SensoryMetrics

With Trendistic you can monitor keyword tweet trends over a period of time. Very much unlike true time travel, Trendistic is far more like a machine that counts every time someone tweets keywords, plus it notes the time that the keywords occurred.

Who knows, maybe there’s some pattern to the trends that will enable you to predict future trends.  (wasn’t there a movie about this?)

---

Trendistic indicates that 17 hours ago there were tweet trends for the keywords ‘twitter hacked’ by a total of 0.79% [of all twitter users] *.  This trend lasted for less than an hour and quickly died out.  Um, yeah, helpful info eh?  Well, it could be if you’re monitoring the buzz for a certain set of keywords over a period of time and you don’t want to be counting every tweet by hand.

So here is my favourite iApp for 2009 – Brian Eno’s Trope. Try thinking of nothing. Blissful empty space. There’s an app for that. As some of you know Brian Eno has been a master of minimalist ambient soundscapes for 4 decades. One of my favourite albums is Another Green World. The minimalist part comes perhaps from his full name ‘Brian Peter George St. John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno’. That would be a really bad Twitter name!

Trope is best described as interactive aural yoga. Strokes on the screen build the composition. I use Trope when writing – it’s a background. When the urge hits, I hit the screen to create a more frenetic sound.

What was your favourite app this year?

Thinking of revamping your website’s colour palette? From the geniuses at Pantone, the colour to be next year is PANTONE 15-5519. AKA Turquoise. Rhymes with noise. Unbelievably, this warranted a press release! According to Leatrice Eiseman, executive director of the Pantone Color Institute®.

“It is believed to be a protective talisman, a color of deep compassion and healing, and a color of faith and truth, inspired by water and sky. Through years of color word-association studies, we also find that Turquoise represents an escape to many – taking them to a tropical paradise that is pleasant and inviting, even if only a fantasy.”

Tropical paradise? Hardly. When I think of turquoise I try to control a gag reflex. I think of old Chrysler K cars. I always wondered what made people buy turquoise cars? I also think of Hillary Clinton who spent much of 2008 parading around in turquoise pantsuits. On sale at Winners, presumably.

Ages ago we wrote about the wonder of a little java app called Wordle – which creates stylized word clouds from text or urls. This year we got the idea to use Wordle to create a family game for our upcoming Christmas gathering. Simply search the lyrics of your favourite xmas tunes and create Wordle clouds for each. Print them out individually and number them. Have people guess the name of the song from the wordled lyrics! BTW, ‘wordled’ is not YET a word in the Urban Dictionary…

Today’s feature Apple patent application is number 20090292993:

Graphical User Interface Having Sound Effects For Operating Control Elements and Dragging Objects

Abstract
Systems and methods for providing an enhanced auditory behavior to a graphical user interface are described. Control elements portrayed by the graphical user interface on a display are associated with at least two states. When transitioning between states, a sound effect specified for that transition can be provided to provide further user or designer customization of the interface appearance. Movement of objects can be accompanied by a repeated sound effect. Characteristics of both sound effects can be easily adjusted in volume, pitch and frequency.

As annoying as this sounds in an iPod, imagine how annoying Microsoft will make it for the Zune??? {shiver}

Fade to black. Cue sound effects. Blurrrp.

Update: Google Wave is dead.

Ok, so Wave is either the ultimate replacement for email or just a new tool to use for communication; not that different from instant messaging, Skype or Facebook.

Truth is it depends on what you use your email for. If you like writing emails now, you will no doubt continue on using email. On the other hand if you’re using email to work with several people at the same time, thank God for Google Wave. This new generation of email protocols will cut the back and forth and multi-copy-hell that you might be currently facing especially if you message more than one person at a time. Hun?
What I’m saying, is that if you just email back and forth with one person, email works, for the most part, but even then, how many emails fly back and forth? Did you catch them all? Did you remember that one about the important deadline? Well, fret no more, as Google Wave is about to change the email messaging paradigm.

With Wave, emails are transformed into living conversations that are updated. Ok, now is the time to stop thinking ‘email’. Email is no more. Google Wave is a targeted bulletin board. You put your message up and you either get a reply or someone can add to your message or they can even delete it. If you’re thinking this is chaos, you’re absolutely right! It’s chaos, it’s mayhem, it’s better than what’s in your email inbox right now.
There’s really no sense guesstimating how Wave will impact our lives. It simply will and I wish I already had it.
Whether or not Wave is for you depends on what you’re currently using your email for. Ok, I’m repeating myself  or did I? Who can keep track of these long threads? Just get to the point! With Google Wave the point is the content that is created by the participants. Have a thought to express? Put it down in a Wave and see if it grows into a full fledged argument or a collaborative experience that is both weird and wonderful.

Um, email will never die.

Everyone knows Kraft is a food powerhouse. It’s very media savvy. It’s also very innovative with its social media marketing campaigns.

The Lunch Notes Promise is absolutely tear-jerking brilliance. From the Lunchables site, a parent creates a note intended for their child’s lunchbox. Something like “You’ll do great at show and tell” or ” Hope you behave yourself during detention” or “good luk on yur speling test taday”. That kind of thing. For every note created, Kraft donates one Lunchable to a school lunch program. You also get a buck off your next Lunchable.

This is being propagated via Twitter and Facebook. As I write this, nearly 50k have pledged – still early on going viral! BTW – marketing should go viral, not lunch meat. (Are you listening Maple Leaf?)

When a product is poorly designed or conceived, online consumer reviews shoot to the heart of the issues. A couple years ago, we highlighted the rage erupting on Amazon’s review pages towards fake-psychologist-hack-author Cooper Lawrence.

If Amazon had “trending topics” for its review section, the item listed as a Laptop Steering Wheel Desk would be top ranked this week! It’s a viral sensation: Funny People Against Driving Distractions. The product deserves the attention – the $25 “desktop” hooks onto your steering wheel to form a stand for your laptop. Dumb idea.

Many reviewers saw the Steering Wheel Desk as much more:

I loved my Laptop Steering Wheel Desk so much I got one for my 90yr old mother. She is an avid crossword puzzle fan and now she can work on them while she is driving back and forth from bingo at the senior center.

I use this a lot when Im putting on my makeup, it allows me to keep my makeup, hair scrunchies, sceperate mirror, in front of me and easyly accesable to my tmobile to text my gay friend steve about which club we are going to at night, all while im driving.

I can’t say enough good things about this product. Now I can do all that from my laptop, plus do other stuff like videoconference and download LOLcat pictures.

It’s hard to change a diaper with one hand while driving. You often end up with… well… lets just say it’s hard to have enough hand sanitizer in your cupholder to make it tolerable. This table makes it easy.

I collect bobble-heads, got ‘em all over my dashboard and behind the back seat — but I had run out of space to add my latest bobble-head additions to my amazingly decorated car! Where could I put my “Barack O-Bobble”? How would I display my “Jonas Bobbles”?

I did take off two stars because it does have some drawbacks: Not enough color choices. So the color match with my black thinkpad is really off, people constantly stare at me when I’m driving and I think that’s the reason.

OK – so you’re the distributor. How do you respond to this??