Facebook has so many marvelous uses. It allows us to keep in touch with our agrarian roots (yay, Farmville!). It shores up our faulty memories by reminding us why we severed contact with that redhead from Year 11 geometry. And — this just in from Anthill’s North American Bureau — its IPO promises to spawn…
We’re not sure where marketing people got the bright idea that 4-D is not an expression from a physics book but rather the answer to the question: “What’s more awesome than 3-D?” Live Park 4-D Art Factory, an installation in Korea, expands the boundaries of motion-sensing software. But it doesn’t require an understanding of relativity and spacetime to enjoy.
In this little video, Tim O’Reilly, co-founder of O’Reilly Media, publisher of Make magazine, reminds us that most successful businesses started from the joy of making something new, or of taking something that already exists and making it better or faster or safer. Did the guy who invented the Slip ‘N’ Slide hope that, primarily, he’d make loads of scratch? Naw, he wanted to expand the idea of a toy his kids enjoyed.
Call it a cliche. Call it gratuitously opportunistic. Call it what you will. But we know that whenever we run a post featuring a new, popular or funny commercial, your clicking fingers get awfully itchy. (Don’t deny it. We have the stats to prove it.) Hence, here they are, the best and worst of the Super Bowl ads for 2012 (according to Anthill).
In hindsight, this was a match in some mad, musical heaven: those wacky, inventive rockers OK Go and the over-the-top oeuvre of Super Bowl commercials. Partnering with Chevrolet, they pilot a specially outfitted Sonic through the California desert to bang out a version of their song “Needing/Wanting.”
Lemmy Kilmister of Motorhead is 66 years old. James Hetfield of Metallica is 48. Never too old for rock ‘n’ roll, right?
Or, apparently, too young. Welcome to the heavy-metal pantheon, Juliet Childs — a product of Queensland, all of 8 years old, and a bonafide music sensation.
So you’re stumped. Up against the wall. That brilliant achievement — that beautiful, iridescent idea — is stuck somewhere in your head and you can’t pry it out. In this video, one of most creative journalists around finds an amazing way to express the rewards you can earn from sticking to your convictions and logging some hard work.
You’ve seen better flash mobs than this. We’ve seen better. But here’s what makes this video, done for a corporate end-of-the-year meeting, so awe-inspiring: These are accountants. Accountants. Wow. They can do our books anytime.
An unfortunately high percentage of us have been in this position — a dustup with an office colleague, often triggered by one person touching another person’s refrigerated food inappropriately. But how best to mediate these disagreements? Do the words “Pokemon trainer” ring a bell? Psy-attack!
Not only do Australia’s small and medium enterprises 70 percent of the nation’s workforce, but they’re more likely to employ your Aunt Mathilda than that industrial behemoth down the street. That’s just a couple aspects of a snapshot of the little companies than can, as snapped by the SME Association of Australia, a nonprofit support organisation.
Does a tight, strict deadline jump-start creativity or quash it? This video by Kreativ, a Hungarian marketing and communication magazine, takes a forceful side on the question. A group of young students is given 10 seconds to draw the face of a clock (nice subject choice, no?). The kids are then get 10 minutes to draw the same object. The difference between the results can’t help but bring a smile to your face.
How about this for a goal: Try something — anything — for 30 days. It turns out that’s the perfect time-frame for giving anything a shot, says Google SEO expert Matt Cutts in this clip from a TED conference. He took a picture a day, rode a bicycle to work, cut sugar out of his diet and wrote a novel. Not all at once, mind you.
“Friday”? Srsly, Australia? Yes, sadly, that ultra-bubbly Rebecca Black music vehicle that makes all right-minded people want to spontaneously combust was the nation’s most viewed “community” video in 2011, according to the tastemakers at YouTube.Stay classy, Australia. (And don’t forget to watch the second video. It’s barking hilarious!)
The prevailing wisdom is that Australians are rather pathetic with art of making a sale. If so, we should see if Mr. Kenny Brooks is available for a seminar or two. He might not be the world’s greatest salesman, but he’s certainly the funniest.
When’s the last time you stepped inside a video rental store? When’s the last time you saw a video rental store? The Onion presents a lovely tribute to a begone era when we would file into our local video outlet, hoping against hope that not all the copies of “Men in Black” or “Mario Kart” were checked out.
Depending on which side of the Apple vs. PC / iPhone vs. Android rivalry you’re on, this video will either delight or dismay. The folks at Samsung decided to promote their latest flagship phone, the Galaxy S II, by happily skewering Apple fandom. Can Samsung beat Apple at its own game?
What is going to happen in the next year with these big-screened, feature-packed, hyper-used phones we seem unable to pry from our text-tapping fingers? Somebody filmed (probably with an iPhone) the responses of several people at this week’s Mobile Industry Awards in Melbourne.
Here’s a cheerful thought: Every minute, three Facebook users worldwide go bung. Pop their clogs. Put on a pine overcoat. And what happens then to those Facebook accounts? Indeed, what happens to all of those accounts for social engagement, email, online dating and online gaming?
A mom looks up organic shampoos on her mobile phone while waiting to pick up her son at school. Many would call this “surfing” or “casual consumer research.” Google takes a loftier approach, calling it the Zero Moment of Truth. Essentially, it refers to the numerous ways a potential buyer can study a product online.
We’ve thrown a whole bunch of these whipsaw “did you know?” presentations at you over the years. And we’ll continue to do so. Because they’re fun. And, like this little video about the social media explosion, they give you tasty stuff to chew on. For example, did you that Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga and Britney Spears have more Twitters followers combined than Australia has people?
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