Reblogged from forgela
Corduroy Branding
A new breed of digital agency.
BEAT COP A police lieutenant swung his baton at an Occupy Wall Street protester on International Workers’ Day, or May Day, in New York Tuesday. The protests were the most visible organizing effort by anti-Wall Street groups since Occupy encampments were dismantled in 2011. (Photo: Mary Altaffer / AP via The Wall Street Journal)
Some things never change.
Everything is a Remix
The new novel “Chopsticks” tells the story of a troubled young piano prodigy—using family photos, letters, documents, instant messages and YouTube videos. It’s a love story, a mystery and a parable about creativity and madness.
It’s also an experiment, one that could have far-reaching implications for the book industry, as publishers stretch the definition of what constitutes a book. “Chopsticks” straddles the digital divide that is transforming the publishing world—it’s both a novel and a digital app.
A new crop of digital books comes loaded with videos, songs, animated shorts and pop-up graphics. Is this the future of publishing or just a passing fad? Alexandra Alter has details on Lunch Break.
The story, by writer Jessica Anthony and graphic designer Rodrigo Corral, will be released as a traditional print book and as an app for the iPad and iPhone. The print edition, out Feb. 2 for $19.99, is an oversize, color-saturated book. The digital version, which will be launched simultaneously for $9.99 in Apple’s app and iTunes stores, allows readers to enlarge images, flip through photo albums, watch video clips, listen to the characters’ favorite songs and read their instant messages. Readers can even change the order of the story by shuffling the pages, re-creating it as a custom version.
Enhanced e-books—which have multimedia features such as audio, video, pop-up graphics, 3-D images and animation—are being touted as the next frontier in the digital-books landscape. The explosive growth of e-book sales, coupled with the rapid adoption of iPads, Nook Tablets and Kindle Fires, has prompted publishers to experiment with new types of interactive books. Many in the industry will be watching closely to see whether “Chopsticks” becomes a literary trailblazer that ushers in a new species of e-book, or a cautionary tale of an elaborate flop.
The mobile photo-sharing app Instagram has turned into a social-media phenomenon, accumulating 400 million uploaded photos and 15 million users since its launch in October 2010, and brands are increasingly taking notice.
Early-adopter brands on Instagram — which currently only runs on Apple devices — include Starbucks, which joined in 2010 and now has 202,000 followers, Red Bull (95,000 followers) and Burberry (151,000 followers); media properties such as NPR and The New Yorker; and major events like the Oscars. Nike and President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign just joined within the last month.
A common use of the platform is to show consumers what’s happening behind the curtain at a company. A recent image posted to General Electric’s account shows a technician working on an engine in an aviation facility in Peebles, Ohio, for example, andTiffany & Co.’s account photos shows the inside of a jewelry workshop in the store’s flagship Fifth Avenue location. But brands are also using Instagram to run contests and source images. Levi’s is currently running an open casting call for models by asking Instagram users to tag their photos with #IAmLevis for consideration, while Marc Jacobs recently asked Instagram users to tag their holiday photos with #marcfam and then curated a selection on its site.
Instagram has nine employees in San Francisco, and like many early-stage social startups, hasn’t publicly articulated its plans for revenue. It launched with $500,000 in seed funding and closed a $7 million funding round last February. While it doesn’t officially partner with brands, its head of business operations, Amy Cole, says she offers suggestions when asked. She’s aware of roughly 200 brands and organizations (including celebrities such as Justin Bieber and nonprofits like Charity: Water) on the site.
She said brands that use Instagram are generally looking to forge a more personal connection with their customers. “Photos can be so emotional,” she said. “It’s a great way for users to really connect with a brand in a way that’s different from text posts.”
Some brands like General Electric use their Instagram content for their accounts on Tumblr, the blogging platform with a heavy emphasis on images that’s experiencing similar growth and also putting growth and utility before revenue. In some cases, the platforms are being used together. The sportswear company Puma sent 10 bloggers with major followings to Abu Dhabi last week to document activity around the Volvo Ocean Race and the Mar Mostro racing yacht the company is sponsoring. Most of the bloggers used both platforms and were instructed to post with hashtags like #sailing and #marmostro.
“Platforms like Instagram and Tumblr offer this neat connection between the more creative/cultural set and like-minded brands such as Puma,” said Antonio Bertone, Puma’s chief marketing officer, in an emailed statement. “The people who are active on these portals are the Puma consumer.”
In the case of General Electric, which has roughly 34,000 followers on Instagram, the intent is to showcase the company’s impact in areas like energy and transportation by appealing to enthusiasts with photos of engines, turbines and locomotives, according to Linda Boff, executive director of global digital marketing. In addition to its regular account, the company just wrapped a campaign on the platform to find an “Instagrapher” who will be flown to Wales to photograph an aviation facility. Nearly 4,000 Instagram photos were submitted with the hashtag #GEInspiredMe and then posted on Facebook, where fans voted for the finalists.
“We love the idea that Instagram lets us share this intersection of science and technology, but doing it from a very visual, artistic point of view,” said Ms. Boff. “When you’re as complicated as GE, how you tell the story and how you bring the company to life is incredibly important.”
Wetting our online beak this week. Much more to come shortly.
The social networking war just heated up a few degrees. After Google announced Tuesday morning that it would more closely integrate Google+ into its regular search results, vocal opposition to the changes arrived Tuesday afternoon from an unlikely source: Twitter. A statement from the mic…
Via Extreme Tech:
Armchair activists now have a tool that can transport their SOPA protestations into the real world: Boycott SOPA, an Android app that scans barcodes and tells you whether an object’s manufacturer/publisher is a supporter of the much maligned Stop Online Piracy Act.
If you’ve ever scanned a barcode on your Android phone to look up a book or CD on Amazon, Boycott SOPA works in exactly the same way: First you have to install the ZXing Barcode Scanner app, but then you simply go around pointing your phone’s camera at product barcodes. Boycott SOPA gives you a big red cross if the product is distributed by a SOPA supporter, or a green tick if it’s “clean.” Much to my chagrin, Coca-Cola supports SOPA — but Smirnoff, on the other hand, does not. If you ever needed a sign from Above that you ought to drink more, there it is.
Scanning food isn’t really where Boycott SOPA is at, though: Really, it’s all about scanning books, CDs, movies, and games — products that are protected by massively militant groups like the MPAA, RIAA, and BSA who are spending millions on buying off Representatives to shoehorn SOPA through Congress. If you scan a random selection of media in your DVD rack or bookcase, you’ll be unsurprised to see that almost every object is produced by a company that supports SOPA. It’s worth noting that the app isn’t perfect, though: It relies on a user-curated list of SOPA supporters — a list that isn’t complete nor publicly visible. The app developer claims that the list will be regularly updated.
Wonder if Apple’s reviewers would let this into its App store.
(Source: futurejournalismproject)
From SearchEngineWatch.com, Catfish recommends 4 types of Timely Content for Google’s “Fresh” Update
