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From SXSW, a Twitter widget
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Pepsico’s Zeigeist
Zeigeist is a Twitter visualizer widget. It aggregates tweets from SXSW and organizes them into groups: traveling, drinking, attending, eating, connecting, and partying. You can watch the stream at the Pepsico Zeigeist site.
MySpace open platform is, well, open
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Yesterday MySpace announced new developments to their MySpace ID. MySpaceID is part of their ‘open platform’ and was developed in response to Facebook Connect.
When it was first revealed a few months ago, MySpaceID was sort of a half-baked idea and you didn’t really know the benefits. But these added features are making sense. MySpaceID lets you securely connect your profile, friends and activities to your favorite websites. And, the API is open to all developers, taking one step further in the Facebook v. MySpace battle. Too bad it’s really inconvenient for me to think about switching back to MySpace (and dealing with an inbox cluttered with creepy mail). Hopefully Facebook will retaliate soon.
The new ID features will let you:
Connect MySpace data to partner sites
Find MySpace friends on partner sites
Register on partner sites using your MySpace URL
Publish activities from Partner sites to MySpace
Syndicate activities on MySpace to partner sites
A pandora for movies and TV shows
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You probably know Pandora. It’s is a music discovery tool and it’s been around since 2005. But if you don’t here’s how it works: Pandora analyzes characteristics of individual songs and recommends new music that shares similar attributes. So, if I select “Wolf Like Me” by TV On the Radio, it might recommend “Golden Skans” by the Klaxons because those songs share a similar composition or tone.
Well, now Jinni is offering this discovery tool for movies and TV shows. Unfortunately it’s in private beta and I don’t have an invite. So I can’t really tell you if it’s useful. But, it does make me think about other extensions.
Here is my personal wishlist of Pandora type tools:
1. Pandora for clothes
2. Pandora for restaurants
3. Pandora for wine
4. Pandora for books
The list goes on.
Google’s mobile location app ala Loopt, but better
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Google just released an application, Google Latitude, that lets cell phone users broadcast their location to their friends. Unlike Loopt and Dodgeball, they baked in much better privacy controls. Not only can you select exactly who gets to see your location, you can also customize which location they get to see. So it’s not as daunting.
Your location is tracked on a Google map and friends can follow it either on their phone or computer. Everyone predicted location-based software would explode in 2008. It didn’t really. But better, more customizable privacy controls will probably help. I think what would help more is giving people a reason or occasion to use the software. Maybe a function where you could send those people invites from the app to meet for a drink. Or photos if you are letting people know where you are on a tour. Just some thought-starters.
The ads are watching you
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If you are watching an ad on a video screen in a mall or supermarket, it might be watching back. Face-tracking technology is the new growing trend in media. It’s also known as face-based audience measurement, gaze-tracking, face counting and countless other variations.
Whatever you call it, the concept is simple and not at all as “Big Brother” creepy as it sounds. Small cameras are embedded in or around the video screen to actually track the faces of people watching and determine their age, gender and sometimes ethnicity. If the camera recognizes you as a male, it might show you an ad for razors rather than birth control. If it identifies a teen it might show an ad for video games.
Face-tracking also allows advertisers to see if they are reaching the right people. It would be a shame if a brand put out an ad for in-home senior care and only teenage girls were seeing it.
The technology is not widespread, by any means. So more than likely you aren’t being watched, yet. Yet. It’s growing quickly and could be a big idea in the future.
The concept might be off-putting to people at first. I had the same jerk reaction accompanied by frowns and a furrowed brow–maybe even a scoff. But then I realized it only categorizes people by outward appearances. The technology can’t drill down to any personal information. The man isn’t capturing and storing information about “Jane Doe” on Strongs Blvd. They just want to show the right people the right ads, so you don’t have to sit there watching stuff you don’t care about.
Hulu takes a page from the Apple playbook
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In 1984 Apple launched that hallmark ad during the Super Bowl changing the trajectory of their company and inserting themselves directly into the cultural conversation. This year, Hulu hopes to achieve the same momentum.
Hulu’s media team sent an email to the digital-media press world promising that their Super Bowl ad would “finally reveal the secret behind Hulu.” Hmmm. Not sure what this secret could be. But I guess it’s a smart way to make a tech-savvy press group not DVR through their commercial.
3d printing for the masses
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I still don’t really believe these things exist. These “printers” that can take the most complex computer models and conjure them into reality.
Apparently, they are now available with a much more reasonable price tag. The Mcor Matrix 3 uses plain old office paper and water-based glue, keeping costs down and use practical.
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