Close, But No Cigar

A recent promotion by a high-fashion philanthropy and a company that makes the coffee we love to hate exemplifies another example of old thinking about new media.

On Dec. 7, the "Starbucks Love Project" coordinated people throughout the world to sing The Beatles' song "All You Need is Love" simultaneously to, as it puts it, raise awareness of AIDS in Africa. Folks either downloaded video or tuned in using their webcams.

Although for a great cause, two things about it make it more ephemeral than emphatic.

One is that its purpose--to raise awareness--presupposes that this on its own is a significant act. The problem however goes much beyond greater awareness. The individual contributions were cut together to produce--what?

Two is that it has an exceptional instead of integral relationship to people's lives. Instead of being an organic part of what people do already, it asks people to pull out of their day-to-day lives for a prefab and scripted activity, which makes it less significant and personal.

A similar case is the difference between last year's mobile-telephone company's smash viral dance hit at London's Liverpool Street Station and what followed. The initial event at the train station generated organic involvement; people wanted to join in and phone/video about it. And it had great energy. The follow-up group singalong to The Beatles' song (is there a pattern here that's turning into a demographically significant rut?) "Hey, Jude" at Trafalgar Square was prefab, deemed "special" by design and intention, and was doa by comparison.

What? It's fun to do the right thing?

Does this have much to do with Volkswagen cars? No.

But does it make ultraclear that traditional ways of encouraging (commanding?) people to do the right thing are hopelessly flawed? And that new-media thinking can help?

You bet.

DDB Stockholm's just-released campaign for VW demonstrates as much. Dubbed (in Swedish) "Rolighetsterorin" (if I spelled it right) or, in English, "The Fun Theory," great ways were thought up to make doing the right thing also the fun thing to do.

A subway staircase was turned for a time into a piano. Many more people took the stairs for a chance to dance on the ivories.

A bottle recycling station was turned into an arcade game. Many more brought bottles to try to rack up the highest score.

And a garbage can in a park became a bottomless pit complete with sound effects. People looked for garbage to put into it to hear it work and get a chuckle.

Do You See What I See? Right Now?

It was only a matter of time. Those of you with video-equipped iPhones can now load an app that sends streaming video to another iPhone.

This addresses well the many times people want to share things as they happen, instead of after the fact. Think of this as the video equivalent of Twitter. Show your best friend or spouse the models you're choosing between, which colors you're considering, or that you're truly at the office and not playing hooky.

Your Computer is Boiling Over

What's better than wagging index fingers and sending countless must-read memos about the need to save energy?

Turn your computer into a glass pot boiling water, a photocopy machine making endless copies, or a microwave heating up those leftovers just one more time. When you return to your computer after some time after forgetting to turn it off or put it to sleep, the bubbling water and other pictures serve as a great reminder.

A UK organization has developed what it calls a "greensaver" (a pun on "screensaver") for internal use. It was so effective, the company has released it publicly. Download a version for PC or Mac.

Try It On in the Comfort of Your Own Webcam

A clothing retailer has cooked up an online promotion, in which you can "virtually" try on clothes to find that perfect look.

Use your webcam; augmented reality (AR) software takes over from there. See specific clothes on your screen image, post you and your tried-on clothes to Facebook, or save as an image to your computer. (As you can see, I'm still trying to squeeze into that little gray number.)

It's a bit cheesy (the soundtrack used for the explanation video is a stock pick from iMovie--or at least sounds like it). And the implementation is clunky. But the idea is a great fit of the activity (try on, ask friends if they think it looks good on you) into an online counterpart.

iPhone: Calling City Hall!

The city hall for Boston has just introduced "Citizens Connect," an iPhone application for taking complaints and requests to fill potholes, remove graffiti, etc. Send an image of the problem (the app embeds GPS coordinates in the image), and keep checking the interactive map over time to see your red dot of a problem become a green dot of a problem solved. Nice overview radio piece.

Great way to address the key bottlenecks of the activity. Typically either one can't get through to the person who can deal with the problem, and/or it's impossible to detail specifically where the problem is or to explain concretely exactly how bad it is.

The Future is Here - And Has Yet To Appear

It seems only appropriate for the first entry to be an example of new media that has yet to actually be made.

Together with Liza Behles (a colleague of his at a portfolio school), Andy Pearson (a former student of mine—I wish I could take credit for helping him get to this point!) envisioned a visionary merging of Twitter, outdoor, and GPS in real time to calculate, share, and publicize savings from fuel efficiency of the Prius. Award-winning effort, to boot. Andy's now a senior interactive copywriter with CP+B.