But in this case Jim is you; the consumer, the user, the ideas person. Brands want our help to do better things, as evidenced by a number of high profile campaigns around the world. The list is extensive, with big-players like Nokia and their annual “Calling All Innovators”, Pepsi “Refresh Everything”, Aviva’s “Community Fund”, Starbucks and Cadbury, participating in the “Fair Trade Swap”, Timberland “Earthkeepers” and Marks & Spencer’s “Your Green Idea”…phew!

Is this type of ‘causal’ movement here to stay? Could it be just another notch in marketing’s constant state of reinvention? Or could it instead mean a longer-term change in behaviour due to social and macroeconomic drivers? To begin to answer these questions we need to think a bit about where the essential idea might have come from…

The big things first. The global economy is trying to extricate itself from the worst recession in living memory. During the downturn, global warming and sustainability might have taken a backseat, but remain omnipresent concerns. Customers are more demanding and more likely to take action about matters that are important to them.

With social media, customers have found their voice; the growing power of that voice means increasingly pervasive interaction with brands. Initially, marketing co-creation, popularised by campaigns including Dorito’s “You Make It, We Play It”, meant a winning idea got its 15 minutes of fame. Tapping into ‘Potentialism’, meaning certain people’s desire to step off the mass-market gravy-train and do more wholesome stuff, saw campaigns like “Rockcorps” from Orange, where people doing the most good got to see famous bands. As the recession bit deeper, ‘altruistic marketing’ saw brands reaching out to cash-strapped customers by offering free services and guarantees to foster loyalty.

Finally we have a chaotic proliferation of consumer technologies, platforms and apps so that it’s much harder for brands to hook into genuine customer needs and develop products or propositions that answer them in the long-term.

Taking all of these perspectives into account it’s easier to see why there has been such a flurry of activity – brands acting as ‘venture capitalists’ for new ideas that will help communities, the environment or drive new innovation. Only time will tell whether this manifests into stronger brand equity or genuine competitive advantage, but it doesn’t seem like a flash in the pan…

Another great tool for business from Google. Show the world where your business is and track users that find you via Google search.  Change your business listing by analysing the statistical data displayed on the Google dashboard. What users were searching for and where they are searching for it when they found your business could be useful information. Watch the video if your confused… From : http://www.google.com/lbc

Heres a pic of 2 infernites checking out the touch screen Spencer has been developing for a client.

Everyone who walks past it has the following reaction - Wow! - Touch - Amazing! - Laughter. I think they are laughing at the fact that it’s held up with blue tac and magazines! : ) I can hardly wait for the full experience .

Tesco.com have released the grocery API (Application Programming Interface)! This has really got people talking here at Inferno.  In basic terms the grocery API makes developing online / mobile applications that link to Tesco.com products very easy. I know it all sounds a bit nerdy, but developments like these (e.g. Amazon) open multiple new avenues of consumer purchasing behavior to marketers.

Here’s an example of how companies like Xbox, Playstation, and Nintendo are likely to be serving games in the future.

All the the gamer of the future needs, is a controller, screen, and net connection. Movements are sent from the controller to the server which does all the grunt work and streams a video of the game play to the users lounge room. Basically the need for a physical console is removed by delivering the game play as a TV channel in real time!

Apart from making gaming more accessible to more people (no more expensive consoles needed - just play the game in your browser), this technology will revolutionize interactive TV - by participating with the audience or hosts of TV shows in a virtual space in real time.

An amazing data visualisation of London real estate. The site isn’t live to the public yet but the video of the process is fantastic. Check out Mapumental.

Another google earth game (a boat simulator). Drive a barge, cruise liner, or air ship anywhere in the real (sattelite mapped) world!  If you have the google earth plug-in you can even play it in your browser. I would imagine that these kinds of simulators are going to start popping up more and more often. During flights I would love to be able use my gphone to see in real time where my aircraft is on the planet.

This is a great free app fro the google and iPhone. It’s very simple to use - scan a bar code - see the price comparisons online. It would be a great app for the BlackBerry!

It’s pretty hard to deny the usefulness of Google maps. Not only can you play with a global map of infinite detail in seconds, but with the addition of Street View you can also view and explore places in first-person.

If you had to, one of the few holes you could poke in the platform is that it doesn’t really integrate the first person street view, into the bigger picture map.

The Here & There projection of Manhattan does just this, giving an enhanced first-person and brids-eye view of a city.  It puts the viewer simultaneously above the city and in it where she stands, both looking down and looking directly around them.

So far it’s been developed to a 2D representation of New York. However with location based technologies racing out of their infancy, how long until we start seeing this distorted but very handy view of our surroundings developed into a 3D interactive world? Could be very useful in digital city guides, games (GTA 8?), and mobile map apps.  

Amazon’s E-Reader Kindle DX is shipping this summer in the US. It probably doesn’t spell the end for the Lite or Metro just yet, as it has an unspecified UK release

• 9.7-inch E-Ink screen (1200 x 824 with 16 shades of grey)
• 1/3 of an inch thick (10.4″ x 7.2″ x 0.38″)
• 4GB Storage for 3,500 books (a bump from 1,500)
• Native PDF support through built-in reader
• Automatic landscape/portrait text rotation
• Line length adjustments (determine the width of text on the screen)
• Navigation buttons moved to right side of screen only

from : http://gizmodo.com/5242310/kindle-dx-offers-97-inches-of-e+ink-for-489

Following on from previous postings about new interfaces on the web, this Papervision site uses more than mouse clicks to navigate its content.

http://www.iamunique.com.au/

What better way to Spark things off than by taking a look at some inspiring and ridiculously clever future technologies which have the potential to enhance the way we live our lives.

First off is a paradigm challenger. Why do all computer desktops work in pretty much the same way? Website navigation is adapting to how we use the internet (check out the experimental ‘Don’t click it’), however desktops have remained pretty constant.

‘Bumptop’ is an ingenious approach to desktop management built for the way we organise our real work spaces (i.e. desks) in real life.

Moving through the digital world, mobile especially is inspiring radical new ideas, opening up ways to access information wherever we need it. ‘Nru’ (pronounced near you) is the latest mobile innovation from lastminute.com’s labs team. Using GPS the application (available on the G1 Andriod device) can show you things to do near you on a radar, and also send information directly to you when you point the camera at a place or object.

Taking a glimpse further ahead, we find Pattie Maes, developer of the Sixth Sense mobile. We challenge you to not utter ‘no way’ to yourself when you watch the demonstration.

Augmented Reality (AR) has been getting a fair bit of attention in the digital world recently. In a nutshell, AR combines real world and computer generated data in real time. Not actually as complicated as it sounds - here’s a nice example from the BBC.

This stuff is pretty exciting, especially for brands who are looking to take online user engagement to the next level. BMW for example have extended their latest Z4 campaign online, inviting users to recreate the ATL TV execution at home. Check out the dedicated microsite or the demo below.

It’s safe to expect this technology to keep on growing in popularity. Just have a look at Microsofts interpretation of the future, a completely new way of looking at how we interact with and organise digital content around us.