Fluidesign is an award-winning interactive design agency based in Santa Monica, California. Visit fluidesign.com to check out our portfolio of hyper-text and pixel magic.
Ever since the term “viral marketing” became common language, it doesn’t seem to have left the internet. Many people tend to forget that the original strategies came from real-world niche marketing and grassroots campaigns.
The main difference in real-world viral marketing and online, is that it spreads much like a true virus: Real human viruses are limited to central “outbreak” locations and spread via human carriers. Computer viruses have no such local limitations and are transfered via computer-to-computer interaction. Viral marketing works the same way in either format.
One real-world viral that has been making it’s way around Los Angeles is The Room. It’s a 2003 film that’s getting a lot of traction in the same way that Rocky Horror Picture Show did. It plays once a month at the Laemmle 5 Theater to a packed house who throw spoons, yell catch phrases and otherwise interact with the film. It’s truly viral and very funny. Only…well, the movie wasn’t supposed to be funny at all and it’s widely considered the worst film ever made.
One look this trailer will tell you why it has become the well-deserved victim of public mockery.
The writer/director/producer/star, Tommy Wiseau has either taken the entire mishap in stride, or he simply doesn’t speak enough English to understand what’s going on. No one knows where Mr. Wiseau is from, much about his background or how he was able to afford the film’s estimated six million dollar budget. My theory? Romanian Arms Dealer.
If you want to see just how far this viral has reached since 2003, check out the LAist, NPR, the Wiki, The Hollywood Reporter, Mahalo, etc, etc- All this about a movie that plays in only one place!
Have there been any real-life virals in your area?
Our friends and clients over at Nesting.com received this excellent review from TechCrunch today. Congrats!
TechCrunch reviewer, Jason Kincaid wrote, “The site sports a very soothing look that is well suited to its target demographic, with lots of pastels and rounded corners. The widgets themselves are also well designed, presenting an adequate amount of information without becoming overwhelming or cluttered.”
We’re glad to hear that TechCrunch has picked up on Nesting and can’t wait for more wonderful reviews as the site gains traffic and awareness.
The use of illustration is usually pretty prevalent in print design. As a trained print designer-turned-interactive-designer, I’ve noted that sometimes heavy illustration is not as predominant in websites as it is in print. I know, I know…the load times are a tinsy bit longer and illustration adds cost to an already expensive web project…but what joy, emotion and clarity of communication it adds to a site! Here are some of my favorite illustrators, resources and sites incorporating illustration in a unique way. Illustration Mundo, Camilla Engman, Lisa Congdon, Amy Jean Porter, Samuel Bismes, and yes, my very own brother, A.J. Halbrook
In the ever looming process of building traffic and awareness for this blog & the Fluidesign website, I have been looking at some really diverse SEO and social media techniques. The great thing about this post is that I’m both talking about and utilizing a few of them at the same time.
Most people know how important it is to have your site catalogued in the DMOZ, Yahoo! and ZoomInfo directories. If their spiders haven’t crawled your pages you’re probably missing out on some extra clickage. (I’m helping our chances just by linking to them in fact.) But, it seems that Technorati’s SEO powers are starting to reach beyond diligent blog-rolling and tagging.
To “claim” a blog as yours on Technorati, you can choose to embed link (as below) and their spiders will catalogue it immediately. This not only confirms to Technorati that you are the owner of the blog you signed up with, but also adds you to their catalogue. Apparently, their library is becoming quite vast and helping to boost user SEO. No word yet on rather or not they plan on making the caches a public service.
Technorati Profile If you’re on Technorati already, get in touch! BlogRoll us!
Allis, thanks for your post. And to add to that, if you’re out there and have any questions about design, programming, marketing, or anything related, shoot us an email and we’d be more than happy to respond.
I was speaking with a friend last night who wants to understand more about technology, the web-o-sphere, new media, and probably just be able to laugh at LolCat jokes. He said he wants to be knowledgeable and up-to-date on what’s out there, but doesn’t know where to begin. Checking out the right blogs & bookmarks only make him feel like it’s all some kind of secret language mixed with inside jokes.
Well, I was not prepared or qualified to give him a comprehensive history of the internet followed by a overview of the current trends… and I was about 3 glasses of pinot noir deep. So, I recommended a TWiT cocktail with a twist of Google:
TWiT stands for “This Week in Tech” and is a weekly podcast hosted by online media guru, Leo Laporte. It’s available for download on iTunes, directly on the site or press play on the site’s media player; it couldn’t be easier. And best of all, Leo is extremely entertaining as he and his with tech-savvy guests discuss the latest advances, news and speculation about all things webby.
But, how do you know what they’re talking about? Pause it and Google any names or words you don’t understand. You’ll surely be directed to wikipedia or a relevant search page. Yes, it’s a bit of a process, but after a few episodes you’ll probably be “pwning the newbs” with the rest of us.
I think it could be said that everyone enjoys the challenge of solving a difficult problem. The euphoria that we get when we can shake our fists in the air and say, “Ha! Thought you could fool me?” brings me great happiness. And when it comes to challenges, I think the Japanese really know how test the limits of problem solving with their wacky game shows (such as human tetris - see video below). Beyond the entertainment value, I think these game shows are really good examples of thinking outside of the box in order to meet goals.
When you look at a situation for face value without thinking of other ways to approach them, you’re more likely to run into obstacles and possibly even fail. However, if you consider your options and investigate the most efficient and easiest path to take…that might not necessarily be the most obvious, you can achieve success. In the end, sometimes it just easier to duck down instead of doing the splits.
I’ve looked to this collection of vintage logos a source of inspiration ever since I first discovered it on flickr. The set features pages from a 70s edition of the book World of Logotypes. It’s interesting to see how some brands have changed over the years, and how some classic marks have stood the test of time.
Looking at all these logos together makes me wonder though—how long will we be able to keep coming up with new ways to treat letterforms? With everything out there that’s been done already, will designers one day run out of original ideas?
I had a moment of panic, but then I realized that part of what defines a design is the context that surrounds it. And since the universe is constantly changing, the design world will always evolve with it. As long as we appreciate what’s been done in the past, while drawing inspiration from the world around us, we’ll keep coming up with new ideas and putting fresh spins on old ones.
Oh yea, if you haven’t heard, the internet is huge, over 1 trillion unique urls I hear. While this feels like an accomplishment, I believe we need to do some good old fashion spring cleaning.
But for now, here are some of my latest solutions to organizing and tracking things of interest on the internet:
1) Update your facebook’s “More About These Friends.” Now you can add up to 80 friends so that your news feed will display updates from these friends more frequently.
2) If you like to photo comment with others, get an RSS that combines all of your contact’s comments on Flickr.
3) If you are interested in specific subjects, try an RSS feed using the New Media Buzz Tracker. It tracks your subjects across Yahoo, Google News, Google Blog Search, Technorati, Twitter, and Flickr.
4) If you’re on tumblr and you want to reblog/discuss key topics, i recommend using the Track Tumblr alert.
5) And lastly if you are a sharer, perhaps you should track how many people actually click on your links (i.e. stop telling me what you ate for lunch on twitter.)
Learn more about why the above is important, here and here.
