Friday, October 9th, 2009
Pabst Art, our first project with new client PBR went live today. The annual fan submitted artwork competition brings submissions from all over the country, ultimately awarding four winners with the prize of a lifetime. This year, we helped PBR create an experience that allowed them to accept, vote, rank and award prizes all online. Additionally, we created a gallery structure that allowed site visitors to view all the work submitted over the past few years as well as the new work being submitted this year or even submit ‘found art’ photos they’ve taken or found online. And, if you’re REALLY into it, you can use their online “Art Hacker” tool to create a glorious PBR piece of your own to share with friends or print out and hang on your cubicle wall.
As they say, “Life is art. Art is passion. Passion tastes like PBR.”
So go check it out over at:
PBRART.COM
Wednesday, October 7th, 2009
Adobe made a big announcement Monday. One we’ve all been waiting for… kind of. Flash is now available for the iPhone… HOWEVER, not as we’d all first expected it. Adobe has now made it possible to develop iPhone apps from within Flash. Pretty interesting concept, indeed. The whole world of App development will now open about a million times wider, which could be both a good and bad thing. Ultimately, I think it will bring a whole new world of app capabilities that may make for some interesting new progression in the technology.
Either way, the new functionality will be available in the beta version of Flash CS5 due out sometime before the end of the year. Still hoping for an actual Flash Player for the iPhone, but this sounds like they’re starting to make progress on the device now. Maybe player will come in ‘10.
http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flashcs5/appsfor_iphone/#demo
Monday, September 28th, 2009
We would like to proudly announce the launch of the new Rhymesayers website. We’ve been crafting this baby for a long time now, and are ‘oh so excited’ to see it finally stand on its own legs. Lots of great new stuff, and not to mention, some sweet jams on the radio.
Rhymesayers.com
Sunday, September 27th, 2009
We got a nice little plug on Smashing Magazine this weekend in their “Optimized for iPhone” feature. Nice to see us up there with so many other great sites.
Smashing Magazine : Optimized for the iPhone
Wednesday, September 16th, 2009
For easily the last three years, everyone’s been saying ‘Yeah, its great, but good luck making any money,’ thus leading to the ultimate demise of the Social Network while something new comes along and investors move their money along (e.g., Friendster, MySpace, etc, etc). But today, Facebook has proven them all wrong by announcing not only that they’ve reached a staggering 300 million plus users (take note: the US Census puts the US population at around 307 million), but that they’ve posted their first profitable quarter since inception, meaning they will haul in 500 million some odd dollars before year’s end. Pretty phenomenal for a 5 year old company, started in a Harvard dorm room by a couple buddies.
So, there’s a bit of sweet justice here. Everyone who’s been denying the power of social media as a legitimate tool for marketing based on the concept that their model is unsustainable and will not turn a profit, has been proven wrong. I’m not going to say I didn’t have my doubts either, but there seems to be a much stronger crew behind the scenes here, and considering everyone and their mom (literally) has a Facebook profile now, it seemed like the only thing keeping them from their goal was attention span. Would the people get bored and move on? Well, apparently not. Facebook has remained the dominant social network for easily 3 years now and will most like continue into the following year. We’ll see if history repeats itself and something comes along to replace, but for now, I think we’re Facebookin’ it for at least a while longer.
More over at Wired: http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/09/facebook-makes-money-tops-300-million-users/
Friday, September 11th, 2009
Sevnthsin proudly announces, in partnership with our wonderful partner &Yustin, our newest iPhone Application for retailer JCPenney. This new iPhone app takes JCPenney in a new/forward thinking direction and begins the process of moving towards a paperless means of content delivery for the company.
Each week the app dynamically updates with new weekly offers, in line with their newspaper circular, bringing the newest deals to iphone users no matter where they are. The app also includes functionality to create your own ‘Favorites’ shopping list and a GPS enabled Store Locator, making the distance between you and your nearest JCP just a click away.
Check out the app over at the iTunes App Store or by clicking: JCP.COM/IPHONE
Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
A month before the much anticipated release of “Us,” the new effort by Brother Ali off Rhymesayers Records, Sevnthsin busted out this new experience, giving the fans a true form of conversation. The new BrotherAli.com focuses simply on the purest inspiration behind much of Ali’s new album, the conversations he’s had with fans.
So what better way to connect the two than with a site strictly focused on promoting those conversations, sharing those stories, just talking with one another. Sign in via Facebook or Twitter and comment on Ali’s posts or share a story of your own. The door is open, now go chat it up.
BROTHERALI.COM
Wednesday, August 19th, 2009
Well, Google’s in court again, although this time its not because of something they technically did. The veil of ‘the internet’ is starting to crumble and online ‘bullying’ is something that’s being taken more seriously, especially in cases of defamation of character… as is the case this time. Now, Google’s not in trouble, nor should they be, however, here’s where things get a little tricky and even groundbreaking in this particular case. Google owns the popular blogging service Blogger. Blogger’s been around about 10 years now, and was purchased by Google back in 2003. Since then, its popularity has skyrocketed, allowing everyone and their grandma to start blogging, making it easier than using Word. Each bloggers content is their own and for the most part, they’re entitled to do/say whatever they want, Google’s not monitoring and they won’t be monitoring. However, in this instance, a lovely little blog called “Skanks of NYC” has managed to raise quite a stink. Numerous posts over time take a harsh swipe at model Liskula Cohen, calling her some pretty nasty things, ultimately causing Liskula to take the matter to court. The Blogger has been hiding under a pseudonym, which is quite common online as no one would ever say such fowl things if it could ever be traced back to them, something that is both the beauty and the bane of the internet, but this case changes that. A Manhattan judge ordered Google to release the name of the Blogger in an effort to have charges brought against the appropriate individual. This seems pretty straight forward as a “Duh, of course that’d be the ruling” but its fairly groundbreaking as it begins to set a new standard in the concept of accountability online.
We all have the right to free speech, and the internet has been a prime outlet for that, BongMan420* can say whatever he wants, and up until this week, has been able to hide behind his amazing username. But we’re entering a new day and age, the same rules are being applied online as they would in any other media form, and rightfully so. It’ll be interesting to see where this heads going forward, but I think the most intriguing thing is the fact that we’re seeing that online veil come down. Looks like I’m going to have to stop posting under false names on everyone else’s blogs. Argh…
More from Mashable: http://mashable.com/2009/08/19/google-identity-blogger/
* I’m sure there’s someone named BongMan420 out there, I’m in no way insinuating they were the naughty blogger. I made that up on the fly, because that’s how I roll. BongMan420, if you’re reading this and I offended your delicate sensibilities, I deeply apologize.
Friday, August 14th, 2009
Get Sleep Ready, a project we helped craft for the team over at Select Comfort got some wonderfully positive press the other day on the Twin Cities Business Magazine Blog. Nice to see our clients getting the recognition their hard work and forward thinking-ness deserves.
http://tcbmag.blogs.com/btw/2009/08/diggable-futures.html
Thursday, August 13th, 2009
So the epic Facebook/Twitter battle continues. This week it comes in the form of
1. Facebook acquiring Friend Feed,
2. Announcing a new version of Facebook called Facebook Lite and then
3. This report released about Facebook growing twice as fast as Twitter over the course of July, 2009.
So much has happened in such a short amount of time, its hard to say what may have caused this, but the best guess (as cited over on TechCrunch) is that Facebook is ripping off Twitter yet again by adding the “EVERYONE” button. Now, just like Twitter, you can publicly broadcast what you had for lunch to all the people who honestly don’t care, but you desperately wish would! The addition of Facebook Lite also makes Facebook the new Twitter, as its essentially just a feed based service. Now, I understand their desire to be the master of the social universe, but there’s no reason each can’t exist in its own right, especially since Facebook is on ‘in only’ platform, with no real way to feed content OUT of Facebook, making the concept of open social integration into sites almost non-existent without using their own proprietary “Facebook Connect” login… which again, kinda only points content back into Facebook.
So, while Facebook continues to try and emulate its competition in order to weed them out, they continue to lose their authenticity and original value in the social realm. Again, I call on your Facebook, to focus on what you’re best at and stop trying to buy up all your competitors in an effort to be the only solution out there. Play nice. Integrate with the other networks. Make it all one big happy party where each person brings something they’re really good at and we get a network of amazing skill sets to play within.
That sounds like an awesome party to me!
Source: http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/08/12/facebook-grew-twice-as-fast-as-twitter-in-july/
