What’s the last thing you need a Christmas? Probably lots of things if you think about it, but how about a silly animated GIF for starters. step forward the GIFshop.
Our seasonal stupidity comes in the form of a GIFshop – a place to obtain some of the fairest animated creations this side of ruler bar. You can tweet it, like it, +1 it or even embed it. And if you really like it make a small donation to the charity its supporting. Visitors are also invited to submit their own gifs too.
We’ll match the donations (up to a total of £2000) and announce the winning GIF with much fanfare of course.
Because this Christmas it really is better to GIF than receive.
We also invited a few of the capital’s finest Creative Directors to submit – with all but one strangely declining to get involved – bar humbug. So many thanks to Ed Robinson and Rob at The Viral Factory for providing a few gems.
The whole project was concocted from a blended mixture of suggested ideas from our 5 UK offices to hopefully put a smile on people’s faces. A big shout out to the team that turned it quickly around.
It would seem the animated GIF meme was going strong this festive season with TBWA New York giving the World holidaygifgiver.com with added Chrimbo jumper, and Skittles providing their GIF rap (GifRapTheRainbow.com) courtesy of BBDO Toronto.
So as the line goes this Christmas this really is the GIF that keeps on giving.
Spotify have just announced at a news conference in New York that it will be opening up its platform so that customers can use various apps to enhance their listening experience. The Spotify Apps platform is open for developers and media partners to build apps that will run on Spotify’s desktop application.
The new apps will let you look up song lyrics, find out about gigs and share your musical experiences. At the moment you’ll find apps made by Rolling Stone, the Guardian, Last.fm, Songkick and TuneWiki.
For example the Guardian’s app is going to be all about bringing album reviews from the Guardian and the Observer into Spotify’s service. It will be exciting to see how these two companies’ will work together for a series of live gigs in London.
With Spotify’s launching in the United States this summer and its 2.5 million paying customers it can claim to be the most impressive new technology company to have come out of Europe in the last five years.
The apps will sit within Spotify’s desktop client, with possible extension to mobile in the future. The apps will be available to free and paying users of the service, although for now, developers will not be able to charge for them.
Just a bit of Spotify trivia for you, at the moment it has a catalogue of 15m songs, and roughly 20,000 new tracks are added per day. Which apps will you be using?
Take Google Maps Indoors
Where would we be without Google maps? We all know that Google has spent the better part of the last decade mapping the great outdoors so is it such a surprise that they are going to now conquer the indoor domain?
With the launch of Google Maps 6.0 on Tuesday, users of mobile devices running Android OS 2.1 and up will be able to use Google Maps not just to get directions to an IKEA, Macy’s or one of several airports, but to use the mapping functionality to figure out how to find housewares, ATMs, and your flight gate once you are inside.
Google’s inside mapping will work similarly to how its outside mapping works. A little blue dot will move along with you to show you where you are, and the technology is even able to know what floor you are on.
At the moment the functionality is currently only available for some buildings in America and Japan, and only works on Android mobile phones, Google has already mapped some indoor areas in the UK, for instance for its projects to take people inside art galleries via Google Earth. Keep posted for more indoor locations across the UK.
Burrito Record
On Wednesday 7 December Benito’s Hat is planning a stunt to create the UK’s biggest burrito, which its Facebook fans can then help eat in its restaurant free of charge.
Not only is this a tasty stunt, but it has a charity angle as well. The stunt will help raise money for homeless charities and is also aiming to increase the number of fans on Facebook and bring people into the restaurants.
Benito’s Hat ran a successful campaign last month on Twitter which resulted in a 25% sales boost. They are keen to harness the power of social to not only increase brand awareness, but to drive sales and it looks like it is bringing them results. Check out their Facebook page for details of the event.
For Ramadan this year LBi MENA wants to create some ‘buzz with a benefit’ and they’ve developed a ‘Spirit of Ramadan’ campaign to create awareness around one of the most significant traditions in the UAE which affects millions of Muslims during this Holy 9th month of the year – Ramadan.
You can help them by spreading the word! Follow the @LBiMENA twitter feed or go directly to www.lbicares.com. A large part of the tradition of Ramadan is to give to charity and provide for those less fortunate – they’ve set a goal of 20,000AED to donate to charity – 1 AED for each like, re-tweet or +1 from the website.
That’s a lot of followers! And this is not just any fundraising initiative, there’s a twist! Amy McFarling, Managing Director of LBi MENA (non-Muslim), will be taking up the challenge of giving up things she loves and fasting while the sun is up. Amy will not be alone – she’s supported by Humza Ijaz, Creative Director at LBi MENA (Muslim), and together through their daily twitter conversation on @LBiMENA’s feed, they will provide informative and fun banter around the traditions of Ramadan. As the month progresses, the challenges for Amy will get tougher and tougher…stay tuned for the day she has to walk to work in 45-degree heat! Over the month, they’ll also be looking for ways to open the conversation to participants around the world.
Please support them by contributing your retweet/like/+1!
There is rather a lot of facial hair in the Atlantis Building at the moment as our intrepid supporters have stopped trimming to the top lip in the support of The Prostrate Cancer Charity. Last year the hirsute gentlemen of LBi managed to raise over £2,500 for Movember 2009.
With a selection of styles as witnessed below you can see the team took the task to heart and rather liked sporting the tache.
A decent effort but like our boxing team demonstrated a few weeks back we’re a competitive bunch. So we’re looking to improve on the number and looking for any support the interweb might offer. Any interested Mo Bro and Mo Sistas in joining the Lip Beards International team can sign up at the Movember site.
