Top digital stories this week, incl. Google, bras & facepalms of 2011

* Featured, Brass digital roundup — By Brass Team on December 16, 2011 3:11 pm

X-Factor kills cigarette lighters

Paul Mallett, Managing Partner

Remember the heady days of the 70s and 80s when no gig was complete without the audience whipping out their Clippers and swaying along (un)rhythmically to some sloppy ballad…? No, I don’t either. I was too young in the 70’s and in the 80’s I was a Goth. Lighters and hairspray are a bad combo – no lighters in the air at Sisters of Mercy Gigs.

Fast forward 40 years and finally someone has invented an alternative, phew…. and in the process invented the second best job title I’ve ever heard this week.

Xylobands were invented by Erotic Engineer Jason Regler and had their mainstream debut in the X-Factor final last Sunday.

The wirelessly-controlled high power LED wristbands have nothing in common with Rabbits other than being plastic and pink. The step of genius that the Xyloband brings is that it now makes the audience part of the performance in a way that knicker throwing could never achieve.

If you haven’t seen the video, watch it, and make sure your turn your speakers down, otherwise you might accidentally listen to Coldplay.

Memories for the future

George Hurrell, Digital Designer

I chose this story as it coincides with a TV programme I watched on Channel 4 which was a documentary using first-hand footage and stories from survivors of the devastating Japanese tsunami.

Every now and again there is a report of something funny or strange caught on Google Street View. I’m sure we all remember Horse-boy amongst others.  There have also been some issues with privacy over the Google street cars harvesting data through Wi-Fi. However this time it’s a bit different and they may have actually found a more worthy use of this technology.

Google Street View has released images of post-tsunami Japan. Internet users can take a virtual walk through the devastation caused by Japan’s March 11 earthquake and tsunami following publication of a series of new digital images. At first I thought this would be some very strange and dark voyeurism. However Google has actually created a dedicated website that shows before and after street views to show people how destructive this tsunami was. Having friends in Japan, it’s quite poignant for me, and looking at the site it brings back memories of watching the disaster unfold on the news.

Residents from the regions featured in the site will also be able to post photographs and videos online as part of the project, according to Google. It seems the internet giant is trying to create something at least a little positive from this disaster:

“It is our hope that this will help people rediscover lost memories of their homes and towns,” said Google on the dedicated site, which is called Memories for the Future. The company also hopes that the archive of detailed images will be of assistance to scientists researching the physical impact of natural disasters such as the March 11 earthquake and tsunami.

Is this just a PR exercise so Google can keep its Street View up to date or a genuine attempt at something humanitarian? I’d like to think it was the latter.

Click this story’s title for a full article or view the Memories for the Future site.

Google’s public data explorer

Jamie McGrath, Senior Search Manager

Google launched its public data explorer back in 2008 and recently it has announced some vast improvements and introduced a whole bunch of new datasets to mine through.

The tool allows you to search and compare data sets across the world such as GDP growth rate or unemployment. Previously, certain datasets were available through Google’s standard web search, however you can now also search within the product itself across a huge range of public data. New improvements also include; uploading of your own datasets, improved navigation to filter the sets by age, gender, country etc. And best of all its built in HTML 5, so is fully accessible by modern web browsers.

This tool can be very useful for marketers looking to plan campaigns by demographics or trends; launching a new car across Europe? Find out where to boast about the MPG by visualising fuel prices by region: http://goo.gl/xf8YQ

Hello boys!

Leah Kayles, Social Media Editor

Or should that be girls? It can be unclear these days, as demonstrated in the recent advertising campaign by Dutch retailers, Hema. The underwear-floggers have used male model Andrej Pejic to flaunt their new push-up bra. And wow, he certainly looks good!

It’s a clever ad from Hema; using a very androgynous model (I defy anyone to say they wouldn’t think they were looking at a hot woman from the pictures) to both create a load of buzz and controversy and to get across the message that this bra is so good, it even works on men!

Facepalms of 2011

Claire Robinson, Digital Development Director

It’s the end of another year – that time where we to commit the past year to memory, sharing lessons learned before moving into the New Year with a clean(ish!) slate.

I love the roundups of the year from the digital marketing industry: what went right, what went wrong, the top tens, the top one hundreds, but my favourite this year has to be eConsultancy’s 21 most horrific social media facepalms of 2011. The cringe awards for me have to go to Sapient & Bell Pottinger from this list. Wow. What do you think?

Image credit: mirror.co.uk

Tags: andrej pejic, google public data explorer, google street view, Social Media, x factor, xylobands