Mobile Behavior: an Omnicom Group Company

Our mobile phones are becoming a hub for on-the-go digital exploration and data capture, Flee is a product that would expand on this.

Flee, a fun concept from designer Hakan Bogazpinar, is a flying ball with embedded digital camera and bluetooth. When you throw flee it automatically starts taking pictures at defined intervals and sends them to your mobile phone. A great way to get some unique shots.

One MIT student recently sent a camera to outer space via a makeshift weather balloon. Flying Stick Camera is another similar concept. These present another way for us to explore the world around us, our mobile phone acting as an enabler.

[via popwuping]

• Sentiment Analysis Takes the Pulse of the Internet | NYTimes.com
  An emerging field known as sentiment analysis is taking shape around one of the computer world’s unexplored frontiers: translating the vagaries of human emotion into hard data.
• Sharks vs. Cats!! on Tumblr
  The ultimate battle of the memes is going down on Tumblr right now. Users tag posts #shark or #cat to join the fight. 3 days left before the winner is decided.
• Twitter to roll out commercial accounts this year | VentureBeat
  Co-founder Biz Stone said the company is in the first phase of rolling out commercial accounts that will entice business users to pay for premium services like detailed analytics. After that, the company might move into building business-oriented application programming interfaces (APIs), creating a “commercial layer” over the social network.
• A Tall Tale: Did Twitter Really Save Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds”? | AllThingsD
  Earlier this summer, Twitter was blamed for torpedoing movies like “Bruno” and “Funny Business.” Now it is being heralded for giving Quentin Tarantino’s “Inglourious Basterds” a big boost. How much power does the micromessaging service have? Can Twitter save the economy?
• How social media became a weapon in the battle for App Store approval | Mobile Entertainment
  Facing Apple's strict approval process, developers are trying to force their hand by creating an online buzz around apps before they're submitted through blog posts and video demos in particular.
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  The iPhone OS3.1 release will connect the hype of Augmented Reality with the hype of the iPhone, and this list details what any good AR app (any app in general, for that matter) should have.
• CHART OF THE DAY: Twitter's Boom Around The World | Business Insider
  Over the last year, Twitter's traffic has exploded 15X to 44.5 million worldwide unique visitors in June, according to comScore. But Twitter's growth story isn't just limited to the U.S. and North America, where only about half its traffic comes from, according to comScore.
• Personas: Visualizing Your Online Identity | PSFK
  A component of the MIT Media Lab’s “Metropath(olgies)” installation, which looks at the non-stop flow of communication and information in the modern world, Personas delivers a data portrait of your online identity by combining natural language processing and Internet search tools.
• 50 Best Websites 2009 | TIME
  Time Magazine released their annual list of top websites. Flickr tops this year's roundup, which also includes the ubiquitous Twitter, ask-a-friend's friend engine Aardvark, music streaming site Spotify, gaming hub OMGPOP, and private file-sharing platform drop.io.
• Seventeen's Fashion Finder | Seventeen.com (via Cynopsis Digital)
  Seventeen Magazine's Fashion Finder iPhone app, which allows users to search for local availability of clothes, shoes and accessories by look or price point, has displaced Zippo's virtual lighter app as the top app in the Lifestyle category with over 75,000 downloads.
• Rhapsody iPhone App | Geeky Gadgets
  Music streaming site Rhapsody has submitted an iPhone app for approval to Apple for approval that offers on demand music streaming. In the past Apple hasn’t approved music streaming apps, as they might compete with with iTunes. In the past Apple hasn’t approved music streaming apps, as they are obviously concerned about competition with iTunes, if Rhapsody is approved it will give iPhone users access to over 8 million tracks and all of its radio stations.
• Mobile Phone Web Sites Top Online Growth In UK | Nielsen Wire
  Mobile phone websites were the fastest growing sector online in the UK with a 58% increase in unique visitors from 7.7 million in July 2008 to 12.2 million in July 2009, according to Nielsen. Drinks brands such as Ribena, Baileys and Coke were reportedly a major factor in this sector's growth.
• Microsoft OneApp Unlocks the Potential of Feature Mobile Phones in Emerging Markets
  Microsoft announced OneApp, a new software application that enables low-end feature phones to mimic the functionality of smartphones with easy access to mobile apps such as Facebook, Twitter, Windows Live Messenger, and other apps and games.

What Parents Think Teens Are Doing on Social Networks, and What the Teens are Actually Doing [LA Times]
Common Sense Media has found that 37% of teens claim to use social networks to make fun of others, though only 18% of parents believe their own kids do so. The rest of the data illustrates parents' misguided perception of teens' social behavior.

Verizon, LG Give Jonas Bros. Fans a Kick [AdWeek]
The Jonas Brothers are holding  video contest that will allow U.S. concert attendees to create an interactive video of themselves jamming out or playing kickball with the band, via green screen technology. "Playing live in front of our fans and interacting with them in new ways is really what it's all about for us," said Kevin Jonas.

Will Barack Obama's Media Ubiquity Be the Most Significant Aspect of His Presidency? [New York Magazine]
Through Twitter, Flickr, SMS speeches, Facebook campaigns, and an iPhone app, this White House is defining itself by its use of social, digital, and mobile technology in reaching to the American people and the world.

Your "Real" Friends are Your Online Friends (or so Says Gen Y) [ReadWriteWeb]
A recent UK Myspace study amongst 16,000 14-21 year old found that 36% found it easier to talk about themselves online than offline. Compare that to  72% who felt "left-out" in their offline social interactions.

A Text Messaging Reference Service [ResourceShelf]
The Alliance Library system has partnered with 50 libraries to offer SMS reference inquiries to its users. Patrons will be able to text an actual librarian to receive info about specific books.

Apple to Stream First Live Concert to the iPhone Tonight [NewTeeVee]
Tonight Apple will produce its first-ever live event streamed to the iPhone: A concert by the electronica band Underworld. You can view the stream at iphone.akamai.com or underworldlive.com.

Think Again: Twitter [Foreign Policy]
As Twitter is being hailed as a democratic power tool, users must bear in mind that authoritarian regimes will not have too much problem tracing back to dissidents.

Need to Deposit a Check? Try Your iPhone [MarketingVOX]
This week, the USAA bank will releasing an iPhone app that allows its customers to take a picture of a check as a deposit method. After the picture is taken and sent, users can even void or destroy the check.

AR + Physics + Marbles [RubbishCorp]
Students at Columbia University's Computer Graphics and User Interfaces Lab have developed an augmented reality game that guides a virtual marble through a dynamic maze of obstacles.

Can Smartphones Save the Sex Business? [Fast Company]
The current slump in the adult entertainment industry is about more than just the recession. Like music and news, porn must compete against a raft of free content. Now the business is betting that mobile is its salvation.

Big Media Companies Navigate Free Content and Apps [NYTimes]
Media companies are rushing to offer iPhone apps, while trying to find the right revenue model, including one-time payments, in-app ads, monthly subscription, and paid content.

British Troops Encouraged to Tweet (To a Degree) [Marketing Pilgrim]
Soldiers from the UK have been officially allowed to tweet as long as the info shared is respectful of army policy. The move comes as a sharp contrast with the US army, which has banned all use of social media while on duty.

Millennials Are More Likely To Pay For Your Content [Engage: Gen-Y]
New research shows that 80% of Gen-Y would consider paying for music compared to only 52% of baby boomers. Similar results for paid TV content (Gen-Y 69%, Boomers 51%) and news content (Gen-Y 43%, Boomers 36%).

New Use for Your iPhone: Controlling Drones [Wired]
MIT has been exploring intuitive ways for the military to control unmanned robots, including an iPhone app. Not only would a iPhone-like controller make soldiers’ jobs much easier, it also opens up UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) to a whole new, non-military market. If robot control is cheap and intuitive, people might find all kinds of new uses.