Where's Spring Fever?

Pretty paltry pickings the past few weeks. May wish to check out the upcoming Webby Awards.

Eyewriter Lets Eyes Write

I can only imagine the isolation experienced by someone paralyzed either by disease or accident.

That's why this award-winning DIY effort is so great. As noted on the website for The Eyewriter, "a low-cost, DIY system can be made that will allow ALS patients, with the help of their family and caregivers, to make visual art. Furthermore, it was demonstrated that when combined with Mobile Broadcast Units, or similar outdoor projection system, a networked version of the EyeWriter can enable patients to have a large-scale, uncurated presence in public spaces."

And this is no MIT Media Lab extravaganza. Again, from the website: "This system is constructed from material found in local Venice Beach hardware and electronics stores and the software is written using an open source set of C++ libraries for creative coding from openFrameworks."

What more could really new media accomplish than a low-cost effort to enable personal, direct composition?

Have a Ball With "The Ball 2010"

How do you get a potentially world-size group of people personally engaged in an event? Let's kick this one around a little bit...

To promote the World Cup in South Africa, organizers will use the journey of a single soccer ball and its use in "organized games of football, in impromptu kick–abouts and in freestyle sessions. From street to stadium, anyone and everyone can engage with The Ball, sign it, kick it and help it along its way."

What a great way to enable people to give a personal, tactical, tangible connection and experience to what otherwise would be--and is--a very remote event.

Is this new media? You bet.

Keep An Eye on CaT

A good organization to keep an eye on regarding technology and creativity is, well, the "Creativity and Technology" group (CaT--like that capitalization?).

It's largely a trade show of sorts, which invites presentations from practicing professionals. Perhaps a little bit on the brainy, conceptual side, it's none-the-less full of great insights into the trajectories today. A huge archive of videos of past presentations at its summertime meetings.

A Flickin' Good Try

Nikon has jumped on the "use-the-webcam" bandwagon with its Coolpix "Virtual Touch" promotion.

Once the software recognizes your body and your hand, a finger wave (instead of a mouse click) flips through a series of online pictures, while a pinching your forefinger and thumb together or moving them apart zooms in or zooms out of whichever image you're viewing.

It's an idea with potential, but as yet not fully a part of day-to-day life. It's easy to imagine "sometime in the future" where we might control a video display this way. But I couldn't get it to work very well.

And, compared to running into a friend unexpectedly and whipping out an iPod, iPhone, or other touchpad-equipped device that people normally carry anyway, cranking up your computer just to view pictures by flicking your finger doesn't yet make much sense.

An "A" for effort, but "C+" for execution.

Share Instead of Fight

What two things do all urban drivers have? Antiacid pills to calm the nerves when cruising the blocks looking for parking, and a cell phone.

A new iPhone app can't do anything about sour stomachs, but it can do something about parking. ParkShark lets people collaborate over parking rather than fight over it.

According to its promo copy, it makes the most sense for use in big urban areas with little onstreet parking and lots of residents who rely on it.

As the promo copy goes, the app puts people in real-time contact with each other who want to share a parking place (think of people working different shifts, for example). "Once you specify the time your spot will be available, it is visible to the other members who are searching for a spot."

Not only is it a social-networking app, it incorporates self-policing through user ratings a-la selling services such as eBay and Amazon. It displays "available spaces to those members with good ratings before displaying to other members. This encourages you to be a good ParkShark citizen and build a strong user rating. Good citizens are those that share and reserve in a reliable and consistent manner with infrequent cancellations."

This is some great new-media thinking: Working with and within already established daily routines and capabilities while directly addressing an already existing problem. Now if it only works...

Read 'em

Forget the typical industry books describing examples of new media in advertising. Check out instead either/both of these: Christina Spurgeon, Advertising and New Media (New York: Routledge, 2008), and Andrew McStay, Digital Advertising (New York: Palgrave, 2010).