Banner+aid helps the online community to give their paid banner advertising a temporary makeover and help spread the word for charities to give to those in need.
It's a webpage process that enables flash banners to be labeled with a special corner that expands to reveal messages for charity. It's a way for worthy causes to piggyback on paid for media without cost. It's a way for business and media buying companies to show support for people in need.
The cause of the moment is Red Cross helping those in need through Japanese quake and Pacific Tsunami.
The additional layer does not affect the existing messaging, animation, click through or interaction within the original banner that was uploaded in most cases. The total extra file weight of the processed banner is around 6kb.
Formats supported are all standard IAB sizes (300x250 MREC, 160x600 Widesky, 120x600 Sky, 468x60 standard banner and 420x600 Monster).
Anybody advertising online can upload and process a banner to contain the added layer by visiting https://banneraid.net , and use the updated outputted banner to replace existing trafficked banner ads OR as a final step before trafficking a new banner.
Banner+Aid is a not for profit messaging tool which allocates it's messages to a current and visible cause, by offering a direct link through to a donation page or other relevant information areas from within existing online display banners.
With so many Twitter ranking sites out there I thought it would be nice if there was a service which awarded you points based on how you use Twitter rather than just how many followers you have. It was then that Twadges was born. This was my internal R&D project at Soap. Each team member has an R&D project and I was able to wrangle a developer, illustrator and a work experience kid to help me put this together.
Twadges reviews your last 1000 tweets and awards you points and Twadges based on certain criteria. Mention coffee a few times and you'll get the coffee badge. Mention a film currently in the BO in America and you'll get a Twadge for that too. Joined Twitter in the first month? There's a Twadge for that. There are 60 Twadges all up.
We also tapped into Cursebird to get an accurate swear rating of users.
Twitter founder Evan is currently #1 and Marvel's Agent_M is #2 on the rankings. These guys don't even appear in the top of the other ranking sites such as Twitterank, Twitterholic and Twittercounter. I'm not even sure how to compare them on their Twitter Penis size.
We had plans to add many more but the CPU power of parsing through 1000 tweets and comparing for 50 or so keywords is quite intensive.
We also made the Twadges available as avatars., This includes many of the designs we couldn't code for like "tweeted on your birthday". As users don't enter their birth date we could not work this out.
Even though Twadges haven't taken the Twitternet by storm it was still fulfilling having an internal R&D project up and out there to share. As with most R&D projects the journey was more rewarding than the destination.
Also if you're into Twitter check out Dustin Curtis's article here.
And if you think Twitter follower counts are the best way to rank people read my Twitter Sheep Syndrome article here. I guess that's why they are called "followers".
If it wasn't for Twitter and social media as a whole grabbing all the headlines Augmented Reality would be the most talked about "technology" of 2008/2009.
While the roots of the technology have been around since as early as the 1990's (remember VR games!) it's only in the last 12 months has the interactive industry taken to it like moths to a flame. Below you will find some of the worlds biggest brands dipping their toe into "Augmented Reality". Some are in it for the PR aspect others trying to find a useful application. Many just to satisfy their need to do something new.
The technology has it's limitations though. Not only do you need a web cam but also a printer to activate it. Add to that one requires a download and installation of an application you cut your potential audience down considerably. That said I enjoy watching the videos and demos as much as interacting with it myself.
If you know of any interesting applications for AR please comment below. I know there is much more out there and my limited research was focused on the advertising and marketing side rather than the tech and art side.
Augmented Reality!? That's so 2008
Has AR jumped the shark? Well if Virtual Magicians are using it I think that's your answer. For me the best application of this is in store and also with kids toys. Both applications have far more useful applications than a fun web toy.
Below are 35 great examples of where Augmented Reality and their applications to the commercial and art world.
Correction Update: Apologies to Metaio who I incorrectly forgot to credit as the technology behind the Mini and Lego examples. This is why you don't post at 1am :)
Rubberduckzilla
I had not seen any arcade style games in AR before this. Fun and stupid and it was meant to be.
There are two main ways to achieve Augmented Reality in a browser.
1: Dedicated Plugin:
- Total Immersion:This French company has been the leader in the Augmented Reality field for commercial use. If you are after the best qality 3D this is the one to go with.
Pros: Higher quality 3D Cons: Costly licence fee, no community, single vendor, custom code language, large file size, new plugin required
2: Flash: Can be integrated into any flash site and works with Flash 8+
Pros: No plugin, small file size, open source, community, flash is a common skill
Cons: Lower quality 3D
Links: FLART
There is also various other technologies which could be used but all have limited web capabilities.
Many universities have Augmented Reality research labs and I think we'll start to see this technology get more mature over the next few years as commercial applications for it start to materialize.
Here I was twittering about how crap the iPhone apps for Westpac and Commbank were, and how they've jumped in without thinking:
"Lets do an iPhone app (or was that the agency) - "yeah" and then... What they end up with is a glorified portal on the iphone linking to the netbank etc through the browser within the iphone. Granted they both use your GPS to show you where a branch or ATM are.. but I want something a bit more useful (or fun - like a lightsaber) from my apps - even if they are for free.
Like, maybe, an iphone banking app that uses cool stuff to make my transactions easier and fun - at least? I mean I keep hearing from hardcore coders that there's a fairly hefty investment in programming apps, and why would you bother for something that's solved with a couple of bookmarks in existing app?
And then i saw this - it even make sme sound smarter - like I'm British or sumfink.
it's a lot "cleaner" than an idea which I was floating about a few months back - it has a mouth, but not as much talking. If anyone wants to put their hand up to program "that" then email me now, please
A tech company in Japan has set up an interface that allows a houseplant to actually blog its 'thoughts'.
The plant interface system, uses surface potential sensors to read the weak bioelectric current flowing across the surface of the leaves. This natural current fluctuates in response to changes in the immediate environment, such as temperature, humidity, vibration, electromagnetic waves and nearby human activity. A specially developed algorithm translates this data into Japanese sentences, which are used for the plant’s daily blog posts.
Of course, it's in Japanese so I can't tell if the plants' blog is informative or entertaining. For all I know It could be just blogging about the Dancing Baby from Ally McBeal.
