Who has time to manage all these channels separately? No one. So you choose a few and then, as Emily Dickinson would have you, "close the door." Leave the others alone. I'm sure the serene among us can do that, "Oh, I choose Facebook because that's where all my friends are..." But why must I do that? So ping and posterous and hootsuite are finding me easy prey -- integrate them all into one experience, they say. Oh, and then each of the channels starts to offer internal integration, and so on and so on. Well, this is a long apology for the echo echo echo that I inadvertently create among all the channels when I lose track of which channel I cross linked among all the others. And it's a test -- I think this will only post once, but let's find out! And here's my advice to people like me who want to find ways to make cross connections simpler -- take out your notebook or your iPhone when you cross link and WRITE IT DOWN. It's a lot easier to unravel if you have a scrap of documentation...
9.01.2010
8.18.2010
Most complicated promo ever
Others who get this Best Buy promo page invite -- did you get invited here after clicking on Best Buy in Shopkick iphone app? Just curious. Also, are you ready to read the conditions of play? Wow. I don't think anyone with a full time job and a hobby can keep track of their standing against this offer...or maybe there's an automated updater that get sent to your email. Anyhow, it's clear that retailers have figured out that the gaming impulse may as well be used to their benefit, not just left laying around idle...
in reference to: Free $1,000 Best Buy Gift Card (view on Google Sidewiki)7.30.2010
Winky Dink and You - Back to the roots of interacting with the electronic crowd.
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, searchWinky Dink And You was a CBS television children's show that aired from 1953 to 1957, on Saturday mornings at 10:30 a.m./9:30 central. It was hosted by Jack Barry, and featured the exploits of a cartoon character named Winky Dink (voiced by Mae Questel) and his dog Woofer. The show, created by Harry Prichett, Sr. and Ed Wyckoff, featured Barry and his sidekick, the incompetent Mr. Bungle (Dayton Allen), introducing clips of Winky Dink, noted for his plaid pants, tousled hair, and large eyes.
Praised by Microsoft mogul Bill Gates as "the first interactive TV show," the show's central gimmick was the use of a "magic drawing screen", which was a large piece of vinyl plastic which stuck to the television screen via static electricity. A kit containing the screen and various Winky Dink crayons could be purchased for 50 cents. At a climactic scene in every Winky Dink short, Winky would arrive upon a scene which contained a connect the dots picture. He would then prompt the children at home to complete the picture, and the finished result would help him continue the story. Examples include drawing a bridge to cross a river, an axe to chop down a tree, or a cage to trap a dangerous lion. Many children would omit the Magic Screen and draw on the television screen itself, to the annoyance of their parents. Conversely, children would often forget to remove the screen, which would remain on the TV until someone realized the picture was not very bright and had a gray-green tinge.
Another use of the interactive screen was to decode messages. An image would be displayed, showing only the vertical lines of the letters of the secret message, which viewers at home would quickly trace onto their magic screen. A second image would then display the horizontal lines, completing the text.
A final use of the screen was to create the outline of a character with whom Jack Barry would have a conversation. It would seem meaningless to viewers without the screen, further encouraging its purchase.
The program was wildly successful because of its pioneering interactive marketing scheme, and Winky Dink became one of television's most popular characters of the 1950s. However, the show's production was halted despite its modest popularity due to concerns about radiation in television sets affecting children and because of parents' complaints about children drawing on the screen.
The show was revived in syndication for 65 episodes beginning in 1969 and ending in 1973. In the 1990s, a new "Winky Dink Kit" emerged on the market, containing a magic screen, crayons, and all-new digitized Winky Dink and You episodes.
[edit] External links
- I Remember JFK: Winky Dink and You
- Winky-Dink and You (1953) at the Internet Movie Database
- Winky Dink and You (1969) at the Internet Movie Database
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winky_Dink_and_You"
via en.wikipedia.org
I'm working on mobile applications and mobile interfaces for standard applications now, and it's started a new part of my brain fizzing into connections with very interesting material. Interesting to me, anyway...
I was thinking about the history of interaction (or perhaps my history of interaction) and Winky Dink returned to me with a thump. Interaction is a concept, not a technology, and Winky Dink proved it. I probably remember it so vividly because I got quite a thump when my Dad saw my crayon drawing of a ladder on the TV set screen. Memorable. Maybe even PTSD memorable...I awake screaming from Star-Headed Alien nightmares...not really.
There are so few barriers to possibility in this new mobile universe (except for the 64x960 screen size). I'm reflecting on how very limiting technology capabilities have been on the ideas that we execute -- especially within a big corporate infrastructure. And shouldn't we be teaching classes on how constraining in-place corporate infrastructure can be in university CSEE programs? -- otherwise you only learn about it as your heart breaks professionally.
But mobile puts me outside of this pale -- I step away from the millstone. It also puts a lot more pressure on actual Web Services (documented and packaged, not just sketched and then embedded in a single use, or is that just us?).
But there is such freedom in this moment. Back to Winky Dink and the faceless millions who might be persuaded to draw the ladder on the screen. I think also of the cell phone symphonies. What can we do together across these devices? Wow.
Most things, the deeper you get into the minutia, the more mundane the affect, the more prosaic the whole thing becomes, but this is having the opposite effect on me. Even the nay-saying that comes from FUD doesn't extinguish the excitement. Wow.
7.22.2010
State Farm acting on Allstate agent angst - Chicago Tribune
The memo said State Farm is offering agents near Allstate office closings a "50 percent co-op" reimbursement on certain print, radio and billboard ads appealing to prospective customers who like being represented by an agent.
So if a State Farm agent located near an affected Allstate agency spends $1,000 in approved advertising, State Farm will reimburse them $500 of the expense.
"Who can blame State Farm or any other insurer for taking advantage of Allstate's misstep?" said Jim Fish, executive director of the National Association of Professional Allstate Agents.
He said State Farm's move is occurring as Allstate seems to be reconsidering its agency cuts.
Allstate recently announced plans to seek new agency owners in a number of states, including more than 290 for Oklahoma, Nevada, Texas, Missouri and Colorado.
"The problem is that they have alienated the agency force and are frantically trying to stem the bleeding by attempting to hire replacement agents for those who are departing," Fish said.
In an e-mailed statement, Allstate said its goal is to increase the number of offices in local communities.
"We're doing that, in part, by continuing to actively recruit new agency owners to ensure we maintain a strong local presence and provide our customers the superior service they deserve," the company said.
New deals: The pace of deals to buy banks, not just ones that have been seized by the government, will likely pick up in the next 12 to 18 months, according to Keefe Bruyette Woods.
The investment bank said market fragmentation — the Chicago area is the most fragmented banking market among the 10 biggest cities — and management age will fuel some deals.
Also, the banking industry's recovery is likely to be "slow and arduous," with "higher capital requirements likely to spark conversations by bank managements about whether to maintain independence," the report said.
Potential buyers include PNC, FirstMerit and U.S. Bank.
"Potential buyers who could become sellers," or banks that will make acquisitions in the short term but eventually could be bought by larger institutions that like their franchise value, include Itasca-based First Midwest and Chicago-based MB Financial, the report said.
Contact Becky Yerak at byerak@tribune.com or 312-222-4283, and follow her at twitter.com/beckyyerak
When will these strategies start to include locally oriented online advertising options as well? Facebook local ads, Linkedin Local ads, Civic website banner ads, Google AdWords pointed at specific geo-tags? It's odd to me that the "online" marketing economy continues to run separately and not even very much in parallel with traditional media. With tools like "Scanlife" offering device integration for print ads and printed documents and links to websites, landing pages, ads, offers, coupons, Whatever, I just don't see the barrier to integrating the two types of campaigns. My purse is smaller -- it holds my iPhone. If Delta can manage an iPhone boarding pass, surely our enormous insurance companies can start to absorb the fact that news comes in through the mobile screen, so ad strategies should follow them there...Hey, State Farm -- Give me a call: we can chat.
3.23.2010
Your Ticket to the Mobile Shakedown Cruise: Sites vs. Apps
Stop obsessing about apps, go back to optimizing sites for mobile -- Google message, repeated at DEMO yesterday. Here's what I say to that -- OKAY, let's do that. It's less expensive, it's inevitable, and it is really no different from packaging the "whateveritis" for delivery as a mobile app -- whoops, we seem to have come full circle. I think it's all the same thing, when you apply the advice to the actual real world.
Looking out at my domain of content and interactions available to handling in either way, every single one that I see would start with the same ten tasks, whether aiming at app or access. Here again is another example of the developers of demos and the visionaries creating philosophical discussions that are not very useful for those of us standing in the trench next to the broken pipe.
It's all esoteric development skill sets and it looks like there's a lot of overlap, if you look for it and plan for it. In the real world, I'd rather not choose between them -- I'd rather build the new presentation skin for all this legacy "whateveritis" using the techniques that optimize a platform-straddling stance. I need it available to both as the debate boils on.
It's under the skin that the work needs to be done -- a mobile app, a mobile access are all looking for a clarity of UI that I still need to develop. I'd better get us started on that.
You guys can keep arguing about apps vs. sites. We have a business to run.
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