There are so many different charities asking for your money and it's hard to find a unique angle for fund raising. I found this CEO Sleepout idea by St Vinnies a refreshing new look at how to raise money. And they have don't well with over $555,000 raised. This is the second year

The site explains the concept as;

"On Thursday 17 June 2010 the Vinnies CEO Sleepout takes place in capital cities across Australia. The event challenges business and community leaders to experience homelessness first-hand for one night, raise important money, and with fresh insight go on to effect change in social opinions on this serious issue. All money raised goes directly towards the ongoing provision of Vinnies' homeless services across the country.

On behalf of more than 105,000 Australians who sleep out every night; thank you for 'Rising to the Challenge'!"

This has been running since 2006 (with 4 people) but is now really picking up steam with over 200 CEOs joining last year and 396 so far in 2010.

On a side note: I heard of services where business men in Japan pay good money for this experience to "rough it" but my Google skills could not being this up. It could be an urban myth?

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 11:29 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
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The Cannes 48hr Ad Brief is on again. Here is the brief below. You have less than 27 hrs left

BANNERBLOG'S HELP: Like last year we'll post the 10 best entries we receive (send us the Yotube link) to submit @ bannerblog.com.au and we'll post them on our homepage for a 12hr period. Giving you a much needed boost in views and comments.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 5:22 PM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Awards

Boffswana releases their latest augmented reality (AR) web based project for
Saatchi and Saatchi NY and their client General Mills' for Honey Nut Cheerios.

Honeyway Train Augmented Reality Game from Boffswana on Vimeo.

A world first Augmented Reality (AR) game using the Unity3D engine.

It was vital that the physical world becomes part of the game as opposed to AR being a gimmick pasted on top. So the actual Cheerios boxes activate and control the game.

It is a unique game experience that offers kids something they haven't seen before, and most importantly it's a whole lot of fun.

The game controls are very intuitive and the user controls everything with the box from clicking "Start Webcam Game" all the way to the "Game Over".

More info here

Posted by hamish at 2:43 AM | Link to this Article | Comments
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If you're bored of your farm on Farmville or don't want to feed animals, run a hotel, dig for treasure or any of the usual Facebook game fodder you can now become a secret agent in a new game call The Agency: Secret Ops from Sony Online Entertainment. Launched just days ago in the lead up to "The Agency" which is their new spy based MMO (think World of Warcraft but with a James Bond setting) that as of yet does not have a release date. Not to be confused with EA's APB game which is an MMO with a cops and robbers setting.

Now rather than explain the feature their "trailer" does all this for me. First off you'll notice is that Sony have put a lot of work/money/time into this.

Here is a video from Mashable with an interview with the development team.

Here's what Kotaku and Mashable have to say about it.

What I liked
- The look and feel. Compared to more static Facebook games of this kind it is dynamic and fun. Compare this to the very popular Dante's Inferno game which at one time clocked up over 8 million players.
- The mini games break up the "click to do X" repetitiveness but you'll easily get sick of the "find an item" game and "word scramble" (which for me had the unfortunate big of choose a rather nasty 4 letter word on my first go. And no not that 4 letter word... another one)
- The deep gameplay: There are 6 locations and I'm 2 days in and haven't touched the surface of location 1. There are so many elements to the game (weapons, agents, general missions) so for those who are playing constantly it's enough to keep you interested for weeks.
- The integration with friends is simple and actually makes the game better. By adding friends you can use them in your group missions.

What I didn't like
- This is less of a promotional game and more a money spinner for Sony. There is a heavy push for their SC dollars and thus your progress is haltered along the way as you are pushed to buy credits.
- When you have no "cover" to make any moves the game gives you nothing to do but move around furniture. A few simple training missions or really anything to fill the time would have been nice.
- Why did this have to be in Facebook? Why not just use Facebook Connect/Open Graph and have the app live outside?
- The customize HQ. This just seemed like a waste of time. The amount of work that went into it is quite amazing though.

Here's my HQ with all the essentials.

Overall
It'll be interesting to see how this goes. This really raises the bar for other companies who are serious about "wanting their own Farmville".

I followed the Dante's Inferno app a little and it did amazingly well, even reported to have contributed directly to 2% of game sales. Source I wonder if this will have the same success?

Inside Social games has a great in-depth review of the The Agency: Covert Ops which also highlights Sony's first FB game Poxnora. Sony, it seems, is not just dabbling in this area but focussed.

It was interesting to see the comparison with Playfish's (owned by EA) Ganster City. I had not played it before but the comparison is quite close. It seems we're all stuck in the "this works so let's not rock the boat" mentality with the FB RPG games.

Posted by Ashley Ringrose at 12:49 AM | Link to this Article | Comments
Archived in: Interesting Promotions