I just came across this site http://www.wetellstories.co.uk/, more experimentation by Penguin in the world of Web 2.0. Penguin already impress with their online ventures, with Web sites such as amillionpenguins.com (a Wiki novel), Spine Breakers (a community around books for teens) and Blog a Penguin Classic (blogging and user-reviews for Classic books).

In We Tell Stories, there are six stories being added over the course of six weeks. They have a different theme for each week’s story;

• Week 1 (The 21 Steps) is a Google Mash-up story, which is a really cool idea and works really well. Unfortunately (in my opinion) the story is poorly written and too obvious. I didn’t read the whole thing, maybe it improves?!
  
• Week 2 (Slice) is a story told through blogs and Twitter
  
• Week 3 (Fairy Tales) is like a Choose Your Own Adventure, or a personalised book. Not particularly exciting in my opinion.
  
• Week 4 (Your Place or Mine) is a story written in real-time, which is interesting.
  
• Weeks 5 & 6 are yet to be released.

Apparently there are elements of an Alternate Reality Game too, but it’s not clear to me exactly how this fits with the site, further exploration is needed.

With many of these initiatives, in particular We Tell Stories, it raises the question of whether people are willing to read books online (or on-screen). Maybe not just yet, but once e-book readers like Amazon’s Kindle support proper Web-browsing (and high speed Internet) e-novels will be set to take off.

Tim O'Neill, Managing Director UK

Labels: Design and Usability, Web Culture and Trends, Web marketing

Welcome to iPhone article number 154,000,001 and counting.

Actually, this is not just about the iPhone, but about some interesting recent developments in the mobile space.

I’ve been using the iPhone for about three months now, as have 3 other Reactive staff. It is without a doubt the coolest consumer electronics device ever made, people who say otherwise are just jealous (let the debate begin).

Ok, so the iPhone is not perfect, but as far as I can tell the only real problems are; lack of Flash support in Safari; the poor email support (for business users) and no 3G. Other than that, it’s clearly superior to other phones in all other aspects. If this is Apple’s first attempt at a mobile communications device, after say 2 years of development, then one can only imagine how awesome they’re going to be in another 2 years.

A 3G iPhone is just around the corner with analysts predicting a release by mid-2008, as I’m sure is Flash support. Flash is processor intensive, so Adobe will either release a Flash ‘light’ version or Apple will simply implement better mobile chips – both are likely to happen.

Interestingly, Nokia is getting ‘multimedia’ support with the recent announcement that Silverlight is coming to the Symbian OS. So that means that you’ll also be seeing more integrated .NET 3.5 / Windows Live applications getting pushed by Microsoft and their partners to mobile platforms.

We at Reactive are excited about the imminent iPhone SDK (software developer kit) which will allow developers to build their own applications to run on the iPhone. Until now the only ‘applications’ you could develop were Web-apps, but even the best ones are pretty lame. So developers will be able to build cool applications like the iTunes mobile store, which is a light version of the iTunes store. The iTunes mobile store makes it so easy to preview and purchase songs, and so well integrated (syncing purchased music over to your desktop computer when you plug your phone in) that this application alone offers a clear view into the future of mobile eCommerce, and a good lesson in how to make this business model work through robust development and ease of use. It won’t be long before we see other iPhone eCommerce applications, like eBay or Amazon jumping on-board.


Developing iPhone versions of websites is also cool, and pretty easy if you follow the developer documentation provided by Apple. We’re working on a couple at the moment at Reactive for our clients. Essentially customising existing websites so they look and feel really nice on the iPhone. It doesn’t have to mean a massive investment for our clients, especially if the original website is developed properly in the first place, according to web-standards and user-centric design principles.

It’s been my experience that the iPhone can actually replace a laptop in the home, I recently sold my laptop intending to upgrade to the MacBook Air, but because I have my iPhone, I don’t actually find that I need a laptop anymore. I can check the news, weather, buy stuff and check email (both Gmail and Exchange) all through the iPhone.

It also integrates seamlessly with Outlook at work, so I can easily sync up my address book and calendar. In fact it’s way better at this than my Nokia E65 (Symbian).

Google have Android, Microsoft have Windows Mobile, Nokia/Sony Ericsson have Symbian and Apple have the iPhone/OSX. It’s going to be an interesting 10 years as these players battle it out for mobile operating system supremacy. My prediction is this: Android will become the Linux of the mobile world (i.e. for scientists and Über-geeks), Symbian will fade away, Apple will grow its market share through the successful delivery of seamless hardware/software integration, whilst Microsoft will continue to do what it does best and provide productivity software to those of us that just need to ‘get stuff done’.

As a side note, I got it to work by following the instructions on this site:
http://www.hackint0sh.org/


So bring on the iPhone, it’s definitely the mobile consumer product of the future


Carl Panczak, General Manager Sydney

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

This week Hitwise released new numbers on Australian browsing habits. Rather disturbingly for online retailers, visits to shopping sites accounted for only 5.93% of Australian Web visits for the week ending 9 February 2008 - almost half the number of visits compared to the US or UK. Once again it appears Australia is lagging behind the rest of the developed world when it comes to embracing the online retail concept.

Now it would be pretty easy to spend the next couple of paragraphs pointing the finger at Australia's diabolical broadband penetration and listing the endless other reasons for Australia's slow uptake of online retail. Instead I thought it might be a bit more interesting to take a look at some of the areas where Australian online retailers have experienced success to date and some of the areas that are going to lead the eCommerce charge in Australia over the coming months.

1. Niche markets
If you can find a niche and deliver something consumers can't get elsewhere you're likely to have success in online retail. If you're a start up it's even better as online retail has generally lower start up costs than ‘bricks and mortar’ enterprises- as well as access to a much wider audience. Miijo is an Australian company that has successfully done just this: nabbing a niche market for designer fashions and accessories that you can't buy anywhere domestically.

2. Global brands
Australian brands with loads of international recognition but not necessarily international distribution are also prime candidates for online retail. If it is difficult for international consumers to access your product then setting up online retail capacity to service these customers is going to ensure that their dollars go straight into your pocket. Surely this is better than their money going to bootleggers or to savvy eBay resellers. Australian denim brand Ksubi has recently worked with us to do just this - and we're currently working with another iconic Australian brand on a similar eCommerce project.

3. Big brands
A large investment in bricks and mortar doesn't mean that online retail is necessarily a waste of time. While online retail isn't likely to become your primary source of revenue any time soon, it can act to provide your customers with choice when it comes to buying your product. It can also defend your brand from competitors who might not be so shy when it comes to eCommerce. Customers already know your brand and are likely to have fewer reservations about purchasing online from your store. You needn't put your whole inventory online either - why not consider starting small or having online-only products to assess your customer’s individual requirements for online retail. With the recent launch of Sportsgirl's online store I'm certain that we'll see a number of other big Australian fashion brands follow suit in the coming months.

4. Proven successes
Certain sectors are already more successful than others when it comes to online retail. If your product is travel or music or personal electronics then it's likely that you're already one step ahead of the game. While these sectors are crowded and competition is fierce customers in these areas tend to be more used to purchasing online and are more likely do so again meaning that the market is there for a well planned and executed new competitor. I'm sure a couple of years ago Flight Centre would have laughed you out of the room if you'd told them Web Jet was going to be a major market force for domestic flights.

What I am trying to say is that Hitwise's statistics and the general gloomy impression of Australia's online shopping habits should be no cause for alarm amongst aspiring online retailers. The market is only going to grow and while it's still small there are still plenty of opportunities to be had.

Bradley Grinlinton, Senior Account Manager

Labels: Web Culture and Trends, Web marketing

Over the weekend I came across a great Web site called Map Channels, which allows you to take your Google “My Maps”, customise and embed them into your own site.

For those unfamiliar with Google My Maps, this is a feature launched in April 2007 that enables you to quickly and easily create custom maps. Gone are the days of needing programmers to create mash-ups, all you need is a Google account and a good sense of direction.

However, a major drawback of any Google My Maps creation is that they appear within the Google Maps site, and cannot be customised to any great extent. This is where Map Channels comes in, it creates a bridge between Google My Maps and your own site, allowing you to customise and embed your map into your site or blog.

Here is an example:

Last weekend our London office moved to 85 Strand, along with our partners Cedar. As a magazine publisher, the Cedar staff naturally has a wealth of knowledge of good London bars & restaurants. As we settled into the new space, these recommendations were emailed around, and I decided to create a map showing the locations. Google My Maps is a create free tool, and easy to use, so I started here. The result is an interactive map, but within the confines of the Google Maps site.

Next, I wanted to a) have this hosted on the new Cedar Web site, and b) design it within Cedar’s branding. Google, why don’t you let us do this?!

Up steps Map Channels. After creating a (free) account, I simply copied the KML URL, and then was presented with an array of options for customising My Map. It then presented me with a snipped of HTML to embed into a Cedar-branded template. Done! The result is a customised map that fits with the Cedar branding, without any coding required whatsoever.

I think that Google are missing a trick by not providing this functionality themselves, but hopefully it’s only a matter of time.

Your thoughts? Please make your comments below…

Tim O' Neill, Managing Director UK

Labels: Reactive, Technology, Web Culture and Trends

While I was reading the AFR article I noticed something funny. As I highlighted text in the article I noticed every second character had been switched out with a space. How bizarre!

See screenshot below:



Further investigation unfolded they use a fixed width font,create two layers, each with half of the letters and non breaking space (NBSP) interlaced between every real character. To put this together they use CSS to overlay the two panels and then they get the final text.

Think of all the issues with this technique. The use of a floating div tag to overlay one set of content over another would create a massive strain on server and bandwidth. Coupled with this, the accessibility of the site is non existent. Any screen reader would take the text as is and would output absolute gibberish successfully rendering the site unusable in this instance. Finally using your web browsers search facility to find copy in the body is useless too.

The underlying issue I have with this technique is the lack focus the AFR gives to usability. The Australian Blind and Vision statistics indicate that as of 2004, 0.25% of the population suffered from complete vision loss and 2.36% suffer from some soft of visual imparity. Read what you want into these stats but either way the Australian Financial Review is severely isolating a good proportion of the population with their site.


It's quite amazing that the AFR have gone to all this trouble to stop a user from copying and pasting an article. Especially given that anyone with a background in Javascript could circumvent this in about 5 minutes.

So the Australian Financial Review have successfully implemented DRM but at what cost? Well they’ve thrown out all accessibility, usability and readability not to mention any chance of a Google index.

Anthony Harrison, Project Manager

Labels: Design and Usability, Web Culture and Trends

As a bit of a music freak, I’ve recently started to think about the role of technology and software in the proliferation of electronic music in the past ten years.

Electronic music has always appealed to me due to the way in which even an ‘unmusical’ individual can make good music. With an understanding of rhythm and the ability to find a good groove, anyone can spend some time learning one of the many programs available and make a track. Some of the top producers out there at the moment wouldn’t be able to play a tune on a piano, but what they can do is manipulate sounds into a way that works in a sweaty club at 4am. This doesn’t mean it’s easy in any way, it just removes the old fashioned, and in some ways classist, system of learning your music theory and spending most of your youth forced into piano or violin lessons (yuk, flash back alert).

Punk may have started this in the 70s, but the tools needed for making techno are in pretty much every home – all you need is a half decent PC and a pair of headphones, and you’re off.

In the past 4 years things have become even more accessible, with intuitive programs being launched that have flattened the learning curve.
Ableton is leading the pack currently, with their Ableton Live software (www.ableton.com). A piece of software designed as much for the bedroom set-up as the high spec pro studio, or even the club. Based around one window, this integrates the production process (be it synthesis, sampling or loops) with the performance - allowing a budding producer to write a track, and then ‘perform’ that track with live edits, without having to use another program.

What this program also includes is probably the best ‘Help’ options I’ve ever seen. It can run through mock-ups of each section, meaning a complete beginner can be guided through any process they wish – even on your first session with the software you can be editing loops and creating synth patterns. Programmers should reference this ‘Help’ service, as it seems that this is often an afterthought, a searchable online manual simply isn’t enough anymore. We as web developers should be including this in large online projects– well planned Information Architecture can aid this – as users should be guided through any complex parts of a site.

Apple is also in the running with the new Logic 8 (www.apple.com/logicstudio/logicpro/). A massively powerful piece of software that is close to an industry standard (along with Pro Tools). This new version is both user friendly, but customisable enough for even the most complex projects. It is used by producers writing techno for sweaty Berlin clubs as much as it is by composers for Hollywood film scores.

Apple have made some enemies with Logic though, locking it as a Mac only program, but with the new iMacs dropping in price their gamble may have paid off, with many Windows fans making the big leap over.

There are a number of alternatives, and much cheaper alternatives at that. These are great for playing around, with many using drag-and-drop as a tool to build loops. You can even write tunes on your PlayStation these days…

Digital technology has become widespread in the DJ world also, with a huge number of performers leaving behind the chore of dragging a massive bag of vinyl to gigs, and instead opting for playing CDs or using on the impressive vinyl emulators – check out www.serato.com to be blown away for some digital/analogue integration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinyl_Emulation_Software).

This technology is also adaptable for mixing videos (‘VJing’ – clever eh?) and allows a number of acts (check Diplo and DJ Yoda for some fine examples) to control the music and the visuals at an event – and who says digital technology is killing the DJ?!

On that note, all this digital talk doesn’t mean performance is dead, far from it. There’s a wealth of control surfaces in production, in small runs, that mean the digital performer is no longer sitting behind their laptop, clicking with a mouse (or checking their email).

This technology is allowing producers to be more creative, edit and add to the bones of a track in response to the crowd. It’s a very exciting time in this arena, just check out some of these links:

www.monome.net or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJwxbTKwONc
http://mtg.upf.edu/reactable/ or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0h-RhyopUmc (Microsoft Surface anyone?)



And even the big boys are getting involved… http://www.tenori-on.co.uk/



Matt Bachle-Morris, Web Producer

Labels: Design and Usability, Technology, Web Culture and Trends

Well now it is 2008 I thought I would start the year by giving you an update of a few things that are frying my noodle over the last little while.

First is the work by the guys over at Vizoo with their Cheoptics360 video projection system. It doesn’t relate entirely to the online space but I can see it being used with camera detection software to create 3D interactive kiosks etc, and just imagine the art installations you could create, amazing!

Check out one of the most unique fashion shows I’ve seen in a while:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phe82y69hG0&feature=related

The official showreel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZId2nywp6HQ&feature=related

For more info check out the official site:
http://www.vizoo.com/main.html

As a post script I would recommend checking out the live motion tracking video installation work by Frieder Weiss & Chunky Moves et al to start to get an idea of what you could do with this technology http://www.frieder-weiss.de/video/projects.htm

Watch this space for more...

Dan Oxnam, Interaction Director

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2007/12/encouraging-people-to-contribute.html

Amazingly enough, the author managed to describe it without using the word "Wiki" or "Wikipedia". Such editorial constraint!

It differs from Wikipedia, in that there is only one author. But several authors can write seperate knols on the same topic.

In many ways I can see that this will suck as a reference tool. There will be 100's of knol's on a particular topic (e.g. "George Bush") each with a different point of view, which is useful but very time consuming to read. Sure, there will be ratings to help you choose which to read, but it will be rare to find unbiased knol's on any topic, so reading one won't help.

Bonus points for further reading: http://www.tbray.org/ongoing/When/200x/2007/12/14/Knol#p-1 (read the comments too)

Tim O' Neill, Managing Director UK

Labels: Web Culture and Trends

I had the pleasure of attending a presentation by a true viral pioneer at last week’s Creative Social in London. Ed Robinson is co-founder of The Viral Factory, a London firm specialising in viral marketing, who have been behind-the-scenes on many of the most famous (and infamous) viral videos that have spread over the past six years.

It was a fantastic presentation (thanks Ed), and my main take-away was the change that has occurred in viral videos over the years. As Ed talked through many examples, there was a marked evolution from slapstick, violent and comedic short pieces towards more filmic productions.

Ed explained that changes in the way viral is distributed and consumed has bought about this revolution; virals used to spread by forwarding email attachments. Fast-forward to a land filled with spam and email security – it’s no surprise that in a Web 2.0 World viral videos are primarily viewed on YouTube, MySpace and viral portals such as Kontraband.

With broadband standard, file-sizes are no longer an issue, as a result viral videos are becoming longer and production values higher - viral has mutated from GIF animations to Cyber Grand Prix.

Some recent examples by The Viral Factory show how these trends have influenced their creative work for Samsung and Levis. Interestingly, even with healthy production budgets, the home-grown aesthetic is still popular. Are the public naïve enough to believe this is amateur’s at play, or do they just not care?

The famous Sony Bravia ‘Balls’ campaign went viral before it appeared on TV, and Ed hinted that one of their videos may soon be used as a TVC. Dorito’s screened a 30 second user-generated ad(the winner of a competition) during half-time of the Super Bowl. The lines are blurring between viral and above the line advertising. But as we have seen many times before, good quality content that delights, amuses, surprises or rewards the viewer can be a winner in any format.

What do you think is the future of viral? Make your comments below…

Tim O'Neill, Managing Director UK

Labels: Web Culture and Trends, Web marketing

Over the past year there have been a barrage of new technology announcements, especially from the big four (Google, Microsoft, Adobe, Yahoo). You might’ve missed some announcements, or maybe you’re getting confused with all the names.

So to help you out we’ve made a quick list of some of the new web related technologies, with quick summaries. Some of the summaries are a bit controversial, don’t take it too seriously!

• Expression Studio – Microsoft’s products for designers. Think Adobe Creative Suite.

• Web – Used to create html and css for the web (competitor Dreamweaver).

• Blend – Used to build create WPF and in version 2 create Silverlight content (competitor Flash/ Flex).

• Design – Design tool which integrates with expression suite (Flash).

• Media – Media manager which allows users to edit and encode various formats for use with the expression suite of products (competitor: Adobe Bridge?).

• Silverlight – Microsoft’s competitor to Flash. Combines numerous technologies including Ajax, XAML, .NET, LINQ, and multimedia.

• .NET 3.0 –(formerly named WinFX) .NET 3.0 isn’t a rewrite of .NET 2.0, it’s more like a expansion kit. You get a stack of additional powerful libraries in the form of (WPF, WWF, and WCF).

• WPF – (Windows Presentation Foundation) This is the visual side of .NET 3.0. It’s built into Vista and can be used for local and connected applications.

• WWF – (Windows Workflow Foundation) Libraries, Functions and Tools for developing any type of workflow/transaction in .NET.

• WCF – (Windows Communication Foundation) Libraries, Functions and Tools for Data Exchange within Windows, or to/from Windows.

• WPF/E – (Windows Presentation Foundation Everywhere) Microsoft dumped that stupid name, and renamed this product Silverlight.

• Vista – The latest version of Windows OS, it includes .NET 3.0. and IE 7.0.

• IE 7.0 – The long delayed update to the highly popular, highly flawed IE 6.0 browser. Now supports Tabbed browsing, with many bugs fixed, but still has some issues.

• Ajax.NET – Microsoft’s AJAX libraries. Previously named Atlas. Microsoft must stop renaming products.

• Adobe CS3 – The new suite of integrated macromedia and adobe software.

• Flex – A development environment for Adobe Flash. It provides a lot more structure for developing applications and doing server-side integration with databases.

• Apollo – A client-side cross OS application environment for running desktop applications developed in Flash, Ajax, Flex, HTML.

• SPRY framework – Used by Dreamweaver to provide AJAX functionality.

• PopFly – An online application that uses Silverlight to allow users to easily create their own mash-ups (see yahoo pipes).

• GoogleGears – A client-side cross OS tool which provides a database engine for online applications to sync and run offline.

• Yahoo Pipes – An online application that allows users to easily create their own mash-ups (see PopFly).

• Photosynth – A combination of fast image scaling technology and 3D environments constructed from images of a location.

What is the biggest battle?

From the web development perspective there is going to be an exciting battle between Flash/Flex/Apollo VERSUS Silverlight/WPF/.NET.

Who will win?

Well, we don’t have the crystal ball answer. The success of most technologies depends largely on the acceptance and use by the global community. Flash currently has the advantage due to the ubiquity of the player and it’s utilisation on some major sites such as YouTube, MySpace etc. However Microsoft’s automatic update functionality will help with speed to market and they are targeting the advertising and media industries to directly tackle Flash’s hold on the industry.

There are some clear patterns in the aims of most of these technologies:

• Improving the user experience
• Improving the ease of development
• Improving the reach of applications

So, the end-user is going to be the real winner in all of this (cheesy by true).

Links worth checking out:

Microsoft:
http://www.microsoft.com/Expression/default.aspx
http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/
http://silverlight.net/
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=10CC340B-F857-4A14-83F5-25634C3BF043&displaylang=en
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Presentation_Foundation
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/default.asp
http://labs.live.com/photosynth/

Adobe:
http://www.adobe.com/products/creativesuite/
http://www.adobe.com/products/flex/
http://www.adobe.com/products/flash/
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/apollo/
http://labs.adobe.com/

Other:
http://www.popfly.com/
http://gears.google.com/
http://pipes.yahoo.com/

Matthew Watson, Technical Director

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

Recently Apple boss Steve Jobs and Microsoft's Bill Gates shared a live interview onstage at a web conference. Amongst the shared platitudes (BILL: you da man Steve. STEVE: no no Bill, YOU da man – I’m paraphrasing here, but you get the idea) a question was raised about the future of the personal computer, given the increasing power and flexibility of web applications.

Jobs fielded it, pointing out that the death of the PC has been predicted numerous times over recent years, and it has never eventuated... something he put down to the fact that offline
applications by their nature are more powerful than web applications.


While this may be true, desktop applications cannot compete with the flexibility and availability of an web application which enables data to be accessed from anywhere around the world.

Up until now, this has been the web application's greatest strength, yet also its biggest weakness – its Samson's hair and Achilles’ heel all rolled into one, if you will. As useful as web applications are when they are online and you have a functioning and responsive network, they are rendered useless without a connection.

Google is the latest company to announce a product that attempts to address this issue. Google Gears sits alongside Adobe's Apollo platform, and Microsoft's WPF framework in providing tools focused on developing applications that can seamlessly bridge the gap between the web and the desktop.

Launched (with not an insignificant amount of fanfare) as part of Google Developer Day, a Google technology showcase event held in 10 locations around the world, this is a big announcement for Google in a number of ways.


So what is the big deal?

Firstly for Google themselves, Gears will allow them to offer offline versions of their popular GMail, Spreadsheets, and Docs applications. Gears launched with an offline version of Google Reader, Google's RSS viewer, and one imagines Gears integration for the others cannot be far away, a move that will see the Microsoft Office suite of programs firmly
in Google's sights.

For us web developers though, enabling web apps to work offline is the big drawcard.

Anyone who has lost an internet connection mid-way through updating some important data online will know the pain that this can cause. Up until now there has been no easy solution, the updated data disappears somewhere between your computer and the server you are trying to access.


An application utilising Google Gears however, could allow you to keep working in this situation, with the data safely stored on your PC, waiting for the moment when you reconnect and it can sync up with your online database. This means you could work with an online application anywhere, connected or not, at a time that suits you.

With three of the biggest online players (Microsoft, Google, and Adobe) all releasing platforms that focus on achieving this outcome, it is fair to speculate that the offline web may be the next major technology battleground.

So while Steve Jobs may well be right - that iPod you have on your desk is evidence that he has a knack for predicting trends – there is no doubt that there has been a shift in the role of the desktop PC in recent times.

A few years ago everyone was rushing to web-enable desktop applications, and now it’s all about desktop-enabling web applications.

Simon Stefanoff, Developer

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

Like most people you’re probably using Google Maps these days. So you may not have noticed that Whereis.com have released high-definition photographic images of the metropolitan centres across Australia. It’s impressive and considerably better quality than what Google Maps currently offer. Below is example in the difference in resolution:

Fitzroy Pool: Google Maps - Maximum Zoom













Fitzroy Pool: Whereis.com (beta)













Fitzroy Pool: Whereis.com (beta) Maximum Zoom













Whereis.com still have a few issues to iron out before the final release. Not surprisingly it’s much slower than Google maps, and it often produces JavaScript errors and then totally shuts down.

Worth checking it out at: www.whereis.com

Tim Fouhy, Managing Director

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

Watching this excellent Vodcast from Cool Hunting a few weeks back revealed an amazingly talented artist/storyteller Jonathan Harris who uses primarily Web technologies and the internet as his medium of expression.

His most accomplished interactive work (in my opinion) is the 2007 Webby nominated ‘We Feel Fine’. Described by the artist as ‘an exploration of human emotion’, it’s a Java Web Application which searches weblogs on the internet for postings that relate to feelings and emotions, and harvests the words and images. You can then search or filter the information to narrow the results, by type of emotion, for example ‘happy’ or ‘sad’, location, sex, age and time, and then view the snippet of the weblog.

Not only is it an excellent concept, but it’s beautifully executed both from an interface design perspective and from a code perspective.

A similar concept, with a specific focus on depicting the romantic lives of American teenagers is called the Dumpster. It also visualises content harvested from the internet, but more specifically ‘a fixed collection of 20,000 romantic breakups that occurred during 2005’. It’s also interesting in that it uses a playful and interactive visual interface to access the content, making for a fun and engaging experience.

Jonathan Harris’ most recent work, called Universe, is also a Web application and described as “a system that supports the exploration of personal mythology, allowing each of us to find our own constellations, based on our own interests and curiosities….Using the metaphor of an interactive night sky, Universe presents an immersive environment for navigating the world's contemporary mythology, as found online in global news and information from Daylife”.

Wow, super-cool. I hope by exploring these sites you’ll also be left inspired and encouraged to share your stories with the world.

Actually, all this reminds me of a project we did a few years ago for the Australian Drug Foundation, called Somazone, which gives young people a space to share their stories with others, dealing with issues such as sexuality, health and drugs.

Carl Panczak, General Manager, Sydney

Labels: Design and Usability, Technology, Web Culture and Trends

For well over a decade AGIdeas has ‘inspired, provoked, challenged and amazed’ members of the design community. And for past five years I’ve seen proof of that in the gusto of post-agideas designers in our team. While the vast majority of the week is dedicated to the creative side of creativity, there is always a small stipend toward those of us in the business side of things. This comes in the form of the Business Breakfast Forum.

‘2 hours that could change your business’ is what the glossy brochure chortled. It posited some impressive statistics on how design has influenced change (particularly around profitability) and piqued the interest of just about every Project Manager and Account Manager at Reactive. ‘We too believe in the power of design!’ we rallied. This breakfast was made for us, so we booked our $70 tickets and waited for the big day.

Our facilitator Harold Mitchell kicked off the proceedings, once again reiterating the promises made in the brochure. Indeed, the forum made such a strong start that within three minutes of Richard Murray’s presentation I had already forgotten that the breakfast had run short on coffee.

Well prepared, intelligent and energetic, Murray (of Williams Murray Hamm) regaled us with brilliant examples of creative and successful design. Using several case studies Murray was practically breezy about how design can create profit for clients. He demonstrated some truly creative thinking on the part of his firm by showing us the brief, the market research, the solutions and the results. And my, they were impressive results. For example, Murray tells us that within one week of shelf-life his firm’s re-branded Sainsbury’s Organic range had practically paid for itself. By taking us through this classic process Murray demonstrated how a good brief, proper research and creative thinking can reposition products in the marketplace, create buzz and provide a significant profit increase for the client.

After such striking examples of how design can change the world the audience was pumped, and perhaps the next speaker Scott Strong (Ford Motor Company) provided a little too much of a change in pace. Strong - more subdued in his approach than Murray - talked more generally about the importance of a design culture in a creative organisation. He noted the importance of good people, a good working environment, good research and so on. While Strong was earnest in his approach, his understanding of the audience seemed limited (in that there was an element of ‘preaching to the converted’. - Surely all design agencies believe in good people and a solid design culture?). Small details – like the rendering of fonts, choice of imagery and quality of the design in Scott’s power point display indicated also that his presentation was a little off target. I started to wonder if there was a coffee cart set up outside the building.

A surprise finish to the forum Masaaki Kanai (of international retailer Muji) presenting in Japanese (through a translator). Having been assured by Mitchell that this wouldn’t take up any more time than was scheduled (and being a big fan of Muji products) I went into this unusual approach with an open mind. I could see the benefits of having a translator – it would allow the presenter flexibility (and enable us to ask questions directly to the speaker). Speaking in rather long intervals (necessitating a pre-prepared script for the translator) Kanai spoke about the role of design at Muji (the mantra of which is ‘no brand quality goods’). More specifically he explained Muji’s philosophy around design, and how design can influence cost (for example designing textiles in their natural colours will reduce the cost by eliminating a dying process). This tidbit made a nice bookend to Murray’s presentation on how design can influence profit – but it was only a very small point to be considered in his presentation. Ultimately Kanai gave us a rather long advertisement for Muji (which is ironic given they don’t yet have a store in Australia).

The moment the formalities were over I cut my losses and bolted out of the building in search of that coveted cuppa. While I never really expected that this two hours would change our business, I did expect a little more – more of the kind of thing that Murray provided.

Next year I hope to see more curatorial thought to the breakfast forum. (and more coffee of course!)

Pepi Ronalds, Studio Manager

Labels: Design and Usability, Reactive, Web Culture and Trends

I came across a pretty cool search engine the other day called PodZinger. It’s a searching engine that scours the web looking for podcasts and then transcribes the file so it’s searchable by keyword.

BBN Technologies developed PodZinger capitalising on their 30-year history of speech recognition technology. Apparently this is the same technology used by the CIA and special agent Jack Bauer.

Even if you’re not trying foil terrorist plans, PodZinger is still useful to search podcasts that mention specific words or phrases i.e. searching for “digital convergence”. When you select a search result, PodZinger dynamically creates markers cued up to where that search phrase was mentioned.

PodZinger also allows you to subscribe to RSS feeds, so you can automatically download new podcasts that contain your search phrase.

And finally, PodZinger can now search the contents of YouTube videos.

Check it out at: http://www.podzinger.com/

Tim Fouhy, Managing Director

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

The start of a new year seems like a good time to try and predict the future!

I was recently asked by a student my thoughts on the future of travel and tourism online. Good question. Although I find it difficult to predict the future (difficult, but not impossible), this is a topic I have a lot of interest in so I’ll give it a shot.

As described in our recent whitepaper ‘Web 2.0 for the Travel and Tourism industry’, as more Web site operators provide their functionality as Open API’s, the opportunities for interesting new mash-ups grows exponentially. Currently it’s hard to find a mash-up that doesn’t include either Google Maps or Flickr, this will change!

I believe this will start to overlap into hardware (it is already), providing interesting combinations of software, hardware and data. In my opinion, one big opportunity for Web travel is the ability for a traveller to find any information in any format on any device they choose.

For example, if Apple released an API for some of the cool aspects of the new iPhone interface, you could then use this on other devices (like my XDA Orbit Windows mobile). Then imagine having an iPhone interface on my Orbit displaying data from Kayak to search flights… this might be someone’s idea of the perfect flight-finding interface. Instead, Apple is sending Cease & Desist letters to anyone even putting a screen-grab of potential iPhone mash-ups on their site!

A more practical example is an online flight booking. Currently you are restricted to the search and display interface provided by the Web site operator (e.g. Kayak, STA Travel, Flight Centre etc), and you can only personalise this to a certain extent. It might be possible in the future to say “I prefer the Kayak flight search interface, but want to display flight data from STA Travel, and bundle it with Hotel listings from Expedia”. And I want it on my TV. I could choose this as a user, rather than needing a Web developer to create a mash-up of this particular combination.

This will be extremely complicated to achieve, and would require great strides in the standardisation and interoperability of systems (such is the goal of the OpenTravel Alliance).

Naturally this is only one aspect of what the future of online travel might hold, but as someone who books travel online frequently, I hope it becomes reality.

Tim O'Neill, Managing Director UK

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

Our popular whitepaper "Web 2.0 for the Travel and Tourism Industry" has had a 2007 refresh, and now includes a foreword from Craig Hepburn, Global Webmaster of STA Travel Group.

There is no ignoring, and certainly no denying, the current hype around Web 2.0, in particular here in the UK. Recently, The Guardian (a mainstream UK newspaper) published an interesting feature on Web 2.0 with interviews (and podcasts naturally) with the founders of Wikipedia, Flickr, Technorati, Blogger and other Web 2.0 rock-stars.

Reactive work with a lot of clients in the tourism and travel industries, a sector which has always been at the forefront of Internet technology, and so it is no surprise to see Web 2.0 features rapidly appearing in travel Web sites of well-known brands such as Contiki, STA Travel, Starwood, Lonely Planet and Eurostar.

However, many travel and tourism marketers don’t have the time to sit down and consider how these new horizons relate to their brand, so we thought we’d give you some help!

Our popular whitepaper (or is guidebook a better word?) titled “Web 2.0 for the Travel and Tourism Industry”. With it we aim to demystify some of the more common elements of Web 2.0, and show practical examples of how travel and tourism brands are using these to attract new customers, improve customer loyalty, and drive sales.

The whitepaper covers the following topics (with real-world examples):

• Blogging (Starwood, Eurostar and STA Travel)
  
• Podcasting (Lonely Planet, Orbitz, Virgin Atlantic, The Independent and Heartbeat guides)
  
• Social networking and user generated content (TripAdvisor, Yahoo, Contiki and Sheraton)
  
• Online video (YouTube, Travelistic and MGM Grand Las Vegas)
  
• RSS (Expedia, STA Travel, Virgin Holidays, Orbitz, and Conde Nast)
  
• Tagging (del.icio.us, Flickr and Travbuddy)
  
• Mash-ups and Open API’s (Locale, Virtual Tourism, Blogabond, 43 Places and TripAdvisor)
  
• Wikis (Wikitravel, World66 and TripAdvisor)
  
• AJAX (Kayak, Sidestep, Farecast and Google Maps)

If you are responsible for a tourism Web site or travel Web site, and interested in learning more about how 'Travel 2.0' could relate to you, please complete this form. The whitepaper is 15 pages, and will be emailed to you in PDF format.

Tim O'Neill, Managing Director UK

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

For those who aren't already aware Microsoft is about to "push" Internet Explorer 7 onto 10's of millions of desktops this month. The statistics are already showing that the developer community has started using it quite extensively in beta format, accounting for around 2-3% of current internet users (just short of IE5 usage).

There are two primary issues Reactive have come across so far. The first of these is that the often used CSS hacks to target IE rendering differences no longer work. Secondly a security change has meant formerly "safe" ActiveX controls are now deprecated, triggering a security alert when detecting QuickTime and Windows Media player.

To resolve the CSS issue Reactive have started using Conditional commenting

Unfortunately there is no complete resolution to the plug-in detection issues however if you would like to find out more you can read the Security brief from Microsoft

To find out more check out the following links:

* Release notes on the IEBlog

* Support notes on the Microsoft site

* 'Internet Explorer 7 looms — be prepared' , by Woody Leonhard

* 'IE7 Imminent: Plug-in detection woes', by Lewis Francis

Dan Oxnam, Interaction Director

Labels: Technology, Web Culture and Trends

Ever since blogging began there has been a debate over whether or not business bloggers should allow others to add comments to their blog posts. This has recently become extremely topical to us, as we engage in debate over our new Reactive blog.

Weighing in on the pro side of comments is the Web 2.0 community at large. The entire ethos of Web 2.0 is enabling the community to create content, it is the take-up of this ethos that have driven the success of community-content sites such as Wikipedia, Flickr and MySpace. In particular, Wikipedia’s content is continuously evolving, and is the result of the collective knowledge of all of its visitors. Enabling comments is, without doubt, the ‘right thing to do’ to stay on the good side of Web 2.0.

Another key argument for enabling comments is the business benefits of hearing what the public (and customers) have to say. This has been used effectively by many companies for research purposes, effectively the blog becomes an unpaid focus-group (presuming you can attract enough comment to get a broad sample).

However, there is plenty of argument for the con side of allowing comments. The most obvious gut reaction being: ‘what if people say bad things about us?’ This may sound over-protective, but it’s easy to imagine a scenario where a disgruntled staff member or a competitor starts posting negative comments. If you allow comments on your blog, it is considered extremely poor form to then moderate those comments. Although another downside of comments is comment-spam, automated (or manual) entries promoting commercial sites. These are a tiresome annoyance, and lower the credibility of your blog in the eyes of the visitors, and also in the eyes of Google.

Seth Godin caused a stir recently when he removed comments from his blog. He removed them primarily because he didn’t have time to read (let alone respond) to all of the comments, but not every blogger is fortunate enough to have the number of readers that Seth does.

Clearly there are no right or wrong answers, and here at Reactive the jury is still out. We launched the Reactive blog without comments, but soon we are going to enable them for a trial period. Hopefully anyone reading this will weigh into the conversation, and let me know their thoughts on whether we should allow comments or not. Be nice :)

Tim O'Neill, Managing Director, United Kingdom

Labels: Web Culture and Trends

Social networking is the buzz word of the moment, it’s a general term for the process of people making social connections via the internet.

Social media describe the online tools and platforms that people use to engage in social networking. The most popular social networking tools are Web site services (such as Friendster, MySpace or LinkedIn), blogs, podcasts, message boards and vlogs.

Some of the most popular Web sites that have emerged to facilitate social networking are YouTube, Flickr and Blogger. Most of these sites offer free accounts and everyone has the desire to share their experiences with the wider world - to be social.

MySpace has become particularly popular with a new generation of internet users who are tapping into alternative and mainstream culture alike, setting up their own ‘free’ Web sites. Recently the UK pop-singer Lily Allen achieved the first number one hit single based on download sales alone, by building a strong fan base via her MySpace page.

MySpace offers people the chance to express themselves, especially through music, video and photography. It’s easy to ask other users on MySpace to be your friend, allowing you to expand your social network and share your thoughts and ideas with a larger audience.

I have a friend from Melbourne who met his Japanese wife via Friendster. Through profile matching it’s easy to find someone with the same interests as you, even if it’s as obscure as Fanzine collecting.

Many companies are now leveraging these social networking Web sites to access new customers or build and maintain customer loyalty. What better way to sell the new Nokia E-series that through a dedicated fan-blog. Sponsored by Nokia? Paid by Nokia? Who knows…but it’s working.

See this wiki List of social networking websites for a comprehensive list.

Carl Panczak, General Manager, Sydney

Labels: Web Culture and Trends

That's right, you and I. This is the year where the primary focus is on the Web user - our ability to make choices and our ability to find relevant content. The user-centric experience is finally being delivered.


Life Management

In 2005 we saw significant investment by key online players in customisable and portable Life Management Web services such as MyYahoo, Google's Personalised Home and Microsoft's start.com. These sites allow users to save personal information (address books, bookmarks, photos, electronic files and calendar entries) and display and manage preferred news and information services (weather, news headlines and blogs).

We can expect to see these services further expand into content and search personalisation. We could for example, see the aggregation of search results, news feeds and even product enquiries based on the behaviour of other online users. A current example of this can be seen in the popular book-marking site, del.icio.us.


Localisation

Enhanced online directories and maps have been commercially adopted in the US and Europe using services such as Google Maps and Google Earth (esp. Real Estate) and we can expect the same trend in the Australasian market.

Google Local is expected to be launched on the Australian market imminently. And as Australian businesses turn toward Google Local for commercial directory services, we can expect activity from brands such as Yellow Pages, Where Is and CitySearch to expand and develop their technologies and content capabilities, allowing us to interact with local views of our cities and states.

In fact, News Limited has just released truelocal.com.au.


Content Syndication

With the release (expected early 2007) of Microsoft's long-awaited new Windows operating system, Vista, expect to see mainstream use of RSS content syndication feeds... right onto the desktop. While RSS (Really Simple Syndication) has been with us for some time now - adopted by news sources and blogs primarily - the average user will begin to use RSS as a seamless part of their desktop experience.



Video

This is the year video on the Web will go gang-busters! There have already been over 3 million video downloads from iTunes since the introduction of their video services in mid-October and other media players such as Google are capitalising on the popularity of portable devices like the iPod.

Given the barriers for entry into the video marketplace are so low (i.e. cost of distribution and production) we can expect more underground video content to be introduced to the mainstream market via 'vlogs' (video blogs). Expect to see a proliferation of internet video stars that fill niche markets and gain notoriety and celebrity status.


Google

And finally, our safest prediction for 2006 is, without doubt, that Google will astound us. Expect them to captivate us with their technological innovations (although topping Google Earth will be hard) while dazzling us with their corporate muscle-flexing. Don't be surprised to see Google acquire something big in 2006 - and turn it on its ear.

What will be even more fascinating is whether Google can retain customer loyalty as they go head to head with almost everyone.

Make sure to check out Google Labs regularly.

With all this online activity, it's going to be an exciting 2006!

Labels: Web Culture and Trends