woensdag 30 april 2014

Not available on the appstore

I would be lying if I told you I never play mobile games such as Angry Birds, Flappy Bird or the recent hype "2048". They probably ring a bell with almost all mobile phone or tablet owners. Downloaded from the appstore or Google Play within seconds, those low-end games offer hours of mobile entertainment.

This recent form of entertainment has certainly reached the younger generation, kids, adolescents ... hanging out in group but all individually playing or social networking via their mobile device. Forgetting to go outside, experience and see the world ... for real.


Sometimes, we just forget there isn't an app for everything, that is just the message this Tumblr wants to spread. They offer stickers with the message "not available on the app store" to raise awareness for day-to-day real-life experiences, a brilliant series of photos ... (more on http://notonappstore.com/).



woensdag 23 april 2014

Dear twitter, I don't like what I see

Dear twitter,

No, I do not like to scroll down. No, I don't like it when I have to undertake an extra action to see what I want to see.

When I visit someone's twitter profile, I would probably like to undertake one of the following actions.

  • read his or her tweets
  • follow his or her tweets
  • tweet to that specific account
  • find out who he or she is

He or she can of course also refer to a band, company or whatever the twitter profile is representing on the medium.

Here is what I probably don't want to see at first glance when I visit a twitter profile

  • a big ass cover picture covering half of my screen
  • one or no tweets of this account
  • no possibility of tweeting to this account

When I want to undertake the actions of my first list, I need to scroll down to complete intentions 1 (read more than one tweet) and 3 (tweet to that account). That is, if I were not to be horrified by the account's cover picture.


Dear twitter, please update the profile pages with some common - user experience - sense because, no, I don't like what I see.

donderdag 17 april 2014

Multi-device advertising

Today I stumbled upon a print ad in a newspaper about a real estate company. Ok, I didn't find it myself, it showed up in my twitterstream (thanks @Brilliant_Ads).


Nothing special at first sight, but when you look closely at the ad, you can see they just took multi device usage to the next level.

Recent research showed that a lot of people switch devices while performing a certain task (I mentioned this research earlier) and Harcourts is just ahead of this trend: click on this traditional newspaper print ad to find out how you can add $$$'s to the value of your house when selling!

Some might say it's just a print ad fail, but is it really so absurd? Glasshole or not (I am - unfortunately - not), this might just be the future.

Have a look at how Google Glass is used to make reading the newspaper more like reading a website at Engadget.
It's about connecting anyone who reads the (actual, physical) newspaper to everything that doesn't make in on to the page, whether that's more photos, related articles, or video.