My friend Andre, and blogger at AdvertisingEtc, just directed a visual delicacy using a Phantom camera at 1000fps. The commercial announces the release of a new magazine: Relance.

On his own words “the concept of the ad is that the subjects are being compressed into the magazine“. And, boy, they look pretty good to me. Congrats Andre.

Credits
Agency: Uzina (Portugal)
Creative Director: Gustavo Suarez
Art Director: André Breda
Copywriter: Roberto Ferraz
Account Director: António Roquette
Production Company: Garage Films (Portugal)
Director: Enrique Escamilla
Photography Director: Carlos Lopes (Cácá)
Executive Producer: Miguel Varela
Editor: Marcos Castiel
Post-production Director: Marta Metrass
Phantom Operator: Raoul Rodriguez
Post-Production: Ingreme (Portugal)
Music Supervision: Level Two Music (Australia)
Song: QUA - Painting Monsters
Composer: Cornel Wilczek
Sound post-production: Ameba (Portugal)

Last week i was fully immersed at Shift08, the Lisbon conference on Social and Human Ideas for Technology. First, let me thank the readers who bought the ticket with my promo code, as it awarded me with a golden ticket (full refund). Awesome #1.

The first day was full of FREE workshops, with a guerrilla usability workshop by Andy Budd involving wine tasting, courtesy of Cortes de Cima and Adegga. Awesome #2.

On Thursday, the sessions started with a massive amount were to choose from. As far as i could find out on the coffe breaks, highlights were Julian Bleecker’s Design Fiction and Mark Wuben’s Home Made Ubiquitous Computing (today i’ve realized he’s also the co-author of always useful sIFR). I really enjoyed the session on Designing with common sense, by the folks of AllOfUs. Even more after i had the chance of having a great talk at lunch with Nick and Sandy. Andy Budd closed the day with a great presentation on User Experience, an appetizer for the last day main theme. Awesome #3.

Friday started with another great session by Brian Suda about semantic web and microformats, and the morning ended with our own robotic curator Leonel Moura discussing Artificial Creativity. The afternoon had the most expected sessions with Stowe Boyd and Tara Hunt focusing on social flow and social capital. Awesome #4.

If you couldn’t attend (shame on you), grab the presentations, now highlighted on Slideshare.net homepage as Shift08. Awesome #5.

And did i mentioned that it was a great chance to meet a lot of interesting people, from all over Europe, and start a true Shift movement? Awesome #6.

If further prove is needed how awesome it was, check the video testimonials below:

Loved it in 2006, 2008 was awesome, can’t wait for 2009. A big thanks to all of Shift’s team. Awesome.

UPDATE: Add the promo code gt-sourceinsp20a895d and get 20% off on registration

We’re almost there: the 2nd edition of Shift - Social and Human Ideas for Technology is taking place the next 15th to 17 October.

Having attended the 1st one - and loving it - i’m expecting the same amount of enthusiasm and interesting discussions on how technology is shaping society and our daily lifes.

The event is organized by close friends Bruno and Pedro (at non-profit), with 60 speakers during the 3 days, at Parque das Nacoes FIL (Lisbon). The subjects in discussion include: Education, History, Genetics, Economics, Accessibility, Usability, Mobile Technologies, Open Source, Transportation, Energy, Architecture and Art. Quite a treat, eh?

With confirmed speakers like Andy Budd, August de los Reyes, Julian Bleeker, Leonel Moura, Manuel Lima, Stowe Boyd and Tara Hunt, it shows how Portugal is becoming a great place for tech/digital conferences, after OFFF’s success the past May.

I’ve just registered but hurry up and get one the last available tickets. Shift !

New media festivals are usually promising, with lots of great performances and exhibitions, and yet, they do a lousy job of promoting themselves on the web. That’s what probably happened to UM, the International Festival for Experimental and Mixed Media, taking place in Lisbon, that has almost no reference in Google. Come on, is it that hard to announce the event on Upcoming.org or Rhizome ?

Of course i’m not happy about as the even occurs while i’m out. AdobeAS3Tour with Colin Moock is taking place next Monday, and no way i’ll miss a weekend break in Milan for a badly announced event. For those interested, here’s a small selection:

2008 Programme

Lisbon, 19 - 22 June 2008

Exhibition

• 
  Conscious Space, Sonia Cillari, NL

• 

  Tape Loop, André Gonçalves, PT

• 

  Crackle Canvas, Tom Verbruggen, NL

• 

  Patchery, Laetitia Morais, PT

• 

  Come and See the View, Kathy Hinde, UK

• 

  Delicate Boundaries, Chris Sugrue, US

Performances

• 

  Andy Moor, NL

• 

  A Cable Plays, Chris Surgue, US and Damian Stewart, NZ/PT

• 

  N.I.P. collective, UK/NL/PT

• 

  BOP, UK

• 

  Goodiepal, FO/UK

• 

  Rudolfo Quintas, PT

• 

  Turntable Reconstructions, DJ Sniff, US/NL

• 

  TokTek, NL

Workshops

• 

  Wearin’ it - DIY wearable workshop, André Gonçalves, PT

• 

  Wii Undressed, Frank Balde/STEIM, NL

• 

  Build your own electronic noise machine, Tom Bugs, UK

• 

  Mort Aux Vaches Ekstra Extra, Goodiepal, (FO/UK)

Enjoy.

P.S.:
Any reader suggestions for this weekend in Milan are welcome.

Great news: finally Interactive Advertising Bureau Portugal kicks off, with an ambitious installing committee .

Ricardo from Elemento Digital did most of the hard work (along with Alain Heureux, from IAB Europe) and got great feedback from the major Portuguese online media players, that are finally agreeing on the urgent need of a reliable institution heading the interactive marketing industry.

In the next few months, IAB Portugal intends to discuss the main goals and business plan, inviting all the players to the table (remember my comment?).
So, if you’re in Portugal and concerned about the future of advertising, have your say at IABPortugal.com.

At least in Portugal. They better not be, since Craigslist has just opened their portuguese version and Google is starting to take local search and location based services more seriously in Portugal.

Anyway, PAI (Portuguese Internet Yellow Pages) released a new set of features that are so web 2.0 that they even have round corners and gradients. Here’s what we can do now:

Ratings and Comments

Now users can leave their ratings and comments, supposedly to improve the service quality. I wonder how long will it take until spammers and ruthless SEOs start flooding the system.

Maps

Nice one. Not Google maps, but at least they know the local market, so a tailored experience might be enough to convince portuguese users. The service is provided by Local Matters.

Search Widget

You can take the search service and embed it in your site as a widget. Unlike Google custom search, no revenue is distributed to publishers.

Things are eating up, and after web 1.5, it seems that some portuguese services are entering the 2.0 bandgwagon. Better late than never. Someday we might even ditch Microsoft government agreements and choose reliable OSS solutions (I wish …).

Meanwhile, all minor efforts are welcome. Nice work, PAI and Truvo.