Chrome Applications - interactive and multi-person creative tools

Chrome Experiments Check out some of the tools available and free on Google Chrome

 

                                       

                                          Text Particles                     

                                          Crazy Tentacles

                                         Sketch

                                         Typographic Effects

                                          Neon Flame

                                         Plink

                                         Ginger Facial Rigging

Google Chrome Sketchpad - Amazing design capability

'Sketchpad', an app on Google Chrome allows for fantastic design opportunities. The user has hundreds of backgrounds and patterns to choose from, stamps of a huge variety, text options and exciting colour palettes. All you need to invest is a little time to master some of the techniques and then save your files (like the mocked up band advert above) to your computer.

Bin Weevils...Old Fashioned Advertising Delivered Through Complex Marketing Strategies?

Bin Weevils, the new 'social' gaming phenomenon aimed at primary/early secondary school children. A free online game (FOG), the site offers really dedicated and enthusiastic players to become members at a cost of £4.95 per month. These membership cards are currently being sold in a range of nationwide stores (Wilkinsons, Sainsburys etc.).
Sounds harmless enough, until you take a closer look at what young children are exposed to whilst playing the game. Heavily sponsored by Innocent Smoothie, players see the logo in a number of places. They are also invited to enter the Innocent Smoothie kitchen on successful completion of a crossword. And it's not just Innocent. Children are also shown images of the Skylanders logo - a new video game. If players find this or Innocent characters they are rewarded with points for their game. In addition, the cinema advertises Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon. 

Information in the 'About Us' section on the site proudly claims 'At Bin Weevils kids will never be exposed to advertising of brands who promote unhealthy lifestyle – we make sure our advertising solutions will have educational benefit for children. This is why we teamed with campaigns like “Catch it, Kill it, Bin it” (NHS), Road Safety (TFL) or Online Safety campaign (COI).'


Worthy indeed and interesting that the statement does not dismiss the 'exposing' of children to the 'advertising of brands' - the claim is just that those brands will be healthy! In addition, there is a strong suggestion that this 'exposure' is of educational campaigning rather than simple product placement. Advertising is advertising, however it is presented. Innocent is still a competitive company, promoting it's products to young children largely unaware that they are being advertised to.  

Another example of how subtle and complex the world of advertising has become and how the audience are delivered to advertisers through vehicles such as Bin Weevils.

Twitter Facts

• Over 60% of all users are from the US with only approximately 7% of users from the UK
• Fox News tweets more often than any other individual or organisation on the site
• The majority of the most active twitter users (top 5%) are male. Although females make up the greater proportion of all users
• 88% of the most active Twitter users post every day
• New York is the most heavily populated Twitter City in the world
• 21% of people who have a Twitter account have never Tweeted
• Tuesday and Wednesday have the highest amount of traffic on the site
• The hours between 12-2pm have the highest amount of traffic
• The highest % of users are aged between 20-29yrs

Source: 

Sysomos Twitter Data 

How do Music artists make money in the digital age?

There is still touring, interviews, appearances and so on, but record sales used to be the bread and butter salary for many recording artists. Today it is more common for people to rip music from youtube or similar sources or simply free stream the latest CD from their favourite band through Last FM or Spotify.  New media technology offers an unparalleled opportunity for artists to reach a vast audience. This sounds good for the artists, but what does it mean in hard cash sales? 
An article on the wonderful site Information is Beautiful shows what those streams and downloads mean for today's musicians. For example, for an artist to earn the minimum wage (equivalent in US Dollars, he or she would have to have a monthly stream of 4,053,110 plays. 
 How Much do Music Artists Earn Online?

Are these about the most fun you can have with an internet application?

Have some fun with these internet applications 'Tone Matrix' and 'Pulsate' from Lab Andre Michelle. They prove that there doesn't have to always be a point to things, sometimes you can just enjoy them for the sake of it. 

Tone Matrix and Pulsate

A New Era in Gaming?

Warco is a new type of FPS game. Set in a war-torn city. Nothing new there...? Told from a Western perspective. Not so surprising either...? What is ground-breaking is that rather than playing the role of a soldier shooting Insurgent forces, you play the role of a War Photojournalist shooting footage to be edited and broadcast on the news.


Warco is just one example of a number of games that invite players to engage on an intellectual level, considering the ethical and moral dilemmas that the game raises. other examples include Sweatshop (Channel4) - where you take on the role of a trainee manager and need to maximise output and the efficiency of the workers, September 12th (Newsgaming) - set in a crowded market town where you aim to spot terrorists and make choices about how you respond. The game is prefaced by some chilling instructions 'It has no beginning. It has already begun. The rules are deadly simple. You can shoot. Or not.'

Read a full article on the new wave or gaming in  The Observer Gaming