Hill+Knowlton Strategies

LOOK AT THE WEATHER! IT’S AMAZING! For the three of you who read this who aren’t in London, feel free to look at your own weather and marvel; everyone else, grab a Cornetto (or other iced treat of your choice – Web Curios does not represent any ice cream manufacturers as yet, but is happy to enter into sponsorship negotiations with anyone who’s interested. Haagen Dazs, for preference) and settle in for this week’s roundup of good stuff made by people far more talented than me (and in all probablity you too – stop looking smug).

It’s been a bit of a truncated week, this one, what with the Bank Holiday and then being in Geneva all day Tuesday (they’re still advertising this watch at the airport, by the way – who in the name of Christ actually buys this crap?), so this Web Curios is going to be pretty light on anything related to my actual job. Like you care. Frankly I couldn’t really care less either – I’m going on holiday next week (to New York, seeing as none of you asked – anyone with tips of anything to see or do feel free to tweet them to me or leave them in the comments below), and am basically just killing time and pretending to look busy til then (NOTE TO MY PAYMASTERS – THIS IS OBVIOUSLY NOT TRUE, I AM DISPLAYING MY USUAL STAKHANOVITE DEDICATION). Which means that Web Curios will be absent for a week or so. Deal with it, and enjoy this week’s fix.

Some Stuff About Location-based Apps

• This article by Wired UK is brilliant – it’s an overview of Foursquare and Gowalla, and is effectively your one-stop primer on location-based apps, how they work and what they can do. Read this, and convince your clients you know what you’re talking about. How do you think I get away with this stuff? That’s right, passing off other people’s knowledge and insight as my own! Piece of pi…cake. Sorry Jason!
• BUT! It’s not just about those two. As we await Facebook (and Twitter) to properly announce location-based services, Loopt has this week announced the introduction of Loopt Star, which effectively aims to turn your phone into a loyalty card for all shops. The following is a pretty decent description from the article:  The main thrust of the new service is [a] location-based reward scheme, and to demonstrate its power Gap is taking part in the launch with a 25% discount voucher on the second checkin to a store location–redeemable on the spot…Universal is offering free MP3s if you checkin with Loopt friends to participating bars, and non-reward schemes are also being offered by retailers and organizations like Starbucks, which instead offer badges and honorary statuses (like Starbucks’ “honorary barista badge”). Personally I think that whilst you can do all sorts of cool things with Foursquare et al (like the recent Jimmy Choo treasure hunt), the loyalty card thing is where the real value will be to most people – and hence most brands. Then again, what do I know? (rhetorical)

Some Stuff About Customisation

People have been banging on for months about how consumer customisation is the NEXT BIG THING in branding / marketing / etc. They might even have been right. Mind you, as with pretty much everything else cool, Nike have been doing this for years so perhaps it wasn’t quite such an imaginative stretch to predict this. Anyway, two other nice examples from this week:

• Coke: They’ve actually been trialling this for about a year, but I’ve only just heard about it (I know, rubbish) – the Coke Freestyle vending machines let you mix your own drink flavours. MADNESS.
• Heineken: Simple really – through this website right here you can customise your own Heineken bottles and get personalised beers delivered to your house. Admittedly they cost 5 Euros a bottle, which is a bit steep, but it’s a very cute idea. Nice website too, imho.

I’m not a fan of men’s magazines, but perhaps if I’d been born half a century ago that would have been different

Sex can be fun! Who knew? Click the picture for more of these - they are GENIUS

Tate Trumps – This week I went to the launch of a very cool new games / arts project at the Tate Modern called Tate Trumps, made by the fine folk at Hide & Seek. The game’s explained very well in the article, but to summarise it basically lets you play Top Trumps with artworks from the Tate’s permanent collection, which is not only fun but gets you to look at works in a rather different way. It’s a free download – I recommend giving it a go.

I have been told that I owe $107 to charity as a result of my swearing on Twitter

Some of you might remember a photo of a real-life Simba and Mufasa from a few Web Curios back. This week I bring you Timon and Pumba:

Feel free to sing "Hakuna Matata" as you gaze upon this image

Data Life of the Future – This is a brilliant, brilliant post, summarising and collating a lot of different information about how our future will be shaped by the integration of data with our day-to-day lives (I considered making a ‘data day’ gag there – aren’t you glad I didn’t? Oh). Lots of cool stuff about AR integration – worth a watch even for non-geeks (oh who am I kidding? EVERYONE reading this is a geek in some way).

• Oh, and if that’s not enough futurology for you, check out this interview with Ray Kurzweil from Vice Magazine. Kurzweil invented the concept of the singularity (that is, “a theorized point in time in the not-so-distant future when machines become vastly superior to humans in every way, aka the emergence of true artificial intelligence“), which is either terrifying or thrilling depending on your point of view (it’s both, by the way).

I Lied – 2 Work-Related Things Below:

• My paymasters have requested that I chuck this in; I don’t mind, though, as it’s kind of cool. BEHOLD, THE WORLD’S FIRST AUGMENTED REALITY PRESS RELEASE!
• This is actually important, regardless of the fact that it’s a client of mine. Tuesday sees the release of this year’s Global Peace Index, an annual piece of research which ranks the world’s nations on their peacefulness or otherwise. It’s serious stuff, done in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit – if you’d like to be kept informed of the results when they are published, follow them on Twitter

I Like This Photo

By Lynn Palewicz. Click above to see more of her work - it's good.

A gorgeous collection of photographs of the early 1900s in colour

Contagious Magazine uses StickyBits – I mentioned StickyBits weeks ago, but had yet to see anyone using it seriously until I noticed Contagious were integrating it into their next issue. This, if you recall, is the app that lets you attach any online content you want to a particular barcode – meaning anyone who scans the barcode with their phone can see the content associated with it. It’ll be interesting to see what sort of content Contagious attracts to its barcode (clue: there will be porn)

Damn, I’ve got work to do. VIDEOS! (and this will be back soon. thanks for bothering to read this far – and indeed at all)

1) This is old, and it’s got loads of views on YouTube, but I’m not sure how widely known it is in the UK. Killer animation for the video: Primus – The Devil Went Down to Georgia (FYI 1: Primus do the theme song to South Park; FYI 2: I listened to the Primus album ‘Pork Soda’ far too much when I was 15)

2) This is a heartbreaking but beautiful short animation, inspired by the equally heartbreaking and beautiful short indie game Every Day The Same Dream. It may be sunny now, but it’s still true

3) Brilliant, brilliant projection work by Samsung in Amsterdam. Hats off to whoever’s behind this, it’s genius:

4) The new video for Miami by Foals is pretty special:

5) I’ve not embedded the full version of Insane Clown Posse’s meme juggernaut ‘Miracles’ before, largely as it’s unmitigated crap (sorry, juggalos!), but this acoustic cover manages to communicate the wide-eyed awe of the original with none of the frankly awful music. Performed by Look at the Fields:

6) Finally, if you have 20 minutes to spare, you could do worse than watching this short – Heartless: The Story of the Tin Man