The iMagazine

Fashion on Self-Tracking and social networking model

The iMagazine — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 14:24:23 +0000

A hip flick, one touch and you’re done. Mail, phone number, address chat, profile on the popular social network, but also photos, videos, music: everything you want to share changed from jeans to another. Pardon, from person to person. And ‘the revolution brought to Italy by AngelDevil known brands made in Puglia, in the course of a few years he lived a path of success and steady growth in terms of reputation. It’s called fashion evolution, the union between fashion and technology in a completely new and innovative product: the objective is to launch a line of products to contact between people from the world through technology AngelDevil Poken.

Until now only a multinational sportswear had adopted a similar solution, but only for sporting purposes. Poken is the first social networking device, the easiest way to share your contact and personal information, a real meeting point between the real world and online social networks. Allows you to transfer and share easily and instantly improve their own personal information and profiles of all the online social network. By integrating this technology, the jeans AngelDevil becomes a communication tool: the birth of a new gesture, a new way to discover and a new sense of belonging. A style that will overcome the inhibitions and barriers of shyness.

The product in question creates innovative communications, flirty, sensual, not indifferent. The line will present elements of style very identifiable and easily recognizable wearers AngelDevil Touch will be immediately identifiable by the other members of their community, which will provide a platform Poken custom AngelDevil.The product, which will be launched through a massive TV and press campaign organized by the Wake Up, will be in stores by September 15, 2010: will be available on two models of women’s jeans, Skinny and Boyfriend, and many jeans man, Slim Fit and Carrot.

Social Media Skiing

The iMagazine — Mon, 30 Aug 2010 19:36:00 +0000

This winter, skiers and snowboarders will be hitting the the slopes in a whole new way. Rather than just flying through moguls or sailing off half-pipes, mountain-goers might soon be “checking in.”

Colorado-based Vail Resorts is launching a new location-based social media service at its many mountain destinations–some of which are the largest in the U.S. Called EpicMix, the service acts as a cross between Nike+ and Gowalla, and enables users to check-in on the slopes through Facebook Places to earn pins and rewards for various skiing accomplishments, view the location of friends and family on the mountain, and track ski routes and vertical feet traveled. Vail’s EpicMix is an innovative use of social media, showing that it’s not just a tool confined to big cities or national companies, but has a more intimate application too on a hyper-local level.

Using an RFID chip embedded into lift passes, a skier’s journey is captured through every scan it receives on the mountain. No smartphones are required–check-ins are automatic and can be accessed at anytime online or through EpicMix’s mobile app for the iPhone, Android, and other devices. Additionally, the app provides weather forecasts, traffic conditions, mountain updates, and snow reports. Wary of privacy concerns, the service is entirely opt-in (for free) and the RFID chip can be disabled at any time.

“Ultimately, it’s about creating loyalty,” says Rob Katz, CEO of Vail Resorts. “Our product is obviously very location-specific, so people can now take this app home with them,” and continue to live their experience on the slopes virtually via Facebook, he explains. Roughly 70% of the resorts’ guests have a Facebook account, based on survey estimates, according to Katz. Adding check-ins was a natural extension.

“We’ve taken real strides to make sure it’s fun,” says Mike Slone, director of interactive marketing. “I don’t know how long it’s been since I last received any type of new badge on Foursquare.” To ensure a quality experience, Vail has conferred with Gowalla CEO Josh Williams, and has added hundreds of digital pins for any number of accomplishments. Skiers can earn rewards for being the first or last ones on the mountain; for visiting two mountains in one day or five in a season; they’ll earn a “Pow Hound” pin for hitting slopes caked in powder; and a “Nightrider” trophy for tackling mountain trails at night.

Leader boards will also be available on Facebook to compete with friends, and Katz is planning for celebrity pins and pings from world-class skiers such as Olympic gold-medalist Lindsey Vonn, who trains at the company’s resorts.

“This is about giving people a better experience, and allowing them to take that experience with them even once they’ve left the mountain,” says Katz. “We’re going to have about 800,000 people able to opt-in. This is an app that’s going to make it hard to go to another resort.”

Original article by FastCompany

Facebook Place: Now the marketing can track where you are.

The iMagazine — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 08:16:38 +0000

At an invite-only press event at the company’s headquarters here, Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled a new service called “Places” that will let users share their location with one another and more easily discover what’s around them from within the social network.

Interesting Experiment of Social Network function in Real Life

The iMagazine — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:52:39 +0000

If you’ve been wondering how to seamlessly integrate an experiential event with Facebook, here is how to do it, in real time! Again, the guys over in Israel are doing some amazing work, this time it was an experiential agency called Promarket who have devolved an innovative experiential event for Coca Cola Israel that synced everyone who participated, live with their friends on Facebook.

The Coca Cola Village is a special summer experiential event in Israel, in 2010, they decided to run the event through Facebook, with teenagers needing to collect 10 Coca Cola caps each, gather eight friends who did the same and then register online through Facebook to gain exclusive entry. When they got to the Coca Cola Village, they were asked to setup a special wrist band that would securely hold their Facebook login / password to swipe when starting each activity.

Every time you swiped, it instantly updated your status with what you were doing at the event, keeping your friends up to date in real time. Plus, the wrist band also allowed for automatic tagging of all the photos taken at the Coca Cola Village. The event held 650 teenagers a day, and with the seamless Facebook integration, they generated 35,000+ posts every day for the three days totaling over 100,000 posts for the event!

Japans take vending machines with Touch Screen and WiMax

The iMagazine — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 15:32:00 +0000

Time for us to admit another entrant into the hall of unnecessary, but cool inventions. Installed at Tokyo’s Shinagawa Station yesterday, this latest spin on the vending machine dispenses with those silly windows unto what you’re buying and furnishes its user with a 47-inch touch panel from which to make his (or her) selection. An embedded camera will recognize your gender and age, allowing the machine to recommend a beverage suitable to whatever stereotype is attached to your particular circumstances.

And don’t worry, it’ll store your purchasing history too, so you can be freaked out by tailored ads every time you use it. 500 more of these WiMAX-equipped units are planned to be installed in and around Tokyo over the next two years, with operating company JR East expecting them to tally up 30 percent more sales than their analog brethren. More bling equals higher revenue? Sounds about right.

Explosive Interview with Sly on Expendables

The iMagazine — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 11:59:52 +0000

This is the latest campaign element for the launch of The Expendables movie, a YouTube takeover that features as an interrupted interview with Sylvester Stallone. While I love YouTube takeovers, I felt a little let down by this one (I’ve got high standards!), but only because they played it a little safe, for such an action packed movie, with so many big name stars (including Arnie!) I thought they could have had more fun with it.

But lets not let that take away from a great campaign piece, it worked well within the interview style and I thought the share piece at the end was a nice touch

View YouTube page >

Cars company Digital Age incoming?

The iMagazine — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 15:29:17 +0000

It’s getting to the point where it’s not terribly easy to keep track of all the in-car entertainment initiatives our wondrous connected future has in store, but here’s two names you’ll want to remember: GENIVI and MeeGo. The former is an industry alliance that now includes automakers GM, BMW, Hyundai and Peugeot Citroen alongside the likes of ARM, NVIDIA, Nokia and Intel, and MeeGo is the Linux-based OS that they’ve just decided will soon be powering our cars.

Ford too today annunce a new hands-free technology lets motorists use Twitter while driving

That confirm how the automotive market will be the next big market in growing for UX advertiser. Always more the success of a Car will be determinate not only by the quality and hardware feature of the products but by the UX interaction inside the car the company will be able to offer.

Music, info, entertainment, Social Network, Car Tracking, Weather, custom Application able to interact with Car for customize the Driving experience are only a few element to develop.

Soon Car Company brand will going to build their Application Store?

Soon can I share my Car data in real-time with my site and check my engine, wheels status?

Starbucks Social Strategy Keynote

The iMagazine — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:42:15 +0000

Keynote presentation by Alexandra Wheeler (Digital Director of Starbucks) that opened the recent Social Media Influence 2010 conference in London. And for those of you who don’t know, Starbucks was the first consumer brand to reach 10 Million fans on Facebook… you thought it was coke right?

Social Media Influence 2010: Alexandra Wheeler, Digital Director, Starbucks (SLIDE)

View more presentations from Social Media Influence.

300 million tweets reveal the afternoon at work is the unhappiest time of day

The iMagazine — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:34:35 +0000

A team of five researchers at the two schools studied 300 million U.S. tweets from September 2006 to August 2009 and performed sentiment analysis on them. They found that the evenings (presumably when people get off work and are socializing with friends) and early mornings (before work) are the happiest times of the day. You can see in the map to the right that around 4 p.m., the map becomes bright red, indicating negative emotions. The trend is distinct on both the East and West Coasts.

View the project site

Ford to Unveil 2011 Explorer on Facebook

The iMagazine — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 21:12:56 +0000

Ford Motor Company is breaking with tradition in a big way. The company has been leaving digital breadcrumbs on the Ford Explorer Facebook Page, and in just a few days they’ll take to the web — instead of an auto show — for an all-day Facebook event to unveil the redesigned 2011 Ford Explorer.

On July 26, Ford, along with Mike Rowe of the Discovery Channel’s Dirty Jobs series, will use Facebook to reveal the 2011 Ford Explorer. The online event will coincide with a big offline reveal in several cities across the nation, but this marks the first time a major car company will forgo the auto show for a web unveiling.

Scott Monty, Ford’s head of social media, tells us that this is a very “comprehensive online play” that extends beyond just Facebook and involves several other web-centric elements that the company cannot reveal just yet. Monty speaks enthusiastically when he says that, “This is a really really different Explorer, and we wanted to reveal it in a really really different way.”

On reveal day, you can expect to see a number of videos introducing online users to the new vehicle. Monty disclosed that some of the videos will serve as virtual walk-arounds designed to mimic the experience a person would have at an auto show.

In case you haven’t been following the Explorer build-up, some of the vehicle’s specs have already been released to the public. We know that it will be one of the first to include the much-discussed MyFord Touch technology, as well as a bevy of driver safety features and an optional EcoBoost engine for 30% better fuel economy.

To heighten the anticipation, Ford has put out a few teaser videos and photos on Facebook. The Ford Explorer Facebook Page is also drumming up interest in the reveal with the promise of a free car. If the Page can garner 30,000 “likes” — the tally is already nearing 28,000 — the company will give away one 2011 Ford Explorer to a Facebook fan.

Ford continues to push the boundaries of social media innovation. The company has been widely regarded as an early adopter brand for years, especially when it comes to the Ford Fiesta Movement and Monty’s own very visible profile on the web. The online reveal of the 2011 Ford Explorer further demonstrates just how much the automaker believes in the power of social media.