the ads were designed for an upcoming media seminar with the overall theme of 'what's new today, is old tomorrow', so they retro stylized Facebook, Youtube and Skype (and Twitter, not in English).
Brazilian artists Otavio and Gustavo Pandolfo (also known as 'Os Gemeos') and graffiti legend Futura have just completed an 80-feet-high mural on the wall of a New York school.
The project was driven by New York-based creative studio AKANYC and street art website 12ozProphet with support from Nike (tying in with its World Basketball Festival) and paint company MTN Colors.
The mural is on the west-facing wall of P.S. 11, William T. Harris elementary school, in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York City. Work began on the afternoon of Friday, August 6, and was completed today, August 13.
The overall theme, we are told, is a message of international unity. Os Gemeos' iconic yellow character (sometimes referred to as as 'the giant' or ʻgiganteʼ) is adorned with flags representing countries around the globe. Of the design, Os Gemeos says, 'We are using different flags painted with non-traditional colours. The idea is 'one world one voice', no borders, no separation, just everything and everyone working together for a single cause that is a better world.' Seems like they did the bulk of the work, with Futura adding details within the overall scheme.
AKANYC creative director Allen Benedikt hopes 'to create a regular mural series that we believe will inspire and enrich the creative communities throughout the city'.
All images courtesy AKANYC
"Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.
Designed by Bangkok advertising agency CreativeJuice for plastic model kit giant Tamiya, the letters in this card can be popped out and snapped together to build a robot, a plane, a boat, or a car. [via NOTCOT]
Retargeter has an interesting infographic on online advertising (click for the large version):
Google has released a tool which lets you preview and live-edit fonts which are part of the Google Font API. It’s called Google Font Previewer and features fonts like Vollkorn, Lobster, Cardo and Reanie Beanie. Once you’re done tweaking a font, you can copy the HTML snippet Google shows into your own page.
[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google Font Previewer | Comments]
Perhaps bad news for the traffic of dictionary sites, which often don’t show the actual word definition in the search engine snippets: Google now has a onebox of their own immediately offering the definition(s) for certain words you’re searching for. Try enter e.g. pleasant into Google.com and the top will read: “pleas·ant/ˈplezənt/Adjective ... 1. Giving a sense of happy satisfaction or enjoyment. ... 2. (of a person or their manner) Friendly and considerate; likable.”
Not too long ago, Google used to link words to Answers.com in the right hand side; before that, Dictionary.com. They later switched to their own definitions page, but then had that link removed completely (it was somewhat useful to check if you were writing a word correctly, though). Now a dictionary is back for certain words – I suppose words people often want to look up in a dictionary, per Google’s usage stats – and more immediate, too. Note entering e.g. define:pleasant still works, too, and triggers a bit of a more extensive page.
[Thanks Drtimofey!]
[By Philipp Lenssen | Origin: Google With Direct Dictionary Result | Comments]
The internet protocol used by the majority of web users, IPv4, provides for about four billion IP addresses -- the unique 32-digit number used to identify each computer, website or internet-connected device.
There are currently only 232 million IP addresses left -- enough for about 340 days -- thanks to the explosion in smartphones and other web-enabled devices.
The solution to the problem is IPv6, which uses a 128-digit address. It would give everyone in the world more than four billion addresses each, but most of the internet industry has so far been reluctant to introduce it.
It would require each device that connects to the internet to be reconfigured or upgraded, with some users even being forced to buy new hardware, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.
If you've poked around the social media world at all the past few days you have probably heard about Flipboard, a new iPad app that creates a customized 'social media magazine' based on what's happening in your Twitter or Facebook stream (see video below). The app is already a raging success--it's number one in the app store and Flipboard has been forced to restrict sign-ups until it can handle all the traffic coming its way. Now developers are working behind the scenes to make Flipboard even smarter with a semantic intelligence engine that will be able to select the content you want before you even know you want it.
As it stands, Flipboard selects magazine content chronologically. It's good enough for the time being, but hardly sufficient when trying to sift through content provided by, say, your 3,000 Twitter friends. That's where Ellerdale's semantic search engine comes in. Ellerdale originally planned to use its technology, which has been in the works since 2008, to build a personalized news website. But this week, the company was acquired by Flipboard as part of a bid to make even more customized social media magazines for users.
'We want to surface the most relevant content,' Arthur Van Hoff, co-founder of Ellerdale and the newly appointed CTO of Flipboard tells FastCompany.com. 'An article that my mom comments on is relevant to me, but maybe not to other people. Every Flipboard magazine is completely personalized.'
Flipboard's semantic search will take into account a number of factors: how closely a user is connected to other people (if you have an ongoing conversation with a Facebook friend, for example, that person will rank highly), posting behavior (you might not want to see content from a robot that posts every hour on the hour), common interests with friends (whether you 'like' or retweet their posts), and how many followers a user has.
That level of personalization isn't easy. 'We have a big database to cope with data streams. It can process 60 million messages each day,' Van Hoff says.
The ability to absorb information at the speed of social media is part of the reason why Flipboard acquired Ellerdale. And since Ellerdale has been working on semantic search for years, the technology will be ready for release soon. Once it has proven to work, Flipboard will expand its reach to include other social networks like Foursquare, Digg, Flickr, and Tumblr. Once that happens, we may finally be on the path to making rational sense out of the dozens of data streams that we deal with every day.
[youtube v2vpvEDS00o]
Ariel Schwartz can be reached on Twitter or by email.
Whether we’re talking about social media, content promotion or basic networking, it’s often advised that small business owners reach out, engage and connect with their “influencers”. But…who are these mythical people we’re supposed to be talking to all the time? What do they look like and where do they hang out? And why does no one ever tell us?
Well, today we will! As a small business owner, there are five types of influencers that you should be aware of and reaching out to on social media. Want to know who they are?
The Social Butterflies
Remember high school? Remember those people that seemed to know everyone regardless of which party you went to or what corner you were hanging out on? These people also exist on the Web. The Social Butterflies are the names and avatars who live to connect people from inside their different networks. If you need a programmer, they know a guy. If you need 100 invitations made by yesterday, they have a friend who does that. They’ll make the introduction for you because they take pleasure in mixing up their networks.
Social Butterflies are valuable to a small business owner because of how wide their net reaches. By forming a close relationship with the, you get access to everyone else who is in their network. You also ensure that the Butterfly will mention YOUR name to her contacts when the time comes. Where do Social Butterflies hang out? Everywhere! To identify them, try creating contact groups (via Twitter Lists or Facebook/LinkedIn groups, for example) and then look for the names that seem to overlap. These are your Butterflies.
The Thought Leaders
Thought leaders are the voices that your customers trust and listen to most. They’re usually the same people whose content you’re constantly watching get retweeted and whose blogs get more comments in a day than you get in a month. It takes some effort to get these people to acknowledge you because they’re constantly being inundated with messages, but if you can prove yourself by sharing valuable information and being a good social media citizen, you’ll be handsomely rewarded when it’s your content they’re blasting out to their loyal networks.
Thought leaders can help you build your own authority by lending you their platform. When they tweet out your material or offer to help you with a blog post, you get to take advantage of their contact and increase the eyes looking at your site. If you’re looking for Thought Leaders in social media, you won’t have to look too far. They’re speaking at conferences, getting quotes in the most high profile stories, and are always being referenced in other people’s tweets and post. To get the most return, don’t go for the Superstar Thought Leaders, stick to who is most influential in your niche.
The Trendsetters
Every industry has its own set of trendsetters. They’re the early adopters and the people that others listen to. The Trendsetters were on Twitter and FourSquare before everyone else and now they’re trying out a new social networking site that you can’t even spell. Trendsetters are motivated greatly by ego and are always on the hunt for what’s new so they can tell their friends they found it first. They love getting the scool, so get their attention, and they’ll be proud to share you with all 5,000 of their closest friends.
Trendsetters are powerful forces in social media because of their need to constantly be trying and sharing new things. If you’re looking for these people in social media, you can find them reading TechCrunch, commenting on Mashable and tweeting about sites and applications you’ve never even heard of.
The Reporters
This includes the bloggers, reporters and news outlets that live and breathe your industry. They’re the bylines you constantly see and the people most immersed in your industry because they write about it every day. This group is super important to connect with because they hold three coveted things — press, coverage and links. SMB owners need to know how to get the attention of people who link.
Obviously, as a small business owner, you want to create relationships with the Reporters that cover your niche to get your business in front of their audience. You want to form relationships with these folks as early as you can so that you can keep them alert to big things happening in your small business. Once you identify these people, you’ll want to create a PR linkerati list so that you know who you should reach out to when you need press.
The Everyday Customer
Your Everyday Customer has a much smaller circle of influence than The Reporters or The Social Butterflies, but it’s just as important. Your Everyday Customers are the people who live in your town and could potentially walk in and spend money with you today. You want to use social media to create awareness with them.
This group is often neglected in social media as brands attempt to go for the higher hanging fruit. However, reach one of these folks and you’re almost guaranteed that they’ll pass on their experience to their family and friends. They’re all about worth of mouth and sharing recommendations. If you’re looking for them on social media, they can most often be found asking questions on Twitter or participating in group discussions on Facebook and LinkedIn. They’re unassuming, but vocal when given the chance.
Those are groups I concern myself with when talking about “influencers”. Are they any influencer groups you focus on not mentioned here?
From Small Business Trends
The 5 Types of Influencers On The Web
I Remember when i used to work @ an Ad agency we will tell our clients to write a brief about their brand thinking as if it is a Car, Bet things have change and now we have to start thinking more like humans
MORE INFO CLICK HERE: Your Market Is a Person
This content from: Duct Tape Marketing
Target Market as defined by Wikipedia: A ‘target market or target Audience is the market segment which a particular product is marketed to.
The concept of defining a target market is a bedrock kind of tool for any business. My experience, however, is that the clinical approach often taught in marketing courses seems to negate the fact that markets, whether B2B or B2C, are people. This rather obvious fact becomes even more relevant as social technology helps put a face on even the most virtual of client relationships.
Understanding the persona of your ideal client is the first step to creating a marketing strategy that will allow you to effectively carve out a market to build the kind of marketing momentum that can only be described as attraction. When you view your market as a real live image of a personality you can begin to speak to that person in a language that builds trust on the most personal level. But first you must know their story!
Demographics are a start
Look at your current customers. What are the common demographic characteristics shared by your most profitable, referral generating customers. Why this select group? Because there’s probably something very right about how you attracted this group that leads them to the emotional connection required to make referrals. Understand and catalog what you can demographically as a starting point for getting a clearer picture.
Narrowing your sights
Once you start to get a better view of your profitable customers, it’s time to take a good, hard look at the other 70%. You know, the ones you took on because you couldn’t say no or because it had been a slow month or that you’ve done some business with for years, but you don’t really do that kind of work any more. Every organization has those and I’m suggesting you purge them, (well, maybe some) but I do know that in order for your ideal customer approach to become a strategy, you need a very clear picture of the clients you don’t want and you need to start saying no.
Social media adds focus
Getting psychographic and behavioral data on a market is a common practice for marketers as it adds much richer information than statistical data can. Collecting this kind of information used to be expensive and more aggregate than personal. Social media adoption has altered this piece of the puzzle in interesting ways. People joke about people talking about what they had for dinner on Twitter, but that kind of information, while seemingly inane, is marketing gold. Append your entire customer list with everything you can know through social media and you will discover more about what motivates and drives your customers than years of research could ever tell – including which ones wield influence and love to connect and refer.
Visualize real people
Once you’ve done the research above on your ideal client it’s time to start getting visual. Write out a description of a real ideal client that you would love ten more of. Write everything you can think of – What they look like, what they think, what they want, what they fear, what they think fun, risk, and passion look like. Use photos of real people to help you create this total persona and then hang it on the wall for all to absorb. Maybe you need to do this a couple times and develop several distinct ideal client personality types, but imagine if you put this these images and descriptions on the wall and referred to them as you made sales calls, wrote web copy or brainstormed about a product innovation. It’s like having them in the meeting with you. In fact, go a bit over the top and create life size ideal client cut outs and invite Bill and Mary and Tom into your meetings. At least, it will add some fun to the meeting.
A database for your customer
Once you start to get a feel for accessing this level of personal understanding you can begin to change your concept of the client database. Instead of looking at it as a tool for you, flip it and make it a tool for them. In other words, start building a database that contains everything you can know about your customers and use it to make them feel special. Use it to note when significant things have happened, listen to what they are saying in social media and engage on a personal level, send them a birthday gift, or remind them that it’s their anniversary. Every once in a while, sit down with them and ask them to share. It might start with them sharing something about your products and services but, ultimately, if you take this practice to heart, it will turn to them sharing how you can help them achieve their goals.
I don’t know, it just seems like it’s way more fun to work with people who know you’re a person too.
Image credit: /cesco
