tristan Smith has used Google Streetview in combination with Google latitude to show his current location in a way that closer represents reality.  As the about section of A Man Like Me In A Place Like This site describes:

Fame or Privacy. (Not Both.)

By combining data from Google Latitude and Google Streetview, this site introduces a new form of self-surveillance: An almost livestream of the creator's location using Google's extensive photo database.

Both a digital nod to the graffiti tradition of "_____ WAS HERE" and a new form of life sharing.

"A Man Like Me In A Place Like This" asks the question, "just how much of our experience are we willing to put on display?"

See below or head on over to A Man Like Me In A Place Like This to check it out yourself

Brightly - Preflight Nerves

Tweetflight is a new twist on the interactive music video.  Nerves, a Melbourne-based band created a real-time Twitter-powered film for their new single, Preflight Nerves.  As one of the band members explains:
'Basically we couldn’t afford to pay a big production company to do a film clip, so I thought it’d be wild to try and do something using web technologies – specifically, HTML5 and the Twitter API. 

The result is the first interactive real-time Twitter powered music video for our single, Preflight Nerves, that we’ve affectionately nicknamed Tweetflight.'

The music video scrapes tweets in real-time and highlights the lyrics as the song progresses.  Check out the flat film below or head on over to Tweetflight to have a play with it yourself.
via: Leon Bayliss




Posted by: Reuben Halper

Google - Art, Copy & Code

Art, Copy & Code in a series of experiments that started last year with the Google Project Re:Brief. Whereas Re:Brief re-imagined classic ads for the modern web, Art, Copy & Code looks at the future of modern advertising on the web through a series of experiments conceived, developed and executed in partnership with brands such as VW, Adidas & Burberry.  As the site explains:

A Time of Change
In the 1960's, advertising went through a creative revolution that changed everything simply by partnering up art directors and copywriters. The idea of a creative team made up of art and copy was born.  Today, it’s happening again. We’re in the midst of a second creative revolution, driven by technology. Code is being added to the core creative process, enabling new forms of brand expression and engagement. Art, copy and code is the creative team for the connected world.

The Idea Is Still King
What hasn’t changed is the need for human insights, breakthrough ideas and emotional stories. Code facilitates new kinds of experiences, but it doesn’t replace the storytelling skills the advertising industry has honed over the past fifty years. Our connected world is giving brands more dimensions and touch points, but they still need something compelling to offer in order to create a real connection.

A Series of Experiments
How will the modern web shape the future of advertising? We’re partnering with the innovative brands, storytellers and makers who are defining it to find out.

I highly recommend watching the dynamically generated manifesto/intro film on the Art, Copy & Code site.

The first in the series of experiments is the VW - Smileage app.  The official Google blog has a good overview of the experiment or check out the video below.  I envision it as the driving equivalent of Nike+, providing both entertainment AND utility back to the user in the form of insightful information about the individual's driving behaviour, habits, etc.




Posted by: Reuben Halper

Three - The Dancing Pony

Three is a UK-based mobile provider fighting for market share in a crowded and competitive environment.  Their most recent campaign, developed by Wieden + Kennedy London has absolutely blown up on UK television and the Interwebs.  'The Pony' is a truly delightful commercial and has been great in terms of generating awareness (though one could argue about the strength of the association with Three vs. just the Pony).

What's been interesting to me is to see how Three & W+K have extended on the TV commercial in the digital space, as well as taking the digital activity and feeding that back into TV.  If you haven't already seen it, check out 'The Pony' ad below before reading on.


In terms of driving digital activity, Three have created 'The Pony Mixer' which sends users to the Three YouTube channel where they can create their own bespoke version of the Dancing Pony, complete with various visual effects and a wealth of iconic songs to choose from.  That's a fantastic way to deepen the experience for users who are willing to go beyond just a passive view of the video.  You can check out the trailer for the Pony Mixer below.  There's also a heavy Twitter component around the hashtag #DancePonyDance, which generated 14,000 tweets within five hours of the video being uploaded and has continued to be active throughout the life of the campaign.
 

Lastly, Three have also taken the best of of the user generated videos created via The Pony Mixer along with the associated tweets and are running those as follow up TV commericals.  These include versions such as the Bollywood Pony, the Punk Pony and my personal favorite, the Hip-Hop Pony (see below)

Taken together the work from W+K London is just a fantastic example of how various channels can work together in a way that allows each component to extend and amplify the overall campaign.

Also worth noting that, the Poke have created their own hilarious version (not via the Pony Mixer) of the Dancing Pony called the Findus Pony.  For those of you outside of the UK, Findus is one of the brands/vendors caught up in the recent Horsemeat Scandal.

hat tip: Bobby Nolla & Adrian Dent


Posted by: Reuben Halper