An Accidental Marketer

Observations. Opinions. Oddities.

1,128 notes

npr: I came across this incredible virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel today. It’s from 2010 and presents an amazing (and tourist free) look inside the building. To create the 365-degree view, a team from Villanova University was given unprecedented access to the chapel over five nights to compile the necessary images.  According to the university’s press release, “several thousand photographs were taken with an advances motorize camera right and then digitally stitched together”. The result is a stunning high-resolution tour of one of the world’s most famous buildings. The building was consecrated on August 15, 1483 and named after Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere. It wasn’t until 1508, however, that Michelangoelo was tasked with painting the now famous ceiling. According to the Vatican’s website, he finished it in 1512. Take some time and discover this amazing piece of history. —Savy

npr:

I came across this incredible virtual tour of the Sistine Chapel today. It’s from 2010 and presents an amazing (and tourist free) look inside the building.

To create the 365-degree view, a team from Villanova University was given unprecedented access to the chapel over five nights to compile the necessary images.  According to the university’s press release, “several thousand photographs were taken with an advances motorize camera right and then digitally stitched together”. The result is a stunning high-resolution tour of one of the world’s most famous buildings.

The building was consecrated on August 15, 1483 and named after Pope Sixtus IV della Rovere. It wasn’t until 1508, however, that Michelangoelo was tasked with painting the now famous ceiling. According to the Vatican’s website, he finished it in 1512.

Take some time and discover this amazing piece of history.

—Savy

81 notes

smarterplanet: Aurasma Virtual Browser and virtual world hands-on — Engadget Watching Aurasma in action is very impressive, it is tech that looks like magic. Aurasma is software that picks out objects, shapes, symbols — which are called triggers — with its Virtual Browser and understands what they are. Once the trigger is recognized, relevant content gets pushed across to the user using enhanced reality. For example, we have a look at a $20 bill during our demo and the bill in the phone display starts to deconstruct ending in some pretty serious rah rah sis boom bah. Aurasma is getting traction in advertising and we can only see this growing, it is really addictive fun. Users can grab the app free on either iOS or Android — another mobile platform is coming with a name that doesn’t rhyme with BlackBerry — and get playing and creating. Aurasma also has a pro version — also free — with much more serious development tours for folks that really want to stretch its boundaries. Aurasma has been around for a while now but this is the first chance we’ve had a demo and we were very impressed. Click through to see money do crazy things and a Harry Potter poster come to life.

smarterplanet:

Aurasma Virtual Browser and virtual world hands-on — Engadget

Watching Aurasma in action is very impressive, it is tech that looks like magic. Aurasma is software that picks out objects, shapes, symbols — which are called triggers — with its Virtual Browser and understands what they are. Once the trigger is recognized, relevant content gets pushed across to the user using enhanced reality. For example, we have a look at a $20 bill during our demo and the bill in the phone display starts to deconstruct ending in some pretty serious rah rah sis boom bah. Aurasma is getting traction in advertising and we can only see this growing, it is really addictive fun. Users can grab the app free on either iOS or Android — another mobile platform is coming with a name that doesn’t rhyme with BlackBerry — and get playing and creating. Aurasma also has a pro version — also free — with much more serious development tours for folks that really want to stretch its boundaries. Aurasma has been around for a while now but this is the first chance we’ve had a demo and we were very impressed. Click through to see money do crazy things and a Harry Potter poster come to life.

(via emergentfutures)

35 notes

Amazon's Cloud Search

parislemon:

This has the potential to be massive. And make no mistake, it’s a shot right at Google, just from the other direction. What if the future of search isn’t web search, but data search (which includes web and native apps). 

The Amazon/Google rivalry is quickly shaping up to be more intense than the Apple/Google rivalry.

Good scoop by Sarah Lacy. Undoubtedly the first of many.

30 notes

emergentfutures: Levi’s uses Instagram to crowdsource stars of next campaign Levi’s is to launch a global casting call for its 2012 brand campaign using photo-sharing app Instagram. The brand is testing out crowdsourcing via the app, which now has 15m users and recently saw US President Barack Obama sign up. Full Story: econsultancy I am so out of a job.

emergentfutures:

Levi’s uses Instagram to crowdsource stars of next campaign


Levi’s is to launch a global casting call for its 2012 brand campaign using photo-sharing app Instagram.

The brand is testing out crowdsourcing via the app, which now has 15m users and recently saw US President Barack Obama sign up.

Full Story: econsultancy

I am so out of a job.

40 notes

Ageism in the entrepreneurial community is a fairly recent development. Vivek Wadhwa points out that Ben Franklin discovered electricity at 46 and invented bifocals after age 70, Sam Walton built Walmart in his mid-40s and Ray Kroc built McDonald’s in his early 50s. Wadhwa finds it ironic Silicon Valley may scorn boomers, while its very icon of innovation, Steve Jobs, introduced the iMac, iTunes, iPod, iPhone and iPad all after age 45. “When he was young, he got kicked out of Apple,” and some of his greatest innovations came “with age and maturity,” Wadhwa says.
Boomers Who Start Businesses: The Next Great Generation Of Entrepreneurs (via courtenaybird)

Here’s one for my friends at Critical Mass.

(via emergentfutures)

15 notes

As the mainstream media ignored us, we learned from other leaderless resistance movements in places like Tunisia, Egypt, and Iran to use social media and live video streaming to spread our message. We are part of a global movement that has radically democratized how information is created and shared, rendering centralized, corporate-funded mainstream media increasingly irrelevant
2011: A Year in Revolt | OccupyWallSt.org (via mediafuturist)

(via emergentfutures)

16 notes

Social media in the 16th Century: How Luther went viral

infoneer-pulse:

IT IS a familiar-sounding tale: after decades of simmering discontent a new form of media gives opponents of an authoritarian regime a way to express their views, register their solidarity and co-ordinate their actions. The protesters’ message spreads virally through social networks, making it impossible to suppress and highlighting the extent of public support for revolution. The combination of improved publishing technology and social networks is a catalyst for social change where previous efforts had failed.

That’s what happened in the Arab spring. It’s also what happened during the Reformation, nearly 500 years ago, when Martin Luther and his allies took the new media of their day—pamphlets, ballads and woodcuts—and circulated them through social networks to promote their message of religious reform.

Scholars have long debated the relative importance of printed media, oral transmission and images in rallying popular support for the Reformation. Some have championed the central role of printing, a relatively new technology at the time. Opponents of this view emphasise the importance of preaching and other forms of oral transmission. More recently historians have highlighted the role of media as a means of social signalling and co-ordinating public opinion in the Reformation.

Now the internet offers a new perspective on this long-running debate, namely that the important factor was not the printing press itself (which had been around since the 1450s), but the wider system of media sharing along social networks—what is called “social media” today. Luther, like the Arab revolutionaries, grasped the dynamics of this new media environment very quickly, and saw how it could spread his message.

» via Economist