DJ together with turntable.fm

Great fun this thing, and one of these “Wow, internet!” moments: On turntable.fm you can enter a room and play songs to each other, like 5 djs playing back to back, and it’s designed like a little club. I just stumbled into a session by Numblog and this is what it looks like:

Hop behind the dj booth when there is a free space. You can search for tracks in a database and select it to your playlist. The djs play on from left to right and when you’re on, the song from top of your playlist is played next. Everybody in the room can click “awesome” and the avatar starts dancing. If enough people push “lame”, the next dj is on. Simple idea, well done, playful interface, like I said: great fun!

And there was this great moment also when one of he founders Seth Goldstein entered the room to see if everything was ok. We clapped his shoulder, congrats to turntable.fm, made some wishes (export playlist, real mixing) and let him step up to play one song. “Soldier” by DJ Cadim it was. Good luck, Seth and turntable.fm!

Thank you for showing me some music in a great session with Barbnerdy, Saetchmo, Silke, Fakir Ayonto, Uwe and others!

Next 2010 summary

Last week I attended the Next conference, here is a personal summary and some reflections. First and overall I really liked next11, it had a good atmosphere and creative feel, interesting audience and I sticky ideas to share.

Of course, the talks and encounters are the most important thing at such an event and it was really a shame I did not have time to talk and chat more with people. Station is a good location, the lectures where in different rooms that all left from a central hall that had the feel of a marketplace and also served as restaurant and party area.

Too bad also I did not take any pictures, the official Flickr does not have images that capture the atmosphere either. The photo is from t3n, who have many more pictures from next11.
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My days at ADC 2011, this week Next

Last weekend I went to the German ADC festival in Frankfurt. The Art Directors club (ADC) awards good ideas and designs from the communications world, from tv ads to magazine design, there is a conference and of course many parties. My expectations were to meet interesting advertising people to talk about how to implement social media in their work and scout some young talents for P3000.

And I really did have some good conversations, everybody was really interested but somehow I had the feeling that there still are a lot of cultural differences between the advertising and the social media world. I’ll explain that in another post. What I actually did not expect so much was to be inspired, I don’t know why, but that actually happened to my joy and surprise. The exhibition was full of nice small and big design and advertising stuff: photos from magazines, print poster campaigns, even some good online stuff and I it was cool to stroll around and let the eye get caught by the vast variety. You can take a look at all the winners here and watch some picture after the break.

Next event I will be attending: Next 2011 I am particularly interested in Peter’s Social track and Nico’s branding day, to bad it’s simultaneous, so I’ll be hopping back and forth supposedly. Continue reading

Testing the Starplayer app

Only two weeks ago, Heineken came out with the Starplayer iPhone app, which lets players estimate situations in Champions league football matches, while watching it on tv. I had the chance to test it from the beginning and I have to say it’s pretty impressive overall. The concept to run a game simultaneously to popular football games and let players worldwide play against each other is as simple as it is genius and the app is very well done. There are few things I did not like so much: 1st) I fail a lot, and I think I am not he only one, so it’s pretty difficult and on the edge on being demotivating. 2nd) it takes a lot of energy, the phone is almost empty after a match and 3rd) there are some minor usability flaws, like images that look clickable but aren’t. Here are some screenshots and explanations:
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Deep88 feat The Huge – Italo82 (Disco Remix)

I like this video! It has a cool relaxed style, some nice city views, a pretty actress (Friederike Kempter) and I like disco, as you know.

The video has a very slim format and is shot entirely on the Canon EOS 550D which gives the whole thing a warm, photographic feel. Shooting with a Canon EOS comes into fashion now, the other day I was interviewed by a tv station team that used that technology, too. The music is easy, good for a summer evening.

Thanks for the tip, Deep88!