hellokinsella

Is Google about to release a game changer? Check out this update to their Mobile App which is due this week.

Google Mobile App for iPhone, now with Voice Search

The internet is buzzing. Geo-aware voice recognition. Holy shit.. that is cool.

I know everyone’s talking about how amazing it is that Obama is going to be the next President so I’ll keep this short.

I think it’s an incredible landmark moment for so many reasons, but one thing that impressed me about the Obama campaign was it’s use of social media.

This was in my Twitter stream when i got home tonight.

I saved it.

A look at the world of brands, media, communication, technology and that in 2010.

2010: Entertainment and Communication from Faris Yakob on Vimeo.

There’s loads more great insights and thinking over at Faris’ blog.

Twitter has been through some tough times recently.

It’s had a senior management change, issues with scalability and infrastructure, and companies like Friendfeed have been quick to innovate and are hot on their heels.

But could all that be about to change??

A few brands have dabbled with Twitter; but the mighty pop-celeb-car-crash that is Britney Spears has launched an official profile as part of her site/career relaunch.

Her team must be behind the thinking and, if they get it right, the PR and marketing benefits to Britney and her label are clear.

Potential pros:
counter bad PR quickly, DM model of driving sales, 2-way realtime conversations, etc, and Brit just has to drop in sometimes to tell you something “insightful”.

Potential cons:
Pseudo press releases, management only approved updates, just another PR exercise.

So… will more bands and celebrities follow suit catapulting Twitter into realms of Facebook and MySpace.

Britney joins Twitter and BOOM!

The tech-nerds who fight it out to for the title “most followed” must be running scared.

PS.

You can follow me here http://twitter.com/hellokinsella

PPS.

As part of the Britney relaunch she’s gone all 2.0. The website is only part of the strategy, she’s launched a YouTube channel and social network.

(Thanks - Linda)

Google have been struggling for ages with how to monetise YouTube but starting with music and videogame partners YouTube will now begin inserting click-to-buy links below select videos.

Right now these affiliate links connect to iTunes and Amazon but we’re told more are coming.

Using Photographs to Enhance Videos of a Static Scene from pro on Vimeo.

The science bits are pretty complicated. But who cares when it can make your videos look fucking awesome using the power of Spacetime Fusion!!!

Copy and paste from Crackunit

Kleber, in collaboration with Universal Everything, have launched a new site for the Manhattan Loft Corporation using Google Maps as the foundation.

Layering a clean design on top of the data available from Google means visitors have access to information on nearby restaurants, shops and places of interest… and photos of the area.

Take a look for yourself:
Fitzrovia Apartments

It’s an example of how agencies are beginning to blend together the different layers of the static web and the social web.

The social web is at the root of what been coined the “Live Web“.

The Live Web isn’t just built, it grows, adapts and changes. It’s an environment where we text and post and author and update and tweet and syndicate and subscribe and notify and feed.

For more about changing nature of the web check out the excellent Social Web Design.

Did that make you stop and think for a minute? There’s something so simple and cunning about it:

Last night I watched some actual television, with the commercial breaks and everything.

So I saw the new Microsoft ads from CP&B about 14 times over the course of a couple of hours.

[Ad frequency in the USA is truly staggering.]

I had the weirdest experience: I could feel my feelings towards Microsoft changing, subtly, each time the commercial shamelessly, blatantly, tugged at my heart strings. I felt, perceptibly, that I liked PCs a little more.

I thought about my Sony Windows laptop, lying neglected, forlorn, in the other room and felt perhaps I should boot it up.

My brain began to reverse engineer my previous memories, eroding the evil empire positioning, re-positioning it as one of a number of perceptions, distancing it from being my belief.

This was an odd feeling.

Each time the ad washed over me I felt a little more part of a PC world, one that I have only recently in fact moved away from.

I started to feel connected to that girl with glasses and that guy who sells fish and the dude with the beard and Bill and Pharrell.

[Not Deepak Chopra though - his fusion of Indian mysticism and garbled expressions from quantum mechanics peddled as healing and self help gets my goat.]

And each time I became more aware of the sensation itself at a different level, at a stage removed as I wondered how this was working and considered the strategy sitting behind it.

[Speaking of misappropriating Indian mysticism] This reminded me of an Indian meditation concept called Vipassana. It’s a meditation that allows you be aware of what you experiencing, an awareness of the experience one stage removed, via introspection and that.

I had that, but with ads.

As Eric points out, the campaign is inclusive - most people are part of the PC world already. They just need a little something to let them feel proud about it.

I even liked the Seinfeld ones.

Part of what CP&B are so good at is changing, or re-framing, the conversation around the brand.

via Talent imitates, genius steals

Gloss and advertising aside… here’s some YouTube comments from the real world. Textbook.

I wanted to cut down on the number of sites I was promoting and saw Russell Davies had signed-up for a Soup account. I took a look and was hooked.

The registration is devastatingly well thought through.

You customise the look of the site and import all your feeds before it asks you to choose a username so they can ‘remember’ you settings. By that time you’re already hooked as you have a sense of ownership.

You’ve also had change to play with another really snazzy feature.

Using a nice bit of Ajax the site loads in more and more content when you get to the bottom of a page. I’ve got my blog, Delicious, Flickr, Last.fm, Twitter, Tumblr, Stumbleupon and YouTube feeds imported and scrolling endlessly.

If you want to have a crack yourself here’s a JQuery implementation for endless scrolling.

It’s a really fresh piece of functionality but you should check it out for yourself: http://hellokinsella.soup.io/

i’ve taken the plunge and signed-up to Dopplr.

Matt Jones from Dopplr came in to do a lunchtime session at glue and having seen some of the cool stuff they’re doing with data it was only a matter of time.

Dopplr lets you share your future travel plans privately with friends and colleagues. The service then highlights coincidence, for example, telling you that three people you know will be in Paris when you will be there too. You can use Dopplr on your computer or mobile, and it links with online calendars and social networks.

The UI and design of the site is simple yet fantastic, the use of advanced coding tricks is clever but never excessive, and it’s another great example of a “connected” app, talking to Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo!, LinkedIn, Twitter, Flickr, Facebook and Fire Eagle.

You can SMS, Twitter and email your tips into Dopplr and there are loads of nice touches which build over time, such as Personal Velocity.

Take a look at my trips:
http://www.dopplr.com/traveller/hellokinsella/public

Read more about Dopplr and the technology behind it on their blog or take a tour.