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News, insight and tips from the social web.
The Hoop blog covers the evolving digital landscape, social media, mobile communications, content marketing and also includes 5 top finds and Fish on Friday. Feel free to make comments.
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5 top finds on the interwebs this week. »
We've compiled some of our favourite (video) finds from around the web over the past week.
1. Dot - the world's smallest stop motion animation character.
Aardman, creators of the wonderful Wallace & Gromit and other fantastic animations, joined forces with Nokia for this record breaking and award winning stop motion animated video. Dot is just 9mm tall, was animated using tweezers and was filmed using a Nokia phone and a microscope - but you have to see the video and its 'Making Of' to truly understand the magic.
Watch 'Dot. The world's smallest stop-motion animation character shot on a Nokia N8' here.
2. Hoop's video for the Carbon Trust.
The Carbon Trust help UK businesses adapt and succeed in a low carbon economy. They wanted a short and inspirational video that highlighted the economic opportunity for the UK in the global green market. 'Green Growth – the big opportunity' makes the case powerfully and is the Carbon Trust's most viewed video on their YouTube channel to date!
Watch 'Green Growth - the big opportunity' here.
3. 'Giant Steps' by synesthetic Michal Levy.
Synesthesia is a neurological condition where the stimulation of one sensory pathway triggers an experience in another (like 'seeing' music or 'hearing' colour). Israeli born artist Michal Levy both sees music and hears colour and her animation to John Coltrane's 'Giant Steps' is her attempt to convey these experiences.
Watch 'Giant Steps' here.
4. "This thing went to space".
More phone magic with this next video; one that shows if you put your mind to something you can achieve pretty much anything. Luke Geissbuhler and his son Max constructed a special container (made from a take away box) for an iPhone and attached it to a helium balloon. The balloon and container made it to 100,000ft with the iPhone filming the entire trip. Amazing stuff.
Watch the 'Space Balloon - Stratosphere Spacecraft Launched From Newburgh, NY' video here.
5. Nobody Beats the Drum - Grindin'
Our final video this week is courtesy of Rob, who'd like to draw your attention to this fantastic music video to Dutch electro group Nobody Beats the Drum. Their visual artist sequenced 4,085 photos of coloured blocks that he moved by hand to create this sensational stop motion animation.
Watch the video for Grindin' here.
Categories: 5 top finds
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5 finds from the interwebs this week. »
We compile some of our favourite internet content from the past week.
1. Warning! Blowing your nose can scare small children.
Cute baby videos have always done well on Youtube - 'Charlie bit my finger - again' currently sits at 293,773,335 views but there's a new kid on the block. The latest cute baby video doing the rounds features 5-month old Emerson who alternates between complete terror and utter delight as he listens to his mum blow her nose.
See the full video here.
2. Mahogany Bikes.
We're big fans of beautiful bicycles here at Hoop. When we saw ninth-generation shipbuilder Sueshiro Sano's hand-carved mahogany racer we literally had to stop and stare. Sanomagic has built 10 of these beauties over the past three years, using layering techniques employed in shipbuilding to make the wood stronger and more durable. Everything (apart from the brakes and gears) on these bikes is hand-carved mahogany - even the tire valve cap!
See more on the Sanomagic Mahogany Bike website.
3. Shortened logos.
Rob draws your attention to these shortened logos from a TVN channel advertising campaign. Each of the logos (from Coca-Cola, Ikea and Heineken) are still instantly recognisable - which shows the power of good branding!
See more on Logo Design Love.
4. Over-branding in London City.
It's not often you find branding guidelines from a t-shirt design. This t-shirt from the T-Shirt Party shows the discourse and the lack of clear cohesive branding throughout the 32 London city boroughs. It makes a great t-shirt though!
See more on the T-Shirt Party website.
5. Happy birthday Twitter and the power of Twitpic
5 years ago today, social blogging/ networking/ messaging (or whatever the title you want to bestow on Twitter is) changed forever when Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey sent the first tweet - "just setting up my twttr" for those of you interested.
[Janis Krums' photo of the downed Hudson plane on January 15 2009 has been viewed over 665,000 times]
The platform has changed the way we are able to share news in realtime. Photo-sharing platform Twitpic exemplifies this power with Mashable today compiling nine of the most impressive newsworthy Twitpics.
Follow Hoop on Twitter here and see the eight other amazing Twitpics on Mashable here.
Categories: 5 top finds
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Fish on Friday swims with the fishes. »
Here's a terrible fish pun. Our twentieth!
Now show us some respect.
Categories: Fish on Fridays
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5 top web finds this week. »
We've compiled our 5 favourite things from around the web this week.
1. Old books and newspapers become sculptures.
First off, we'd like to point you in the direction of the fantastic sculptures of Tuscon, AZ artist Nick Georgiou. Inspired by the "death of printed word", Georgiou recycles old books and newspapers to create 3D sculptures.
See more on Nick's website.
2. Living the Charlie Sheen dream.
It's been pretty hard to miss the very public meltdown of Mr. Charlie Sheen. Would it have been so public without social media? It certainly has played its part in publicising Sheen's fall from grace – with his Twitter account shattered the Guinness world record for reaching 1million followers.
There have been some pretty amusing quotes during the saga of Sheen's interviews with the press (if you've missed them see his best one here). If you've missed the comedy gold that are the Charlie Sheen quotes, fear not. Living the Sheen Dream have collected the best and weirdest for your perusal.
See more at Living the Sheen Dream.
3. The Ice Book.
It's rare that we see something so amazing we have to stop what we're doing to give it our full attention. This was the case when we saw Davy and Kristen McGuire's Ice Book video.
Taking a Canon 5D Mark ii, an old Macbook with After Effects, some builder's lights and a green cloth that they improvised as a makeshift green-screen, Davy and Kristen created a tiny, magical miniature theatre show. This truly has to be seen to be believed.
See the Ice Book video here.
4. Powerful photographs reveal destruction of Japan.
With the full horrors of 11/03/11's earthquake and tsunami still unfolding, some of the photographs detailing the unbelievable disaster are truly astonishing.
Boston.com has a selection of some of the most powerful photographs from Reuters and the AP whilst ABC has compiled interactive before-and-after satellite photos which you can see here.
5. Wrangler's 'Stunt' campaign.
Wrangler, purveyors of fine American denim, do something a little different in their latest advertising campaign for the 'We are Animals' series.
By doing things a little different; we mean taking 3 Hollywood stunt people and setting them on fire, firing them out of a second floor window 25ft off the ground and firing them over an exploding car (but not all at the same time). Yes, it is truly that mental.
See the behind-the-scenes video here and see the full gallery here.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Art, Photography, Sculpture, Social media
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Smartwater try 'virus' marketing »
Glaceau's Smartwater join forces with Jennifer Aniston for their latest advert but it leaves me reaching for the cold remedy.
Smartwater's brand channel was a neglected corner on YouTube until 07/03/11. Prior to the launch of their effort with the Friends star, their uploads had been viewed a total of 4,739 times. Even the trailer for the new ad only got 554 views.
However, today that number sits at 1,830,820. That's an increase of over 38,600%. Seriously impressive stuff.
'Jennifer Aniston goes viral' has, on the one hand, achieved what Smartwater presumably set out to do. It's definitely 'gone viral' in the sense that I, like many others, saw it, Tweeted it and posted in my Facebook profile and page accounts, but I can't help feeling a little uneasy with the video.
In the nearly 3 minute ad, Aniston parodies most of the current popular YouTube memes - CGI puppies, dancing babies, Keenan Cahill, the double rainbow guy, and then bizarrely kicks a fan in the unmentionables. Her reasoning? "Sorry, but that should be worth about 100,000 hits".
It's unclear whether the new Smartwater ad is to raise the brand's profile, increase sales or just stimulate conversation. I have a feeling they've tried just a bit too hard with it - they seem to have stolen everyone else's viral content, stuck a famous TV star into the mix and watched the hits stack up. It's a cheeky move, and I have a strong love/ hate reaction to it.
However, watching the ad doesn't enthuse me about the brand or want to start buying their products. So if Smartwater were just trying to raise their profile or stimulate conversation I applaud them. If they're trying to sell more Smartwater then I think they've fallen short of the mark.
But then the numbers don't lie. The video has gone viral.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Digital strategy, Reputation, Social media
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5 finds from the web this week. »
More interesting content that we've found around the interwebs.
1. Behind the scenes with the Old Spice Guy.
The Old Spice social media advertising campaign is a force to be reckoned with; clocking up almost 200million YouTube channel views and 120,000 followers on Twitter. The behind the scenes video shows the considerable effort that goes into producing their popular videos - well worth a watch!
See more on YouTube.
2. Appreciating Google.
Ever wondered what a less-than-perfect Google would be like? The Search Operators let you find out.
"The Search Operators" is the sloppy twin of Google search. By reversing the passive roles of UI elements, we want to expand the traditional notion of user interfaces. We hope this sloppy twin helps you switch mind set from everyday web routines and open up new perspectives.
See more at Google Sloppy.
3. 7up has a rebrand.
Our friends over at PepsiCo Global, in association with Tracey Locke, are in the process of rolling out a rebrand for 7up. We thoroughly approve. Creative Review also showcase the brand's visual history with logos from 1929 right up to present day. Lovely stuff.
See more at Creative Review.
4. Shapes and typography for vintage LP sleeves.
Kate draws your attention to Project Thirty Three – a fab collection of vintage record sleeves that show musical instruments using simple shapes, type and colour.
See more at Project Thirty Three.
5. Hugh's Fish Fight reaches milestone.
Three shows on the telly, 657,000 petition signatures, 210,000 Facebook fans and almost 17,000 followers on Twitter later; Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's social media campaign reaches a milestone with the European Fisheries Commissioner tabling a plan to phase in a discard ban.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Fish on Fridays, Google
