Sunday, July 17, 2011

For Twitter's 5th Birthday, New Grown-Up Logos

You've grown to 140 million tweets per day and impacted global politics. It's time you moved beyond the cartoon birdie. Here's three takes on a new Twitter logo.

Happy fifth birthday, Twitter! While five years seems like a blink of an eye, in the world of social media, you're a mature adult now. And you're ranked as one of the ten most visited websites worldwide by web traffic analyst Alexa. Your meteoric rise can be measured by comparing the measly 400,000 tweets per quarter in 2007 to today's average of over 140 million tweets per day--nothing to chirp at.

So it's way past the time for you to grow up as a brand. In other words, how about presenting a more appropriate image that reflects your current status? The following are just a few suggestions of how we think you should toast your fifth year as a media heavy.

This streamlined execution of the current bird icon speaks to the simplicity and user-friendliness inherent in the brand's DNA. The short, straight "chirp" lines signify a quick and direct way to communicate within the 140-character limit that the brand personifies. In addition, the simplicity of this icon allows it to be universally accepted around the globe, thus helping with international expansion and adaptation.

This incremental evolution of the wordmark preserves the brand equity of the logo but adds a new dimension of an animated "E," which is then transformed into the chirping icon. An added benefit is that it can act as a mnemonic device, becoming the hallmark of quick and easy communication--the equivalent of the Nike Swoosh for social media. When paired with a name or another logo, it can serve as an indicator of accessibility/Tweetability.

The amalgamation of the wings from the current bird (stylized to look more lifelike) and Twitter's famous thought bubble crystallizes the notion that Twitter is about communication, connection, and dialogue. This logo dispels the notion that Twitter is just about saying the first thing that pops into your head, and serves as a great mnemonic device for how Twitter takes your thoughts and shares them with your followers. The modified wordmark melds the "w" and "i" and connects the two "t"s for a streamlined mark that furthers the idea of touching and connecting.

Rick Barrack is the Chief Creative Officer/Partner at CBX and one of its founding partners. As lead creative he is responsible for inspiring, directing and motivating the creative teams to develop powerful design solutions. Barrack has close to 20 years of experience in corporate identity and consumer brand identity design. He has led major design initiatives for companies such as IBM, Hewlett Packard, Petro-Canada, ExxonMobil, Johnson & Johnson, and Del Monte Foods. Prior to creating CBX, Barrack was a Senior Design Director at FutureBrand and Design Director at LPK. [www.cbxblog.com]


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App week: Apple hikes UK iPhone App Store prices

Facebook for Every Phone app launched
Owners of old-style Nokia handsets, INQ phones and other App Store-less devices must feel a bit left out when reading this round-up each week. Well here's some good news for y'all; Facebook for Every Phone was launched by the social networking giant this week, which brings the features of the iOS-app to over 2,500 app-deprived handsets.


iPhone app news: CoPilot Live Premium arrives
Co-Pilot has updated its popular iPhone navigation app by giving you more control over your preferred route. The Live Premium app will now present three different options to reach your destination and enables you to drag and drop your route onto different roads. At the moment it's only half price too.

Android app news: Official Scrabble app arrives
iPhone and Android handset owners can now clash on the official Scrabble board, following the launch of the app on the Google-based platform. Cross platform gaming is among the features, meaning you can tackle your buddies on Facebook also. Best of all for Android fans, the app is ad-funded and hence free.

 

iPhone app news: Apple gives us an unpleasant 69
Apple has increased the price of apps by 17 per cent for UK users. Without explanation Apple will now charge British users of the App Store 69p for the lowest price apps, instead of the usual 59p. The prices in the US remain the same, whereas folks down under actually saw a price cut!

 

BlackBerry app news: RIM announces 1 billionth download
It's not very often the folks at RIM get to celebrate much these days, but this week the company announced the 1 billionth BlackBerry app download. Apple is currently at around the 15 billion mark, while Google can boast 4.5m downloads from the Android Market, but that's beside the point. Well, no it isn't really, but still. Yay RIM!

 

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App of the Year | Vote in the T3 Gadget Awards 2011
Is GarageBand the best app of 2011? Or can Flipboad, Star Walk or the other nominees take the title
Vote for App of the Year | GarageBand for iPad review| Flipboard for iPad rated

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APP REVIEWS FROM THE T3 APP CHART

Windows Phone 7: Check out the best WP7 apps
Microsoft's new mobile OS may not have set the world on fire in 2011, but the App Store is beginning to mount a decent challenge to the big players. Each week on the T3 App Chart we review three new WP7 apps each week, so check out the reasons you might consider a switch from Android or iPod. Best Windows Phone apps

 

Nokia app review: The Guardian
After successfully attempting to bring down the News of the World, there's no hotter media property than the Guardian at the moment. So it's a good time to check out the five star Guardian for Nokia phones app. Our reviewer says it's one of the best-looking and most functional newspaper apps to appear on Nokia yet. Check out the review.

 

Android app review: Crazy Snowboard
The key to this brilliant extreme sports adventure is its simplicity. Crazy Snowboard for Android is a beautifully designed game, with all the tricks you'd expect from a Tony Hawk game, but without the constant wipeouts and panicking about your landing. It's one of the best games available on Android.


 

 


Posted by Chris Smith

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RIM may have a BlackBerry Messenger music app in the works

RIM may be working on a social music app that uses BlackBerry Messenger to share songs between friends.

The app, which may launch soon after BlackBerry App World 3.0 is officially released, is said to be named BBM Music and will come loaded on all new devices.

BBMers will be able to share songs and music playlists with their contacts, while RIM will also offer a music library of its own. Songs will be downloaded directly to the BlackBerry handset through the standalone app.

The hills are alive

For a subscription fee of around �3 a month ($5), BlackBerry users will be able to send and receive 50 songs every month.

RIM has promised that it has seven BlackBerry handsets waiting in the wings, and will be keen to make their messaging service an ever more attractive proposition now that Apple has gone and aped it with iMessage in iOS 5.

With most phone OS owners looking to find a way into cloud music storage, this could be RIM's main take on the trend; but will 50 songs a month keep the digital generation happy?

The rumour comes from an anonymous source talking to NerdBerry.net ? while we haven't reported on any rumours from the site before, it's a well known fact that RIM is looking to social and hoping to incorporate BBM into as many other features as possible, so we'd say this rumour could well turn out to be true.

rumour meter



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Saturday, July 16, 2011

ipad vs kindle

Last trip we took our MacBook Air which was great but not being able to charge it from the bike was a PITA.
So we brought an iPad for the next trip...

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07.12.2011 | Inc.com Daily

Turntable.fm heats up, American unemployment rates, Foursquare rolls out new daily deals, and more.

A music start-up generates massive feedback. The New York Times takes a look at Turntable.fm, a hot start-up that's used the power of exclusivity to attract hordes of D.J.-ing users.

A patent firm takes on the big guys. TechCrunch reports that Intellectual Ventures is suing a slew of corporations including Dell, Best Buy, and Walmart over patent infringement.

A bleak picture of unemployment in America. The recent jobs report showed a sluggish return from the recession, but this chart from The Atlantic reveals a downright depressing figure: just 58 percent of American adults are employed.

Foursquare's new plan at generating revenue. And yes, it has to do with daily deals. According to The Wall Street Journal, Foursquare is teaming up with sites like LivingSocial, Gilt, and (maybe) Groupon.

Where art and entrepreneurship collide. The Brooklyn-based Speak Easy series, hosted by journalist Cara Cannella, "connects bold artists and entrepreneurs with local audiences." Tickets for tonight's conversation with the founders of the Brooklyn Winery can be purchased here.

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