COLORIA - Colour names
I use this site for when i can’t think of a good colour name.
http://www.coloria.net/bonus/colornames.htm
Website / Radio 1 Musiccubes
The Radio 1 Musiccubes website has been around for a year or so now. Put simply, a user creates a ‘tower’ of their favourite music genres, with everything from Hip Hop to global beats. The tower created directs them to radio programmes dedicated to their chosen sounds. The nice twist on this is the ability to paste the ‘towers’ into blogs - pretty cool idea.
According to Creative Review, the site has been a huge success with over 30 000 Musiccube towers built.
Website / Newsvine relaunch
Newsvine has been completely relaunched with a whole suite of new features and functionality. The homepage now allows a user to completely alter the page layout and featured content with easy-to-use drag and drop functionality. Headlines and weather are localised, groups clarified, a nifty ‘Live’ ticker (actually cool for a ticker) included on the hoempage, news as pics as well as all the other existing good-gear.
Website / ETSY (intuitive shopping)
Not another online store… this one is different.
Although the craft nature of the products for sale may not interest most of us, the useful search tools may. At ETSY (no idea what it stands for), users are given the power to search by color with a color-picker, fabric watches or by geographic area with a map. The Flash enabled colour picker works by the cursor activating a visually rich colour grid of bubbles that link to colour categorised products for sale on the site - fast to load and nice functionality.
Article / Helvetica turns 50
The Helvetica font is celebrating its 50th birthday. You’ve probably seen it a thousand times today.
Website / Oz in 30 Seconds
Get Up, Action for Australia, the political lobby group have launched ‘Oz in 30 Seconds‘, an online contest for filmakers to create television commercials that promote a better, fairer and more progressive Australia. Winning ads will be aired on commercial television and online (YouTube etc) in the lead-up to this years federal election.
From the site: In 30 seconds, show us a slice of your vision: perhaps it’s a call to action on an issue close to your heart; or maybe an idea that brings us closer to the Australia you want to live in; or your take on a major policy or event, rather than the spin you’ve been fed.
The concept is based on ‘Bush in 30 Seconds’ which ran in 2003 and generated over 1000 submissions and 2.9 million ratings from viewers.
Check it out at: Oz in 30 Seconds
Website / Lonley Planet TV
LP have launched Lonely Planet TV allowing people to share their video experiences from around the globe. The site offers similar functionality to YouTube and plans to purchase the best content available for broadcasting and commission filmakers based on their submissions.
Great idea destined to be as popular as their Thorn Tree and Blue List offerings.
Opinion / Posting icons
The proliferation of blogs and UGC sites has seen the explosion of icons at the footer of pages/articles/comments. Seems to me that this will hit a critical mass at some stage soon with only the fittest surviving.
Website / Super Pitch
Clever and amusing game (viral piece) targeted at the Ad industry full of in-jokes and character stereotyping (agency and client sides). The game puts you in charge of creating a presentation to one of three fictional clients. Take the Super Pitch challenge and see if you’ve got the talent to land the deal.
My only criticism is the amount of time-investement required to get the pitch rolling. From a brand point-of-view, Magnecote seems to be well represented. I’d be interested to know how the campaign performed. The game was developed by Hadrian’s Wall in chicago.
http://www.magnecote.com/superpitch/
Website / The Cool Hunter
I love this site - http://www.thecoolhunter.com.au/. Have lists of cool, design, lifestyle, travel, music, books, gadgets, art, fashion, bars, clubs, shows, street, food/dining, house and transport sites and snippets delivered to you as a blog. Very addictive.