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It's Friday. Discover Something Completely Different.

We came across some beautiful new images of the Titanic and had to share. Have a great weekend everyone!

Click here to see the gallery at nationalgeographic.com.

 

Get Personal to Succeed in Social Media

The combined Twitter following of Nike, Starbucks, Disney and Whole Foods is still less than the 8.2 million followers amassed by singer Chris Brown, writes Chris Copeland. That suggests that brands need to start behaving more like celebrities, offering a personal connection and exclusive content rather than bland corporate messaging, in order to succeed on social channels.

Read the article on AdAge.

Barbie as a gadget

According to this article from the New York Times, most toy makers had a disappointing 2011, but the "main item retailers could not seem to keep in stock last year was a tablet computer for children, the LeapFrog LeapPad Explorer."

If you can't beat em, join em... right?

So now we've got Barbie with a screen in her torso - she's a digital camera now. And "Monopoly money can now be counted by a tablet computer."

It reminds me of the time I was waiting to get my hair cut, and there was a family with a few little kids - two were playing with iPads, and the third was playing with an iPhone.

I'm not sure it's a good thing, but I guess it's inevitable.

Read the full article here. 

 

Image-based Social Networking

Pinterest has been growing, rapidly, as the graph shows. If you're not familiar already, it's a site where users can create "pinboards" - groups of images that may or may not have a common theme. Tumblr is a bit more versatile, but the idea is similar.

eMarketer's Kimberly Maul says "“The platform works especially well for media companies, which can post their own content as well as supplemental photos and quotes. This has attracted brands such as The Atlantic, Rolling Stone and The Huffington Post. And fashion brands, including Oscar de la Renta and J.Crew, are leveraging the easy photo-sharing opportunities to include images of products, shots from fashion shows and more.”"

Read the full article here.

Impactful Work

Aviva from This is Real Art on Vimeo.

A brand advertising campaign about financial planning for the future. We dramatise aging by combining portraits of different generations from the same families.

The Future is Near.

If you think it sounds like something from a science fiction movie from the 50's, you're not alone. Augmented reality glasses? Yep.

This New York times article introduces us to Google's soon to be released glasses. The possibilities are really interesting. We've seen ads for this kind of augmented reality (AR) tech before - maybe you even have an app on your phone. Here's an ad, if you're unfamiliar with the concept of AR. 

Some of the comments on the article bring up interesting points, too. Imagine, for example, looking at a house for sale, and having your glasses show you information about the neighborhood and schools.

Amazing stuff.