National Geographic brings dinosaurs back from the past

National Geographic Channel Comes to Life

Pet a cheetah, splash around with dolphins, get up close and personal with a dinosaur and experience a hurricane storm all from the comforts of … a mall? Appshaker, a digital agency based in the UK has been making big waves with live motion and gesture-based technology, starting with this amazing campaign for National Geographic wherein they gave mall-goers in Hungary the opportunity to interact with the channel’s content.

Cube unfolds to reveal the magic of GE

GE Lighting Exhibition 

At a retail trade show in Dusseldorf called Europshop, Appshaker applied its skills to help GE Lighting stand out amongst other exhibitors. Through the magic of a paper cube with markers on it, Appshaker was able to allow people to experience four different applications of GE products, taking the “show, don’t tell” model to new levels.

Starbucks uses AR to celebrate the holidays

Starbucks Animated Holiday Cups

Starbucks invites its imbibers to bring their red cups to life by using mobile-based augmented reality. Simply download the Starbucks cup magic app and then scan a character on your red holiday cup and it will come to life. Nothing brings about the spirit of the holidays like an animated skating figure or sledding boy and polar bear with your morning coffee.

A real person becomes clickable in real time

Toyota FT-86 Promotion

We can safely say, we’ve never seen a car promotion like this. Toyota created  hype around its new FT-86 model vehicle by transforming busy Shinjyuku station in Tokyo into a live art demo showcasing the Art of Speed. A giant billboard was painted by various artists, while computer engineers transformed the mural into an interactive website, all in real time. The project is now known as the fastest painted website. Check out this video of the process presented in 86 seconds.

1) What steps did you take to develop your brand as a tech, pop culture, PR, fashion and multimedia all-star and when did you realize that you’re officially “tech savvy”?

My entry to the media landscape was as a news-talk producer, which taught me how to find the right story for the right audience from a wide variety of news topics. I got into the tech scene just over two years ago when I produced a technology-based radio and TV show. The tech and mobile space moves just as fast as the news so I’m used to staying on top of trends. I keep up with the latest and greatest because I love technology so my tech-enthusiasm fuels my passion.

Can you tell us about some current trends you think will strike it big?

Augmented reality has been a buzz-word for some time now, however, it will be explored even more in the next year or so, especially in the world of online shopping. There are a growing number of eCommerce sites that offer deals on fashion and home decor like HauteLook, eBay’s fashion store (Fashion Vault), HomeSav, Gilt, and Amazon’s newly launched MyHabit, that need to find innovative ways to attract more shoppers and encourage more spending. This is where augmented reality will make its grand entrance onto the catwalk. A web cam or front-facing camera allows shoppers to virtually “try on” clothing and accessories from the comfort of their own home.

eBay recently rolled out an AR app to help shoppers try on sunglasses before buying. UK retailer Banana Flame’s AR app, the Social Shopper, lets you try on a bunch of outfit virtually by standing 4-5 feet away from your web cam and moving the pieces onto your body. You can share the pictures with your friends. It’s only a matter of time before your Facebook News Feed page will have status updates like: “Does this outfit make me look hot? Plz comment. I’m taking a poll on whether or not I should buy it at 50 per cent off. Good deal, eh?”

Do you have any favourite sources of tech/media news?

I refer to a lot of sites. Off the top of my head: Engadget, TechCrunch, Mashable, VentureBeat, LA Times Tech, Vancouver Sun, The Verge (formerly This Is My Next), TrendHunter. Another good source is the MediaBistro newsletter which provides a succinct rundown of the top stories in news, pop culture, and tech. I also enjoy listening to Leo LaPorte’s podcast, The Week in Tech as I appreciate his perspective as well as the strong panel of opinionated guests he invites.

Integrating platforms such as TV, film and the web in order to provide a single, transmedia experience for users seems increasingly important — is there anyone in the digital space who’s doing this particularly well?

One brand that immediately comes to mind is Salomon, the makers of sports-specific clothing, footwear, and equipment. They’ve done an impressive job of taking elements of TV and film and applying it to the web and online audience with the launch of its web-series, Freeski TV. The content in each episode is compelling, interesting and leaves viewers hungry for more. Salomon is reliable and consistent on delivering the content for its growing audience; as a result, they’ve earned respect as a strong yet cool brand in the industry. They’ve innovated the advertising model for ski/snowboard from being a logo slapped on an athlete’s helmet to utilizing content to drive brand awareness and loyalty. It worked on me, as I just bought new gear from them.

If you were to coin a term that communicates today’s current media landscape (that isn’t “new media”) what would that term be?

“Distinctively trending media” The current media landscape is hustling to be bigger, broader, and grander. Media players, brands, companies and personalities are experimenting with ways to differentiate themselves from their competitors. There is no clear path in the landscape for anyone, it’s like throwing darts at the board until something sticks or better yet hit a bull’s eye. Essentially, players are experimenting in this media playground with the intention of being distinctive and trending. #Innovation

Here are some of the things we’ve done to cook up a delicious workplace culture at the office. Feel free to copy these ideas in your own workplace.

Introduce new team members with fun facts and favourite foods

As the team expands, there’s a bevy of new faces in the office and it’s always our goal to make each new addition feel welcome. New team members are introduced via company-wide email and, as an icebreaker, we share some fun facts about the person, including their favourite foods. It’s a terrific talking point and something that most people can identify with or feel comfortable inquiring about.

Deadlines meet dinnertime

We’re a tech company with deadlines to keep , so it’s no surprise when people surpass regular 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. hours to get a job done. Here at Invoke, we sometimes bring in dinner to keep everyone going while they diligently finish up projects. To make it easier, we’ve been testing (and using)  Food.ee and having the food come to us. There’s nothing like sharing a meal while working to galvanize a team and remind everyone of shared goals.

Find food trucks together

Remember going into fits of delight when you heard that old, familiar ice cream truck jingle roll by on your street? Well, finding a food truck together can be nostalgically thrilling. Just ask our developer, Jon Chui, who goes into paroxysms of joy when he spots the Tacofino truck rolling by.

Come Friday lunch, Invokers can be found joining our friends at HootSuite for Food Cart Fridays or using the Eat St. App to locate food truck finds near our new location and sharing our discoveries, and our lunches, with the team.

No team member left behind

Inquire about food allergies and dietary restrictions. You can’t bank on everyone being able to eat absolutely everything. To ensure that you don’t feel terrible every time you offer your peanut-allergic coworker some of your trail mix, do be mindful of your coworkers’ dietary restrictions. There’s no reason why everybody can’t be included in food sharing and food fun at the office.

What is tethering?
Tethering is a method of sharing the Internet connection of an Internet-capable mobile phone, usually a smart phone. This connection can be done via a USB cable or wirelessly over Bluetooth. Tethering uses up more data than if you were to surf the Internet directly from your phone since none of the graphics or images are compressed. Cellular providers vary with regards to how they charge for tethering – some include it in their data plans, while others charge extra fees. You can surf the web more securely because your information is being sent directly through the phone rather than, as an example, over a public wifi hotspot.

Set up Internet tethering on your phone
Turn Internet Tethering on. If it’s not enabled by your carrier, you’ll have to set that up with them. You can tether in one of two ways:

• via a USB cable
• via a Bluetooth connection

If you want to tether on a BlackBerry device, Rogers Wireless provides some detailed step-by-step instructions here.

If you want to tether on your iPhone, any of the user guides for iOS3 or later will have info, such as this one.

How much data will you use?
If you plan on tethering on a regular basis, it would be beneficial to choose a data plan that supports your activity. Generate an estimate of how much data you may be using. For example, 1 email (text only) is about 20 KB, 1 web page is about 180 KB, and 1 email with Word, Excel, or Powerpoint attachment is about 300 KB. AT&T has a handy data calculator for users to estimate their monthly usage.

If you’re using an iPhone, you can check out your tethering data usage under Settings > General >Usage.

Choosing your data package
Make sure tethering is included in your phone plan. Cellular providers have this way of making it extremely difficult to find information about anything that they could possibly score some major revenue from, such as tethering. A good place to find the info is in the super tiny 5 point font at the bottom of the page – it will specify whether or not the data package includes tethering or not. Some providers include tethering if you subscribe to a data plan of 1 GB and above.

Careful about overages
Cellular data plans are never really “unlimited.” Once you hit the “soft” limit of about 5 GB of data usage, cellular providers have various ways to limit your usage. Some carriers will throttle your connection down to something equivalent to a 2G network, while others will make your bill grow exponentially for each additional MB of downloads, usually without warning.

For the most part though, cellular providers won’t catch you tethering. Once there’s a request from your phone for a web address, it looks the same to the provider whether it is going to your phone’s browser or your laptop’s browser. Just be careful you don’t go over your limit. There is a bit of a cushion and carriers aren’t too strict, but with the whole issue regarding usage-based billing, they may be cracking down.

Bring some extra batteries
Tethering sucks the juice out of your phone. If you’re planning on staying at the beach for more than just a quick meeting or a short report writing session, be sure to bring extra batteries. Once the battery has run dry, you’re without tethering power, as well as a phone.

Barrett  is featured in the Sundance award-winning documentary, The Corporation, and has been profiled extensively in media such as USA Today, New York Times, New York Post, Los Angeles Times, and People Magazine. He co-authored the book, Direct Your Own Life. Barrett was the first corporately sponsored college student in America, as well as one of the youngest patent holders in the world. Today, he is the new media producer for Roger Friedman’s entertainment news source Showbiz411.com, a partner in Powerhouse Pictures Entertainment, a film production company, and KBC Media, a media relations firm and founder of the public relations start-up PRserve.com. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisBarrett.

What do you think of the term New Media? Still relevant?

The term New Media will always be relevant but the New Media concept will change in the future. Ten years ago, the concept of New Media was digitizing videos and putting them on CD-Roms or DVD. The new frontier of new media is that the media will be available on demand, streaming to every device.

Is there a lack of transparency when it comes to New Media?

I have always seen a lack of transparency in both traditional and new media forms and that is an issue that everyone will have to tackle in the coming years.

In 2008, I was obtaining press credentials to cover Senator Obama’s presidential campaign whenever the campaign would come through the Philadelphia region. I would apply for credentials with the idea of filming the entire stump speech and posting to my YouTube channel (youtube.com/chrisbarrett). My camera and tripod would be set up along side of CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC. The traditional outlets would pull the best sound bites out of the speech and air them on TV and post online.

However, I believed the voters had a right to watch the entire hour-long speech and not just the sound bites the news organizations felt were the highlights. I have always tried embracing new media as a transparent medium. 

Last year, when Eric Schmidt’s TomorrowVentures brought me on board to be the new media producer of entertainment journalist Roger Friedman’s Showbiz411.com, they wanted to bring to life Roger’s articles and put a video to his online articles.

I wanted to bring the same transparency I brought to my campaign videos to entertainment journalism. You may talk to the actor for a half-hour but you will go back to your office and write a four hundred-word article based off of two or three minutes of your conversation. 

In September 2010, we spoke with James Franco on camera for fifteen minutes. The highlight of our conversation was that he told Roger and I exclusively that he got a D in NYU acting class when he was filming 127 Hours. Instead, of just pulling that sound bite and put a quick two-minute video online. I posted three five-minute videos to show our entire conversation with James Franco.

The raw video of Franco talking about getting the poor grade in acting class was embedded everywhere from PerezHilton.com to CNN.com. Watch Part 1 here, part two, and part three here.

What do you think the future hold for online videos? How/where do you see the technology changing?

I see the future of online video leaning towards capturing a moment and sharing socially with your friends. Currently, the iPhone App Viddy is a great way to do that for 15-seconds. You shoot a video, add music and a filter over it, and share it on Viddy.co and socially through Facebook and Twitter. iPhone App Viddy had a very successful launch with more than 500,000 downloads through Apple’s App Store. I’m excited to see what the future holds for this start-up.

In a new, ongoing series called Digital Dialogue, Invoke interviews influencers from all over North America, including NY, LA, and Vancouver. If you are interested in being featured in the series, contact us @invoke. Keep the dialogue going! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.