Be sure to check out the scooters as well as the Community Rides section.

VespaUSA.com

A few of the first press articles:

Creativity Online

ClickZ

Media Post

How Magazine

Speed TV

Alternative Consumer

Tree Nation

Motorcycle.com

I believe that one of the highest accolades must be for a creative agency or design company to ask us to conceive, design and produce their website. This is no more pronounced than in this instance. McCann Ericksons New York business has been a client/partner of ours over the last year or so and being asked to develop ideas for their portfolio web site left us speechless. The process was not straightforward though. The ideas we conceived with creative partner SuperFad were ambitious - at the time, were had no higher option in technology that Flash 8 and attempted to build a 3D site using the ActionScript 2 programming platform. The first version was good but wasn’t a 100% match for our capabilities or the quality of work produced by McCann New York. Without approval of any budgets, we decided to experiment with AS3 in conjunction with the PaperVision3D engine. During that time, Flash 9 / AS3 gained acceptable user penetration and when we presented our experiments - basically a fully redeveloped site - McCann were blown away. Budgets were quickly approved and with some final design direction from the Agency we were done.

Total development time was fraction of that in AS2 - further evidence that whilst AS3 and PaperVision3D demands a higher level of programming skill, it remains a more efficient development tool for spatial Flash projects, whilst providing vastly improved site performance and lower processor draw.

The site displays floating assets representing a selection of McCann NY’s creative output. Rolling over these thumbnails draws connections between related assets, Selecting one will bring that family into a new layout. A further selection will play/preview that piece. In the bottom left, you can select work by media or client and drill down to specific works. IN the top right, you can change the display configurations from random to a grid arrangement and also toggle to and from full screen mode.

Enjoy the site by clicking here: McCann NY

I had the intense pleasure of visiting the beautiful Brooklyn Museum this past weekend and attending the Gilbert & George exhibition. If you don’t know who they are, or much about they’re work I strongly suggest you go along. This is their first international tour in more than 20 years and is as dramatic, emotional, subversive and as provocative as ever. The duo’s work is definitely unique and tackles (rather brutally at times) themes such as faith, religion, sexuality, superstition, race and identity, urban life, terrorism and AIDS related loss.

My personal reaction, whether I liked a particular piece or not, was profound. My particular interest is the approach they employ and the deeply ‘graphics’ style of their work and the high level of engagement with the visitor - something I feel is very difficult to achieve in a static, passive medium such as this. Perhaps some lessons to be learned here while applying to digital / interactive design, advertising and marketing campaigns and messaging?

Here’s a great review in the New York Times.

I am getting excited by the imminent arrival of an Apple Newton, and the year is 2008. This is not normal behaviour, I grant you, so let me explain.

A small museum is growing in the London office of Last Exit - mainly mobile phones, Apple Laptops and iPods - to which I dream of adding some of the earliest Macs - from the 128k through an SE to a Colour Classic. It was while researching these on eBay that I stumbled upon some Apple Newtons. For some reason they have never really been on my radar - but looking back I am not sure why? But they are on my radar now and beeping loudly.

Whatever you may dislike about the Internet I defy you to say that eBay and Wikipedia are not wonderful. eBay has an early Apple MessagePad 100 for sale, complete with box and all the toys, meanwhile Wikipedia tells me all about them. It didn’t surprise me to learn whilst reading the Wiki that the creators of this early Apple user interface went on to found Pixo, the firm that developed the iPod interface. What did surprise me was reading the results of a 2006 comparison test between a 1997 Newton and a 2006 Samsung’s Q1 PDA running Windows mobile. The Newton, by then nearly a decade old, won. That is impressive.

As for that Newton, it might just fill the size gap between my MacBook Pro and my iPhone, and it will be just the job for note taking in meetings. In other words, it is not going into the museum when it arrives but back into service.

If you happen to be a client, looking for a new media agency (and we are experts in some modern things, too - like Papervision 3D) then please feel free to request a meeting and I’ll bring it along.

I think I need an ethernet card for it next… I’ll let you know how I get on.

The country boys commute

Here I am among the steel and concrete mountains rising way up to the heavens and closing in on me all around, the sound of thousands of feet scratching, scampering and scrabbling is prominent as the rat race gains momentum… not like a babbling brook but a cataclysmic flood of souls relentlessly rushing through the tight winding streets of the city… As I become wiry of fighting against the tide it becomes apparent to me that I am part of this periodic, humdrum, tiresome migration.

According to latest reports from Cisco, video currently generates more traffic in the US than was transmitted across the entire Internet backbone in 2000. Even though video online collapsed for a short while after the internet bubble burst, the technology, bandwidth and desire to watch video online has bounced right back and this time, it’s no bubble.

Additional research is showing that people, and in particular, young men, are moving their entertainment centers to their computers and watching content online: what they want, when they want it. Along with the heightened experience, data shows that users/viewers are watching longer segments than before, further enforcing the idea that the computer is fast becoming a viable and desirable entertainment device. Interestingly, these migrants from TV to internet are much more accepting of inline ads (pre-roll, mid-roll, post-roll).

Content developers and other people involved i the traditional TV industry still argue against the ‘a la carte model’ and online remains to poor cousin. Despite of lower quality compression for online, people are voting with their feet and marching straight to their computers to watch only the (quality) shows they want to watch at time that suit them.

In my opinion, the advertising opportunities are far great here as we can truly create a targeted ad model against a medium that affords us 100% accountability. What’s not to love, eh?

Rather than preaching about why computers, internet and pay per view / a la carte are the future, I want to redirect my observations and questions to the delivery mechanisms themselves and the skill behind programming. For me, there are two things that must carry over from TV to our smaller screens:

1. Programming: I truly believe that web 2.0 has forgotten an important part of passive viewing, listening. We watch TV and used to listen to radio because we trusted the presenters, programmers, DJs to introduce us to something we might not have found by ourselves or via our peer groups. We need to re-introduce an element of programming and taste along with the content we create. Portals such as YouTube are good at what they do, but a vast majority of users only ever view content that is sent to them by the (much smaller) group of people who create or crawl. So much of YouTube’s audience is highly ephemeral and the related videos stream manages to capture the casual user for, perhaps, one more viewing.

My assertion here is that we need to find a new device for keeping people at the new sites/entertainment portals we create and the first part of this is a new approach to programming, perhaps though targeted content based on user profiles/behaviour. Pretty similar to how traditional programming is currently done on TV.

2. Interface Design: in response to this new targeted content, advertising and programming model we need to develop new GUIs for watching video that allow people to interact with the device in a simplified, more linear fashion. We still need to offer tools for customization, search, sharing etc. for the smaller percentage of more active people, but we must identify the elements that will keep people viewing longer and enjoy the experience more.

Apple does their part with the constant development of video codecs and even adobe with their Flash video platform is coming on leaps and bounds in terms of higher quality whilst maintaining, seemingly unfeasible, small file sizes. HD content is cropping up more and more to make our high pixel density screens sing and 5.1 surround sound is a reality. So, for 2009 I think we need to see video line take a different path to the less effective web 2.0 approaches we’ve seen so far.

Brilliant though Google and other search engines are at bringing some level of sense and order to the billions of web pages out there, they all still rely almost completely on our ability to look for something in the right way. Keywords are really that - KEY!

Luckily as the amount of content online grows so does the average level of skill of people using search engines. Two years ago the average number of keywords entered into Google’s search field was not much more than 1.5, today it is more like 3.0. We are being more specific when we search which is a good thing - finding a million or more results is hardly a badge of honour now is it?

In spite of this there remains the ‘Did you mean?‘ problem or the ‘Did we mean?‘ problem as I would describe it.

As an agency advising our clients on SEO or search engine optimisation one of the toughest tasks is convincing businesses to think like customers and ensure the way they write about themselves online does likewise. By all means ‘build it’ but they won’t be coming unless the way you talk matches the way they search!

Take Last Exit and PaperVision for example. We are a Papervision3D agency and would like to be found as such when potential clients search for this kind of service online. Because PaperVision is a new technology however the challenge is to make sure we talk about it in the right ways. The correct description for this Flash plug-in is PaperVision3D but a quick check within Google’s Adwords Keyword Tool reveals a whole host of ways people are looking for it - papervision 3d, paper vision 3d or even pay per vision 3d are all commonly used. 

This wouldn’t be a problem but as I say above search engines rely on keywords in a very exact way. Try it yourself - a query of ‘paper vision 3d agency‘ will deliver very different results to one of ‘papervision3d agency‘ regardless of the fact both may be intended to find an agency supplying PaperVision3D.

Granted this all sounds very anal indeed but the truth is that Google and the other search engines are very anal indeed! Words, and the exact way they are used, are all they have to go on when routing that important query of yours to a handful of those 3 billion web pages!

The solution is writing for the web, making frequent reference to important keywords, and writing like the customers you want to attract would ask for you.

The solution is really not rocket-science, or should that be rocket science!

papervision3d - paper vision 3d

I have to admit that I had become more than a little tired of the use of Flash online over the last 10 years or so.

Deepend, the original business I launched back in the mid 90s, was a huge fan and follower of Flash. In fact many of the creative awards we were fortunate enough to win in those days were for client website projects built using this technology - launch of the Volkswagen New Beetle into the UK market, creation of the first online presence for Terence Conran’s Design Museum in London, delivery of an aggressive challenge to James Dyson’s vacuum cleaner products for multi-national electronics business Hoover, as well as a wide range of projects for broadcasters like the BBC and Cartoon Network.

What was becoming clear though was the danger of over-indulgence, and I started to ask myself if the ‘whizz-bang’ impact delivered by some of these Flash experiences might be getting in the way of the client messages as opposed to amplifying them?  I began to suspect many of these sites were becoming a bit of a task or challenge to use as opposed to guiding the visitor from query to answer as they were initially intended. Most worryingly I started to suspect that our business might be using client projects to showcase individual designers’ wish-lists as opposed to thinking like end-users as we had always done before to build our success as a client’s digital partner.

I had seen many extensions to Flash like Swift 3D make their mark and then seemingly lose favour since the days when Flash alone was news-worthy. When I saw Paper Vision 3D in action (or Pay Per Vision 3D as I first understood it!) I found myself falling in love with Flash all over again!

At Last Exit, we have quickly become huge fans of this open source development in the world of Flash technologies, and feel that PaperVision might be finally delivering on the promise made by Flash back in the mid 1990s!

So, why is a seasoned cynic like myself thinking like this about what is seemingly an incremental addition to the Flash plug-in armoury?

Some of the key reasons are driven by the ability PaperVision3D has to offer:

• Significantly improved levels of end-user-interaction within a delivered website
• Fluid and intuitive styles of animation and motion whatever the task at hand
• Realistic 3D visualisation and environments including elements such as depth-cueing that were normally reserved for ‘proper’ local 3D applications
• Open source technology advantages when it comes to development and innovation
• Technical speed and agility within play-back - for example the handling of large numbers of media assets without any obvious end-user experience degradation
• Relatively seamless integration within Adode Flash making the development process very effective and efficient
• A significant step forward from what went before in terms of perception - providing that ‘wow factor’ for website end-users
• Ability to provide a genuine web 2.0 level graphical experience engaging even the most jaded site visitors
• PaperVision3D also provides fresh levels of inspiration and opportunity for web designers encouraging new ground to be broken within client tasks

This last argument is clearly an internal as opposed to an external one for any digital design agency, however it is so important that a team of designers feels inspired and engaged by any new project, and PaperVision3D provides this fresh impetus.

Aside from campaign-oriented work, our agency focuses on the CMS or content management of new client websites, making sure any new project is disability and discrimination act optimized, as well as built for the best level of search engine optimisation or SEO. These things are undoubtably important, but they are harder to argue as motivational elements when it comes to putting the same brief to an internal studio team of designers and developers, and are unlikely to lift the end result above the norm. Paper Vision 3D is both the new client and industry buzz word and I am certain this can only be a good thing for both parties!

Sure we face some challenges as an agency when developing iPhone applications given that Apple has still not found a way of supporting Adobe Flash, no matter PaperVision3D. And it would be a lie to say that every client brief that lands on our respective desks in Last Exit London and Last Exit New York is absolutely ideal for PaperVision. There are also limitations from both an SEO (and specifically Google search optimization) perspective with a PaperVision3D delivered user experience.

The fact remains however that, in my humble opinion, there are bigger issues at hand.

PaperVision provides fresh energy to the most exciting and user-engaging technology ever offered by the World Wide Web. Not only does it offer a level of user-engagement and entertainment not seen since the late 1990s - it turbo-charges the inspiration and creativity of both designers and developers working within the digital industry.

Given the ups and downs the digital industry has experienced over it’s short 15 year life I think it is fair to say that any fresh injection of enthusiasm is very very welcome indeed. I think a seemingly insignificant, open-source, non-commercial, well-meaning, incremental Flash plug-in like PaperVision3D could well be one thing to make a big difference in the digital near-future.

Some stores such as Staples, are offering kiosks where shoppers can peruse their websites and garner product information and reviews. The opportunity this offers is an ‘infinite aisle’, where shoppers are exposed to the stores full inventory regardless of what the store might currently have n stock. In response to this, it’s interesting to note that loss of sales to competitors due to stockouts measures $93 billion in 2008. Two reasons to have kiosks in store: 1) offer more information and empower your customers and 2) avoid losing customers.

The question this beckons is whether response policies, particularly regarding shipping and handling, need to be in place to ensure that custom is not lost, even with the ‘infinite aisle’ and, perhaps perhaps more importantly, whether retailers should consider how their website are planned and designed to allow easy or even seamless transition to an in-store kiosk application environment. The users extended cognitive architecture is completely different in this situation and as we research the psychographics as part of determining site strategy, instore browsing and researching probably should be properly taken into account.

The headline article in today’s AdAge looks at how car dealerships are utilizing video. It focuses on one particular dealership who has created a nice little (viral) video espousing the concept of transparency and honesty. Hold on, a car dealership saying it’s honest? It might take more than a highly staged video to convince us of that, but nevertheless the event is interesting to me on a number of levels:

1. The accessibility of video: largely thanks to Apple, video creation tools (both hardware and software) professional video creation can meet almost any budget. Of course this depends on your expectation and demands for quality. Distribution tools such as YouTube also offer access to a broad audience, if the content is good enough. Imagine spending $50k on a video and reaching a million people without any additional media spend. Amazing (potentially). Added to this, the fact that the spend is easily measured and analyzed.

2. Increasing the effectiveness of your website: according to Larry Pryg , national marketing and ad manager for General Motors Corps, certified-used-auto business, websites with video are twice as likely to general calls or emails from shoppers to dealers.

Of course, this video has to be engaging and entertaining and, most importantly in my opinion, demonstrate utility; it’s got to be informative, useful and empower the viewer to make intelligent qualified decisions - hopefully quick ones that result in check writing etc. Many dealers still just re-purpose TV commercials, which is OK, as many car ads are stil among the best (most entertaining and well produced) but, of course, there’s an opportunity with the online space and a great expectation of users to offer more interaction and information.

3. Transparency: the main ad this article references from the Clay Corp in Norwood, Mass, attempts to offer transparency and honestly by explaining the typical ways (other) car dealers try to screw you over. Ever since Naomi Klein wrote ‘No Logo’ in 2000 I’ve been convinced by the idea of discussion between a brand and it’s audience/customers, rather than the old industrialist approach of preaching brand values from a well staged, er stage. This video doesn’t really embody that notion completely but we feel that it’s vital to empower our clients with the knowledge to make the right decisions regarding digital agencies. So in that vein, we’ve created short documents explaining how to look for and how to buy digital services such as SEO - a practice that is still largely shrouded in smoke and mirrors.

The comparison I’m making here is a potential one: that many agencies, especially digital agencies are already building reputations as charlatans and spinning a web of confusing processes, technologies and TLAs (three letter acronyms). Time to get undresses, and bare all I reckon.