Face The Task
Nokia’s N96 microsite is a visual feast waiting to be explored. Discover the phones features through video intros and a really nice navigation.
Rooftop Racer
Help Elliot Sadler get to the finish line and get to his Coke Zero. Great graphics and seriously addictive gameplay – this is a brilliant example of how to do something simple, brilliantly.
ChupaChups
Experience 50 years of ChupaChups through the eyes of the sweet makers – music, cinema, politics and world events are all there, except with a technicolour flash twist.
Talking Pets
Simple and straight forward, but seriously funny. Is there anything more hilarious then talking animals?
Corona Beach
Welcome to Corona Beach. ‘You will be hard pressed to find a more relaxing online destination.’
Nice interactivity your environment.
Pushing ahead of close rivals Wicklow and Waterford, and striding beyond the reach of last year’s winner Laois, Carlow spend more money on eBay then anywhere else in Ireland. Their top purchases are motorcycles, auto-parts and DVDs. And when it comes to selling, there are more baby items sold per capita then any where else.
“The great thing about eBay is that the site allows people who live in the country to get their hands on items which wouldn’t normally be readily available to them, and items are delivered direct to your door, cutting out having to drive to the nearest town. Certainly, I believe this is a key reason why my county, Carlow, won this year,” said TV presenter Kathryn Thomas, who accepted the trophy on Carlow’s behalf.
A little known fact is that in April 2007, Carlow became the first town in Ireland to be completely wireless broadband enabled by deploying a Wi-Fi mesh network. Perhaps this is the secret that allowed them to lead the way through 2008?
A great demonstration of what you can achieve with simple text and a powerful piano backing. The Girl Effect campaign is a non-profit effort that aims to highlight the powerful economic and social change that can occur when girls participate in developing societies.
The Internet has created many stars. There was the Numa Numa kid, the Afro Ninja and the Star Wars Guy to name but a few. But the latest Internet Hero may seem even stranger still!
Chiswick is home to Zbigniew Colbecki, 47, a Pole who moved to the UK three years ago. A watchmaker and DJ in his home town of Torun, Zbigniew is the binny with the Michael Jackson moves. Dubbed ‘Ziggy Dust’, the West London street sweeper has quickly developed a loyal fan base across the globe thanks to YouTube.
Ziggy has said: ‘I dance while I am working as it makes it more fun. I love music and dancing. I am used to performing and I get a great reaction from people in Chiswick. Mothers stop with their children and dance with me and one old lady phoned the council to say she wanted to take me for a cup of tea on my break.’
Well Ziggy, Cybercom salutes you as our newest Internet Hero.
TechCrunch announced yesterday that Google is on the verge of acquiring Digg, the social bookmarking website, for an estimated $200 million.
News results are an ever increasing feature of search engine organic listings, as “relevancy” of content is algorithmically weighted by freshness (upload date) and interaction (comments). Consumer cenerated content has been ramped up in the search ranking algorithm in acknowledgement that current affairs and real-time conversation should come through in search listings ahead of dated copy.
Big Mouth Media breaks it down in simple terms… With the other search giants are scaling up their access to live web conversation, Google is ensuring they aren’t kept in the dark. That, and they would rather media hype around this acquisition, than the developments with a Yahoo!/Microsoft merger. According to Big Mouth, “For avid Google users who are unfamiliar with Digg, the benefits of buying the social bookmarking site are more tangible. According to the Search Engine Journal, Digg is likely to be subsumed into Google News. Digg’s emphasis on social news sharing is sure to bolster Google News’ offerings in the face of rising competition from the likes of Yahoo! Buzz – which reportedly saw 9.2 million users in June, according to comScore – and AOL’s newly relaunched Propeller.”
This is a fascinating migration to the social sphere and the message is clear. Advertisers and Agency alike must work together to produce a marketing strategy that engages the community. Never has it been more important to have all ears to the ground . The voice of the people reigns!
MUZU TV is a new music video website enabling artists, labels, festivals, venues and any other music content owner to broadcast their music TV on the web.
SONY BMG is the first major music company to sign a content deal with the new site, giving users in the UK and Ireland access to its library of videos from its global artist roster (which include The Ting Tings, Foo Fighters, Kylie, Justin Timberlake, Beyonce and MGMT). In addition to SONY BMG, Muzu TV have similar agreements with ITN for archive material from the ITN network and agreements with a host of smaller content providers.
The site allows fans to create a personalised music TV channel to share with friends and embed on their social networking sites. They can also interact with artists and other fans, as well as discover and share music – all legally and at no cost.
They have a range of advertising opportunities and will have age, gender and genre targeting options – although this is not a real option until traffic and registered user figures reach a reasonable size.
Based in Dublin, we of course wish the guys the best of the luck!
BusinessWeek has recently spoken to a bevy of experts and distilled the ’10 Commandments’ top online designers live by in 2008.
1. Thou shalt not abuse Flash
2. Thou shalt not hide content
3. Thou shalt not clutter
4. Thou shalt not overuse glassy reflections
5. Thou shalt not name your Web 2.0 company with an unnecessary surplus or dearth of vowels
6. Thou shalt worship at the altar of typography
7. Thou shalt create immersive experiences
8. Thou shalt be social
9. Thou shalt embrace proven technologies
10. Thou shalt make content king
After a serious bout of conferring, the Cybercom studio would like to add the following:
11. Thou shalt not use Serif fonts for large portions of text
12. Thou shalt always have a ‘sound-off’ and ‘skip’ button!
According to this video supplied by Tatango, Google apparently has plans to introduce a new system for delivering and ranking results, allowing users to vote up or down on search categories. The user will be allowed to rank each result depending on its relevance. In effect, it allows the searcher to personalise their search results content ever further.
The search giant is also currently testing a new feature that has become extremely popular on sites such as Digg.com. It allows users to make comments regarding particular search results. This feature skips the need for blogs and directly empowers individuals to influence Google users. With initiatives such as there, the sphere of user influence grows ever wider.
The question has to be when do we stop listening?!
Following on from being the first Irish University to host a lecture in Second Life, earlier this month UCD became the first to have a library on Facebook. Facebook, the social utility which has a University at the core, is of course a fantastic fit with students such a large percentage of its active users.
Users can now check the availability of books from the library catalogue and make reservations on the page. The UCD library page also has a widget application which provides news alerts as well as a Flickr gallery. The best of luck to them and may other Irish Universities follow suit.
