While this application is not about to lead me to a feast of wild strawberries in downtown Sydney just yet, is is a fantastic example of how technology can be used to bring us closer to our natural world rather than take us further away.
Mashing up crowd sourcing and citizen science principles, Boskoi feels like exactly the sort of approach that could help get a screen focused generation back in touch with the world around them. Imagine using AR tech for this and other crowd sourced/citizen science created ways to explore the urban environment, rather than to win a car (no offense MINI Getaway... i love that idea as well)
Here's more details on the application courtesy of The Pop-Up City
Augmented Foraging With Boskoi
By Joop de Boer | Published: Thursday November 4, 2010
Everywhere in the world you can find plenty of remarkable fruits, vegetables, mushrooms and herbs in the wild. Not only in the forests of Africa, but also in metropolitan areas around the world an enormous variety of edible species can be found. Boskoi is a new open source project that aims to unlock the collective knowledge about these edible species and their location. Boskoi is a tool to explore and map the ‘edible landscape’ wherever you are while using your mobile phone.
The app enables users to submit own findings and post these to the map. Additions to Boskoi will be reviewed by an editorial board, considering toxicity, pollution and endangered or rare species. Findings can be reported on the website or through the beta app for Android phones. The team has set up some rules though to respect nature, ownership and health: (1) be friendly (ask permission if ownership is unclear), (2) be generous (how much do you really need? Leave most for others), (3) be alert (beware of toxicity and do not tread on other plants when picking), and (4) be careful (only add locations that are robust and can survive limited foraging).
Boskoi is a project by the Amsterdam-based foragers of Urban Edibles, initiated by research and design collective FoAM and supported by Urbanibalism and Pollinize. The app is based on Ushahidi, an open source platform for mobile phones that people in crisis situations use to report what happens. The app was built for the post-election crisis in Kenya in 2008. Ushahidi was also used to map the catastrophe in Haiti and the oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico. For Boskoi “report an incident” is changed to “report a find”. The app aims to highlight what is growing and living in our daily environment as it stresses the quality of the eco system close to the city. The makers of the app found out that the diversity of plants in The Netherlands is higher in the urban than in rural areas. The idea of Boskoi is to develop new networks between people and their living environment through ‘augmented foraging’.
In several countries online mapping networks regarding freely available fruits and vegetables are already running, for instance the Urbana-Champaign Fruit Map. To combine the data collected by all of these ‘sidewalk harvesting’ projects, the initiators of Boskoi are planning to create a ‘Forage Markup Language’ in order to make the knowledge available to everyone. Another future innovation could be a culinary plug-in with special recipes.
Been busy/lazy for much posting this week, but here are two things that made me go Wow recently...
Nokia's geolocating, Ovimaps interactive billboard (thanks @damjanov for the link to the vid)
And, the totally cool, all-in-one soccer ball, portable generator, community builder and global health tool... Soccket (Cheers Springwise)
Over 1.5 billion people—one quarter of the world’s population—live in areas with no access to electricity, according to a recent UN report. Capitalizing on a sport's global appeal to address this problem, a group of Harvard University students developed sOccket, a soccer ball that turns energy from a kick into electricity.
The portable energy-harvesting device captures the impact energy normally dissipated when the ball is kicked, storing it to charge lights, cell phones and batteries. It works with inductive coil technology, similar to that found in flashlights that power up when shaken. For each 15 minutes of play, it can store enough energy to power a small LED light for three hours. sOccket could eventually help ease the reliance on toxic kerosene lamps in developing nations, thereby reducing the associated health risks.
Currently in the prototyping stages, sOccket has been successfully piloted in Durban, South Africa, and the development team has plans to market a commercial version of the sOccket in Western countries as a high-end tech toy, possibly using a "buy one-give one" model, to subsidize the cost of distributing sOccket in developing nations. Being an all-in-one soccer ball, portable generator, community builder and global health tool, sOccket is another shining example of the functionall trend covered in our sister site’s latest briefing. sOccket has attracted several development funding grants and is now in the process of developing production and distribution partnerships. One to partner with or otherwise get involved in? (Related: Hippo water roller — Single-use toilet bag turns human waste into fertilizer.)
Thanks PSFK for this. I know there is some much hype about the AR space these days, a lot of it unfounded, but the sheer scale of this just makes it incredible. Wonder if i can get a client to turn a whole building into a comms channel?
January 7, 2010
Located in the shopping district surrounding Tokyo’s Tachikawa Station, the exterior of the mall-like N Building has been covered with QR code data so that store information can be captured from street level. The design teams at Qosmo and Teradadesign Architects have also put together an iPhone app that gathers real-time information and conversations within the building through an AR-like interface.
Twoddler Allows Toddlers To Communicate Through Twitter
December 7, 2009
Combining an Arduino microcontroller with a Fisher Price Activity Center, Bart Swennen, Gert Vos, and Johannes Taelman have put together a device which allows toddlers to communicate non-verbally with their caretakers through Twitter. Dubbed ‘Twoddler,” the device captures data from toddler interactions within the activity center and translates them to tweets that can be followed by the toddler’s parents; the toddler mashing the image of his mother for a predetermined amount of time might be translated to a tweet like ‘I’d like to see my mommy now.”
Andy Woodruff from Cartogrammar uses average color in Flickr photos to map the colors that people take the most pictures of. The above for example, shows the common colors of Harvard Square. Why all the red? It's because there's so many brick buildings.
So in the end is a map that provides a different geographic view of what we're used to seeing. We're used to seeing the aerials or the designer-defined color coding of roads and land. This however, while portrayed as a view from above, is what people are seeing on the ground.
Also not the newest article, but do like this on Twitter as social mind. Thanks Springwise
4 September 2009 Published on 4 September 2009 in Marketing & Advertising
If two heads are better than one, it's hard to argue with the premise of crowdsourcing, which taps multiple brains for a common end. Now offering such capabilities overnight is Ideas Culture, an Australian firm that puts creative thinkers around the globe to work via Twitter to solve a client's problem by morning.
Businesses with a challenge to solve can enlist Ideas Culture's "Ideas While You Sleep Service" to get a pack of ideas along with an evaluation matrix and implementation plan by 10 a.m. the next morning. After registering, they need only submit their challenge online by 4 p.m. By 6 p.m., Ideas Culture gets the challenge out to its Twitter-based Ideas Agents, who spend 15 to 30 minutes each on the problem. There are more than 200 agents from eight countries on the books, and each earns AUD 100 for four sessions, according to a report in the Age. Problems tackled so far have included recruiting more male customers for a singles matching service and increasing attendance for professional development events, The Age reported. Pricing—normally AUD 880—is now AUD 495 through a special trial offer.
Is there no stopping the power of the Twitter-enabled crowds? London's Royal Opera House is another organization that apparently doesn't think so. For more on putting that power to work for your brand, check out trendwatching.com's briefing on foreverism. Time to start thinking in 140 characters! ;-)
Earlier this year, we wrote about the creation of Data.gov, a site that allows access to a large amount of US government data. DataMasher is a tool that takes these vast quantities of information and allows you to whittle it down into simpler terms, offering an easy way to get hard data on certain topics without any intrusive media spin.
You can visualize and compare data state by state in various combinations (in map or list form), and contribute to the site by adding your own data sets and rating other users mash-ups.
OK...been way too busy to post any of the really cool things i've come across recently, but going to put some effort in now! Starting with...
Thanks PSFK for this post a really cool mashup of laser tagging with eye tracking. Nice and helping out someone in need.
September 2, 2009
Tony Quan (aka TEMPTONE) is an LA based graffiti writer, publisher and activist who was diagnosed with ALS (Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, a neurodegenerative disorder) in 2003. Despite the fact that the disease has left him nearly paralyzed, his passion to create and write graffiti never left him.
The collaborative efforts of the Graffiti Research Lab, Free Art+ Technology, Open Frameworks, and The Ebeling Group- organizations specializing in various aspects of open source computing, creativity and production- created the EyeWriter – a low cost software/eye-tracking tool that allows those paralyzed from ALS to write using only their eyes.
The first prototype of the EyeWriter was made using a combination of items from Venice Beach, CA electronics and hardware stores and open source set of C++ libraries for creative coding from openFrameworks.
This resulted in a successful demonstration on April 12, as TEMPT was able to draw his tag for the first time in over 5 years. It was sent in real time and projected on a wall that he was able to see from a window by his bed in the hospital.
The second phase of the project is due to be completed this month, and will involve an online publication of DIY instructions, open source software and video documentation of the creation of the second version.
More in-depth information about the EyeWriter is available here.
Here’s a video of TEMPT’s first tag, projected onto a wall April 12, 2009.
And Creating 'Screens' Where There Weren't Any Posted by Garrick Schmitt on 09.01.09 @ 08:44 AM
At times it seems that the entire world has become a screen. The proliferation of devices of all shapes and sizes -- from the jumbotrons in Times Square to the micro-menus of Apple's Nano -- surround us. And, of course, the sheer multitude of these screens (GPS, iPod, mobile phone, LCD TV, Nintendo DS, etc.) has begun to change our interaction with the physical world.
But what's most interesting about this development is not the abundance of screens, per se, but about how our culture's seemingly ravenous desire for digital experiences is changing our expectations for physical spaces -- both in public and private.
In the past few years, a host of artists, programmers and marketers have melded art and science to create new, digitally driven experiences that are redefining the way we think about our urban and personal landscapes.
Some of the better-known advertising work here includes Mini's groundbreaking "Motorby"HBO's "Voyeur" campaign, which transformed a New York City street into a theater. campaign, where an interactive digital billboard responds to Mini drivers passing by, and
But the trend is more than just "digital out of home," which is a phrase that gets used a bit too broadly to describe this cultural shift. Instead, it's a complete rethinking of our public spaces as digital experiences.
Project Blinkenlights: Perhaps the most influential and pioneering work done so far has been by this German group, which transforms office buildings into digital interactive installations. Its most recent project, Stereoscope, took over Toronto City Hall and created an interactive, visual concert.
The experience went beyond just a light display; it was participatory as well. Attendees were invited to play video games on the sides of the building by using their mobile phones. And artists could create their own animations for the installation using Project Blinkenlights' open animation formats and tools.
555 Kubik: Similar to the work of Project Blinkenlights, the 555 Kubik project is a digital installation that turns a naked building facade into a compelling piece of art through 3-D projections.
The project was created by UrbanScreen, a European agency that specializes in large-scale projection on urban surfaces.
YouTube Symphony Orchestra: The YouTube Symphony Orchestra was an attempt to crowdsource a virtual orchestra via auditions through YouTube. For the public performance, which featured 96 professional and amateur musicians from 30-plus countries, Obscura Digital specifically mapped Carnegie Hall's architecture to project 20,000 square feet of full-resolution video and dramatically enhance the event.
Livestrong Chalkbot: As part of Lance Armstrong's return to the Tour de France and his Livestrong organization's mission to cure cancer, Nike commissioned the Livestrong Chalkbot. Created by DeepLocal and StandardRobot, the Chalkbot enabled thousands of people to have their messages (submitted digitally) chalked along the route of this year's Tour.
'Top Chef Las Vegas': For this season of "Top Chef Las Vegas," Fallon and Monster teamed up for one of the more clever uses of mobile and digital-billboard advertising. The team created an interactive casino in Rockefeller Plaza that highlighted the Las Vegas element of the show and allowed passers-by to play interactive slot machines with their mobile phones for the chance to win $5,000 -- now that's an incentive for engagement.
While the melding of digital and physical has been done well before, it's often been in fits and starts. But it's only been as of late, as the technology has become cheaper and connectivity more pervasive, that we've started to see a more profound shift in digital altering of our public spaces. The emergence of radio-frequency identification and augmented reality and shift toward branded destinations -- see the O2 in the U.K. -- will only accelerate the trend.
Leave it to Guinness to give us an early taste. Working with London's Red Urban, Guinness placed RFID tags on its team's rugby balls and players, providing real-time data for fans and coaches alike. Running pace, kicking power and passing speed are all monitored -- allowing a digital window into a physical event that is just scratching the surface of what's possible.
If the Guinness RFID work is any indicator, perhaps the future won't be about screens at all -- it may simply become a matter of data and sensors.
Doesn’t it just feel great when you get stuff for free? Free t-shirts? I’ll take five. A contestto win a Macbook? I’m game. There’s even an eBay for free stuff now.
Still, finding free stuff is tough because it isn’t easy to find all the great free offers on the web. More and more though, people have turned to Twitter () to help me find those deals. Many (myself included) have saved a bundle on quality clothing and free giveaways. But Freezly looks to be the coolest and most efficient way to find free stuff yet, and its discovery algorithm is powered by tweets.
Freezly is a lot like Tweetmeme () in that it finds link and tweets and shows you their popularity based on retweets. Freezly though only picks up free giveaways and items with its algorithm. You can see the hottest free deals being shared on Twitter, the most recent deals Freezly has found, and an archive of past giveaways.
Facebook Connect is an exceptionally useful technology for web developers. Not only can they offer Facebook () users one-click registration and sign-in, but by accessing profile and social graph information, Facebook Connect gives developers a way to create a richer experience for their visitors and gives publishers a brand new promotional channel.
In January, we brought you a list of 10 great Facebook Connect implementations, and developers across the web have been busy since then coming up with new and innovative ways to integrate with Facebook. So below is a list of 10 more great implementations of Facebook Connect that stand out for their creativity, their usefulness, or their seamless integration.
1. Watchmen on Blu-Ray
Back in May, Warner Bros. announced that the special Director’s Cut Blu-ray edition of the movie Watchmen would utilize Facebook Connect. The disc arrived in stores today, and it does indeed feature Facebook Connect features for those with BD-Live enabled Blu ()-ray players. That means that people with both Facebook accounts and BD-Live players can invite friends for live viewing parties, exchange comments, and update their Facebook status.
Yes, that’s a lot of prerequisites, but still, the possibilities here are pretty neat. As we noted in May, the new Watchmen integration is “a huge step forward in bringing our social graph to entities beyond the Web.”
Also arriving today is a special edition Blu-ray version of the film 300 that also includes integrated Facebook features (300 and Watchmen were both directed by Zach Snyder).
2. Frenzied Waters
One thing we’re starting to see more and more is the use of Facebook Connect for clever, and in the case of the Disovery Channel’s Frenzied Waters, exceptionally unsettling marketing campaigns. A couple of weeks ago, the Discovery Channel sent out packets to a handful of bloggers containing some gnawed swim trunks, a key with a floating keychain, a warning sign advising against swimming at the beach, and a copy of an obituary customized with personal details about the blogger the package was sent to.
One final item in the package was a shark tooth attached to a piece of brass with the web address “FrenziedWaters.com” stamped on it. It was clearly an invitation to visit the web site, where of course, the ghoulishness continued. Frenzied Waters is an interactive flash movie designed to make watchers feel like they’re in the water being attacked by a shark. If you click on the floating jar all the way to the right (on the splash screen), the application will ask you to connect with Facebook, where it will pull photos and information from your account to create a montage about your death by shark attack.
Our best guess is that Frenzied Waters is a promotional campaign for the Discovery Channel’s upcoming Shark Week (which runs on the network annually in August). If that’s the case, it is definitely brilliant — very, very creepy, but brilliant nonetheless.
3. The Prototype Experience
Like Frenzied Waters, the Prototype Experience uses Facebook Connect as a way to personalize a media campaign and insert you into a starring role. The site is a promotion for the “Prototype” video game from Activision and scores huge points for taking the normally static concept of a trailer and making it interactive.
Once you connect with Facebook, the Prototype Experience pulls in photos and other information from your profile in order to customize the trailer and insert you into the video game’s world. The site adds a viral element by asking you to “infect” your friends in order to enter for a chance to win an Xbox 360.
4. Beware of the Doghouse
Beware of the Doghouse is a brilliant marketing campaign for retailer JCPenney from ad firm Saatchi & Saatchi that utilizes Facebook Connect. The site allows anyone to punish their significant other for a wrongdoing by putting them in the doghouse using Facebook.
Once notified that someone has placed you in the doghouse, users can view a hilarious video about what life in the doghouse is like (above) or they can find out how to get out of the doghouse… by buying diamond jewelry from JCPenney, of course!
5. Eventbee
Facebook has an amazing platform for virally publicizing events, but right now, it doesn’t have any way to support ticket sales. Eventbee solves that problem using Facebook Connect in a very clever way. Not only can events be promoted on Facebook via your friends’ news feeds, but Eventbee offers a way to turn your Facebook friends into ticket sellers.
After your friends have connected to Eventbee via Facebook, they can become “Partners,” and begin promoting your event to their own networks on Facebook. You can allow your partners to offer their friends a special discount rate on tickets and can even give Partners a sales commission on the event tickets they sell.
6. GirlsGuideTo
GirlsGuideTo is a social network just for girls that uses Facebook Connect as its only login option. By using Facebook Connect, the site is able to make sure the network actually stays girls only.
Because the vast majority of people don’t lie on their Facebook profiles, GirlsGuideTo is able to fairly accurately determine the gender of people trying to access the site and keep the guys out. The creators of the site plan to open a sister (brother?) site for guys in the future, and invites any male user attempting to get into GirlsGuideTo to sign up for beta notifications.
Sorry guys, we are still in our beta but the Guys Corner will be open soon. The “GC”, as we call it, is where you can post content, give advice, lend your perspective and provide real time advice. Please fill out this form and we will send you a notice as soon as the Guys Corner is open. Thanks
7. Tweetpo.st
For those of you who find yourselves spending more time on Twitter () these days, but still don’t want to give up on Facebook, there’s Tweetpo.st. Tweetpo.st is an application that uses Facebook Connect as a way to automatically update your Facebook status based on your tweeting activity. The site will post any tweet (except @replies and those containing !fb) to Facebook as a status update, but has some nifty features to make your tweets read better on Facebook.
For example, tweets that include a URL can be posted on your Wall as a shared link instead of as status updates, and tweets containing an @username can automatically swap out the username for that person’s Twitter “real name.” Further, tweets containing links can automatically be encoded with Awe.sm, for users of that service.
8. Drop.io
Drop.io’s Facebook Connect integration essentially allows you to share files and other media through your Facebook news feed and status updates. Once you’ve connected your drop to Facebook, any time you add new media to the drop, your friends will be notified via a status update included in their news feeds. They can then click-through to the drop and interact with the media or download the file you’ve shared.
For users that don’t want to publicly share their files, Drop.io offers a “Friendlock” feature, which allows users to specify which friends get invited to a certain drop and get notifications of new media added to the drop.
9. Brightkite
Location-based social network Brightkite () is one of those obvious candidates for Facebook Connect integration, and they’ve done a wonderful job with it. Once you create an account and sign in (which can be done via Facebook Connect), visit your settings page to grant Brightkite deeper access to your Facebook account.
You can specify settings for your checkins, notes, and posted photos, and whether you want those automatically added to your Facebook status, news feed, or photo albums. (Brightkite can also sync each of those types of updates with Twitter.)
10. The Washington Post
In June, the Washington Post pushed out Facebook Connect integration. On the surface, this just adds a way for Facebook users to get by the annoying registration wall the paper puts on its content, and a way to easily share stories from the Post site with your Facebook friends.
But on a deeper level, Facebook Connect could theoretically be very valuable for the newspaper. They could get better ad targeting information from user profiles, for example, or they could increase traffic by syndicating user actions (like commenting) back to Facebook, or they could personalize news based on your age, location, interests, or work — the possibilities are really endless, and show how Facebook Connect could be important for the future of the newspaper business.
BONUS: Xbox Live
Starting this fall, Xbox Live will get an update that will allow you to connect to Facebook directly from your console. That unlocks all sorts of possibilities — sharing scores with Facebook friends, challenging buddies to online games, making photo albums of in-game screenshots, etc.
The actual details are a bit hazy now, so we’ll have to wait until the update is rolled out this autumn to know for sure how cool (or lame) Facebook Connect on the Xbox really is.
OK, not trying to coin a new term here but there does seem to be something interesting happening, and worth exploring further, in building on great content.
Thanks mashable for this highlight of MEGACOOL cooking site, Supercook... i totally agreee with the post on the final cracking of an idea that long held great promise.
Quick Pitch: Supercook finds recipes based precisely on the ingredients you already have. Unique search technology, “virtual” kitchen concept, and customized suggestions.
Genius Idea: Supercook finally executes on a concept that I have heard floated around for years: tasty recipes based off the items you already have. Supercook asks what’s in your kitchen and then uses that information to provide dozens, if not hundreds, of unique dishes that you probably would never have thought of on your own.
Adding ingredients to the supercook system is easy, and you don’t even have to register. The niftiest feature is the tag cloud of common items it pops up to make adding new ingredients easy. As you add items, the system automatically begins to suggest recipes based on those grocery items.
The recipes are aggregated from several recipe websites, including AllRecipe and RecipeZaar. The system even suggests yummy dishes to make that require one or two additional items, allowing you to discover more new foods.
One of my favorite features of Supercook though is the suggested shopping list. Based off the items you tell the system are in your kitchen, Supercook will provide a suggested list of additional items to buy to build amazing food delights.
Overall, Supercook is very simple, but that’s what makes it so easy to use. It doesn’t take long and it turns recipe hunting from a painful chore to an enjoyable adventure.
We’ve seen plenty of interesting Google Maps mashups over the years, and Twitter mashups too; but rather than just plotting Tweets on a map, why not go even further and show the street Tweets are posted from?
That’s what Stweet, a fun mashup of Google Street View and Twitter (), attempts to do. In an imperfect way, it takes the co-ordinates posted by some Twitter apps, like TwitterFon () (location must be enabled), and uses that data to find the approximate street address the Tweet came from. It then overlays the Tweet on a Google Street View image.
If you’d like to test it out, the best city by far is San Francisco, with a high volume of Tweets. A dropdown menu lets you browse various US cities, and you can see if there are Tweets from countries not listed by changing the end of the URL to “city,country”. For instance, this is the URL for Tweets in London, UK.
Is it any use? Perhaps not, but it sure is an interesting distraction, and raises the question: do I want the world to know what street I’m on?
Swedish Automaker Volvo, has taught the old banner ad a few new tricks thanks to a campaign masterminded by Euro RSCG Worldwide. The new multi-purpose ad not only measures a whopping 950 x 250 pixels but also contains photos, videos, an advergame and regular Twitter
The initiative is in promotion of the new automatic braking or 'city safety' feature on Volvo's latest XC60 sports utility vehicle - a system which is being debuted at the New York Auto Show, from which the brand is providing constant Twitter updates that get displayed in the banner.This Twitter feed has been enabled thanks to Google's DoubleClick technology, which relays the 'Tweets' via an RSS feed. The most recent update is displayed, although users can scroll down to catch up on previous news. The brand launched its Twitter profile 3 months ago and currently has over 1200 followers.
As the very best 'must-see' viral adverts have shown (think Cadbury's Gorilla) when content is engaging enough, its consumption can become something of an event. By squeezing its campaign into one banner ad, Volvo has streamlined this process for the user. Furthermore, the inclusion of a Twitter feed not only keeps it up to date, but also gives the initiative a human voice that should set it apart from the more standard intrusive banner ad.
In other automotive Twitter news this week, Tata-owned brand Land Roverhas also been documenting its presence at the New York Auto Show using a Twitter hashtag, #LRNY, which filters conversations, aggregating chat and information about the brand. updates.
During the lead up to the auto show, these tags were seeded in trade press publications, through online media channels and outdoors on billboards, taxis etc. Also, the brand enlisted (via direct-marketing firm Wunderman) the help of Twittad - a US-based Twitter advertising specialist which payed a selection of 15 popular users (typically with an excess of 3000 followers each) to feature extensive branding on their profile pages. James Eliason, CEO of Twittad reported that in total the effort was Twittered to more than 300,000 followers.
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) -- Land Rover last week became the first national brand to execute a national Twitter campaign in a bid to promote its newest models' debuts at the New York Auto Show.
While brands as diverse as Southwest Airlines and Smirnoff vodka have been tweeting and accumulating followers for months, Land Rover attempted to use the burgeoning social-media platform in a more ambitious way, seeding so-called hashtags (words used in tweets that make it easier to follow an ongoing conversation via online searches) on billboards, taxi TVs and other out-of-home venues; spreading word of the Twitter effort through auto-obsessed blogs and online publications eager for a peek at its latest bells and whistles; and paying a fledgling Twitter ad network to spread the word among its army of compensated, heavily followed Twitter users, all of whom wallpapered their Twitter profiles with Land Rover branding.
While it's too early to know what sort of return Land Rover will receive for its efforts, "it cost us virtually nothing," said Keith Rhodes, VP and account director at WPP-owned direct-marketing firm Wunderman, which orchestrated the effort.
Mr. Rhodes said he was particularly encouraged by the Twitter-fueled traffic to a blog post he wrote about Land Rover's initiative. Posts on his site typically draw about 30 views; this one grabbed more than 200,000 views.
Land Rover is not likely to remain the only national marketer doing this for long, said James Eliason, CEO of Twittad, the Des Moines-based "social-media affinity network" Wunderman tapped to boost Land Rover's launch.
Mr. Eliason said the next national effort using Twittad's roster of 4,500 Tweeters, whom it pays to post on topics and brand their profile pages, with nearly 5 million followers, will be for Elations, a glucosamine-enhanced beverage from the makers of Sunny Delight targeted at women over 40.
Twitter machine All told, the Land Rover effort was Twittered to more than 300,000 followers, Mr. Eliason said. Twittad used 15 different Tweeters with at least 5,000 followers, although the majority had between 2,000 and 4,000 followers.
Most won't get rich doing this anytime soon. One paid Tweeter, willconley777, wrote on his blog that he was paid $2.50 for letting Land Rover sponsor his profile page for seven days. Mr. Conley has 1,160 followers. Still, for those few Twitter users with huge reach, real money might one day be possible. The most-followed Land Rover campaign participant, queenoftheclick, boasts nearly 25,000 followers and was paid an amount "in the hundreds" for her participation, Mr. Eliason said.
Other larger-scale marketers are also eyeing Twittad, which is in talks with Sears.
The appeal to marketers is obvious: It's a cheap way to reach people through their trusted contacts. And Twittad's technology is able to sort its users by geography, demographics and interests, which can both lead to more targeted appeals and, perhaps, prevent Twitter users from feeling under siege by advertisers, a major concern.
"We were worried it would be considered spam, but we didn't get a single complaint [about Land Rover]," Mr. Eliason said. "What that tells me is that our connectors have influence."
Less clear is whether the model is sustainable. Mr. Eliason, who launched Twittad eight months ago, said he expects it to break even by the end of its first year. He said he has contacted Twitter about a revenue-sharing agreement but has yet to hear back.
Want to know what shoes people are buying in Montpelier, Vermont? Then just watch the realtime map on the Zappos website long enough and you just might find out. With this new feature, the popular online retailer is giving consumers even more reason to keep up with the Joneses, as users are granted the ability to zero in on their home towns and wait to see what items pop up. Currently, monitoring a specific location requires a bit too much active participation to be a worthwhile endeavor - the map continuously scrolls as new orders are being placed - but down the road we suspect Zappos will offer a static view for members wanting to make sure they don’t miss out on the latest trends in their area.
Interesting to see companies creating their own 'webs on the web', rather than a a series of more or less independant sites and microsites. Having a series of branded and unbranded social media presences, linked to from a central hub and ideally plugged into freiend freed, tumblr and a load of other streaming platforms really does seem like a smarter way to get your brand online. I have to say i prefer Axe's approach to that of Skittles (http://www.skittles.com) as it gives that brand and how it like to portray content much more of a role (and a much more of a bill i imagine), rather than just tapping into content and keywords on existing sites.
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We’ve seen plenty of interesting 
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