Is your city area larger than the Oil spill? Or are the WWII enemy lines a short walk around the block? These are some of the answers that Berg London and the BBC try to find on their new project BBC Dimensions, at HowBigReally.com.

BBC Dimensions “takes important places, events and things, and overlays them onto a map of where you are”. The prototype frames our view of the world and events according to our neighborhood perspective, an effective tool to inform audiences that are usually dettached from the scale of events taking place elsewhere.

From the Apollo 11 moon landing on your block to the ancient Colossus of Rhodes, there’s plenty new perspectives to explore.

Source: Berg London

Stamen Design just published their new visualization for CNN, that maps coalition casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Home and Away goes beyond the regular news reporting, showing real data that is now becoming a platform for participation, with “people using the map to post memories and share stories about their lost loved ones”.

I’m no Jay Rosen or Jeff Jarvis, but the future of journalism will be relying a lot on information visualization and social experiences, acknowledging that readers are not only consuming information, but they want to actually participate (beyond the regular comment box).

Source: Stamen Design

At DefendeAsAmeixas.com, we get to know the tale of two farms: “Quinta da Ameixa Doce” and “Quinta da Ameixa Fresca” that have been haunted by misterious abductions of plums (or is it prunes, never figured out the difference).

Shameless Disclaimer: I’m really proud of this new project developed by our team at Fullsix for Compal, an iconic beverage company from Portugal.

Abductions of plums? Yes, that’s right: António and Maria defend their properties from theses attacks and keep the plums safe so we now could all have the fresh new juice, Compal Ameixa.

The site features the quirky advertising set in the rural landscape of Alentejo, Portugal but is also a great opportunity to win awards, with the final challenge being awarded a Vespa scooter. From the intro movie to checking which of your Facebook friends are supporting each farm there’s lot to explore (register for the full experience), on this fresh idea for digital inspiration.

the only farm i care about on Facebook

Kudos for the team:
Art Direction: Sonia Frazão
Flash Programming: Manuel Barbosa
Server side: Nuno Costa
Marketing: Inês Marques
Copywriting: Margarida Guerreiro
Strategy: Armando Alves

Film by Y&R Portugal and Krypton Films
Product: Compal Ameixa

The clothing collection is for the boys, but the site will surely please the ladies.


Superb work on the video: fast, smooth, playful. How it always should be. And what a whicked background loop track.

A small campaign site (nothing much beyond the main collection) but it does make an impression.

Agency: Kokokaka, Gothenburg
Client: Wrangler

Flame mode: Do this in HTML5.
via email by Chandinha.

Enough with technical jargon: at InternetOnlineWebsite.com you can learn all about this wonderful series of tubes.

A resource created by Barbarian Group and Aquent, it addresses a common problem: “I want this thing on my website, but I don’t know how to get it, or even what it’s called!”

Explain your client or even your mom what Search Marketing is, or what you need to get social media right. And though you may find this ironic/funny, the fact remains that a lot of people still need to be educated on the several components and disciplines of interactive marketing.

For those instances when a brand wants to grab the latest gimmick (or UFO), you now you have InternetOnlineWebsite.com !

Never thought Alicia Keys would sing a song for me, but here she is:

Well, not really. But it was really surprising the seamless personal experience delivered by MySpace, BBH and Domani Studios (which are becoming one of my new favorite interactive companies).

But better than the tech wizardry behind the thing is the “LOVEABLE MAGIC”, as @FranHazeldine calls it:

With the Myspace Fan Videos, the magic isn’t in the tech. It’s in the moment when 50 Cent hangs a picture of you on his wall, or Alicia Keys sings you a song. Sure the magic is tech-fuelled, but it’s the twisted cultural content, the playful reference to things I love or hate, that really makes it. Tech is the means, not a magical end in itself.

Tech magic is out. Loveable magic is in.

Details like the reflection of your Facebook profile pic in the glossy piano surface on Alicia Key’s video show that the magic is beyond tech and is more about making it simple, collaborative and easy to share.

Create your own video at http://www.myspace.com/fanvideo

Source: BBH-Labs

Since I have no words for Tim Burton, i’ll leave you with a couple of screenshots of the website for his Exhibition at MoMA.

Go ahead and visit the website. Or find an excuse to visit NY.

Website by Big Spaceship.
Source: MoMa.org

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.

These days we had our share of new social web services, with Mashable or Techcrunch feeding us daily with some new shiny object. Nonetheless, some brands venture into this competitive territory and create their own experiences, particular when there’s one dedicated set of consumers who share a common passion.

Such is the case with Nation of Go, a Google Maps mashup sponsored by BF Goodrich, which you can get a short video overview:

There’s also a free mobile app to track drives, trails and racetracks and automatically upload them to one’s profile, with support for geo-tagged photos.
I’m a sucker for branded content and applications, and though suspicious of branded social networks (it’s like having a private talk on a crowded bar), this one from BFG really impressed me. Shame it’s only for North America.

Source: Creativity Online