The Medusa Project site launched

The Medusa Project is an exciting new series from Sophie McKenzie and we've just launched the new site. Featuring character profiles, with Spotify playlists for each character and details on their special powers, about the books, and a competition where you can win iTunes vouchers.

http://www.themedusaproject.co.uk/


Following this up, here is an interesting article discussing why young adults like reading book about character with supernatural powers:
http://www.boston.com/ae/books/articles/2009/06/28/young_adults_feel_affinity_with_supernatural_characters_in_books/

Pixar's lamp comes to life

Check out this cute video of Pixar's logo lamp "Luxo Jr" as he comes to the real world.

http://gizmodo.com/5303312/pixars-animatronic-luxo-jr-melts-our-hearts-in-live-action

Useful implementation of augmented reality

The US Postal Service are doing the first useful implementation of augmented reality that I've seen. You can find out which size bracket your parcel falls into. You can see a video of how it works here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpS3LeCiCtc

I've seen fun uses of it, the best being the music video for Ride My Star:
http://www.julianperretta.com/ride_my_star/

More information here:
http://www.marketingvox.com/augmented-reality-technology-brings-useful-service-to-usps-044353/

Community site for kids on Cartoon Network

Cartoon Network's new site is being launched on June 16th, with a social networking site "My CN". I like the idea of letting kids communicate through pre-written messages. It means that they can still express themselves and their emotions to each other, yet there's no chance of any unsavoury messages appearing on the site. It's a bit like letting them communicate via emoticons.


Read all about the site's new features here:
http://www.netimperative.com/netimperative/news/2009/may/cartoon-network-gets-community-site

Social Media Trends

The news is that whilst Facebook is expanding, Bebo and MySpace are contracting. Facebook is continuing it's world takeover, with more and more members each day. Also on the rise are LinkedIn and Twitter, although I believe Twitter will be a passing fad for the masses I'm sure, remaining popular only for the insecure celebrities and the geeks.

MySpace is a great place for bands to host a few songs, tour dates, and advertise themselves, but as a personal profile social networking site I never though it had any longevity. And Facebook sealed their downfall in this area I think. I would love to see MySpace evolve into an online directory for bands, artists, creatives etc.

Bebo I feel has just not provided a high enough quality of service. The site has always been behind in changes to the way it works and the support is reportedly not to a high level. I think it might just be a case of the better person winning when you compare Bebo and Facebook.

Interestingly FriendsReunited is mentioned. They made the massive mistake of making you pay, which Tagged doesn't seem to have learned from. They "entice" you to buy VIP memberships to give you extra functionality on the site. A mistake I think.

Read more with the full stats:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/jun/11/myspace-bebo-social-networking

Epix: Hulu for film

As Hulu grows and grows and in the wake of it's deal with Disney, it seems that other film studios are getting in on the act of online films. Paramount, Lionsgate, and MGM studios have got together and developed epix.
Working like an on-demand TV channel, the service is currently in beta, it will only be available to those with the epix TV channel. This means that your cable provider will be a deciding factor in whether you have the channel or not.

Read about it here:
http://mashable.com/2009/06/08/epix/

Flash coming to Android

Flash is coming to Android and probably before it appears on the iPhone. Flash has been sorely lacking on many mobile devices. With Android being open source, it was only matter of time before someone enabled Flash on it. Although Apple and Adobe are working together to get Flash onto the iPhone. The Palm Pre (which I'm quite excited about) will also support Flash.

http://www.moconews.net/entry/419-will-flash-come-to-android-before-the-iphone