We have a few good ideas, a couple that are solid gold and a handful that are just crap. The PBJ team is currently working to narrow our focus a little bit and start to move from idea to some early-level sketching/prototyping of aforementioned solid gold ideas. Stay tuned …
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Today we sat down to further narrow our scope for PBJ’s yet unnamed project. While we may have spent more time discussing social groups like hipsters, bros, and several other derogatory labels, we did however come up with a unique idea that got several of us excited. While discussing how to differentiate ourselves from other apps or websites that offer event information and feedback like yelp or urbanspoon, Dustin threw out the idea for an app styled after the choose your own adventure books many of us remember so fondly. You could see the wheels turning as we all thought of some of the cool possibilities this could lead to. Map and GPS integration, picture tagging, commenting and social profiles were just a few of the ideas being thrown around. Needless to say we are still in the dark ages of this project, the “create your own adventure app” was something to get excited about. Here’s a recap of a few of my favorite ideas:
These are just a few of the ideas we talked about and we still have a lot of polishing to do from a scope and ideation standpoint, but I for one am excited to see where this goes. Check back next time to see how our idea changes and evolves.
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Today we started to narrow down our focus a bit on our yet-unnamed project. More post-it notes and white-board-chicken-scratch. Today we decided that we want to make a product, one that is conjured up out of our collective creative minds as opposed to one for a particular client. So far we are pretty sure we want to make an iPhone app. We are in a debate about whether the app will be more entertainment or more content-delivery focused or (more likely) some combination of both. We are all intrigued by the thought of adding a game layer to the experience, which could come to life in a wide variety of ways.
Some random thoughts from today’s brainstorm:
• Do people REALLY check-in with mobile devices and WHY do they do this?
• Make something cool that we all would use and there is a good chance others will too
• Crowd-source content
• Infuse the experience with “inside jokes” and other funny Cincy stereotypes
• Be upfront and honest about Cincy at all times (don’t sugarcoat!)
Our current mission statement: To show the world that Cincinnati doesn’t suck.
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Today was the first day of PBJ, which is an experiment between our design and tech teams to create a project over our lunch breaks throughout the next month (or however long it takes). In case you’re curious, PBJ stands for Power Brainstorm Jam, which beat out other awesome names like Lunch Storm, Footlong Ideas, and many others inappropriate for listing on here. Clearly our strengths are not in naming. The guide lines and goals we decided on today are pretty simple. 1. Meet every day at lunch. 2. Document the meeting events/progress on the blog daily. 3. Create something that is an example of the type of work we’re passionate about and would like to do more of.
With that being decided, we began trying to figure out what we’d like to make. The post-its in the image below represent some of the topics discussed. After some round about discussion and hazing of Dustin and his hipster ways (i.e. v-neck sunburn) we settled on creating an app for Cincinnati. What exactly that app is doing, we’ve yet to decide, but some of the popular topics were the CAC, finding venues or restaurants, uncovering the “cool” things, Midpoint Music Festival and general connecting and reviews while on the go.
Our next steps will always be outlined here on the blog as follows:
#1 homework:
Thurs: Share research on existing apps and websites with the group.
Fri: Share app ideas with the group. Hopefully some will bubble to the top and maybe we’ll even get it narrowed down to 2 or 3.
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If I was to say “Golden Arches,” I bet the first thing that would come to your mind wouldn’t be technology or innovation. It would probably trigger thoughts of Big Macs, Egg McMuffins, Happy Meals or if you’re like me, thoughts of indigestion. As easily one of the most recognizable brands in the world, McDonald’s knows that they need to do very little to grab your attention. Honestly, have you seen the mayhem that is followed by the annual re-release of the McRib? But, what does a fast food giant like McDonald’s do when they want to grab your attention? One might gravitate towards one of the hundreds of TV commercials we have all seen over the years, or one of the dozen or so catch phrases like “I’m lovin’ it.” But for a chain that serves nearly 50 million people each day worldwide and opens a new location every four hours, drumming up a silly slogan just won’t do. When your revenue stream is off the charts, you can afford to think outside the box and give away some free food as well, all in the name of getting people talking.
Enter an interactive challenge, where you can play to win free food. McDonald’s rented out a jumbotron on The Stureplan Hotel in Stockholm Sweden, where you can play traditional pong using your mobile device to control the paddle. The coolest part? You don’t need to download anything, just go to the site on your device and it uses geolocation to ensure that you’re in the game area. If you last 30 seconds against an increasingly fast computer opponent, you win your choice of several products and the coupon is sent directly to your mobile device. For more information, check out the video below.
Posted in Fun, Technology | 180 Comments »
Well, it’s finally starting to happen. Don’t throw away your velcro wallet just yet but I would reconsider buying a new one anytime soon. Today, Square CEO Jack Dorsey unveiled two new products that hope to drastically change how a small business accepts payments from customers. One of those is Square Register, which basically allows your iPad to function as a cash register that also collects data about purchases. According to Dorsey, “This obsoletes credit card terminals and cash registers.” The other new product is called Square Card Case which, according to the company, allows users to “explore local businesses, view menus, track and store digital receipts and open digital tabs to make instant, effortless purchases.” Dorsey had this to say about Card Case, “We want to take away all of this clutter, all the paper, all the mess. Get rid of the take out menus, get rid of the loyalty cards, get rid of the receipts, get rid of it and replace it with one clean digital card.” Read more here.
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For all of us who’ve said at one time or another, “I want an app that does ___________,” there’s a new app for you. Social Memories is an app (beta) from Facebook that takes your social data and conveniently aggregates it into slick infographics to page through/look at digitally in a simple way. Or as Facebook puts it: Your social activity on Facebook, analyzed and commemorated in twenty eight elegant pages.
A spread from Felton's 2007 Annual Report
I think it’s a fantastic idea. But I’ve got a slight problem with it. The aesthetic style way-too-closely mimics the look set forth years ago by Nicholas Felton…the same Nicholas Felton that has a cult following for his amazingly designed (personal) annual reports, which you can see on his blog/studio site Feltron.com and his blog. Felton’s work is something that has inspired me for years. We’ve even created an installation in the past inspired by his work. However, taking a look and using it as inspiration is one thing…ripping it off and feeding it to the masses is another. Facebook, I love the idea and the execution. It’s brilliant. The visual data design is just too close for comfort.
Interesting perspective from Fast Co.
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So I stumbled upon an interesting article the other day about how a new service called GroupMe is providing brands the opportunity to break into group text conversations.
Now, there are a number of group texting apps out there already. These apps allow you to communicate in mass with selected contacts in your phone, thus aggregating a large community conversation into one thread.
What GroupMe is now doing is unique in that the app allows users to set up a ‘Featured Group’ which is then tied to a partner brand. This gives the partner brand the opportunity to basically hack users private texts and send them special brand related information.
Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | 220 Comments »
I had always assumed that the top level domain .tv was created for television. I personally prefer .com, but the idea behind .tv seemed clear enough. It was imagined that there would be so many web sites that we would need clarity in top level URLs like .tv and .biz. So recently, I was surprised to learn that the .tv top level domain was actually originally created and awarded to a small island nation of Tuvaulu. Much like Canada uses .ca and the Great Britain uses .uk.
A Tuvalu Beach
It turns out, this enterprising nation in the Pacific sold the rights to the domain to DotTV and later Verisign for 14M € + 1.8M €/year in 2000. The revenues account for a vitally important 10% of Tuvaulu’s yearly budget.
Tuvaulu is a lovely place (as seen in pic above), but with no inland water sources, limited exports and a remote location that makes tourism cost-prohibitive, it is not an easy place to live and thrive. Only about one-quarter of the labor force participates in the formal wage economy. The remaining 75% work primarily in rural subsistence and livelihood activities.
You have to hand it to them. A nation with few natural resources and a resulting undeveloped economy has to make lemonade from lemons; and this one certainly has. At a time when legislators around the globe are looking for ways to balance the budget, perhaps Tuvaulu can serve as an example for officials on how to create a windfall from what they’ve got. It might be the newest creative measure Tuvaulu employs to bolster the nation’s dwindling coffers.
Posted in Fun, Technology, Uncategorized | 198 Comments »
Last week a new website was launched by Microsoft that counts down to the long awaited end of Internet Explorer 6. Last year Google announced in its blog post, Modern browsers for modern application, that Google Docs would no longer support IE6. Around the same time, France and Germany recommended their citizens not use Internet Explorer at all.
It’s been a long time coming and has been the dream of web developers across the globe. Maybe now with Microsoft’s full support we will see more corporations and users move off of IE6 and to any other modern browser.
If you are part of corporate IT, Microsoft has also put together a workshop to help you update your environment to provide a more secure and better user experience.
Posted in Technology | 163 Comments »
