Angel & The Mambokats Responsive Music Website | Elance Job
Using the graphic art theme of my Bandcamp Page and Facebook Page as a guide,
Facebook Bandpage
DODOcase Releases DODOnotes, A Little Notebook For Your iPhone
I like little notebooks. I need a place for my introspective musings. Moleskine notebooks are fine. But now there’s DODOnotes, a clever little notebook *slash* iPhone holder that could soon earn a place in my pocket.
This contraption is from DODOcase, the same San Francisco-based startup that created the make-a-tablet-look-like-a-book craze. DODOnotes costs $13.95 and is available for both the iPhone 5 and iPhone 4. Sorry, Galaxy S owners; DODOcase doesn’t want your money.
This isn’t a case, per se. DODOnotes is more of an open sleeve. A colorful elastic band holds a naked iPhone into a slight frame. Yeah, that band prevents the owner from, well, playing Dots while it’s held in place, but answering the phone or glancing at notifications is totally possible. But for most actions, the phone needs to be removed. The case is available in red, black or blue.
DODOcase tapped Mohawk for the paper. There are 30 tear-out pages of Mohawk’s Superfine soft white eggshell paper. No lines.
DODOnotes isn’t for everyone. This won’t be a mass hit. But it’s certainly a clever take on the classic notebook. It’s available for order now but takes 2-3 weeks to ship.
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Twitter now allows advertisers to target specific words used in tweets
Twitter has finally crossed the rubicon and will allow advertisers to target ads to you based on the words that you tweet. specifically, the feature is called ‘keyword targeting in timelines‘, and its available today in 15 languages and all markets.
Twitter previously used the content of tweets to fill out its interest graph for advertisers, but this update brings laser targeting based on the topics that you tweet about to the product. Twitter uses the example of a person who tweets about enjoying an album from a band. A local venue could use a combination of Twitter’s location-based targets along with a keyword tuned to that band to pop an ad with a link to buy tickets to that band into the user’s timeline as a Promoted Tweet.
Twitter stresses that they’re not showing more ads in anyone’s timeline, they’re just going to be showing better targeted ones. And users will still be able to voice their disinterest by dismissing un-relevant Promoted Tweets. The ad targeting is also “based on the keywords in their recent Tweets and the Tweets with which users recently engaged.” That engagement could come in the form of retweets, favorites and other actions.
Twitter says that tests run with companies like Microsoft and Walgreens, they saw a jump in interactions with ads based on keyword targeting vs. other kinds of targeting.
Here’s what the new panel will look like for advertisers:
Anyone who has been following Twitter’s ad products over the past few months has just been waiting for this to become a thing. Targeting based on location and platform used was one thing, and the nebulous ‘signals’ that Twitter was using to target Promoted Tweets and such were already getting positive results. But specific word targeting is the holy grail of advertising, allowing brands and companies to tightly focus campaigns on those with very specific interests and along a very important vector: time.
When an ad is delivered is in many ways just as important as how it’s delivered and to whom. If you were just tweeting that you’re hungry for a burger, then see an ad for McDonalds, that’s much more effective than if you saw one hours later or hours before.
Here’s another example from TBG, an agency that allows business to create campaigns for networks like Facebook and Twitter:
The panel is from One Media Manager, which its designed to streamline the campaign creation process using keywords. It allows advertisers to create bundles of keywords that they can use to target ads.
This kind of targeting is offered outside of Twitter in other products of course, but Twitter’s super-real-time nature could offer a distinct advantage in keyword targeting effectiveness. Depending on how timely Twitter is in delivering ads to the timeline, this seems like it could have a huge impact in how likely people are to notice and act on ads. If there’s too much delay, that effectiveness could be blunted.
As a user, it’s unlikely that you’ll be seeing any difference in the volume or type of ads that you’ll see, but they might start to get freakishly accurate. Don’t be surprised if you tweet about a restaurant or type of cheese and see an ad pop up for those in your timeline a few minutes later.
Image Credit: AFP/Getty Images
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This Crazy, Hack-tastic Music Video Makes Your Mouse Cursor The Star
An indie band relying on crowd-sourcing is nothing new; many a tour bus has been paid for by way of things like Kickstarter or Indiegogo. But a band asking for your mouse cursor, instead of your money? Thats a new one.
Dutch rock band lightlight has tapped the power of the crowd along with a rather impressive hack to make what might be the cleverest* music video the world has ever seen.
Each time the video is played, they’re using a crafty bit of Javascript to capture the position of the viewer’s mouse cursor in real time. Throughout the video, the viewer back at home is encouraged to interact with the contents — drawing a smiley, keeping your cursor in a certain region, etc. Every 30-60 minutes, they re-release the video, now recomposed with the recordings of the most recent viewers.
You can check out the video for yourself right here. (NSFW Heads Up: There’s a fair amount of bare skin in the video, though it’s (usually) covered up by a few thousand mouse cursors. If cursor bikinis are grounds for a firin’ where you work, save this one for later.)
I dug around a bit, and it seems that the video/tech itself is the work of Dutch artist Roel Wouters and his studio, Moniker.
The video started making the rounds yesterday morning, but I held off in posting it in light of yesterday’s attack. Some twenty or so hours later it’s still rockin’ my world, so up goes the post! (If you’ve already seen it by now, a bit of a bonus for the second go-round: keep your eyes on your browser’s Javascript console [In Chrome that's: View > Developer > Javascript Console] for an easter egg.)
[* "Cleverest" here not necessarily meaning "best". Everyone knows that Jamiroquai's Virtual Insanity is the best video of all time.]
Excerpt from: This Crazy, Hack-tastic Music Video Makes Your Mouse Cursor The Star
The Basis B1 Fitness Band Is Amazing But Still Needs Polish
Being as chiseled as I am is tough. You have to eat right (brownies only every other day), exercise (take the stairs to the attic), and keep tabs on things like your heart rate and body temperature while playing Sim City. That’s why the Basis is one of the best “general purpose” body monitors I’ve seen. The band, which senses your blood flow, body temperature, and perspiration along with steps and motion, is a small, discreet watch-like system that works surprisingly well as a standard pedometer but offers a way to break bad habits and make new ones.
I’m a longtime fan of quantified health devices for the simple reason that they offer immediate feedback on my current activity level and health. I’ve been using Fitbits for as long as they’ve been available and I’ve managed to lose 20 pounds by keeping my activity up and not eating like a slob. The Basis is different in that it offers the same features as a Fitbit but with a few improvements. For example, on the bottom of the watch there is an optical BPM heart sensor as well as leads for perspiration sensing and temperature. Because it is a watch you can wear the device overnight and monitor your sleep habits as well.
The device itself is about one inch on each side with an integrated rubber band. Four spots in the corners activate various features and there’s a central button that is not yet activated in this incarnation of the device. Pressing the right buttons displays steps take, calories, and current heart rate and you can activate the clock or data by pressing the left “buttons.” A sensor turns on the backlight when you move the watch towards your face (this happens intermittently but it works in principle) and you can also turn on the backlight by pressing the left touch button.
As a watch, the Basis is fairly basic and I’d even say sub-par. You can tell the time and the date, but traditional sports functions are missing. Viewing it in low or bright light is difficult and the backlight pops on for a mere five seconds, giving you just enough time to forget what time it is. It lasts about five days on one charge and connects to your computer or charger via a sort of USB-powered “frame” that connects to the watch body. It’s a bit cumbersome but it improves the water-fastness of the watch.
The real magic happens on the back end. The Basis watch syncs with MyBasis.com, a dedicated website for the device, as well as a forthcoming mobile apps for Android and iOS. It is here that the Basis shines – and confuses.
Basis uses the concept of “habits” to motivate you to get off your duff. Some of the habits are simple – one asks you to simply wear the watch – while others encourage you do take a certain number of steps a day or spend a certain amount of time sleeping. You unlock various habits by completing challenges over time and you begin with only a few possible “goals” during your initial set up.
This system is both ingenious and frustrating. While open-ended health devices like Fitbit and the Jawbone Up reward you after you’ve completed a certain number of steps with an email or notification, the Basis forces you through a set of gamified steps to gain your “reward.” It encourages you to visit the website often and unlock new rewards but the rewards themselves are so open-ended that it’s difficult to remember some of them. Unfortunately, the Basis band won’t remind you and the only indication that you’ve hit a certain step count is a little winner’s cup icon at the end of the readout. A bit more info – “You completed the Sleep For Eight Hours Challenge” – would be immensely helpful.
The system also offers a number of interesting graphs including comparative activity and “heat graphs” of your various vital statistics. You can, for example, see when you tend to sweat the most (I found sweat when I eat) and when you tend to wake up. “Insights” offer little snippets of information about your day including sleep quality and the like.
Being a watch nerd I usually wear the Basis on my right hand and a real watch on my left. Because the watch is fairly small and dark it looks more like a Fuel Band or an Up than a Timex. I think that depending on this watch as a daily wearer would get immensely frustrating and I wouldn’t recommend it.
However, as a window on your body it is superior even to my beloved Fitbit and I’d say it’s even better than the Up. Simply having my heart rate available at all times is a valuable bit of data and the step counter is as accurate as the Fitbit in most situations. The Basis is obviously bigger and more conspicuous than other devices, but the battery life and form factor make it a slightly superior choice if you’re willing to wear it on your wrist all the time.
The market for quantified health devices is definitely huge and entrants like Basis keep pushing the envelope further and further. The B1 seems like a strong first try, and the company expects to release firmware upgrades that will add more functionality to the watch over the next few months. The ability to pair the watch with a mobile app is also a much-needed addition as the syncing system is a bit wonky via USB.
For $199, I think this band gives most any other health device a definite run for its money and I’d even recommend the Basis over more complex offerings by Suunto and Polar. Rather than making a kitchen-sink sports watch, Basis has produced a cool, streamlined monitoring device that is, for the first time in the space, eminently usable and promises some interesting potential.
See the rest here: The Basis B1 Fitness Band Is Amazing But Still Needs Polish