Within 15 mins I had made up my mind to buy something at Coach and not something small — something of significance — for the person I love the most in my life. I’d never purchased anything at Coach before. I didn’t even know where the nearest store was, but my decision was made and it took less time than most gift buying decisions I’ve made.

This is an incredible story for any brand, nonetheless a brand I wasn’t familiar with, had no affinity for, and generally associated with high school. For the Christmas 2011 I used Pinterest in a way that helped to make my life unbelievably easy and my girlfriend unbelievably happy simply by shopping for her directly from her Pinterest account.

Pinterest is hot — seriously hot.

From VentureBeat “The still-invite-only, one year-old digital pin-board site attracted nearly 11 million visitors in the week ending Dec. 17, according to data intelligence company Hitwise. Hitwise counts Pinterest as one of the top 10 websites in the social networking and forums category.”

Top 10 is actually being disingenuous. Pinterest actually falls in as the #7 social networking website, ahead of the likes of Google+ and Tumblr. That along with $37 mil in the coffers means that investors get it and so do a large number of interneters.

But like most new platforms, brands have been slow to get involved. And this is surprising because Pinterest is ripe for brands — it’s a collection of beautiful/interesting/desired things that get captured, collected, shared and ultimately bought. It’s a crowd-sourced consumer magazine at its best. Pinterest’s pages look just like those of major catalogues, something I’m sure Pinterest re-purposed on, well, purpose. Pinterest was created for the ADD mind of the Internet, for the scrollers of blogs and for those that always called themselves visual learners when we we’re growing up.

But Pinterest is more than just a social website — it’s a place to discover the wants of an individual. Facebook gives you their life story, Twitter tells you what they are doing right now but Pinterest tells you what they want their house to look like, where they want to go for vacation and even what recipe they want to make for dinner. Once brands figure this out and create strategy to tap into this huge trove of knowledge, it’s game on.

Brands everywhere are going to quickly begin to take notice to Pinterest, but those that figure out why people love the platform will be the ones that succeed the quickest. Happy pinning!

Thanks to your votes, Food.ee is that much closer to demoing (and even pitching) at the GROW conference in Vancouver.

A huge thank you to the Food.ee community and all you Foxee fans out there for helping Food.ee become one of the top 25 finalists. Your support and votes made it happen; we’re so excited to have such a passionate and strong following so early.

In second round of the video contest, the 25 entries with the most votes are reviewed and ranked by Canada and Silicon Valley’s best judges. They hand select and announce 15 winners Aug. 2.  We certainly think Food.ee is one of the hottest Canadian tech startups and would love the opportunity to demo (but especially to pitch) Food.ee at the event. Fingers crossed!

We’re preparing for our launch so stay tuned! For potential early access leave your email at Food.ee, and be entered in a chance to win a $100 gift certificate from participating restaurants. If you’d like to stay up to date on new restaurants, tasty giveaways, and insight from chefs on their favourite take out dishes, follow Food.ee’s Foxee on the blog, Facebook and Twitter.

It’s a refrain loved by cartoon enthusiasts everywhere. Everywhere for SpongeBob now includes the social media space.

SpongeBob not only has friends under the sea, he has 25,529,918 Likes on Facebook and 186,357 followers on Twitter. The Nickelodeon TV cartoon character and his friends use social media channels in new and entertaining ways (check out the choose your mood application). The latest social promotion is for SpongeBob’s Frozen Face-off, the coolest new special premiering today, July 15 on nick.

You can follow SpongeBob, Patrick, and the gang on their way to the Great Sleigh Race in their first ever Twitter Tale, told through the whole gang’s Twitter handles interacting. The first ever Twitter tale acts as a mini story, baiting audience members to tune in to the show.  The updates are funny, addicting and the site is creatively designed.

I’m curious however, if the content is targeting the right demographic. Isn’t SpongeBob for kids?

The level of engagement on Facebook wall posts is very high with an average of 10,000 likes for updates and about 1,000 comments per wall post. SpongeBob utilizes all of Facebook’s features and also includes thumbnails of the special in the photo album area, which generates even more comments and likes. There are behind-the-scenes, and teaser promotions for the upcoming special.

“Captain: Ready?
EveryBody: SpongeBob SquarePants! SpongeBob SquarePants! SpongeBob SquarePants!”

Open source essentially means more sharing and a more open web environment, to bring software developers together and push the boundaries of platforms like never before. Open Source week facilitates this with series of events.

We’re most excited for the Make Web Not war conference Saturday, May 7. Read more about the sold out event here.

But if you’ve missed out on tickets, be sure to save these events in your iCal:

Thursday, May 5: A full day of WordPress, with two concurrent tracks, UX and Technical. Attendees of this event will be invited to an awesome after-party with free drinks and appetizers, happening at Subeez.

Thursday, May 5: Discussion about Microsoft and Linux at the Linux User Group meeting.

Friday, May 6: An afternoon of Show & Tell: Storytelling for a Web Made World hosted by The Museum of Vancouver.

Friday, May 6: HTML Meetup hosted by Boris Mann.

Saturday, May 7: Make Web Not War is one of Canada’s first cross-platform conferences, showcasing the most cutting-edge techniques and technologies available to the ever-evolving web community. It is sponsored by Open Source communities from across Canada and Microsoft. We will see you there.

Questions with Jamie Garratt

Garratt is the president of Idea Rebel and is responsible for providing strategic direction for the company, driving new business and working directly with external clients and internal teams to ensure the delivery of world-class digital experiences. Garratt has been involved in the development of many highly recognized brands, with a core focus on digital media. His sincere passion for innovation is reflected in his interest to build world-class marketing solutions. Garratt will be speaking about Social Brand Platforms and how to innovate social and web strategies for clients, as well as why websites are dead.

When you say websites are dead, what do you mean?

Website are dead! “Websites” came to life in the early ’90s, when the Internet was born, as way to share information. Traditionally this acted as a one way/ one-to-many conversation to users, more like a physical billboard ad that you would see on the side of the road, the difference being it was interactive. As the Internet evolved we saw an introduction to one-to-one conversations and experiences through blogs etc. More recently we’ve seen it evolve from one-to-one/ or one-to-many to many-to-many with what we now call social experiences. When I say websites are dead, I mean the traditional way of thinking about a web property is over. Brands need to embrace this evolution and create experiences that are more engaging than just being interactive and introduce social and mobile marketing into their strategies. Don’t build the same solutions that worked for consumers 15 years ago — websites are dead.

I’ll have some examples to show of that transition from big and small brands during my presentation.

How do you think businesses can stay on top of the ever changing digital world?
Each business needs to create their own unique platform to allow for change.  Some can make drastic changes overnight and some have to be carefully planned.  One thing they all need to have in common is the willingness to accept change, especially in our volatile digital environment.  Here are a couple of ways to achieve this

1. Stay youthful.  Every company needs experienced staff, but they also need to embrace new and fresh ideas.  Keep existing staff trained and don’t be afraid to hire new grads.
2. Don’t keep your eggs (or technology) in one basket — don’t invest in one technology.  We’ve only seen the beginning of what open source and community development can achieve.

What do you think are some of the most relevant web technologies coming up for 2011/2012?

• HTML 5 and the supporting technologies to follow.
• Augmented reality and location based apps
• Anything that will allow for better mobility

Do you think the web is becoming more closed or open?

In some cases closed and in some more open. Hardware developers that tie into software will continue to close out as much as they can. However, that only sparks the need for more sharing and open development. The primary objective for the Internet, when it was developed,  was to allow “free sharing” of information. I think we need to understand why that model worked in the first place. Closing it out will only create opportunities elsewhere.

What impact do you think open source is going to have on the web in the long term?

Open source will be a, if not the, fundamental part of the progression and evolution of the web. Any type of progression, wether it be medical, architectural or technical requires sharing in order to succeed. We’re going to see some drastic accelerations in web technologies over the next five to 10 years due to this. We’ll most likely see stuff like new or modified programming languages, changes in the way we store and access and share data, and even faster and more efficient methods of communication (email is dead? ).

Questions with Lauren Bacon

Lauren Bacon co-founded Raised Eyebrow Web Studio with Emira Mears. They also co-wrote’ The Boss of You: Everything A Woman Needs to Know to Start, Run, and Maintain Her Own Business‘. In the ten years they have working together they have been helping clients in the nonprofit, government and progressive business sectors use online tools more effectively. Bacon is extremely passionate about helping to grow online communication by helping people connect heart-to-heart using technology. Bacon will be speaking about how important it is to be curious for a living and the importance of asking clients the right questions.

What is the most important question to ask a client?

“Why?” When designers and developers find themselves frustrated by “stupid” client requests, it’s most often because we don’t understand how their request translates into a business need – and so we are stymied in trying to help them identify the best solution. When you ask them what’s behind the request, it gives you the information you need in order to help them solve their problems with your specialized expertise.

When did you realize that spending your time implementing client requests rendered you replaceable?

It was more a question of waking up to the fact that what my clients really valued about me was that I bothered to take the time to ask them questions, rather than a.) wanting them to do all the thinking, or b.) giving them an “expert opinion” without taking the time to understand their organizations. Those are two mistakes designers and developers make far too often.

What is the most important tool for getting your job done?

A sincere interest in, and enthusiasm for, my clients. My commitment to my work is completely fueled by relationships with people and organizations I feel excited about working with.

Moving forward, what impact do you think open source platforms are going to have on the web and how people use it to communicate?

I think some of the most interesting developments are happening at the intersections between open-source and for-profit models, like SAAS. There are stimulating breakthroughs happening on both sides. I’m a firm believer that information wants to be free, and people’s willingness to commit volunteer time for projects they believe in is beyond inspiring. At the same time, profit and competition can be powerful motivators as well. One of the reasons I’m attending MWNW is that I’m very interested in the creative friction between both models.

What do you hope to learn at Make Web Not War?

I’m totally intrigued by the keynote topic, HTTP for Poets. I’m hoping my techie side and my inner English lit geek will be equally engaged.