This is a pretty hilarious Walmart commercial.
31 January 2010
IKEA - Facebook showroom
Viral Video Summary:
Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors created a Facebook profile for IKEA store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. The team then uploaded IKEA showroom images to the facebook photo album over a two week period. Facebook friends of Gustavsson could then win the object that they had tagged on the photo for free. The campaign took off like wildfire and I would say it's an ingenious way of really effective advertising.
Though not exactly the newest of viral but I'll just put this up for anyone who hasn't seen it.
Viral Video Summary:
Swedish agency Forsman & Bodenfors created a Facebook profile for IKEA store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. The team then uploaded IKEA showroom images to the facebook photo album over a two week period. Facebook friends of Gustavsson could then win the object that they had tagged on the photo for free. The campaign took off like wildfire and I would say it's an ingenious way of really effective advertising.
Though not exactly the newest of viral but I'll just put this up for anyone who hasn't seen it.
30 January 2010
Here's some free Google search tools for those interested in SEO & SEM:
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster tools is the equivalent of a mechanic looking after you car daily but for websites of course. Identify broken links, malware and other issues and find out what search queries lead to your pages even with clickthrough statistics. It even checks your website speed and tells you why it’s too slow.
Google Analytics
In case you still don’t know GA you have probably slept for years. Some SEOs don’t use it due to paranoia of being controlled by Google though. You have to decide yourself what’s more important, a very useful analytics tools or the fact that Matt Cutts can look under your skirt.
Google Website Optimizer
With Google Website Optimizer you can test different versions of your pages. This way you can determine the best converting ones. It’s called A/B split testing or multivariate testing and is all the rage lately in SEO circles and beyond.
Google Zeitgeist
Google Zeitgeist is not a tool in the strictest sense but you can use it keyword research nonetheless. In fact it shows the most popular queries so it’s a good starting point in your SEO campaign. Take the Zeitgeist popular keywords and then test some keyphrases containing them with the other tools that will follow in this list. Also checkout the current Zeitgeist aka Hot Trends.
Google Trends
Google Trends lets you compare traffic for popular search terms and websites. This way you can determine whether a topic is rising in popularity or not. Works gret combined with Google Zeitgeist and Google Insight for Search
Google Insights for Search
Insights for Search is like Google Trends on steroids. You can look up most keywords here, even those that aren’t popular at all. Compare up to five keywords and their ensuing traffic.
Google Traffic Estimator
This is a classic tool. It says “Adwords” but you can use it to find out the estimated number of visitors a keyword can bring to your site.
Google Keyword Tool
The Keyword Tool is like the Traffic Estimator but from a differnet angle. Some people prefer this others prefer that. You’ll want to check both to make sure you’re on the right track with your keywords.
Google Search Based Keyword Tool
This very neat tool allowas you to find out related keywords to a site or existing keyword or rather both. It’s connected to Google Insights for Search is a very useful way.
Google Ad Planner
Google Ad Planner is like Alexa and SpyFu in one. Use it to screen popular sites or your competitors for keyword intelligence or both.
Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster tools is the equivalent of a mechanic looking after you car daily but for websites of course. Identify broken links, malware and other issues and find out what search queries lead to your pages even with clickthrough statistics. It even checks your website speed and tells you why it’s too slow.
Google Analytics
In case you still don’t know GA you have probably slept for years. Some SEOs don’t use it due to paranoia of being controlled by Google though. You have to decide yourself what’s more important, a very useful analytics tools or the fact that Matt Cutts can look under your skirt.
Google Website Optimizer
With Google Website Optimizer you can test different versions of your pages. This way you can determine the best converting ones. It’s called A/B split testing or multivariate testing and is all the rage lately in SEO circles and beyond.
Google Zeitgeist
Google Zeitgeist is not a tool in the strictest sense but you can use it keyword research nonetheless. In fact it shows the most popular queries so it’s a good starting point in your SEO campaign. Take the Zeitgeist popular keywords and then test some keyphrases containing them with the other tools that will follow in this list. Also checkout the current Zeitgeist aka Hot Trends.
Google Trends
Google Trends lets you compare traffic for popular search terms and websites. This way you can determine whether a topic is rising in popularity or not. Works gret combined with Google Zeitgeist and Google Insight for Search
Google Insights for Search
Insights for Search is like Google Trends on steroids. You can look up most keywords here, even those that aren’t popular at all. Compare up to five keywords and their ensuing traffic.
Google Traffic Estimator
This is a classic tool. It says “Adwords” but you can use it to find out the estimated number of visitors a keyword can bring to your site.
Google Keyword Tool
The Keyword Tool is like the Traffic Estimator but from a differnet angle. Some people prefer this others prefer that. You’ll want to check both to make sure you’re on the right track with your keywords.
Google Search Based Keyword Tool
This very neat tool allowas you to find out related keywords to a site or existing keyword or rather both. It’s connected to Google Insights for Search is a very useful way.
Google Ad Planner
Google Ad Planner is like Alexa and SpyFu in one. Use it to screen popular sites or your competitors for keyword intelligence or both.
BBC - The Secret Life of Chaos
Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand.
It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?
In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?
It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.
And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again.
Chaos theory has a bad name, conjuring up images of unpredictable weather, economic crashes and science gone wrong. But there is a fascinating and hidden side to Chaos, one that scientists are only now beginning to understand.
It turns out that chaos theory answers a question that mankind has asked for millennia - how did we get here?
In this documentary, Professor Jim Al-Khalili sets out to uncover one of the great mysteries of science - how does a universe that starts off as dust end up with intelligent life? How does order emerge from disorder?
It's a mindbending, counterintuitive and for many people a deeply troubling idea. But Professor Al-Khalili reveals the science behind much of beauty and structure in the natural world and discovers that far from it being magic or an act of God, it is in fact an intrinsic part of the laws of physics. Amazingly, it turns out that the mathematics of chaos can explain how and why the universe creates exquisite order and pattern.
And the best thing is that one doesn't need to be a scientist to understand it. The natural world is full of awe-inspiring examples of the way nature transforms simplicity into complexity. From trees to clouds to humans - after watching this film you'll never be able to look at the world in the same way again.
29 January 2010
Ultimate Start-Up Space Microsite Summary and Development Process
For those interested in my development process feel free to continue reading. Those that are not can probably stop here, don't really want to bore anyone with the process of my development.
To start off, I got the initial brief for the microsite in early November. It was a pretty rush project since it had to be launched in early December which means around 3 weeks of development time after factoring in time needed for debugging, changes and client's approval. Getting a microsite out in 3 weeks isn't exactly the hardest thing to do, it's the elements of what needs to be implented that frightened me.
Here are some elements I implemented into the site:
- Dynamic resizing of the site based on the browser's screen size
- Legal age restriction upon typing the ultimatestartupspace.com.sg and it's subdomain
- Preloading and rendering of videos and images at run-time
- Dynamic URL implementation ( SEO ) of the entire site and individual public submission
- Simulated 3D rendering of panels in gallery that builds based on the number of entries within the database
There are quite a number of elements that was integrated within the site that is of great difficulty. I'm going to specifically mention about the gallery section as it was quite a breakthrough for me. You'll probably need to refer to the site here while reading to get a clearer picture.
This was the initial problems I faced:
- How do I create a dynamic 3D panel gallery that populates accordingly based on the number of entries that I have in the database?
- How will I load the images and videos into the 3D gallery smoothly?
- How can I achieve the kind of user experience that you would get when you see video on youtube?
- How should I program it such that each user submission would get it's own URL and by typing in the URL they would be linked directly to that particular entry on the site. Which could then enables user to share the entry on facebook.
I began by fragmenting the various problems into even smaller portions.
I first started to build the 3D simulation of the gallery. After experimenting with Papervision 3D and Flash's internal 3D engine, I decided to use mathematics to create the 3D effect as that would be the only way to create the intended seamless effect. Here are the following steps that I took:
Creation of Gallery Positioning and Animation:
When the conclusion was made to use mathematical calculations to do up the gallery, I came up a concept of enabling 13 fixed panels to display the gallery. Upon entering the gallery panel section, only 7 panels are seen. However in the background, 6 panels ( 3 on each side ) act as backup to load the content of the subsequent submissions. And by indicating a defined position of x, y and z ( done through scaling ) the positioning and animating of the gallery was done.
Implanting Content on to Panels:
The next tricky thing was to implant the content on to the panel. How am I going to load panels dynamically based on the number of submission and not cause a lag? I can't possibly load 100 submissions at the background ( if let's say there's a 100 entries at a particular stage ). Thus I started playing with the notion that individual content for the panel would be loaded on the two ends of the hidden gallery panels. I then formulated a mathematical solution to solve the dynamic loading issue, however it's going to be too complicated to explain so I shall skip it.
I spent quite some time experimenting the possibilities of various options before I managed to pinpoint the exact mechanics. See example below.
Example:
8-9-10-11-12-13-1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Remember there are 13 panels regardless of how many entries there are. Panel 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 12 & 13 are the visible at the point where users enter the gallery.
8-9-10-11-12-13-1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Panels 5 & 10 would need to already have content loaded depending on the direction where the user click to navigate through the gallery.
8-9-10-11-12-13-1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Thus we would have to do our loading and unloading of the content at panels 6 & 9.
Enabling video to the Panel:
Okay. So now we have the dynamic content ( image & copy ) and the panels moving. Unlike the dynamic content I could not attach a video to each individual panel as that would cause the site to overload ( 9 x 3mb video = 27mb to load ). Thus each video is attached individually when the play button is clicked and preloaded on the fly. However that is not the end of the story. With only one loader to load when user transits from one video to the next, there is not enough time for the loader to unload the old and load a new video again. Thus I created two loader to interswap the loading and unloading of videos so that it would load correctly and smoothly.
I believed there should be a better way to do this though. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.
Dynamic URL for the Gallery Section:
Now that everything is in working order, I'm just left with the dynamic URL integration and linking of the gallery overview and panel mode. With the variables that I had done up previously, it's just a matter of putting the right keys into the correct locks. Hard for me to really explain in detail here but it was pretty interesting since I use SWFaddress instead of query string to get the dynamic URL with the legal age restriction page.
I'm pretty much done with my explanation on my development process. The entire process was not as smooth as I had inscribed. There was in fact damn a lot of hiccups during development. Hope it's informative for anyone that's interested. =D
For those interested in my development process feel free to continue reading. Those that are not can probably stop here, don't really want to bore anyone with the process of my development.
To start off, I got the initial brief for the microsite in early November. It was a pretty rush project since it had to be launched in early December which means around 3 weeks of development time after factoring in time needed for debugging, changes and client's approval. Getting a microsite out in 3 weeks isn't exactly the hardest thing to do, it's the elements of what needs to be implented that frightened me.
Here are some elements I implemented into the site:
- Dynamic resizing of the site based on the browser's screen size
- Legal age restriction upon typing the ultimatestartupspace.com.sg and it's subdomain
- Preloading and rendering of videos and images at run-time
- Dynamic URL implementation ( SEO ) of the entire site and individual public submission
- Simulated 3D rendering of panels in gallery that builds based on the number of entries within the database
There are quite a number of elements that was integrated within the site that is of great difficulty. I'm going to specifically mention about the gallery section as it was quite a breakthrough for me. You'll probably need to refer to the site here while reading to get a clearer picture.
This was the initial problems I faced:
- How do I create a dynamic 3D panel gallery that populates accordingly based on the number of entries that I have in the database?
- How will I load the images and videos into the 3D gallery smoothly?
- How can I achieve the kind of user experience that you would get when you see video on youtube?
- How should I program it such that each user submission would get it's own URL and by typing in the URL they would be linked directly to that particular entry on the site. Which could then enables user to share the entry on facebook.
I began by fragmenting the various problems into even smaller portions.
I first started to build the 3D simulation of the gallery. After experimenting with Papervision 3D and Flash's internal 3D engine, I decided to use mathematics to create the 3D effect as that would be the only way to create the intended seamless effect. Here are the following steps that I took:
Creation of Gallery Positioning and Animation:
When the conclusion was made to use mathematical calculations to do up the gallery, I came up a concept of enabling 13 fixed panels to display the gallery. Upon entering the gallery panel section, only 7 panels are seen. However in the background, 6 panels ( 3 on each side ) act as backup to load the content of the subsequent submissions. And by indicating a defined position of x, y and z ( done through scaling ) the positioning and animating of the gallery was done.
Implanting Content on to Panels:
The next tricky thing was to implant the content on to the panel. How am I going to load panels dynamically based on the number of submission and not cause a lag? I can't possibly load 100 submissions at the background ( if let's say there's a 100 entries at a particular stage ). Thus I started playing with the notion that individual content for the panel would be loaded on the two ends of the hidden gallery panels. I then formulated a mathematical solution to solve the dynamic loading issue, however it's going to be too complicated to explain so I shall skip it.
I spent quite some time experimenting the possibilities of various options before I managed to pinpoint the exact mechanics. See example below.
Example:
8-9-10-11-12-13-1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Remember there are 13 panels regardless of how many entries there are. Panel 1, 2, 3, 4, 11, 12 & 13 are the visible at the point where users enter the gallery.
8-9-10-11-12-13-1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Panels 5 & 10 would need to already have content loaded depending on the direction where the user click to navigate through the gallery.
8-9-10-11-12-13-1-2-3-4-5-6-7
Thus we would have to do our loading and unloading of the content at panels 6 & 9.
Enabling video to the Panel:
Okay. So now we have the dynamic content ( image & copy ) and the panels moving. Unlike the dynamic content I could not attach a video to each individual panel as that would cause the site to overload ( 9 x 3mb video = 27mb to load ). Thus each video is attached individually when the play button is clicked and preloaded on the fly. However that is not the end of the story. With only one loader to load when user transits from one video to the next, there is not enough time for the loader to unload the old and load a new video again. Thus I created two loader to interswap the loading and unloading of videos so that it would load correctly and smoothly.
I believed there should be a better way to do this though. Feel free to let me know your thoughts on this.
Dynamic URL for the Gallery Section:
Now that everything is in working order, I'm just left with the dynamic URL integration and linking of the gallery overview and panel mode. With the variables that I had done up previously, it's just a matter of putting the right keys into the correct locks. Hard for me to really explain in detail here but it was pretty interesting since I use SWFaddress instead of query string to get the dynamic URL with the legal age restriction page.
I'm pretty much done with my explanation on my development process. The entire process was not as smooth as I had inscribed. There was in fact damn a lot of hiccups during development. Hope it's informative for anyone that's interested. =D
Some ( of my preferred ) useful code libraries for flash developers:
- Papervision3D ( 3D Engine )
- PaperWorld 3D ( 3D Game Engine )
- FLARToolkit ( Augmented Reality )
- TweenMax ( Tweening Engine )
- APE ( 2D Physics Engine )
- BulkLoader ( Loading Kit )
- AS3crypto* ( Security )
* Haven't got to try this yet but it sounds interesting
Credits for this goes to Adrian Parr. Click here to view the full post on his site.
- Papervision3D ( 3D Engine )
- PaperWorld 3D ( 3D Game Engine )
- FLARToolkit ( Augmented Reality )
- TweenMax ( Tweening Engine )
- APE ( 2D Physics Engine )
- BulkLoader ( Loading Kit )
- AS3crypto* ( Security )
* Haven't got to try this yet but it sounds interesting
Credits for this goes to Adrian Parr. Click here to view the full post on his site.
28 January 2010
Michael Sandel: What's the right thing to do?
Summary:
Imagine you're in a trolley car and you are imminently going to hit five workers working on the track. However there's a side lane with only one worker working on the track? Would you under conscious action switch lanes and kill the one worker or would you stay on path and kill the five workers? What would you have done? Would your action constitutes to murder?
An interesting talk from Harvard Law by Michael Sandel. I know it's a rather lengthy video but it's good. Much much better that my summary. Trust me.
Summary:
Imagine you're in a trolley car and you are imminently going to hit five workers working on the track. However there's a side lane with only one worker working on the track? Would you under conscious action switch lanes and kill the one worker or would you stay on path and kill the five workers? What would you have done? Would your action constitutes to murder?
An interesting talk from Harvard Law by Michael Sandel. I know it's a rather lengthy video but it's good. Much much better that my summary. Trust me.
Finally an Apple product that I would really consider getting this time round. What really attracts me is their e-reader cum web browser cum organizer functions. Not that much of a gamer now so no games for me. I believed most people have seen this already but here it is anyway.
I believe ipad would be pretty bad news for Amazon and Barnes & Noble's e-reader. But anyway I'll wait for some reviews before committing to getting this new tech toy.
I believe ipad would be pretty bad news for Amazon and Barnes & Noble's e-reader. But anyway I'll wait for some reviews before committing to getting this new tech toy.
27 January 2010
Here's something I'm proud of. Check out the website here.
The Ultimate Start-Up Space Submission Video
The Ultimate Start-Up Space Light Projection at Clarke Quay
The Ultimate Start-Up Space Microsite
Credits:
Project
The Ultimate Start-Up Space
Client
Pernod Ricard Singapore
Creative agency
TBWA Singapore
Creative team
Simon Chew, Justine Lee, Jae Soh, Gary Steele, Hagan De Villiers, Danny Teo,Guo Dong Ni, Aggie Jin, Tony Chew, Kestrel Lee, Rupert Hancock, Allen Pattiselanno, Ben Williams
Account servicing
Jaclyn Lee, Christine Chionh, Bibiana Lee, Melanie Keppler
Planner
Fredrik Sarnblad
Producers
Joanny Wong, Joanna Lim
Lighting & effects
Expo AV-Insync Pte Ltd
Shop fitting
MacroVic Enterprise Pte Ltd
Media agency
OMD
Media planner
Irene Lam
Public relation agency
MS&L Worldwide
I have updated the details of the microsite in a newer post.
The Ultimate Start-Up Space Submission Video
The Ultimate Start-Up Space Light Projection at Clarke Quay
The Ultimate Start-Up Space Microsite
Credits:Project
The Ultimate Start-Up Space
Client
Pernod Ricard Singapore
Creative agency
TBWA Singapore
Creative team
Simon Chew, Justine Lee, Jae Soh, Gary Steele, Hagan De Villiers, Danny Teo,Guo Dong Ni, Aggie Jin, Tony Chew, Kestrel Lee, Rupert Hancock, Allen Pattiselanno, Ben Williams
Account servicing
Jaclyn Lee, Christine Chionh, Bibiana Lee, Melanie Keppler
Planner
Fredrik Sarnblad
Producers
Joanny Wong, Joanna Lim
Lighting & effects
Expo AV-Insync Pte Ltd
Shop fitting
MacroVic Enterprise Pte Ltd
Media agency
OMD
Media planner
Irene Lam
Public relation agency
MS&L Worldwide
I have updated the details of the microsite in a newer post.
I so frikin' want to go to the South by Southwest Conferences and Festivals. Anyone willing to sponsor my trip?Some tech talks that i find interesting:
- Universities in the "Free" Era
- Journalism Next: Thriving in the Digital Age
- Selling Your Milk When the Cow is Free
- Jacks of All Trades or Masters of One?
- Online Advertising: Losing the Race to the Bottom
These are just the tip of the iceberg. Plenty of smart and respectable individuals in the tech business will be heading there this coming march. Click here for more details. Do let me know if anyone is heading there.
26 January 2010
Wassup,
Haven't been blogging for at least half a year now, I guess it about time to start again. First of all, I want to explain the title of my blog in case anyone ask about it.
Here it is:
2601 (26th January) - 2010 = 591
The day and month the blog first started translated into numbers subtracted by the year is 591. Hence I came up with the title "Fifty Ninety One".
I'll keep the first post short and sweet so that's it for now. Bye.
Haven't been blogging for at least half a year now, I guess it about time to start again. First of all, I want to explain the title of my blog in case anyone ask about it.
Here it is:
2601 (26th January) - 2010 = 591
The day and month the blog first started translated into numbers subtracted by the year is 591. Hence I came up with the title "Fifty Ninety One".
I'll keep the first post short and sweet so that's it for now. Bye.
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