Two new sites launched today and both utilize the browser in a unique way. Skittles.com takes a nod from Modernista and Girl Smiles and goes site less. The site uses Youtube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter search and Wikipedia for its content. All navigated by an interface that floats over the top. It might not be the best fit for the brand but it's different for such a big brand to take this route. Note than when you click to Girl Smiles it takes you back and loads the site over the top. Genius Adrants talks about Skittles site and how Modernista had to alter theirs when news of layoffs made it to the homepage. Will Skittles stick with this idea or change it up once the novalty wears off? To promote the latest Ps3 game Killzone 2 (which looks awesome) Sony has taken the fight to the browser with the cleverly titled Killzone 2 Web Game Battles triger randomly based on the sites you visit (myspace.com, Flickr.com both had attacks) and it's a simple shooter game which lets the sites take damage. If another friend logs in you play multi-player although this didn't seem to have the same enemies viewable. It's an interesting idea and the Firefox plugin was tiny (45k) and installed easily. I do feel that a few more community or social elements to this could have made it more of a winner. And while the gameplay and vosual polish doesn't do the game justice the idea of a browser game is an interesting one. Our squad is called "TRUFFLES" FTW ya bastards! Browser Based Games (Passive Multi-player Online Games There are actually two companies with Browser Based games. That is games that inhabit your browser and play across the web. Rocket On and PMOG have both been around for a year or so and both in BETA. Check them out they are an interesting twist to how you normally work with games and social networks. Rather than read a bunch of stuff just watch these videos I look forward to seeing these develop. If they only put Twitter in there as part of it you'd see many more people talking about them.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 4:57 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

Adnews have announced the Agency of the Year for 2009. See full winners list.

Amnesia Razorfish one for the 3rd time in a row. Which must be some kind of record.

INTERACTIVE AGENCY
Winner: Amnesia Razorfish
- Deepend Sydney
- HOST
- Soap
- Tribal DDB (Syd/Melb)

Mumbrella talks about the 3 agencies that have won Agency of the Year for the 3 major awards in Australia.

We have the same in Interactive with Host, Colenso BBDO and Amnesia all winning similar titles.

Colenso BBDO won B&T's Interactive Agency of the Year 2008 but didn't make the finals for Adnews. BMF which was "highly commended for B&T didn't make the finals too. Just Host and Soap were featured on both. Host also picked up the Creative Hotshop award.

Different judges and different judging criteria seem to make a big difference.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 4:34 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Industry News

First we had Youtube Street Fighter and now this. Vimeo might have better quality videos but they don't have the annotations.

With Youtube now paying partners for ads on these type of videos there is a viable revenue stream for content producers out there. Add to that the opportunity for being picked up by another publisher or becoming Cyber famous and it's not wonder we're seeing so much interesting content being produced these days.

You can hire the creators of this video Secret Sauce TV here. Just think if Sam Raimi had Youtube back when they were scrounging dollars for Evil Dead.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 12:00 AM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Viral

Last year I was lucky enough to win a VIP seat from Sony to watch Tropfest. This year I thought I'd just catch them online than face the crowds.

For those that don't know Tropfest it's the worlds biggest short film festival and is slowly taking over the world as it recently expanded to NY.

So what about everyone that doesn't live in Sydney and wants to watch the winner and finalists online. Surly in 2009 you can enjoy them just as much as anyone.

Nope sorry you have to contend with video that looks like it was designed in 1997 monitor sizes. Seriously WTF NineMSN!

The banner is bigger than the bloody video! Also the winners were announced 24 hrs ago and they haven't updated the page with the winner. At least the official site was able to. Although they could use an image or a bold tag to help make it easier to read. Hey even a link tag would have helped.

That aside I also think Tropfest has done a terrible job online promoting the finalists. I remeber seeing a rep from Tropfest talk about how in 2008 they will release the videos online (NineMSN) and they really do their best to help get the finalists and winners names out there.

Check the winners page. Not even a bio, not a link to their site not a contact for any of the 16 finalists. Shit not even an image or a link to see the bloody video.

Ahh I see all the effort went into the 100 sponsors pages. Luckily they all got linked up. Very important that QANTAS get that link traffic. As for the finalists well good luck with it all hopefully someone will google your name and you're not a Tim Dean, or Matt Wood. The winner Genevieve Clay might do OK with a unique name like that.

Tropfest is also on Flickr (last photo updated Oct 2008)
Tropfest is on Youtube but don't seem to grasp that last year's winner has reached 1M views in a month. Lets hope it doesn't take 9 months to update it again.
I hope all of Tropfest's 29 Myspace friends got VIP seats as they are true champions. Only about 9 of them look to be real people.
The Facebook page at least has some activity.

It's quite sad that such a headline event with so much money behind it has done such a poor job online. Also what happened to Sony as a sponsor did it run its course. It was a great fit for Sony.

Here's the trailer for Trop Fest 2009

And here is last year's winner.

And I look forward to getting my Tropfest DVD in the newspaper next week to actually enjoy the videos. The postage stamp size is not worth it. Oh I could watch on my Teslstra phone in super shit mobile quality. But again I'll pass. Not the least because I don't have a Telstra acocunt.

I wish Tropfest was more interested in sharing the videos of the people and less about extracting maximum dollars from them by bundling the content into DVD's. Showcasing the finalists would not have hurt the bottom line either.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 10:12 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles

Ashley shared with me this fantastic story about Twitter. I've recently joined up (@majarich) and have turned from a doubter into a believer in less than a day. Like most people told me before I jumped in, you can't knock it until you try it.

The article tells the story of some random Twitterers who were wondering if the person pertaining to be Shaq on Twitter, was in fact the real Shaq. The story of how they worked out the truth is actually almost heart-warming. Check it out, it's a good example of how technology literally connects people. And not in a cliched way like on telecommunication ads.

If you're still wondering if you need another social network to suck up your time, yes - Twitter will be another fun toy you will want to play with all day. But it is also more enlightening rather than sapping. More connective than isolating. If you're still not convinced, here's some persuasive quotes from some Twitterati (look at me, I'm already using bad twitter-related puns):

From NYTimes Technology expert David Pogue-

Has there ever been a wittier, smarter bunch? This (twitter) was it: harnessing the power of the Web, the collective wisdom of strangers, in real time! The Twitterers of the world did not let me down.

And from Twitter-loving writer of Father Ted, Black Books, The Fast Show, Graham Linehan-

I'm having so much fun on Twitter, it's unreal. I signed up about two years ago, but I didn't really understand it until Jonathan Ross 'outed' me and my followers list went from 4 to 3000 in 24 hours. Suddenly, everything I wrote in that little box had an audience. An audience that responded! Instantly! Share a link on Twitter and within seconds someone will send you something back that casts it in a new and interesting light. Tell a joke and dozens of people are suddenly trying to better it. Ask a question and people trip over themselves trying to help. And that’s just scratching the surface. The manifold possibilities of Twitter are enough to make you giddy. This is a new world, people! We are officially in the future, not with jetpacks, but with something much cooler, the hive mind. Ignore those grumpy luddites in the broadsheets and elsewhere, who don't understand it, can't be bothered to learn how it works and are frightened at the prospect that people are entertaining themselves in a way that doesn't involve accepted media forms.

So jump in. The twater is fine (I'm sorry).

And say hello ...@majarich.

Posted by pete at 1:34 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Articles