Blog
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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Top 5 finds #38 »
Smartphone gaming with a twist, tiny treats for your necklace, interactive video calls, fantastic tree inspired chair and Walk Off The Earth's Little Boxes. It's this weeks fantastic top 5 finds.
1. Spaceship Pilot
As we know here at Hoop, mobile is the future (or more accurately, the present... but that's another conversation we'll save for later). However, we also know that doesn't mean the end of desktop browsing and when the two work together we get excited.
Spaceship Pilot gets you to scan their QR code with your iOS device, which then launches a mini site on your iPhone/iPad and uses its accelerometers to control a space ship on your browser. Whilst it can often lose connection and getting past level two is a huge achievement, it is a lot of fun.
2. Miniature Food
[Image from The Wondrous]
A whole table full of Mexican delights but this supper won't fill you up more than a single olive as you notice that the only 'real' thing on that table is the match. Amazingly, Israeli artists Shay Aaron [Etsy] has created these tiny miniature food jewellery - so no, it is not edible.
Originally, we thought that Shay Aaron's tiny tasters were a one off. However, after finding the Mini Food Blog, we discovered that there's a whole market out there for miniature food. Not actual stuff you can eat, but beautifully hand made designs of steaks, burgers, pies, vegetables, eggs and pretty much anything you can think of.
3. Galileo - making communication interactive
Thanks to services such as Skype and Facetime, communicating with colleagues and loved ones miles away has never been so easy. However, Josh Guyot decided that, when Skyping with his son, the lack of control over where he could look made him feel even more disconnected.
With the support of Kickstarter, Guyot is now able to control where he can see and, if his son walks out of view again, he can follow thanks to his company's new piece of kit, Galileo. The iOS-controlled robotic iPhone device means you can remotely spin your recipient's iPhone to where you want to look, meaning people don't have to bunch in to fit the camera's vision. The device can be applied to more than just video calling however, as it also has benefits for photographers, demonstrated in the video.
4. GVAL chair by OOO My Design
[Image from OOO My Design]
According the OOO My Design website, the GVAL chair "pays homage to the most archetypical of all production materials, wood, in its most natural form: a tree." The tribute is attained by the shape of the chair and the texture of the plywood, taking inspiration from the pattern of tree rings, commonly considered it's memory.
Designed by Vanesa Moreno, Gustavo Reboredo, Louis Sicard & Nenad Katic, the smooth, sleek and modern design is not only pleasant to look at, it also packs an ergonomic punch as the lighter insides pull out to either make a foot-rest or, if you put both together, form another chair entirely!
The GVAL chair won first prize for the Making Chairs category in the international competition, Art On Chairs, awarded by the Paredes Center of Furniture Design. See, we aren't the only ones who like it.
5. Little Boxes performed with little boxes.
The incredibly talented Canadian five piece Walk Off The Earth have followed up their internet sensation cover of Gotye's Somebody That I Used To Know (where all five members performed the whole song on one guitar, racking up over 80million views so far!) with another video viral delight.
Little Boxes, a cover of the 1962 hit by Malvina Reynolds, has only been uploaded for a couple of week and has already hit over 1million views. The best thing about the video however is that it performed using instruments made of boxes or tubes, with the added delight of long haired singer/guitarist opening and closing his guitar box to add to the beat. Creativity, musicianship and viral marketing (for O2) fused brilliantly.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Design, HTML5, iPhone, Kickstarter, Photography
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Startups of the week #13.2 »
Labelled as the "coolest new app at SXSW", new startup Arqball Spin allows you to create interactive 3D models from your iPhone.
1. Arqball Spin
Shopping online can be simple (sometimes), cheap and enjoyable – or it can test the most patient of digital shoppers.
Images are important to the success of most e-commerce sites. Customers want to see what something looks like before they buy. Even so, many online retailers don't take advantage of the digital space; with users viewing images they can't engage with during the purchase cycle.
Which is where Arqball Spin comes in...
Arqball Spin lets you easily capture, author, annotate, and share 3D visualizations of objects using your phone or tablet. Our technology enables novel applications in online commerce, marketing/advertising, education, and scholarship. Think: YouTube for 3D!
Arqball Spin offers a cheap answer for producing quality, interactive 3D models. The (free) iOS [iTunes] app enables users to create an interactive image by recording a spinning object with the iPhone/ iPad camera, with the first 5 "spins" on the house. For users wanting more, there will be a tiered pricing plan introduced very soon.
The one obvious downside is that users require a spinning platter to record their images with – but Arqball have released their own (which retails for $80-$100). The other downside of Arqball's offering is that their spinning plate is only large enough to accommodate objects not much bigger than an apple (the fruit).
Despite these drawbacks, Arqball was named "the coolest app at SXSW" by former Editor In Chief of TechCrunch, Erick Schonfeld. The software is all their own work as well with the six person team headed by founders Jason Lawrence and Abhi Shelat, both computer science professors at the University of Virginia.
We contacted Lawrence about the company's recent exposure and what they hope to create with the app.
SXSW and AppStore placement have given us a great burst of exposure. We are certainly still in the "early-adopter" phase and are doing everything we can to get stages to our customers as soon as possible.
We will be launching a blog and discussion forum soon with the goal of cultivating a community of users/hackers/sellers/etc. who all bring different goals and perspectives to our product. It's a very exciting time for us and we think we're on the cusp of revolutionizing user-generated 3D content by making tools for capturing/authoring/sharing easy to use, inexpensive, and widely available.
Categories: Startups of the week
Tags: Arqball Spin, e-commerce, HTML5, m-commerce, Photography, Startup
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Responsive web design: another fad in design and development? »
There are high hopes that responsive web design will lead to great online experiences. We take a look at the method of the moment.
Think about the devices you use to access the web. Chances are you use a desktop or laptop computer. But you might also access it through a smartphone, tablet PC, games console or TV. Do each of these devices give you the same useful experience visiting your favourite websites? If not, why not?
The web, up until now, has been designed from a uniform perspective. Taking its lead from print design, web design has strived to reproduce templates across all of the devices that you might use. This was good for a time. But this "must look the same" approach missed the true potential of the medium.
Unlocking the potential of the web
Responsive Web Design is causing great excitement in the industry as it promises to unlock new digital ideas and experiences. RWD is the method of the moment, but before it came Graceful Degradation, Progressive Enhancement and many other design methods aimed at pushing the medium forward. The difference this time is that, where previous approaches chipped away at the surface of pixel perfection, RWD demands a completely new understanding of how a web page works.
RWD increases the value of web content, no matter what device you use to look at it. Value to the visitor is determined by the content, interaction or tasks they can complete. Think of your favourite social network. A responsive version of it would adapt to your device, making it easy and intuitive to catch up on news, find new friends or contacts and update your profile. If the website was not responsive you would need to zoom into the page on a mobile device and struggle with buttons designed for desktop interaction – giving you a poor experience and bad impression of the brand.
The potential for RWD goes beyond mobile. However, the rapid increase in the use of mobile devices, with different resolutions and features like touch screens, has been a key driving force in the return to some of the founding principles of the web. Content is king and, combined with well structured code, you can use it to make your website support your brand values. As many businesses and organisations have found in the digital age; brand value is not about appearance, it is about user experience.
So where do we go from here?
The latest responsive site we launched has seen a surge in traffic from mobile devices. iPhone increased by 275%, Android by 484% and an astonishing 1040% on iPad. There was a clear business case for creating a responsive website in this case. Perhaps there's one for yours?
We're convinced responsive website design delivers a better user and brand experience and we're currently working on new responsive websites for clients and ourselves. If you think your customers deserve a great online experience get in touch.
Categories: Insight
Tags: Business strategy, Content strategy, Digital strategy, HTML5, Mobile, Mobile First, Reputation, thisishoop, User centred thinking, User Experience
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5 top finds #27 »
An intriguing marketing ploy involving cats (no, not the Ikea cat video), an impressive use of HTML5, 20 tips for mobile optimisation, Google's (ridiculous) spending habits and drawing some 3.2million dots (no, really). It's 5 top finds...
1. Catvertising
This morning, here at Hoop towers, we were talking about how best to control our recently discovered rodent situation. After an intense discussion, we had a collective epiphany; we could simply follow Toronto's John St.'s lead and open a catvertising arm. Visit YouTube to understand what we're on about (trust us, it's worth it).
2. Canvas & HTML5 with 9elements
What happens when you combine HTML5, tweets mentioning "love" and "HTML5", a bit of music and some serious development talent in the form of 9elements?
"HTML5 experiment" is the wonderful result. Beautiful work!
3. Mobile optimisation with Conversion Conference London
If we were to summarise this year in two words, they would be "Go Mobile". We've been going on about being ready for the mobile revolution for the majority of 2011 – and 2012 promises to be no different.
If you still need convincing (although if you follow the Hoop blog we hope you don't), SEOptimise has a great list of 20 tips you should be thinking about when joining champions of mobile first. Well worth a read.
4. "Hi, I'm Google and I'm a (shopping) addict"
It's technology conference Le Web this week. Google Chairman Eric Schmidt had the 2pm slot on the main stage yesterday and delivered some extremely interesting tidbits. It turns out that, on average, Google are buying one company every week – they bought 57 this year!
As usual, TechCrunch has the lowdown.
5. A hero with a pen, pencil and RSI
Multi-talented web developer Miguel Endara appears to have a serious bit of skill with a pen and pencil. He recently spent an astounding 210 hours creating 3.2million(!) dots on a piece of paper.
That may sound a little pointless – but when you see the finished product you'll be as blown away as we were. You can watch the video on Vimeo.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: cat video, Digital strategy, Google, HTML5, Mobile, Mobile First
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5 top finds #24 »
Movember but in HTML5, WWII tweeted in real time, the infographic to end all infographics, Apple doing (not) NFC in their own way and stop motion at its finest. It's 5 top finds...
1. HTM(ovember)5
We're always impressed when we see a good cause backed up with a bit of humour (and awesome technology is always a bonus). Mobelly, a campaign to support Movember with HTML5 Video, Canvas and JavaScript, has all three – in spades. Awesome stuff!
2. World beer – in an infographic
We love beer. We love infographics. Beer + infographics = massive win!
3. @RealTimeWWII
There are times when we're still amazed by the ingenuity of people on the web. This Twitter account is a perfect example of such a time. Real time tweets, starting in 1939 and set to cover the course of the Second World War. Well worth following.
4. Apple debuts their version of NFC (not really)
Sorry if that headline got you all excited. Apple haven't finally thrown their collective weight behind NFC – they've just updated their Apple Store app to allow consumers to scan the barcode of items instore and pay with EasyPay there and then with their iTunes account. TechCrunch and Engadget have the details.
5. A day in the life of stop motion
You can't beat a good bit of stop motion video. I Look & Move ticks all the right boxes for us – let us know if you like it too!
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Apple, HTML5, Infographic, Twitter
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5 top finds #21 »
It's been a while since our last 5 top finds, but we're back with a bang this week; remembering Steve Jobs, going mad for innovative stickmen, Paypal talking NFC, some truly astounding time lapse images and experiencing zero gravity (on Vimeo).
1. We'll miss you Steve
After his battle with an unusual form of pancreatic cancer, Steve Jobs passed away on Wednesday – the day after Apple unveiled the latest iteration of the iPhone.
We were all a little deflated when Tim Cook announced the 4S and not the iPhone 5 like some of us were expecting, but when Steve died the following morning we understood. Tech evangelist Robert Scoble's post on Google+ says it all – it's well worth a read. And if you're wondering what the image above is, head over to Mint Foundry to find out more.
2. Draw a stickman. No, really
After spotting this the other morning, we spent our entire lunch hour drawing stickmen. We're pretty sure you will too. Head over to drawastickman.com for an idea of what all the fuss is about.
3. NFC is "years away" according to Paypal
We recently wrote about NFC here on the Hoop blog. Paypal recently featured the technology in their latest advertising campaign, but, in a recent interview with TechCrunch, their Director of Communications said "...we don't see NFC as something that will happen very quickly". It's an surprising admission and, from our point of view, a rather disappointing one.
4. Bing.com celebrates time lapse photography
We recently stumbled upon this truly sensational video, after if was featured as a video background on Microsoft's search engine Bing. MSNBC's Photoblog has an interesting write up about some of the photos that feature in 'The Mountain' video.
5. Base jumping in slow motion
We featured a rather hair-raising video in our last 5 top finds, but today, instead of blowing your socks off with insane daredevilry, we'll do it in slow motion. Because everything looks lovely in slomo – even a 6,000ft base jump. Head over to Vimeo to 'Experience Zero Gravity'.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Apple, HTML5, Near field communication, NFC, Photography, Sculpture, Wing suits
