Tive's Take: Archive

Why Nike will win the battle of personal data...

Nike’s FuelBand locks together three of the biggest gamechangers in product development today - gamification, socialisation and personal data - but adds one killer refinement that will make it stand out from the market. FuelBand heralds the advent of the Quantified Self into the mainstream. For years athletes and the keener ones amongst us have used personal data to improve their...

Jan 24th

8 tags

Nov 30th

2 notes

Dragging Location Kicking & Screaming Into Our...

Rovio recently announced Angry Birds Magic which uses NFC and Angry Bird Magic Places which uses location data. If you play Angry Birds in a specific ‘place’, you can unlock features such as the Mighty Eagle - an even angrier bird. Undeniably, this will lead to brand partnerships (- play in your local Starbucks and unlock a power up?) But what interests me is not that Rovio has...

Jun 15th

Path: Introducing With, a Path Short. →

I love Path, I’m an advocate of it, but why wouldn’t you build this functionality into the Path app? thepersonalnetwork: At Path, above all we believe in empowering simple design, quality craftsmanship, and creative freedom. To that tune we host hackathons once a month where we hack on anything we want. The only rule is: don’t work on what you normally work on. This practice was...

Jun 8th

141 notes

Watch

It easy to be a DJ. But it just got even easier. This wahwah.fm app lets you make a playlist then listen to it and broadcast it to listeners simultaneously. And get live feedback. Genius. HT @neilperkin

May 23rd

The Rise Of Proximity

Geo-location has been a buzz word since Foursquare’s launch at SXSW in 2009. But despite healthy growth and even with the advent of Facebook Places last year, it’s never really become mainstream. Most people still don’t see a value in it. Proximity however is the evolution of geo-location. It’s the marriage of location data and relevance. We’re seeing new...

May 17th

From Windows 1.0 to 7

On my current theme of tech nostalgia is this excellent video charting Windows OS upgrades from 1.0 to the present 7. I completely forgot that programs like Doom 2 and Monkey Island were originally launched from DOS. It’s like taking a trip back to my childhood. Source via @RemoteDeveloper

Mar 12th

6 tags

Social Media Goes Nostalgic

As Social Media platforms get older, trends emerge. From the early Facebook friend landgrab, we’ve moved on to see more users cull their friends or make more intimate groups whilst others embrace “anti-social” media platforms that limit the number of friends you can have, like Path. One trend I’m seeing more of is Nostalgia. More of us are tapping into sites and apps that...

Mar 9th

4 notes

Charlie Sheen Link Roundup

First up, the interview Video remixes: Dubstep remix Sheen Wars: Darth Vader vs Charlie Sheen Single purpose sites: Charlie Sheen has one speed Live The Sheen Dream (more quotes) Other quotation sites: Charlie Sheen quotes added to New Yorker cartoons Charlie Sheen quotes presented by baby sloths Charlie Sheen meets Charlie Brown Cats quote Charlie Sheen Sheen v. Gaddafi...

Mar 3rd

Coca-Cola Happiness Truck

So simple…

Feb 22nd

Sparrow

This is Sparrow, the new mail client I mentioned in an earlier post. It is so choice. Just look at it. It’s like a Twitter client. I love that iOS design is impacting design outside of mobile apps. Sparrow is a minimalist mail application for Mac. It was designed to keep things simple and efficient. No fancy stuff here… just your mail and nothing else. I’m currently using...

Feb 18th

New apps (and a treasure trove of other stuff)

This is a pretty awesome article on LifeHacker which outlines the key hardware, software, accessories and even tricks (from the best way to tie a shoe lace to eating crisps with chopsticks). It’s a veritable treasure trove of just about anything that will make your life better and I blame it entirely for the following new apps I’ve just purchased: Wunderlist task manager Captio...

Feb 18th

Global Music Industry Turnover: Cliff Dive

Gulp. We knew it was bad but that’s almost 50% decline in 15 years. By Bain via LaughingSquid

Feb 18th

SnapStick

Well this is kinda cool. The Engadget preview goes some way to explaining the desktop box that you need, but the holy grail would be if you could ‘snap’ video to your Apple TV/ Google TV / Boxee whatever. But that’s a big ask. The site states “Snapstick is currently in discussions with several hardware, systems and consumer electronics companies” to produce its...

Feb 18th

4 tags

Uniqlooks vs Art of the Trench

…just saying… Uniqlo: Feb 2011 Burberry: Oct 2009

Feb 17th

7 tags

Feb 16th

5 tags

Feb 16th

2 tags

The darkest place on earth vs the Philips Wake Up...

I’ve owned a Wake Up Light for 3 years. I really think it affects how my day starts. I believe in the power of waking up naturally. (And no, I’m not associated in any way with Philips!) But I only need it for a few months of the year. Unlike the people of Longyearbyen, Svalbard. Philips has given the town residents an light each and filmed how it affects them. It’s not novel,...

Feb 15th

5 notes

The Pirata Boat Race

I’ve just discovered this 9 month old game from Pirata. Big props to them for this novel marriage between iPhone and machine. And what lovely design. Video The Pirata Boat Race from Pirata London on Vimeo. Game The Pirata Boat Race

Feb 15th

2 tags

Gamer turned director

Mathieu Weschler is a Grand Theft auto fan. And whilst fanboys aren’t new to remaking and remixing new versions of their muses, I’m not sure I’ve seen an amateur gamer make a film out of game graphics before. Check out The Trashmaster below - all 89 minutes of it. Remarkable in achievement if nothing else. The trashmaster (nouvelle version nouvelle voix-off !) Uploaded...

Jan 11th

“A new class of company is emerging—one that uses collaborative Web 2.0...”

– Jaques Bughin & Michael Chiu McKinsey’s new survey research finds that companies using the Web intensively gain greater market share and higher margins.

Jan 10th

“The tragedy—small in the scale of things, no doubt—of this film is that...”

– Lawrence Lessing on Sorkin’s The Social Network

Nov 15th

Sep 2nd

69 notes

Jul 29th

A transcript of Vodafone's live webchat

My iPhone contract is up so I thought I’d upgrade to an iPhone 4. Speaking to O2, they confirmed that they cannot offer me the same deal as Vodafone and were willing to offer me nothing to stay. (The only difference between packages was the 500mb data limit I would be allowed vs 1GB from Vodafone. I regularly go over 500mb and do not want to have to buy bolt ons for the privilege when...

Jul 26th

“The final thing I’d say about optimism is this. If we took the loopiest, most...”

– Clay Shirky, in interview with Decca Aitkenhead of the Guardian. Via Tom Taylor

Jul 6th

5 tags

Jun 30th

“The greatest change in the history of media is that, within the span of a single...”

– The Greatest Change in the History of Media (Crosbie’s Manifesto - Part 1) An interesting essay by Vin Crosbie covering just how profound the shift in access to information has been over the past 50 years and how advertisers and the industry should be reacting. In Part 2 Crosbie goes on to...

Jun 17th

3 tags

Can you code? Can you edit? Can you build a robot?

There has been a lot of conversation of late about how the role of planning has evolved (or should have) in agencies. I came across this presentation by Francois Grouillier, via Faris Yakob’s recent post on the topic. As well as asking some serious questions of planners (Can you build a robot?), it asks questions of agencies, how they recruit, how they should redefine their OS, and the role...

Jun 16th

Watch

At 39” Faris Yakob talks about the role of planning. Is this the best summary of the new definition of media planning in the digital age?

Jun 16th

4 tags

Jun 15th

5 tags

Jun 14th

6 tags

A Dragon's Den for Developers

Hack Fwd provides an investment opportunity for the tech community - a Dragon’s Den for developers - and it’s beginning to raise the profile of some interesting new ideas. So far there are several companies to look at and one that has piqued our curiosity is Product Lovers. The startup aims to “redefine the way consumers talk about products and trends on the Internet”....

Jun 14th

5 tags

Jun 11th

4 tags

Watch

Nice reduction thinking by Alex Bogusky to get us to reappraise the Global Warming problem. Smart. tigs: Climate Pollution - Alex Bogusky (by Creative Mad Hatter) Litter is bad.

Jun 9th

3 tags

Are We Rewiring Ourselves To Doom?

There is a great conversation going on right now about a new book from Nicholas Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains. It has spawned articles in the NYT by Carr himself (Does the internet make you dumber?) and Clay Shirky (Does the internet make you smarter?) as well as a review in the NYT and subsequent post, Hooked on gadgets and paying a mental price. You can (and...

Jun 9th

9 tags

Caffeine Moves Google Closer To Real Time

Google have launched pre-beta testing on Caffeine, an upgrade to their main product, search. This is a clear step towards making the search behemoth the main player in real-time search. As our behaviour online continues to swing from content consumption to creation, and with new search competition gaining traction from Microsoft/Yahoo and real-time megaliths Facebook and Twitter in the fray,...

Jun 9th

2 tags

Jun 4th

4 tags

Watch

This is a great video by Dan Pink on what motivates us. If you think it’s money, think again. Why do people do such great unpaid work outside of their work? Purpose. Pink concludes that “when the profit motive gets unmoored from the purpose motive, bad things happen.” So how do we align the two? Or do we place too much faith in the profit motive? Lend 10 minutes of your time to...

Jun 3rd

Jun 2nd

25 tags

Touring with Tech

Visiting a new city abroad and being a tourist always presents a problem for me. As a Londoner, I see plenty of slow walking goggle-eyed tourists who don’t know where they are going or are eating in the most awful tourist-targeted restaurants such as Aberdeen Steakhouses on Piccadilly Circus. How completely disappointing for them. In an attempt to avoid the usual tourist pitfalls, I equip...

May 30th

11 tags

The threat of dishonesty in Social Networks

Foursquare is one of the social media platforms of recent months that actually does have a recognisable business model. Brands are getting in on the act, local businesses are taking advantage of Special Offers, championing and rewarding their Mayors, and there’s talk of being bought by a slightly larger competitor. It’s a platform that’s in its infancy but is already a success story. But the...

May 27th

“The participatory nature of Twitter and Facebook also makes them excellent tools...”

– “How Twitter and Facebook Make Us More Productive,” Wired (via somethingchanged)

Mar 30th

19 notes

7 tags

The iPad will change online behaviour

This is no longer a doubt. When the iPad launched some commentators were dubious though. Why buy another device that does what a laptop does? Over the last few weeks we’ve come to the realisation that the iPad isn’t just a lightweight sofa surfing device. It could bring a new demographic into computing, enabling millions of less tech-literate consumers to get to get online and...

Feb 17th

How Important Is Facebook's Governance?

Facebook now has more than 200m users making it the 5th biggest nation in the world - if it were a nation. But the fact that it is not a nation shouldn’t mean that Mark zuckerberg shouldn’t be seen as a leader. Afterall, his site houses the messages, photos, events, friendships, relationships and habits of its inhabitants; and Zuckerberg controls how we interact with them....

Apr 20th

Spotify Brand Applications: The Obvious and the...

Spotify is about to release an API. That means Spotify is about to explode through the web, gaming, and PCs. But is it more than just “a magical version of iTunes in which you’ve already bought every song in the world”? And if so, is it brand friendly? Yes. And yes. Spotify has exploded onto more than a million screens since its free public launch in February and this...

Apr 7th

Insights into iPhone apps.

How do we interact with our iPhone apps? Are we engaged? And what does this mean for advertising on the platform? Check out the presentation here.

Feb 18th

The Next Big Disruptive Ideas as seen by Chris...

Earlier today I attended a WIRED seminar moderated by David Rowan, Editor of Wired UK, with Chris Anderson (Editor in Chief of Wired and author of The Long Tail). The seminar’s title was pretty promising. Anderson covers an astonishing array of new technologies and idea in each issue of Wired. But which out of them does he feel merit the title of the Next Big Disruptive Idea? Disruption 1:...

Feb 5th

Twitter addiction. Are brands missing out? I think...

Last week News Biscuit wrote a spoof article about a man who almost killed himself because of his Twitter addiction. Despite the spoof, at its core lies the incontrovertible addictive nature of Twitter. Last year countless businesses banned Facebook access due to interminable employee distraction. Why are social networks so addictive? And why aren’t brands benefiting? Social...

Feb 3rd

iPhone vs Android vs Symbian: What mobile geeks...

We hosted the most recent mashup* Event a short while ago where we discussed the joys of the new open source mobile platforms - Apple’s iPhone, Google’s Android, and Symbian (pushed by Nokia). 100 industry developers, investors, entrepeneurs and ad men attended and contributed to the event but there was one recurring theme - privacy and security. Is this really the most important part...

Jan 29th