Social media has become an important part of many people’s daily lives, and it has also changed the way most marketing campaigns run. On top of this, it’s become an essential marketing tool for modern athletes.
Skype have just introduced a new ‘feature’ called Conversation Ads, which displays advertisements during audio calls. Which sucks. To nobody’s surprise they’re trying to spin the feature as somehow good for users – apparently the ads “could spark additional topics of conversation that are relevant to Skype users and highlight unique and local brand experiences.”
2oceansvibe Radio recently launched our Melrose Arch Studio to much fanfare in Johannesburg. The launch of the studio was our way of answering the desperate cries of our many thousands of Johannesburg listeners who, since being liberated from Morkels ads, “hump days” and “no repeat workday” radio were craving a stronger taste of the Vibe. […]
Fancy seeing some creative design and innovation with a PUMA twist to it? Then you should go and have a wonder around the new PUMA Canal Walk store that’s just re-opened. After undergoing a remodel in line with PUMA International’s new Retail 2.0 store design, the new store is absolutely mind-blowing. After launching in early […]
Branding! It’s good for you. Jump Studios, a London-based architecture firm, recently finished up the interior on a submarine for Guinness’ deep-sea bar, which plunged to the depths of the Baltic on its maiden voyage. The sub was commissioned to celebrate Guinness’ 250th anniversary. Take a look at the thing after the jump.
Yesterday, 2oceansvibe enlisted the brave men of Butlers in a diplomatic and humanitarian mission: the delivery of hot pizza to the stricken crew and salvage officers of the Eihatsu Maru trawler, currently beached on Clifton 1st. The captain’s dog got a bone. In case you haven’t caught the video and pictures of the successful mission […]
Sergey Brin, the Google co-founder everybody keeps forgetting about except when he talks about stuff like this, has pointed to a handful of “threats to internet freedom” – Facebook, Apple, the entertainment industry, and governments that censor their citizens. By which I guess he means threats to Google.
A recent study by South African student magazine, Student Village and the Department of Marketing and Retail Management at UNISA has shed some light on the consumer habits of South Africa’s 850 000 university, technikon- and college-going students. The skinny on South Africa’s student spending, after the jump!
Microsoft wants you to notice them too – which is why they’ve rolled out a Ford Mustang fitted with Kinect sensors, two Windows 8 tablets, projection screens, and a couple of other neat toys as a proof-of concept to inspire developers to build applications and automotive technologies with Microsoft in mind.
Man, it must be nice having the second-highest GDP per capita in the world, like Qatar does. That way you can afford to kit out your police force with an entire fleet of deeply sexy Porsche and VW vehicles, which you can send out on parades whenever you feel like it. Like in this insane video.
Iconic amplifier company Marshall has expanded into selling people drums and headphones over the past couple of years – and now they’ve announced a mini-fridge that looks like an amp on the outside, but has an inside made to hold dozens of cold beverages. Shut up and take my money.
NASA officials have announced that the first launch of a commercially built space capsule to the International Space Station is scheduled for the end of April. California-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX) are the dudes responsible for the capsule in question, the unmanned Dragon spacecraft.
Well this is new, and sort of neat. For the new V40, Volvo is introducing the world’s first pedestrian airbag system, designed to reduce the severity of pedestrian injuries in a car-pedestrian collision. Alternatively it could double as a sweet new inflatable mattress on the hood of your car.
A new website, called Dollar Shave Club, just launched. What are they all about? Look, I can tell you – or you can watch this video. The level of awesomeness you are about to experience knows no boundaries. Check it out inside.
Another alternative to Apple’s iCloud popped up this week, with Google has announcing that it will be combining the Android Market, Google Music and the Google eBookstore into a new cloud-based service called Google Play, allowing users to access all of their media across all of their Android devices.
It’s less than a week to go until the iPad 3 is unveiled, so everybody and their grandma is throwing out thoughts about what the new toy can do. Concrete stats are emerging though – Apple employees have been browsing the web with their personal iPad 3’s, turning up details about the new tablet on website server logs.
The music video for “DoYaThing” — the new collaboration between the Gorillaz, Andre 3000 and LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy – dropped yesterday, as part of Converse’s ongoing “3 Artists, 1 Song” campaign. The promo track was released along with the limited edition Chuck Taylor All Star Gorillaz Collection, which is on sale now.
Apple’s iOS has been under fire for allowing third-party apps to access users’ location data and contacts without permission – and now it looks like photos and videos have been compromised too. The New York Times used a test app to prove that the security software had a giant loophole in its privacy settings.
Hey, future. Mercedes-Benz unveiled plans yesterday to use Siri – the virtual assistant exclusive to the iPhone 4S – to power its new A-class electronics system, called “Drive Kit Plus,” which will allow drivers to access their iPhone apps using voice commands. In case you ever feel like updating your Twitter status while driving something sexy.
Facebook is expected to file for an IPO later today – Wednesday morning stateside – raising $5 billion. This is a fair deal less than the $10 billion previously rumored. Folks figure Zuckerberg wants to start with a conservative base at first. Because he can’t be sure this “Face-book” thing is going to take off.
Whoops. Looks like somewhere between Eric Schmidt and Larry Page, Google forgot their ‘don’t be evil’ rule and turned into the creepy uncle of the internet. Well, the other creepy uncle of the internet. It now follows users’ activities across YouTube, Gmail, Google Plus and Google Search, among others. Everybody, clear your history.
Apple is holding a product event later this month in New York – and since the Christmas buy-a-palooza is just past, it’s looking unlikely that they’re going to be announcing any new hardware just yet. Instead, Apple seems set to refurbish iBooks, their eBook retail platform, with a couple of new publishing options.
IBM have released their annual predictions for the future of technology, via the IBM “5 in 5” project, which looks at five innovations which they figure will transform modern life within the next five years; these include mind-reading computers, human-generated electricity, and biometric scanning replacing passwords.
In a worrying move for people who like their internet uncensored, a federal judge in Nevada has ruled that Chanel has the right seize 700 domain names that have been peddling fake Chanel products – and that search engines and social media sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Bing, and Google, are to “de-index” the domains.
Akio Toyoda, Toyota’s president, described the freshly-unveiled Fun-Vii as “a smartphone on four-wheels,” which sounds like something you would say to describe a car with lots of gadgets. Except Toyota’s new concept car, unveiled ahead of the Tokyo Auto show is like a smartphone on four wheels because it has giant touchscreen doors.
I feel a little bad for Widen + Kennedy, Old Spice’s advertising agency; everything they’ve done since introducing Isaiah Mustafa as the Old Spice Guy has been subject to comparison, not always fairly. Which is a pity, because they’re killing it here with their new “Smell Better Than Yourself” campaign. Check out the video, after the jump.
Cosmetics line, Lip Smacker has unveiled a new line of Girl Scout Cookie-themed lip balm tubes featuring balms matching five well known cookie flavours – Thin Mints, Trefoils, Tagalongs, Do-si-dos, or Samoas. So, you know, now you can have whole minutes of cookie taste on your lips without any impact on your hips.
While Mike Lazaridis, co-CEO of RIM, has already publicly apologized for last week’s three-day BlackBerry outage, the PR guys figured that that probably wasn’t enough. Which is why they’ve announced that they’re offering BlackBerry customers a bunch of free “premium apps,” in the hopes of winning back some love. Check the app list after the jump.
Virgin Atlantic announced that their planes will soon be able to fly from London to Hong Kong on fuel that produces half the carbon of regular jet fuel – which is sort of huge news, given that flying is one of our most carbon-intensive activities, enough to offset any good otherwise done by unplugging unused appliances or whatever.
As part of its promotional campaign for the new Chrome operating system, Google has quietly opened up its first retail store in London, called the “Chrome Zone”. The store is Google’s first venture in realspace retail, using the location to sell its Chromebook computer line.