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.

Moving Old Posts About In-Game Ads to AdLab

I'll be moving a bunch of old posts about in-game advertising from a thesis blog I set up half a decade ago to AdLab. It's something I've been meaning to do forever, and now that Google is shutting down FTP support I finally get to do it.

Depending on how your RSS reader is set up, you might see these old posts showing up in your feed as new. Sorry for the clutter, I'll try to wrap things up quickly.

Slogan Slingers Crowdsource Slogans

You can get your next ad slogan crowdsourced with SloganSlingers.com for about $200, or you can use this handy free slogan generator.

Related: literary analysis of advertising slogans, reenacting corporate slogans, and the inherent poetry of advertising.

Renault Puts Electric Cars in Sims 3

Electronic Arts and Renault announced an agreement that will enable players of The Sims 3 to download Renault's electric vehicles into the game.  "This Spring, Renault's Twizy Z.E Concept car will be made available to download free of charge [...] within an Electric Vehicle Pack."

Two years ago, Ikea released a Stuff Pack for Sims 2, a year after H&M. I've also seen BP-branded windmills in the most recent SimCity Societies.

Some numbers: "Since its June 2009 launch, The Sims 3 has sold more than 4.5 million copies worldwide to date." Fans have downloaded 130 million copies of player created content that includes Sims, houses, and stories. Nearly 2 million uploads have been made to date to the Sims 3 community site, "including 20 movies each hour. The Sims 3 YouTube Channel is in the top ten most viewed sponsored channels of all time with more than 28 million video views."
-- press release, Joystiq

Two Banners In One Short RSS Feed Item

I'm all for making money, and I know RSS ads aren't known for high click-throughs, but two banners in each non-full RSS feed item?  

Projector Turns Surfaces Into Touch Screens

A follow-up to the post from earlier today about student experiments with projected interfaces:  "Light Touch is an interactive projector that instantly transforms any flat surface into a touch screen."  Not for sale yet, but apparently available to potential partners.
- via

Skinput Body Interface Listens for Taps on Skin

CNN Labs (?) runs a story about Skinput, a prototype interface that appropriates the human body as input device, developed by a Carnegie Melon grad student and Microsoft researcher. "Skinput can tell whether a person tapped a middle finger or an index finger, because the two moves sound slightly different to the springy receivers."

Related:  some other work in this area as well as the now-famous Sixth Sense prototype from MIT.