On my way to work each morning, i drive by an artificial geyser installed on the seashore near Oeiras. Just watch the tilt-shift video below to check the sparkling ideia by the folks at Black Milk Media:

The geyser at Paço de Arcos was transformed into an installation in the shape of a bottle of Schweppes. Black Milk Media was the media agency responsible for activating this project that not only will advertise the brand Schweppes but will allow for maintenance and cleanup of the geyser for 12 months, in partnership with Câmara Municipal de Oeiras and Parish of Paço de Arcos. This process took about 10 hours and envolved a transport truck and a helicopter to move the installation of 500 kilos.

Source: Invisible Red

Despite what the profets of doom on the financial markets are saying, i’m proud of my country, Portugal.

The video above is how we present ourselves to the world at Expo 2010 Shangai. Come and meet us.

We’re almost there: the 2010 Do It Yourself SHiFT conference is starting this week. The next 16th and 17h at Teatro Aberto, Lisbon,  we meet again to discuss and share Social and Human Ideas For Technology, after the 2 previous successful editions.

Tinkerers, thinkers, hackers, technologists or curious people by nature can find something of their interest on the several talks and workshops. Here’s a preview:

• 5 PARA A MEIA-NOITE, RTP2: how the first cross-platform show in Portugal made us re-think it all
  Bruno Lima Santos
• about starting a coworking space
  Christoph Fahle
• Branding Today
  Andrea Vascellari
• Deconstructing DIY
  Elmine Wijnia
• Grappling the “Zhou Dynasty” in emerging markets
  Kushtrim Xhakli
• Guerilla Tactics for Developers
  Wolfgang Wopperer
• Hack Your Way to Being a Recognized Expert
  Morgan Brown
• Open Source Hardware – Of Makers and Tinkerers
  Jan Krutisch
• SHiFT to Sustainable Prosperity
  Ken Nunes
• Stop thinking, its bad for ya.
  Fred Oliveira
• The birth of a company-wide wiki
  Joaquim Baptista
• Work like the Network: Six ways organizations are fundamentally reorganizing since the advent of the Internet
  Lane Becker

The 2 day event is more than a tech conference: it’s about how technology can be used to be achieve a positive change in society. The casual setting is a great chance to meet other people and learn about new things. Better yet, not only learn, but Do It Yourself.

Come and meet us in Lisbon next Friday an Saturday, as tickets are still available !

Disclaimer: i’m a  symbolic last minute helper of the fantastic team organizing the event.

Two years ago, the main portuguese brewery Super Bock created the main blog award event in Portugal, with over 2000 blogs competing to be elected Super Blog. In 2009, we have the 2nd edition with a few improvements, and a chance to see how Portugal’s blogosphere survived the pressure of social networks and microblogging.

Disclaimer: I work for Fullsix, the interactive agency responsible for the online campaign.The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer or Super Bock.

Registrations are still open until the next 23rd February for Portuguese blogs, with the voting taking place afterward until March 24th. Popular vote will elect the top 5 for each category, and the jury will select a category winner and a Super Blog (with a €1500 prize). Special categories include Best Microblog, Blog Angola (for blogs about or written by Angolans), Best Design and Best New Blog.

On the Awards website you can find more about the 14 categories, how to submit your blog and discover hundreds of blogs submitted since the competition started 2 months ago. There’s also the Awards blog, with lots of tips and tricks about blogging, the competition and other useful info.

This year’s edition has Maria João Nogueira, Pedro Rolo Duarte, Fernando Alvim and Alberta Marques Fernandes judging the finalists, elected by popular vote.

You still have a few days left to register your blog, with a few more chances for the following categories: Angola, Science, Corporate, Politics & Economy, Social Causes and Microblogging (there’s lot’s of good tweeple and tumblers out there).

As a sizeable chunk of this blog’s audience is from Portugal, thought this might be of interest. If you’re not keen on registering, any feedback is appreciated to improve one of the few initiatives that recognize bloggers in Portugal. Either that, or we can just have a chilled Super Bock the next time we meet.

Adverblog and Bannerblog have already started collecting Christmas cards, and i’m giving them a help with 2 new Christmas themed websites, were yours truly was involved.

First, the disclaimer: LG and CTT are Fullsix Portugal clients. But i really feel you’ll appreciate these projects.

PedeAoBarbas.com

In most countries, Santa Claus is depicted with a beard, which in Portuguese translates to “barba”. LG Electronics and MediaMarket (an electronics store) took the term literally and gave a chance for everyone to ask the bearded man their gifts for this season. But a humourous twist: the bearded men is actually named “Barbas” and is one of the most popular Benfica supporters, the football club with most fans in our country.

At PedeAoBarbas.com (ask barbas), “Barbas” and his sexy assistant are watching the videos consumers recorded at MediaMarkt stores, asking “Barbas” for their Christmas LG presents. The videos will be published online during the next 3 weekends, and all you have to do is gather your friends to convince the new Santa “Barbas” Claus.

This was one of the most fun projects i’ve worked in a while, with a charismatic football figure known by at least 6 million people. Just shows how brands focus too much on celebrity players and forget about the true fans. I’ll be attending the match tomorrow against Académica and perhaps once again have a chat with “O Barbas”.

Meu Postal De Natal 3D

Yep, it’s Augmented Reality. I know, i know, it’s hype and all that, but forget the gimmicks and just appreciate the lovely illustrations. And if you have the time and want to surprise with a different Christmas card (at least for those not on the AR hype), print it and send it by mail to your dear ones, as long as they have an webcam available.

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No, i won’t post a screenshot of the AR experience. Go try it yourself

What’s so exciting about this? The client is CTT, the national post service in Portugal and one of the oldest public companies in Portugal but that isn’t what stops them to embrace new technologies and experiment.

So, i hope you enjoy these ones early because tradition says that in the next few weeks you will be fed up with Xmas cards.

Just noticed today that ComScore started measuring Internet audience in Portugal, and the numbers do look solid.

The study points to more than 3.8 million people age 15 and older, spending an average 1.9 hours online per person during the month, numbers that will probably be discussed the next 26th November at CAEM i-com National Roundtable (on Twitter @icomglobal).

The last few months i’ve also noticed a renewed interest on giving solid data about Internet behavior, as the market grows bigger with droves of new users consuming more bandwidth (either broadband or mobile).

The data on social networks is finally shedding some public light (disclaimer: Fullsix Portugal has also some panel data on user behavior), with no surprises on the top place for Hi5.com. Facebook numbers show some solid growth, but i’m still a bit far on my prediction that Hi5 would be surpassed by the end of 2009 (even if i seriously suspect that already happened in terms of active users). Twitter is a lot bigger than i expected, and something that most marketeers in my country have been ignoring.

Source: ComScore

It’s been a while since my last Shamess PromoTion, where i highlight projects created by friends, mostly from Portugal. The project i’ll be describing today was developed by SAPO, where some good friends managed to deliver one of the most solid web applications i’ve seen lately, specially considering that Lisbon isn’t exactly Silicon Valley.

So, what’s Pond ?  It’s an aggregator and publishing tool for social media services, that allows anyone to manage their social graph on a single place. You can import your friend list from social web services, merge friend contacts and update your social web status on the web, mobile or desktop.

The wide range of platform support is certainly the highlighted feature:  Besides the web, Android, and Symbian mobile apps are available (iPhone soon) and desktop software (Mac, Windows and Linux) will also be released.

Currently Pond supports Twitter, Flickr, SAPO Fotos, YouTube, SAPO Vídeos, Facebook and SAPO Blogs, as well any RSS or Atom feed. It will surely be a great way to introduce the power of social web to a wider portuguese audience, since the application is sponsored by TMN — the largest mobile carrier in Portugal (disclaimer: TMN is a Fulllsix client) — PT Comunicações and Meo (it will be interesting to see a social app on a IPTV service: social TV).

With smartphones becoming more affordable, growth on the social web will be fueled by mobile web with centralizing services like Pond or Vodafone 360 taking full advantage our digital identities. I only wish i could add more metadata to my friends info, like birthdays, tags or events. Give me that, and i’ll be a happy ? Ponder ?

Great work, SAPO team!

P.S.: the service is on beta — invitation only for the moment — with early registration for TMN clients.

Taking place in Lisbon, the next November 14th, Upload 2.0 intends to discuss current web trends and their impact on Marketing and Communication strategies.

Organized by a team of active participants on Portugal’s social web, the event gathers several practitioners sharing their experiences and ideas on a series of short talks about the role of new media, consumer empowerment and new models of publishing. From marketeers, students, journalists, bloggers or just people with passion for the new social web, you’re all invited to register.

I’ll be giving a short talk on UFOs (Unidentified Flashy Objects). If you find the title unusual, then show up and listen the rest of the content.

Speakers also include Ricardo Teixeira, Rodrigo Moita de Deus, Filipe Carrera, Luís Rasquilha, Fernando Batista, Daniel Caeiro, Vasco Trigo, Paulo Querido, and Sérgio Bastos with panels moderated by Rodrigo Saraiva, João Morais and Domingos Pereira.

There’s no excuse of being at work (it’s on a Saturday) or being expensive (ticket at 28€ / 20€ for students). Find all about it at UploadLisboa.com or get the updates at twitter/@UploadLisboa.

P.S.:
Speaking of events, today it’s Ignite Portugal, where Alt.Prt.Sc will be recording a special videocast and my colleague Tiago is giving the Ignite talk “How to manage impossible projects with agility”. See you later.

After asking last month at Google Portugal when street view would become available, they finally unveiled the map feature for the two major cities in Portugal, Lisbon and Oporto.

Now, time to start peeking and find those awkward situations, like the one below at Parque Eduardo VII (you’ll get the joke if you’re familiar with Lisbon).