Apps

Ingress – It’s time to Move

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The name is “Ingress” and it’s the ultimate social game brought up by Google, in a beta phase for now it’s already creating its own buzz online.

Ingress
The game triggers you to start moving through the real world using an Android device and discover sources of a supposed mysterious energy, by walking around in real places you are then able to acquire and/or tap objects to complete virtual quests in the game via the Ingress app, this will make you progress and evolve as a player.

The whole game story rumbles around a so called “Niantic Project”, there are no clues what so ever of what this project can bring to humanity and it’s up to the community to find out what is going on behind this mysterious name.

Outcome
From a social point of view, Google hopes to see the game promoting social interaction on a modern and fun environment, the game mechanic will make you go outside, see things, talk to people and meet new places, that can only be a good start!

It is too early to see what is the outcome of this immersive community gaming experience, but it for sure shows an avantgarde posture from Google towards the future.

Find out more about it at ingress.com.

Door Tiago in Apps, Games, Innovatie, Mobile
maandag 19 november, 2012
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Tr-APP-ing the US 2012 Election

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Anxious or even excited to track the US Elections live and real time (without waking up your partner when you are in Europe for example). Check out a couple of apps we’ve stumbled upon:

- Politico - for the latest political news and analysts pp. provides a convenient way to access POLITICO’s dynamic content. Browse through a variety of sections including Congress, and POLITICO 44, which offers minute-by-minute updates on the election.

- Foursquare “I Voted” , connect it to your Foursquare account. You’ll be able to find your polling station and learn about the candidates and propositions that will be on your ballot ahead of time. Powered by the Google Civic Information API. Then, on November 6, head to election.foursquare.com to see America voting in real time.

- CNN’s new “I’m Voting” app adds voter participation with social media. It can give insight into who people on Facebook are voting for and give you an easy way to voice your political opinions on your Facebook Timeline. While user participation in the app is low thus far, we still appreciate the concept of pushing more people to vote and be proud of it. CNN also has a cool new app called Election Insights that ties to Facebook.
Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/best-election-apps-2012/#p6RTmks85yeoZ77G.99

- Google+ Hangouts will create a new interactive experience for those watching the Democratic and Republican national conventions online. Viewers will be able to watch Hangouts featuring representatives of both political parties and organizers for the conventions. These folks will be chatting with reporters from outlets including the New York Times, NBC, Fox News, the Wall Street Journal, the Associated Press, and the Huffington Post. Read more at http://venturebeat.com/2012/08/28/best-election-apps-2012/#p6RTmks85yeoZ77G.99.

-NBC Politics is an app that filters the day’s news through a “does this matter for the election” lens. It hands you the same content you’ll read at MSNBC.com, but it limits the scope of the news to the politics section while offering some eye-pleasing typography to makes real-time news feel a bit more like stylized print.

Happy Election Day & Night!

Door Wilmar Alex in Apps, Media
dinsdag 06 november, 2012
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Isch been ain Hamburger: food4marketing.

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Everyone knows the usual sum up of big country capitals or biggest cities you need to have travelled to. Just check any perfume brand packaging: London, New York, Tokio, Milan, Paris, Shanghai. It’s more difficult to be a less populous country capital like Amsterdam (No.2 on Lonely Planet hit list for 2013), Lisbon, Ottawa or Vienna. Let alone a non capital bigger city like Hamburg; but what a fantastic city it is!

Culinary City Marketing?
Hamburg, a city culinarily mocked a lot, because of a delicacy made big by the golden arches. I wonder if that was the first piece of culinary city marketing, but thinking about the Singapore Sling and Peking Duck I am not sure that’s true. It could be a very effective way to market your city and get it connected to something you can eat or drink. something many consumers are pretty passionate about. Maybe there should be a list called the 7 Culinary Wonders of the World (which – of course – is something you can Google and find, although not coupled with cities).

Don Draper meets Trent Reznor
Hamburg has succeeded in combining rawness of a big harbour city and the sleekness of the rich and famous. The first personified by the area around the Reeperbahn (the Hamburg red light district) with its rugged underground clubs and sometimes referred to as die sündige Meile (the sinful mile). The second experienced when going to clubs like 20UP and East where the Hamburg beautiful (and sometimes not so young) reside @night time. The named clubs are examples of venues you’d normally only see in some capital cities or in the likes of Sydney and Cape Town. It’s the combination of grandeur, trendiness with a hotel, restaurant, lounge and bar under one roof, in the case of East including an outside area. Thus keeping consumers in from pre dinner drinks to late at night. It truly is a total brand experience creating. Although I must say I missed the Asian style beer such as Asahi or Tiger to really complete it.

Apart from Hospitality…
… the Hamburg city brand delivers a lot of other great stuff to do and see. Some examples:
-Deichtor Hallen, for international art and fotografie.
-Speicherstadt, the largest timber-pile founded warehouse district in the world.
-Fishmarkt St. Pauli area, only open on Sunday morning from 4:30AM-9:30AM.
-Hamburger Kunsthalle, a great museum that hosts paintings from 14th century to contemporary art including Dutch and Flemish masters, but also Renoir for example.
-U-434, a Russian submarine museum, a real relic to Soviet times.
-and for those who want to smell (the scent of) an A&F store in front of which people are still standing in line (in stead of being shut down). Scent marketing still impresses me, was very hot in 2010 and is one of the strongest way of emotion adding by a brand. I honestly smelled Fierce (again!) before I noticed the store.

oh yeah: use Stay.com and download the app and a free offline city map to find your way easily

Impressive
All in all I was really impressed by Hamburg, as a brand. It has characteristics many brands – both cities and products – would be jealous of. Thus Hamburg attracts many different people, visitors, business men, tourists, consumers, tradesmen, workers. And bringing them all together in this true melting pot. Its combination of various characters is stunning because it still feels natural.

Because there aren’t many brands that are tough, stylish and sexy? Well, I know of one course? Bond, James Bond. Still going strong in Skyfall.

Door Wilmar Alex in Apps, Architecture, Art, Brands, City Marketing, Culinary, Cultural, Dining, Hip, Inspiration, Must see, On Trade, Photography, Travel
woensdag 24 oktober, 2012
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Music 4Free Revolution: Brand Wise.

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If you would have asked me years ago if there would ever be free music on demand of your own choice legally, I probably would have said: NOPE! Now in 2012 there is a thing called free music and it’s dressed up in brand names such as Spotify, Deezer and Xbox Music.

Music Revolution II
Of course we all know Apple caused the first big musical revolution of modern times (tune wise). iTunes when introduced in 2001 made it possible to listen to music whenever, wherever, you could buy individual songs easily and use it on various Apple devices as well. Fundamentally different than free music sharing platforms of the likes of Napster, KaZaA and Limewire (maybe these guys actually prepared that revolution). In the last couple of years the second big music revolution of the 20th century happened, making on demand music truly free. Of course we’ve always (feels like it anyway) had Radio, offline and online, but to be able to listen to a song you want to listen to when you want to listen to it for free is truly a revolution.

Different formats
And it comes in various formats. For example with Spotify you can listen to all of their music for free, but you do have to put up with their commercials. Some people find that irritating, but those who are used to Radio with their babbling dj’s and commercials, might not be so disturbed. A funny thing is that Spotify has commercials themselves telling you how irritating the commercials are and how wonderful it would be not to have to listen to them; funny, but makes sense, because of course they want to have as many paying listeners as they can. If you pay 5 Euros/Dollars/Pounds – depending which country you’re in – you can listen to ad free music 5 and for another 5  you can also enjoy it on you smart phone and offline. Remember the time you bought at least one cd/record/tape a month for around 12 bucks?

Something in it for Brands?
Definitely! Of course there’s the standard promo’s with free subscriptions for a month or more. Mobile phone companies have discovered this earlier on, as their added brand value increases and they often provide the smartphones to their customers. Many other brands have followed: from fashion to newsbrands and even banks. It’s also possible to create your own playlists and apps (Mashable, April 13 2012).  And other free music platforms such as 22Tracks offer branded take overs and even channels. Just to be clear: There is a difference between the various free music platform brands. 22Tracks for instance is a free music discovery channel, which means under the guidance of 22 fantastic curators you’re always on top of the newest music in your genre, be it Jazz, Techno, Disco or any of the other ones and you even have a choice of various European cities. Even Microsoft wants a piece of the music pie through Xbox Music, streaming millions of songs for free with Windows tablets and PCs.

Brand(Add)ed Musical Emotion
The great thing about music is the fact that almost everyone likes it in some way, shape or form and it makes you feel a certain way. Something brands want to effectuate as well. There is a watchout: if you want to connect a brand to music, make sure you choose the right channel, genre. Nothing more is a turn off than expecting a certain type of music and getting something completely different in a wrong way. It would be like Eminem rapping in Katie Melua’s nine million bicycle voice.

As always: just make sure you understand your (desired) consumer and you’re good to go. And if you don’t know, try asking them.

Check out some other free music platforms:
-Deezer: a relative new kid in town – is similar to Spotify, with the exception you can only listen tot the first 30seconds in the free version.
-Music Unlimited: Sony offers access to millions of songs on PC and a variety of Sony devices.
-Music Hub: Samsung’s music locker, radio and music store for the Galaxy S3.
-Rhapsody: an online music store subscription service available in the US only. Their software helps organize music collections, and synchronize them in MP3 Players (Napster joined them in 2011).
-Lastfm: a large online music catalogue, powered by your scrobbles. Free internet radio, videos, photos, stats, charts, biographies and concerts.
-Bandcamp helps fans discover new music and directly support those who make it by helping artists sell their music and merch directly to their fans.
-Soundcloud, more of a music sharing community: create, record and share the sounds you create anywhere to friends, family and the world.

Door Wilmar Alex in Apps, Brands, Grenzeloos, Innovatie, Inspiration, Media, Mobile, Music, Trends
donderdag 18 oktober, 2012
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“Goedemorgen!” – Film van A tot Z met de iPhone gemaakt

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Erkenning van Apple, dat is wat Ferry Piekart wilde. Uit zijn columns blijkt dat dit een lastige opgave is. De beste optie leek het volgen van een cursus bij een door Apple erkend opleidingsinstituut. Het werd de cursus Final Cut Express waardoor Ferry daarna als gecertificeerd pro - het Apple-logo met de woorden ‘Apple Certified Pro’ zou kunnen gebruiken. Eitje, toch? Niks was minder waar. Tussen de eerste en de laatste cursus dag werd deze erkenning afgeschaft door Apple. Wat nu?

Ferry kwam tot het besluit om een film met de iPhone te maken. Helemaal. Van script tot edit. En daarvan is nu het resultaat: ‘Goedemorgen!’.

Goedemorgen
De film gaat over Anna die op een doodgewone, doordeweekse werkdag, ‘s morgens wakker wordt in een vreemd bed, in een vreemde stad en zelfs in een vreemd land. Als Anna’s telefoon ‘s morgens gaat terwijl ze nog in bed ligt, en ze met een slaperig hoofd opneemt, hoort ze haar baas, die vraagt waar ze in vredesnaam blijft. Ze had al een paar uur op kantoor moeten zijn, en over een uur begint een belangrijke bespreking. Dan pas merkt Anna dat ze niet weet waar ze is. Ze springt uit bed, en spurt op het raam af. Een angstig voorgevoel wordt al snel waarheid: als ze uit het raam kijkt, ziet ze dat ze héél ver van huis is. Wat is er gebeurd? Terwijl Anna in paniek raakt, hoort ze de douche in de badkamer. Er is nog iemand aanwezig…

De film is geschreven, geschoten en gemonteerd met behulp van de volgende apps:

Op zijn website geeft Ferry aan hoe hij deze apps gebruikt heeft en waarom hij andere apps juist niet heeft gebruikt.

Een voorvertoning van de film was al te zien op Film by the Sea in Vlissingen. De film gaat op donderdag 18 oktober in première (invites only), in ons eigen Lantaren-Venster in Rotterdam.

Wil je de film ook zien? Na de première gaat de film door naar het iPhone Popup Film Festival, eind november in Leiden.

 

Door Amarens in Apps, Films, iPhone
donderdag 11 oktober, 2012
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