Directory of Fictional Phone Numbers
Here's a very comprehensive directory of the fictional 555 phone numbers from movies and TV shows. Add to your Rolodex the contact for the Fight Club's Project Mayhem: 555-1534.
Record Analog Podcasts With Gramophone
Fire up your Skype and record that interview old-school style, with a real gramophone.
The Gakken Premium Gramophone ($149) "supports all record sizes, features speed and tone adjustment, and even lets you record music! No file formats to worry about, no batteries to replace, and the warm, nostalgic sound of analog - this just might be the perfect music player."
Your Family Pictures, Now With Limited Commercial Interruptions
Here's one genius idea whose time is yet to come: let people stream online pictures from their accounts on sites such as Facebook and Flickr to the digital frames on their desks, walls and nightstands along with news, stocks and weather updates, and an occasional ad.
There's a company called Thinking Screen Media that does exactly that via its FrameChannel service. Get a wifi-enabled frame, plug into the info stream via FrameChannel and select among dozens of sources, and there you have your own Captivate screen you stare at during elevator rides in the office. Only now it's in your bedroom. Incidentally, Captivate's founder is on the board of this new company.
The company has done tests with IPG and plans to start selling its ad inventory some time this year. It also has just launched an iPad app that turns the device into digital frame.
The idea is genius because as hardware prices drop and people's comfort with the tech grows, everyone will soon have as many screens on surfaces around them as they now have old-fashioned paper photos. All of these screens will be online.
The idea is early because today wireless frame penetration is at 5%.
Some 5.9 million digital frames shipped in 2008 in the US and the market will remain flat until 2013, and IDC expects that by then two thirds of all frames shipped will have a wireless capability.
Funny, there are people who have already figured out how to block ads on this barely emerging medium (lie about your location during sign-up).
Eventually, digital frames will become wallet-sized. They will be monetized as well: every tenth time that you open your wallet you'll see an ad. Then, our windows will be internet-ready as well.
There's a company called Thinking Screen Media that does exactly that via its FrameChannel service. Get a wifi-enabled frame, plug into the info stream via FrameChannel and select among dozens of sources, and there you have your own Captivate screen you stare at during elevator rides in the office. Only now it's in your bedroom. Incidentally, Captivate's founder is on the board of this new company.
The company has done tests with IPG and plans to start selling its ad inventory some time this year. It also has just launched an iPad app that turns the device into digital frame.
The idea is genius because as hardware prices drop and people's comfort with the tech grows, everyone will soon have as many screens on surfaces around them as they now have old-fashioned paper photos. All of these screens will be online.
The idea is early because today wireless frame penetration is at 5%.
Some 5.9 million digital frames shipped in 2008 in the US and the market will remain flat until 2013, and IDC expects that by then two thirds of all frames shipped will have a wireless capability.
Funny, there are people who have already figured out how to block ads on this barely emerging medium (lie about your location during sign-up).
Eventually, digital frames will become wallet-sized. They will be monetized as well: every tenth time that you open your wallet you'll see an ad. Then, our windows will be internet-ready as well.
Starling Preps App For Social TV Viewing
For those of you who were interested in the last week's post about social TV, here's another recent announcement (also written up in Contagious and Creativity):
"Starling builds on the emergent trend of 'co-viewing,' which generates active social media chatter when fans of a show gather online. It connects fans with other fans of the show, and friends to what their friends are watching. Users engage each other around the shows they already enjoy, and discover new shows through the social graph.
Starling builds the experience by sorting popular comments, and comments from the viewer's friends. Comments that appeal to the viewer can be voted upon. Voting is simple. Viewers tap the screen to 'star' a comment and viewers with well-received comments are awarded points in a global scoring system."
Some relevant Nielsen stats from q4 2009: "59% of TV viewers now use the Internet once a month; the amount of time Americans spent using the Internet while watching TV reached three and a half hours a month."
Trippy Japanese Ads for Schizophrenia Drug
This collection of Japanese ads for psychiatric drugs made rounds a few years ago; my favorite is the series for Serenace (haloperidol) that is used in the treatment of schizophrenia and, acute psychotic states and delirium.
Mahir "I Kiss You" Çağrı Ten Years Later
Spotted Mahir, the hero of one of the earliest internet memes that circled the globe in 1999, giving media interviews at ROFLcon today. Stay tuned for more geeky celebrity sightings.
MIT Tech Review: Social TV Will Change the World
MIT Tech Review has published its 2010 list of ten technologies that will change the world, and one of them is social television. Wonder why now; I first posted on the subject five years ago, and the research goes a lot further back. It seemed like a pretty cool idea back at the time -- imagine connecting with those other wonderful people watching The Steve Wilkos Show! -- but the more I keep thinking about it, the more it seems like a solution in search of a problem. Besides, with a combination of Twitter on a smartphone, hashtags and a TV, this isn't even the only solution.
That TV remote on the picture above looks pretty much like a new Dell smartphone with Twitter on it.
Anyway, the article highlights work by a Media Lab's research group: "Marie-José Montpetit, an invited scientist at MIT's Research Lab for Electronics, has been working for several years on social TV--a way to seamlessly combine the social networks that are boosting TV ratings with the more passive experience of traditional TV viewing. Her goal is to make watching television something that viewers in different places can share and discuss--and to make it easier to find something to watch."
A few years ago, John Batelle had a pretty cool idea of using online conversations around TV programs to rank shows in importance, the idea that has later materialized as Twielsen.
Sometimes, it feels like the TR suffers from the availability bias: two other technologies on the list are real-time search and 3D (mobile) displays.
Last year, they put Siri on the list, the same company Apple just bought.
Google Needs a "Try Again" Button
I wish Google had a "Try Again" button that would fetch a new set of results based on the algorithm's different set of assumptions about my search intent. The button would come in handy when I am stuck, can't think of another way to rephrase my query, and don't feel like manually combing through pages and pages of search results. Kind of the opposite of "I'm feeling lucky."
(I wonder why all those pages are even there if 94% of people don't ever venture past page 3, and those who do obviously aren't impressed with the first 30 results. On the other hand, I'm also very curious about what site ranked last "of about 1,340,000,000" for "love", but Google won't go past page 80. It's so far down the list it must be filled with hate. Or indifference.)
To go back to the regular button or to revisit the original set of results, I would just empty the search box.
The Evolution of Advertising in Sports Video Games
This is a rerun of a series of blog posts I did back in April 2006 while researching things for my grad thesis (bonus: an unpublished chapter on history). It documents the evolution of advertising in sports video games published by Electronic Arts between 1983 and 2006. Since many AdLab readers probably haven't seen it, and the stuff is pretty fascinating, I thought I'd repost it. The original raw research notes follow. Some links may since have expired.
[Also see 19 Tips for In-Game Advertising, a case study on Burger King's games, the illustrated history with videos, and a lot of other good stuff posted here on AdLab about in-game advertising.]
I am writing the chapter on history of in-game advertising and decided to track down the evolution of sports games. I picked games made or published by Electronic Arts because the company has some of the most popular franchises, the games sold well, and also because these days the company seems to have a structured approach to selling ad space in their games. Below are screenshots from EA's sports games made during the two decades between 1983-2006.
[Also see 19 Tips for In-Game Advertising, a case study on Burger King's games, the illustrated history with videos, and a lot of other good stuff posted here on AdLab about in-game advertising.]
I am writing the chapter on history of in-game advertising and decided to track down the evolution of sports games. I picked games made or published by Electronic Arts because the company has some of the most popular franchises, the games sold well, and also because these days the company seems to have a structured approach to selling ad space in their games. Below are screenshots from EA's sports games made during the two decades between 1983-2006.
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