sangsara.net

  • ➟ Old Spice man responds to online fans

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    Earlier today on Twitter, I said:

    The @oldspice copywriters deserve every prize on the shelf they’ll build with their bare hands after exploding Cannes with sheer brilliance.about 4 hours ago via Tweetie for Mac

    The guys behind the new Old Spice commercials showed a good understanding of social media before when they spread their ads virally online, but yesterday they pretty much won the game. Getting Isaiah Mustafa to come back into the studio with nothing but his bare chest and a towel, they started producing video responses to fans on Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube. Over a hundred personalized responses in all. Some were replies to counter-replies, so we can see that these were being written/performed on the fly to some degree. It is a very high standard to be achieving on the fly, both as writing and performance.

    Online engagement doesn’t get any better than this – rewarding content that viewers happily seek out and interact with, even celebrities like @aplusk, @guykawasaki, @rosemcgowan, and @alyssa_milano. He wore a tie when responding to @GQ, gave himself a trophy on HollywoodLife.com’s advice, and even helped someone propose to his girlfriend with wheeled-out candles and a ring. She said Yes.

    Here’s the latest TV ad for context:

  • ➟ Apple’s new iPhone 4 ads

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    I posted these four ads on Twitter earlier, calling them a cut above Apple’s recent advertising; each one a force of emotion. It strikes me now that these ads are so natural, so well conceived and performed, that they’re more moving than scenes several times their length in Hollywood film. In any case, they are a refreshing change from disembodied hands and players introducing themselves as metaphors for machines.

    What’s remarkable about Apple’s advertising is how they have come to accurately reflect the brand’s approach. It’s a lot rarer than you’d think, and most communications from large companies with offices in multiple countries inevitably veer into “off-brand” territory. Just as the modern Mac and iPhone are familiar tools whittled down to their purest forms – no extraneous buttons or indicator lights, solid blocks of CNC-machined material, and straightforward “naturalistic” user interfaces – the modern Apple ad is simple, uncluttered, and devoid of transitions and flashy effects.

    They keep the basics: a story, a product, and a pay-off. These iPhone 4 ads all have the same straightforward presentation, an over-the-shoulder shot of someone having a FaceTime conversation, and yet they look like no other ads on TV. You’d recognize the next one in a heartbeat. They’ve taken out everything that could be a distraction, and there’s nothing you could add to make them better. That’s good work, and the craftsmanship is impeccable. I imagine being on the Apple account at TBWA\Chiat\Day is like being an honorary Apple employee.

    Link (Apple.com – four new ads total)

  • ➟ Double Rainbow All The Way

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    Update: The Gregory Brothers’ Double Rainbow song is now available on iTunes for 99c. Half the money goes to helping Yosemitebear (Paul Vasquez), the original video’s creator, out of poverty. This article at the Merced Sun-Star says he’s been living on $5,000 a year and can’t afford to replace the tires on his car, limiting his ability to go into town.
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    If you haven’t seen the original Double Rainbow video yet, it’s essential viewing as a primer for all the remixes and spoofs appearing on YouTube. The meme started with a hippie stoner uploading a video where he sees a double rainbow while on a hike (gives new meaning to “Hiking Trip”), and totally loses his mind trying to absorb the beauty of it. “WHAT DOES IT MEAN?! WHOAAA!!”

    And so now we have guys like this impressionist applying the template to KFC’s Double Down sandwiches (DOUBLICIOUS ALL THE WAY!!):

    And the guys from Auto-Tune the News made an awesome song out of it:

    Link (original video)

  • ➟ Dokaka performs the Super Mario Castle theme

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    This is an oldie but a triple-A, gold-starred goodie all the same. It’s probably not fair to call Dokaka a beatboxer – he’s more a shrieking, humming genius – but that’s probably the only way to sell him outside of Japan. I was reminded of this video today while listening to his version of the Katamari Damacy theme song from the soundtrack album. He also appears alongside Rahzel and other more conventional vocal instrumentalists on Bjork’s Medulla album, which is notable for being almost completely composed of human voices. If you have the time, watch him do a Nirvana cover on a street corner while no one seems to care.
    Anyway, enjoy the video. It’s impossible to watch this and not think him completely mad while you laugh.

    Edit: Turns out my timing couldn’t have been better. A new 6-CD album, he calls it “The Dokaka Discography“, has just been released on his website. Only 100 copies are available, each one handmade and autographed. Just USD$30 including delivery. Half unreleased material, and most of his output since 1992 is included. There’s even the threat that this may be the last CD he’ll ever put out. It’s a wonder they haven’t been sold out yet (or perhaps I’m just mad), so hurry and order one now!

    Link

  • ➟ What if Nokia went Android?

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    Monday Note:
    Olli-Pekka Kallasvuo, Nokia’s CEO calls his new head of mobile devices, Anssi Vanjoki in his office, hidden inside the company’s research center at 995 Page Mill Road, in Palo Alto, California. On his desk, three devices: a Nokia N900, a Motorola Droid and an iPhone.
    ‘Anssi, we’re hosed.
    […]
    We once were the kings of sleek design. Now, look at the N900 next and cry. We’re the land Marimekko and Iittala, of Finnish design. All over the world, people pay a premium for elegance, for exclusivity. We’re not doomed to a race to the bottom, we’re destined to a race for quality, for elegance.
    And look at the numbers. We spend 13.5% of revenue for R&D while Apple, doing “everything”, spends 3%. If we stop spending this doomed to failure R&D money, we can lower our percentage below Apple’s.
    Next, we only do three models: good, better and best. Three price points and we’re done. Simple message, less product managers and other corporate busybodies showing PowerPoint slides to one another over endless meetings across ten time zones.
    Anssi, look at me: are you ready for the bloodbath?’
    I enjoyed this “science fiction” exploration of an imaginary conversation at Nokia HQ. It does kind of make sense for Nokia to stop throwing its money into the bottomless well of Symbian patching and superficial fixes in favor of Android. Alas, today brought a post on the Nokia corporate blog vowing to continue on the Symbian/Meego path over Android. It’s rousingly titled “The Fightback Starts Now”. I’m sure a lot of Nokia fans wish it had started back in 2007 when the iPhone was announced.

  • ➟ Versions by Oliver Laric

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    Somewhere between documentary, artwork, and essay lies this video by Oliver Laric, on interpretation and reinterpretation in modern visual culture, in particular a series of animation clips from Disney and Warner Bros. cartoons in which entire “classic” sequences are reproduced in different shows.

    Image montage from booooooom.com

  • ➟ Paul Lung’s photorealistic pencil sketches

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    Here’s one example.

    Link

  • Smartphone usability and my parents

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    I just watched my mother try to take a photo with her Nokia smartphone for the first time. An orchid in the home was blooming, and it was the closest camera within reach. She only uses it as a regular phone, and as the least technically-minded member of the family, is strangely the only one not using an iPhone. Needless to say, she was baffled by the Symbian OS. A primary hardware feature on the device, and the icon was buried in a submenu. Afterwards, she asked my father where to find the file so she could email it to herself, and he couldn’t readily answer her.

    His last phone before the iPhone 3GS was a Nokia E90 Communicator, a top-of-the-line Symbian workhorse business machine. He’d spent so much time understanding how it worked, that the iPhone’s simplicity initially confused him. He’d ask how to access the file system so he could manage his data. Coming around to a task-centric model (photos are always available in the Photos app; music lives in the iPod data well, managed with iTunes) took awhile, but now that he gets it, the Nokia way is unfathomable. Managing a nested file system on a mobile device is no consumer’s idea of fun.

    There’s always been the image of Macs being for stupid/lazy people who can’t work “real” computers and handle complexity in the user interface. Now the iPhone has inherited that reputation in the face of competition from Android, a system that David Pogue calls “best suited for technically proficient high-end users who don’t mind poking around online to get past the hiccups” in his review of the new Droid X. This became clearer as I got older, but I don’t consider most people over the age of 40 who struggle with technology to be stupid or lazy. It comes down to privilege, familiarity, and priorities.

    One of Apple’s most prominent user experience attempts at improving accessibility involves mimicking real-world interfaces, such as using a yellow notepaper background and handwriting fonts in Notes, and superfluous flipping page animations in iBooks. Marco Arment has a good post on this: Overdoing the interface metaphor. It’s a divisive strategy that works well in the early stages of familiarization, but soon becomes a hindrance as one grows more proficient/confident. One of the best metaphors I’ve ever encountered on a mobile device was the lens cover on one of my old Sony-Ericsson cameraphones. Slide it open, and the camera application started up. Along with a physical shutter button, it was perfect, and my mother would have understood it instantly. Such a design benefits even experienced users who know how to start the camera up from the main menu. It’s easy to see how a physical feature can offer that experience, but the real challenge is finding that middle ground in software.

    * I ended up taking the photo with my Panasonic LX3.