Mobile hotel bookings on the upturn.

Mobile hotel bookings rise

In an economy where the hotel business is on the downward trend there is one thing they are doing that's working. It's mobile hotel reservations. As users get more comfortable with mobile devices the convenience of making a reservation seems to be too much to ignore. It's clear that instances like this will be popping up all over, instances where the mobile option just makes it easier to communicate with the brand.

What's in store for in store marketing displays?

How about digital signs that actually read customers? This display knows whether customers glance at the signage, stops to read it or ignores it all together. pretty interesting stuff. See the full article on the CScout Japanese site here

very small game

Pouring BudTV down the drain

According to this AdAge article Bud TV is ceasing to exist.  I'm a little surprised that it lasted as long as it did.  I think we all remember when it launched, it was a big deal, but it's had a lot of competition in the video space. The production of original content was just too much.   In comparison, It's funny that Hulu had press about it that it could never succeed in this pace and it's a great site.

Txt your revelation

If I could get a few of my twitter statuses on a coffee cup, I'd be a
happy man. Txt cup to 30241 to share your revelation.

The future implications here are huge. The opportunity to interact
with a brand like green mountain while doing something as simple as
drinking your morning coffee.

My revelation. "I need to get back to my work".

I love Wordle

If you have a moment check out Wordle.net. It's a really fun app that allows you to add text which in turn creates some really cool typographic layouts. The text you place can come from anywhere, like another website or perhaps your favorite song. Heck you could even paste in the lease on your apartment. The sky is the limit. The layout options are very cool too, change colors, type and composition of text. Give it a whirl.

Crayon Physics

Let's rethink gaming for a moment here.  Crayon Physics is a problem solving game that is not just fun, but also quite relaxing to play with.  Do all that you can to get the little red ball to touch the star.  Using physics, things you draw will fall, roll or draw a hinge to have another item you draw swing. This game is probably best played on a tablet or with a mouse, but they also have an iPhone version.  I like this app a lot, (although my fingers seem to get in the way.)

In the mood for something different?  I'd definitely recommend checking it out.

Breaking the desktop paradigm

For so long we've all worked within some pretty traditional constructs of what we call our desktops - whether on a Mac, PC, Linux or Commodore 64. We've all worked with the basic file structures and architectures that compose our virtual working/living world on our computers and how we interface with them.

With advancing web technologies and continually evolving interface design we've certainly seem some breakthroughs but they have mostly been at the site or application level, not on our day-to-day computer desktops. Neither OS X or Windows Vista have evolved things that much. That is until now (or soon hopefully).

Check out Bumptop. Designed by Anand Agarawala. BumpTop represents a paradigm shift in how we can think about our virtual desktops and allow them to become more intuitive and more important productive. Not to mention it's about as cool as you could imagine! While this is in beta now, follow it's development and sign up for a beta as the developer gets closer. I for one am hopeful to get a sneak peek!

Help Us Help Dogs

Our client Pedigree(R) Food for Dogs is on the 5th year of it's campaign to support dog adoption. This year, it is supporting it in a big way with a superbowl spot which you can see here. To amplify this traditional marketing activity, we've created an online extension of this work, featuring "behind the scenes" back stories for the crazy pets and their crazier pet owners featured in the Super Bowl TV spot. And to mark Pedigree's commitment even more explicitly, we have built in the benefit to the user that each video watched will result in additional donations by Pedigree to support dog adoption through their charity, the Pedigree Foundation.

Funny stuff, great cause.

Add Ballista Blog to your RSS reader

Add Catapult Marketing's
Ballista Blog to your google, yahoo or other RSS reader. It's easy and the fastest way to keep up on the postings.

http://marketingballista.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

Twitter related apps and websites.

Not sure where to begin, so many twitter apps and sites and just not enough time. Between location based, the ability to set groups, delay tweets, search tweets, the options seem endless. Twitter is turning out to be pretty awesome and the technical problems from early 2008 seem to have gone away. If you're not into twitter now, i'm sure you will be in 2009.

Article here

See what's happening -- right now.
http://search.twitter.com/

Sling Media to bring live TV content to iPhones

We met these guys last week at CES in Vegas. Sling media is the company that brings your cable tv to your computer. And now they bring it to your mobile device too. iPhone support is coming very soon in the next few months. A little birdy at CES told us that although the they officially support the product on AT&T's 3G Network, it will still work for us "original iphone" owners.

Here's an article about what Sling Media is up to these days.

The Shorty Awards

Check out some of these tweeple if you have time
The best producers of short* content in 2008
*140 characters or less, on Twitter
Finals voting is open! The finals will last from January 12-23.

http://www.shortyawards.com/

NEW URL for Ballista!

http://marketingballista.blogspot.com/

Samsung Flat Screen.

This may be my final CES 2009 posting. I got scolded for taking a picture (or two) of this Samsung flat screen. Apparently the only ones able to take photos of it were those from the press. None the less, here we are. Hit the press for detailed specs, but this 50+ inch flat screen was no more than a half inch in depth. You may get more visual detail by clicking on the 2nd photo.

Clearly moving forward we'll be seeing a whole new world of flat screens. larger, thinner, lighter and using less power. The way these will impact our homes and shopping environments will be huge, no doubt.

Take a wire and make it flat. What do you get?

One of the coolest things I saw at this year's CES was something rather basic in a lot of ways. It's called Flatwire and no surprise, it's wire that's flat. lol

What's genius about this is that from speaker wire to 120v wire it all is manufactured like, impossibly thin.

From what i could tell, rewiring could take on a whole new life as you essentially apply this flatwire to the outer surface of your wall, a little adhesive, Spackle and paint and you are in great shape. Perhaps for a real edgy look, you leave it exposed. Either way, no more snaking wires through your walls.

FlatwireReady.com

Major media in the shopping aisle

Great article named "Major Media in the Shopping Aisle"
A pretty comprehensive overview of in store marketing today. Definitely worth checking out.

Digital Signage Secret.

We came across this very attractive digital signage at the show. It featured a simple dissolve between content and specifications. It was clean and quite effective.

Upon closer observation, we realized that this shiny little object was just some simple, almost store bought technology fabricated to be a bit more useful.

I think the picture below speaks for itself, a basic digital picture frame, but modified. Just upload it with images and walla! Instant in-store digital signage.

Hitachi frames flat screens.

At CES this year Hitachi spent a lot of time showing the public exactly how flat screens will integrate with their homes in the future. I touched on this in a previous post, but here you'll see another nicely designed stand and monitor frames. In theory we should be spending time choosing the frame of our flatscreen, just like we do when we hang nice art work in our homes. This also speaks even further to how technology integrates and blends with our home & work lives.

Consumer design leads to line of limited edition Sony Vaios

The Sony booth showcased custom designed Sony Vaio computers. The
designs were created by consumers and entered into a contest. There
were upwards of 20k entries and you can see below the final winning
designs which were priducednin limited quantity.

These custom designed computers were only available through their
website. Cool stuff!

Eco friendly. Design friendly

Here is a small fan running on solar power. As u can see the solar
panel is designed very nicely, resembling a tile. Perhaps solar would
be accepted more widely if it simply looked nicer, who knows.

Keep your coffee off my table.

I came across this gem in the NBC booth. I don't have much info on it, unfortunately. I know i've seen this before somewhere. This digital coffee table is so interactive and easy to use. It's really impressive. You can see me sorting thru different cards there, each one with videos that can be played simultaneously, either full screen or small.... In short, I want one! If you know what this table is, please let me know. thanks....

i7 processor racing simulator

Intel had a very interactive booth at CES. It showed the many ways that the i7 processor is pushing the limits of computing. This is a video of a racing simulator and all the processing power is being handled by just on i7. That includes the 3 huge LCD monitors, the game itself (the refresh rate was amazing) and also the interactive motion cockpit. It's like driving a real formula race car, bumps and all. Amazing.

Areaware high end design

Areaware had a small booth with some amazingly designed products.  There is a large influence of green, environmentally friendly products scattered throughout the show.  We see a touch of that here with this very old fashioned, yet very contemporary bicycle. You can't help but notice it's unique lines, antique style seat, handle bars, tires pedals, yet it's got front and back solar powered lights built into it's aluminum body.

check out more at Areaware.com

Impressed by Hitachi

I was really impressed with the Hitachi display.  A lot of LCD prototypes, which i'll address in another posting.  The LCD below was just beautiful to look at.  50 inches and you can see how slim this unit is, in person it's amazing.  Hitachi is spending a lot of time doing something that others aren't, which is designing monitors that actually fit into the interior design of homes. 

No big black brackets with big black LCD's hanging off them.  Once you see a nicely designed LCD you realize that the black ones we're all buying really only deserve to be in sports bars.  More on this soon.

One hundred and what inch LCD?

This 108 inch monitor from sharp was pretty impressive until I came across the 150 inch from Panasonic.  The impact these displays can make for a marketer and for a brand is pretty impressive.  They get noticed.

S1 shoulder headset?

Not sure what you'd call these, but it's a pretty cool idea. A speaker
set that airs on your neck. It allows u to listen to music while also
being socially open to talk while u listen. Office setting, perhaps?

The biggest drawback foe me was the most important one. Poor sound
quality, no bass to speak of.

LG wrist cell phone

A fully featured cell phone on your wrist. Bluetooth enabled or
speakerphone. Europe only! Bad luck for us in the states. Launch date
still TBD.

Intel i7 processor powered workstation

An awesome ergonomic workstation that is adjustable to you. Full access to the most powerful processor, 3 huge LCDs and amazing comfort.

http://www.iclubby.com

Who stole my freaking pint??? (Of ice cream)

What are people saying out there, what are they willing to confess?

Here is a site where people can anonymously vent, tell their secrets their dreams and more. Give advice, get advice on this free site. (But remember the advice is worth what you pay for it.)

http://www.answerjam.com/

10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009

Learning about tweeting? See how twitter can change things.

http://mashable.com/2009/01/04/twitter-blog-design/

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Sent from my iPhone

Brothers In Arms iPhone Game Review - AppVee.com

Every time I think I've seen a great iPhone app, another appears. It's
amazing to see the capabilites of these small devices and to imagine
what's to come. Gamer or not, see where brothers in arms takes gaming
to a new level on the iphone.

http://www.appvee.com/t/brothers-in-arms

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Sent from my iPhone

Becoming A Power Twitter User With New Firefox Addon Power Twitter | Social Media Vision

This may be worth checking out. A twittified firefox add on that keeps
you in touch with all your tweeple.

http://socialmediavision.com/social-media/blogs-social-media/twitter/becoming-a-power-twitter-user-with-new-firefox-addon-power-twitter/

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Sent from my iPhone

Retailers Brining SalesPeople Online

Traditional Brick and Mortar retailers have begun to recognize the opportunity to extend the value of their trained consumer facing sales people into the online space, leveraging their expertise, and their branded recognition, to offer valuable information and service to shoppers. One case in point is Best Buy who has launched www.askablueshirt.com to allow consumer electronic shoppers to take advantage of the expertise of the trained Best Buy sales force to build shopping preference and drive instore traffic.

Additionally, they are using the distribution power of this environment to generate buzz around events like Black Friday, in this case, showing photos of people camping out prior to the big holiday sales event. It shows that Best Buy, and other leading retainers, are starting to experiment with online well beyond their e-commerce and general brand building activities online.

Ask ChaCha

Nielsen reports that ChaCha, launched less than a year ago, is the fastest growing mobile search service to surpass Yahoo! and Google. ChaCha's 300% quarter over quarter gain is tremendous, but also a result of an increase in mobile search supported by the latest hardware options.

Personally, I like the concept. Users text a question and get a reply in minutes. With so much content out there, it's useful. Users must, however, be specific or the relevancy in the results are lost.

Big brands including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and even the Obama campaign, have leveraged the tool for marketing purposes and have reportedly seen response rates up to 5% which well exceed mobile industry averages.

The Obama campaign specifically, used the service to urge early voting. Folks using ChaCha received a prompt that offered the option of getting more information on how and where to vote early - and of course there was a plug for Obama.

This will be one to watch - although it might be hard to miss.

www.chacha.com

A Weekend In The Life of Today's Shopper

To help illustrate how digital technology is changing the way shoppers shop, we introduce you to a Young Gen X family and their digital shopping experiences over one weekend with the holidays appraoching.

Meet Bob and Sarah and their 4 year old son Zac. This dual income family lives in the suburbs of New York. Bob works full time in Manhattan at an advertising agency and Sarah works part time at a prestigious marketing services agency in Westport, CT. Their lives get crazier by the day.

Friday afternoon

·Sarah has picked up Zac from daycare and is back home. She needs to plan her grocery shopping list, so to keep Zac busy, she sets him in front of the computer and fires up the toy section at Amazon.com. Watching him, she chuckles, 4 years old and he’s creating his own holiday wish list. Dragging and dropping items…his total is over $10,000! Sarah uses this time to get organized. She checks the mail and remembers how her mom used to get those over-sized Val Pac mailers and store circulars. Now Sarah gets alerts on her cell phone to download new coupons in her pre-selected categories.

·The holidays are approaching and Bob is behind on his gift shopping. He’s walking down 6th avenue in New York City and wondering where he can get the best deal on a digital camera without having to pop into store after store. Bob opens the Slifter application on his cell phone and researches deals and product reviews within a 5 block radius. Bob’s turned 6th avenue into the main aisle of an electronics store.

Friday afternoon is turning to Friday evening

·Bob is rushing to Grand Central Station to catch his train. He gets a call from Sarah with a plea to pick up some dinner. Wanting to avoid the after work lines, and trying to eat healthy before the holidays, Bob goes to his favorite sandwich chain’s WAP site and places his order right from his phone. He’s pretty sure Sarah likes Banana Peppers.

Its Saturday morning and the family is up early.

·Bob and Zac decide its time for a little video gaming. They fire up the console and a welcome reminder tells them they have earned enough loyalty points to download a free, new adventure for their favorite game – Life is good!

·Sarah still needs to do her grocery shopping. She goes to her iKan unit in the kitchen and reviews her personalized, recommended shopping list based on purchase history. She presses the Buy Now button to have her groceries delivered. Check one chore off the list!

·Bob decides to go to the local electronics store. He’s shopping for a Tablet to go with his new digital camera. When he comes to the aisle the screen on his cart instantly changes with a list of Tablet suggestions personalized based on his previous purchases. The loyalty card in his wallet is embedded with an RFID tag, so he’s greeted by a sales associate ready to answer questions. The sales associate uses the screen on his chart to pull up the chain’s custom social networking site so Bob can check out consumer reviews.

·Sarah decides its time to do a little holiday shopping for herself. With Zac in tow, she heads out to her local department store. In the dressing room she uses the virtual shopping assistant to see what her outfit would look like with different color matches. She goes with Fuchsia on Black.

Sunday night, Bob gets a text from his boss

·Bob still can’t believe his boss is making him travel last minute! He’s racing to catch the flight and instead of stopping at a kiosk to print his boarding pass, he simply shows the QR code on his phone at security. This leaves him enough time to go to the self-service kiosk at the gate and download a movie for the flight to his laptop in under a minute.

·Sarah, missing Bob, thumbs through an Esquire Magazine for gift ideas for Bob. She comes across a Ralph Lauren Ad for a Cashmere Sweater and special offer. She scans the QR code on the page with her cell phone to get more details before she decides to make the purchase.

•Zac, missing daddy, grabs a photo from The Target Shutterfly site and posts it to Daddy’s Facebook page


These are just a few of the touch points that marketers can use to drive incremental sales with Bob, Sarah, and Zac. Technology makes their shopping experience more intuitive, personalized, convenient, which drives a stronger value proposition overall for shoppers.

As demonstrated by this family, technology has dramatically accelerated the sophistication and variety of shopper touch points. This will become more pervasive over the next 5-10 years. Availability and adoption will increase and scale will drive implementation costs down. Shoppers will have access to products and services anytime and anywhere.

Axe, Eat Your Heart Out

Because nothing will get the girls knocking down the door to jump your bones like the scent of freshly flame-broiled beef.

Burger King has released its own fragrance: Flame. For when you want that just-got-off-the-night-shift fast food employee smell. Irresistible.

Of course, this works as a formidable PR stunt. But will anyone buy it in its undoubtedly short lived life?

Fostering Not Just Innovation, But Intellect

The campaign around Herman Miller's new chair, Embody, does more than what it sets out to do - foster innovation. It also fosters intellect. It is a site that is emotionally soothing, mentally stimulating, and seemingly an innovation in and of itself. I highly recommend perusing with a coffee and bagel tomorrow morning.

Check out TODAY'S THOUGHTPILE now

That's Not What It Was Supposed To Look Like!

We have all been under the gun to launch a new site... and realized in final testing that things are looking stellar in one browser but nothing like what you designed in another. And those last minute panic questions of "what happened" and "why" start to run through your head. There may be an explaination... beyond that of the "it's the client firewall!" Curious? Read on...

Audio Bones: Lame or Worthwhile?

Apparently, some of us have "deformed" ears. In other words, we complain about the iPod ear buds' failure to properly fit into our cartilage. Well, lookey here.

So, it's sound that's actually conducted through the bones of your ears, leaving the eardrum open to hear all the background noise. Clever, but kind of pointless at the same time...

Paul Newman, We Salute You

We simply had to make the first post of the week one that honors Paul Newman and the more than $250 million dollars in profits from the Newman's Own line donated to charities. A truly remakable man, remarkable cause, remarkabe products and a remarkable website that I referred to many times as best in class for staying true to the voice of a brand and for pushing a brand to a higher emotional ground.


I encourage everyone to visit newmansown.com


Although the main site is unavailable due to heavy traffic there is a simple page live that has a wonderful retrospective video thats well worth the 4 minutes to seel

For the Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good WE SALUTE YOU!

Cool New Banner Ads

In the recent "I'm a PC" campaign, Microsoft takes aim at the Mac ads that have reigned for more than two years. After a brief run with Jerry Seinfeld, the ads are now featuring ordinary folks who profess their devotion to PCs.

I caught the latest in the series of ads on the MSN home page... a very cool banner execution where a mosaic of images filled the background behind the homepage. And as you click on each image, it feeds a video of that person into what I think is a 300x250 video player. I think this would look even better filled with dog images and adoption videos... don't you?

Wholefoods.com Site redesign

Whole Foods has followed the trend of retailers relaunching their web-site to add more value to the consumers and enhance the shopper experience.

Secet Ingredient Videos & Podcasts, store locaters, store specials and a huge assortment of recipes with new search tool,high impact photography and flash as wells as social apps (rate and post recipes and freshly picked blogs).

Check it out at

wholefoods.com

Internet Killed the Newspaper Star

Google has just taken up the arduous goal of bringing all the glory of paper-press-periodical humanity to the Interweb.

Soon, you'll be able to view billions of pages of archived newsprint from the comfort of your cubicle.

Pretty neat, and you don't even have to get your hands all inky.

AdAge Article on mobile advertising

Not sure if this will load up correctly. If it doesn't, then use your
mobile devise!

http://adage.qwapi.com/site?t=FnTlaZuPXsZiMMsVa.wgJw&tsid=QWS5E80C78A14BCF5E93D0F38C05D18F5161367e40&tcid=84d03862b23e4fa0a9e4ac7c7c59e03e

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Sent from my iPhone

Get inspired:
http://creativebureau.blogspot.com

Cell Phone Coupons Get Local

I was just watching ABC News and they featured a piece on a new player, 8Coupons, in the Cell Phone Couponing industry. They have a wide array of local NYC offers from services, to Spa and Beauty to restaurants. They work with/train local vendors to make it easy for the consumer to simply show the offer on their phone to the cashier to get their offer. Could this be the end of the local coop mailer that stuff our mailboxes each month? Check it out at:

http://www.8coupons.com/

Life

Nice. Simple. Smart.
(for a coaster)

$34.5 million spent on Facebook virtual goods? | Negative Approach - CNET News

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10030354-62.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

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Sent from my iPhone

Get inspired:
http://creativebureau.blogspot.com

Google Chrome Explained.

Google Chrome explained

Explorer, Firefox or the new Chrome?

I've been a big fan of firefox since it came out. For me, it's anything that gets me away from the clunky IE browser. Plus I'm biased, pre IE winning the browser wars I was exclusively a Netscape user. Anyhow, it's been announced that Google is launching a new browser called Chrome.


Find the article here


WASHINGTON (AFP) - Google on Tuesday launches its own internet browser, Google Chrome, in a new challenge to Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox.
ADVERTISEMENT

The Chrome browser, designed to cope with the next generation of graphics and multimedia dominated web applications, was announced in a Google blog late Monday.

It will launch initially for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

"We realised ... we needed to completely rethink the browser," Google's Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.

The application can be downloaded for free and its code will be open source so no rights will have to be paid by anyone using or adapting the software.

Chrome is Google's latest weapon in its bid to become the leader in all Internet areas. The latest major browser war was won by Microsoft when it won the battle for dominance in the 1990s against Netscape Navigator.

According to various estimates, Internet Explorer, which is the default browser on computers with Windows operating systems, is used by between 60 and 80 percent of Internet users around the world, with Mozilla Firefox a long way back in second place.

What's your favorite campaign?

See what these professionals had to say about what they felt was the best campaign. It's a really simple, but great question. I'd have to agree that the Apple work is really well done both online and offline. Take a look at this and if another campaign comes to mind, please post it.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/link/bcpid1681694293/bctid1681848514

Cloud Computing

If you haven't heard of cloud computing, then you should read this article. Early adopters are already there, for the most part. Wiki's, webmail and web based FTP all fit the bill as far as cloud computing goes.

http://adage.com/article?article_id=130488

on with it.

Take a Shot.

So, it's not Call of Duty 4, but it's worth taking a few shots with.  I kind of wish that there was a) more ammo and B) more of a website to shoot up.  Maybe version 2.0.

check it out.