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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 #35 »
'Republicanization', business advice from the world's third richest man, some new creative idents, why Pinterest might not be so great after all and some awesome stop-motion animation. It's 5 top finds...
1. 'Republicanize Me'
For those not in the know, today is Super Tuesday in America – the day when ten US States shape the destiny of the Republican candidates contesting the nomination to challenge Barack Obama's presidency.
If you wanted to get in on the action, why not head over to Republicanize Me and get the ball rolling on your own candidacy? We did – and now rate Frick Judges as an outside bet.
2. Taking business advice from Warren Buffet
Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet recently published his annual shareholder letter. PandoDaily have summarised the letter into four worthwhile take-home points. Well worth a read!
3. Animal Planet gets creative
"Animal Planet is all about animals, wild and domestic," says Federico Gaggio, VP, executive creative director, Discovery Networks UK & Western Europe. "The channel's primary audience are adults, in particular adult women, who have a passion for animals. At times they watch with their kids or as a family. To reconnect them with our programmes we created small worlds (Animal Planets), where iconic animals display their natural charm and quirky behaviour, which makes them endearing to us. The logo is integrated in the environment where the animal action takes place."
We recently spotted these two new idents for Discovery Planet's Animal Planet over on Creative Review. Lovely stuff, nice work Double G Studios and Blue Zoo!
4. "Why I tearfully deleted my Pinterest boards"
We're big fans of 'self-expression engine' Pinterest, but when we read lawyer/ photographer/ avid Pinterest user Kirsten Kowalski's article we were more than a little shocked. It's a long but ultimately extremely important read on the copyright nightmare Pinterest's users are volunteering for by simply using the service.
5. There's always an 'Easy Way Out'
A truly amazing piece of stop-motion animation from Belgium/ Australia's Gotye (that took 9 months to make). The song's not too bad either!
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Digital strategy, Startup
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5 top finds #34 »
Exploring the oceans with the BBC, flashmobbing with Intel, how to combat digital piracy, Panagea makes a come back and Sacha Baron Cohen gatecrashes the Oscars. It's 5 top finds...
1. Diving the depths
Ever wondered what it's like travelling the world's deepest oceans? As four teams race to reach the depths of the Mariana Trench, the BBC take a look at what life is like 7 miles down.
2. Ultrabook pop-up theatre
Intel's marketing team flashmob's its way across LA, demonstrating "the ultra thin design & responsiveness of the Ultrabook™". Well worth a watch!
3. "Right vs. Pragmatic"
Marco Arment, cofounder of Tumblr and the brains behind read-it-later service Instapaper, has an interesting take on the current publishing battle raging between old media publishers and the digitally-savvy user of the 21st century.
4. Pentagram rebrand IDA
Hot off the success of branding the new Windows 8 OS, Pentagram recently unveiled a lovely new visual identity for the International Design Alliance's IDA Congress. You'll find the details over on Logo Design Love.
5. Sacha Baron Cohen does the Oscars
So Sacha Baron Cohen's got a new film out this year – what better way to market it with a bold stunt at the Oscars? You can't deny the man's got guts, even if Ryan Seacrest was left more than a little unimpressed.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Content management, Design, Digital strategy, file sharing, flash mob, SOPA, User Experience
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5 top finds #33 »
A balancing dog, an entrepreneurial young Londoner, snowboarding in the dark, iPad 3 rumours hot up and an Easter egg hunt hits central London. It's 5 top finds...
1. Maddie the dog (who likes balancing on things)
Tumblr's quite an interesting social network, with some lovely and sometimes rather strange content. Case in point; today's discovery of Maddie the Coonhound. Maddie's an American hunting dog, who seems to like balancing on things (or rather, her owner likes her balancing on things). Bizarre (but quite cute)!
2. The teenage entrepreneur and his six figure round of funding
It's not often you hear of a 15 year old budding entrepreneur, even less so of one who develops a technology that receives a significant amount of funding before said entrepreneur's 16th birthday. Mike Butcher over at TechCrunch EU has the info on Nick D'Aloisio and his Summly startup [iTunes].
3. Snowboarding (in the dark )
Remember when skiing with lighted torches seemed pretty cool? Fashion photographer and film maker Jacob Sutton and profession snowboarder William Hughes have wiped that from the collective memory with the 'L.E.D. Surfer' – which sees "Hughes light up the snow-covered French hills in a bespoke L.E.D.-enveloped suit". Worth a watch, not worth trying with a boiler suit and some taped on torches.
4. iPad 3 rumours
The rumour mill for the impending launch of Apple's iPad 3 is gearing up – as the release is expected in just over two weeks. What can we expect from the new device? A new and improved camera, retina (HD) display as per the iPhone 4/ 4s and faster processor(s) all seem likely. We'll have to wait until March 7th (the rumoured launch date) to find out for certain though...
5. Massive eggs. In London. Today.
London is welcoming 200 fibreglass eggs to the city this morning, having launched at 7.30am in Trafalgar Square. Participants of The Big Egg Hunt will be given a map and app to track down the eggs, each of which will contain a code that could help entrants win a £100,000 Fabergé egg. At the end of the month-long exhibition, the eggs will be auctioned to raise money for the charities Action for Children and Elephant Family. Awesome!
Categories: 5 top finds
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5 top finds #32 »
Doggie paddling, record breaking crowdfunding, tech sings the blues, food art and what's wrong with technology blogging. It's 5 top finds...
1. Underwater dogs
Think pet photography can be a bit boring? We did too – until we saw Seth Castell's work with some canine friends in a swimming pool. Pure genius!
2. Kickstarter goes seven figures (twice)
Last week, disruptive crowdfunding platform Kickstarter (where people pledge money to support creative projects) made history. They had their first ever project, the Elevation Dock, reach $1,000,000 in pledges. Four hours later, Double Fine Adventure broke the $1M barrier – shortly after reaching the project's $400,000 funding goal in just 8 hours. The Kickstarter blog has the details...
3. My printer is a singer
It's not every day you hear an HP printer and a hard drive(!) cover The Animal's hit single 'The House of the Rising Sun' from 1964.
4. Hirst light sliced
We're in love with 'Low-Commitment Projects', the collaborative project between two American artists Brittany Powell and Tae Kitakata. The 'Sandwich Artist' is definitely a tasty treat!
5. It's not about the pageviews
With the slow death of print media, digital journalists/bloggers are having to pick up the pace of publishing content online – more pageviews bring more advertising revenue.
However, quantity does not always mean quality, as ex-professional blogger MG Siegler discusses in this insightful post.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Art, Content strategy, Digital strategy, Photography, Reputation, Social media, Startup
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5 top finds - number 30! »
It's the 30th 5 top finds in the series, and we're celebrating with the new EU directive on cookies, Google's descent in the popularity rankings, pure internet gold(fish), the save Herne Hill velodrome campaign and web addiction is bad for you shock.
1. (Un-edible) cookies (with an illogical direction)
If you've not heard the EU directive (and now UK law) that's made the majority of websites in Europe illegal, don't worry. You've got until May 2012 to comply with what is quite possibly one of the most ridiculous laws ever. As of May last year, all European websites have to...
"gain consent for the use of cookies or similar technologies to comply with the law."
Or face a fine of up to half a million pounds. Wonderful!
To explain what a cookie is and why the law is entirely flawed (you can't track that a user has requested your website to not use cookies without using cookies), we thoroughly recommend watching the entertaining video above.
2. Google face a bit of an uproar with Search+
If you've not been following the repercussions of Google's announcement about integrating content from (only) Google+ into search results, it's worth reading through some of the responses.
Ex-TechCrunch boss Michael Arrington writes of how Search+ is reminiscent of Microsoft bundling Internet Explorer with Windows (which led to antritrust lawsuits) in the 90s; Harvard advertising law specialist Ben Edelman writes about the (il)legal implications of Google's initiative and "search engine guru" Danny Sullivan explains what's wrong with Search+. All well worth a read.
3. Goldfish, but not as you think they are
We like fish (if you hadn't noticed) here at Hoop – so when we saw the video above we knew it'd somehow end up on the Hoop blog. Truly amazing stuff from Japanese artist Riusuke Fukahori.
4. Save Herne Hill velodrome
As well as liking fish, you may have noticed us Hoopsters are pretty keen on bikes. When we spotted this post on the Brooks blog, about 91 year old (1948 Olympic medallist) Tommy Godwin returning to Herne Hill velodrome and riding the race-winning bike again we then discovered an audio interview with Tommy on the Guardian travel section. Both are well worth reading!
5. Addicted to the internet
Ever struggled stealing yourself from reading updates on Facebook or staying on top of the latest tweets? According to preliminary research from Chinese scientists; there may be such a thing as 'web addiction'. The sample size is tiny (only 17 addicts sampled) but this research could potentially pave the way for treatment for those of us who just can't get off Facebook.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: Bikes, facebook, Fish on Fridays, Google, Google+, SEO, Social search, User Experience
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5 top finds #29 »
Visiting Aston Martin's garage, interesting/ suicidal marketing techniques from a new tech startup, social gaming trends from 2011, a bad year for Research In Motion gets worse and a beautiful model village. It's (the final) 5 top finds (of 2011)...
1. Behind the scenes in the Aston Martin lab
Ever wondered what goes into the build process of a £1.2million British supercar?
Wired recently visited Aston Martin's Gaydon lab (where they build the One-77 übercars) and took some seriously stunning photos. Well worth a look!
2. How not to launch your startup
We're pretty keen on startups here at Hoop – but we've yet to discover one using launch tactics quite like AllThis.
We won't spoil the surprise, but we thoroughly recommending reading Joel Housman's initial blogpost and Rude Baguette's response.
3. Online gaming in 2011
2011 has been a great year for the gaming industry. Rovio's record breaking 'Angry Birds' hit half a billion downloads, Activision's 'Call of Duty MW3' title made $1bn in just 16 days and social gaming giant Zynga's recent IPO raised $1bn, valuing the company at around $9bn.
If you still need convincing, have a look at this infographic from Pando Networks. Awesome stuff!
4. More bad news for RIM
Poor Research In Motion. 2011 has been rough on Blackberry's parent company.
After releasing a tablet to rival the iPad (which got mixed reviews – at best), taking the brunt of the blame for fuelling the August riots and suffering a data shortage that affected 70m users; they're now worth less than Apple's iTunes and App Store.
Here's hoping RIM have an easier year in 2012.
5. A lovely model village (but not really)
If you're not in a Christmassy mood already, this (old but still wonderful) tilt shift video of Vancouver's Whistler ski resort might help you on your way.
And if you're wondering how it was made, look no further than this interview.
Categories: 5 top finds
Tags: AllThisPR, Angry Birds, Aston Martin One-77, BBM
