And a smoke and a pancake…

InboxQ infographic:  what US cities might be called if named by Twitter users.

via The Next Web
InboxQ – Answer Questions on Twitter

g-speak overview 1828121108 from john underkoffler on Vimeo.

Sorry, I haven’t posted anything in months. I’ve been very busy with research and work related projects. With said, I will start up new conversations soon.  New topics are SEO, online funnel conversation, form field best practices, Social this and Social that, to be or not to be, and gesture based navigation. All cool shit…more to come.

The awesome design thinkers at  IDEO has done it again, exploring new ways to deliver digital media in the physical world. Here their new c60 music platform. This device embed with multiple RFID readers and are connected to the user’s digital music collection. The cardboard RFID tagged music pieces are placed on the platform, the music will start to play. Add more tagged cards to the platform and you start to build your playlist.

Check out the video

Great example of thinking outside the box or in this case, listening outside the box.

Awesome remix of “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” and “Roxanne” by The Police

Wow IBM, My former employer is really doing some cool stuff with live streaming video from center court, using augmented reality overlays telling users where restrooms are. Very interesting indeed. Check it out 2010′s IBM SEER see through the walls.

Everyone is talking about how Google disrupted the workday last Friday by changing their Google logo on the main search page to a playable Pac-Man game. The doodle of the 1980s Namco video game, Mr. Pac-Man and his multi colored ghostly colleagues were back for the 30th Anniversary of the game’s release. As you can see from the screen shot below, I suck at Pac-Man. I think I can consistently complete a few stages but that’s about it. I could not play as a kid (30 some years ago) and looks like I’m carrying on the tradition.

The big score of 7220

I'm a Galaga man.

Mashable.com posted an article about the lost of productivity at the workplace last week. And it seems they were right, the article referenced data from a RescueTime blog post. RescueTime, a time management tool, did the math and determined that Google Pac-Man consumed 4,819,352 hours of time, or $120,483,800 in productivity, according to the Mashable article. Pretty interesting, but really. Those workers were going to Google to search for random crap anyway. Search for stuff to do over the weekend and preparing themselves for the Lost Finale or to watch Bret Michaels win the Apprentice.

I think it’s great that Google has a loose grip on their brand guidelines. Who cares if people spent some time playing around with a game module.  Visitors interacting with a brand! What is that? Some brands should take note. Not only was this a buzz worthy move, it was sticky and viral. Brands  should constantly look for new creative ways to grab their visitor’s attention at the right place, at the right time, in the right voice. Look for ways to form a current and relevant conversation with your customers and site visitors. The rest would fall neatly in place.

So if you haven’t wasted any of your work hours with the Google Pac-Man game, you still have time. Google has preserved the Pac-Man game logo at www.google.com/pacman.

Now it’s time to improve my Pac-Man skills. See ya later.

I found this at logodesignlove.com, a great source for design inspiration and interesting articles on logo design. In this post they link to History of the Batman logo
Here’s a five-part series showing the history of the logo: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

I think Elvis would have made a great Bruce Wayne. Maybe the title of the movie would’ve been something like, Batman Blues or Fun in Gotham City. Just kidding. : )