Archive for Raves

Zipcar’s Kinda Zippy…

Heard of Zipcar? They have a pretty cool service for selected cities across the US and Canada. I was checking out their site the other day…Zipcar hasn’t yet arrived to my city, but a lot of my friends have been talking about them. So obviously I wanted to see what the hype was all about.

Their homepage is quite simply designed. We like simple designs. I was hoping they’d have a cute video there though…which they didn’t. They DO have a video, but it’s buried in the How it Works page. It’s cute though…kind of tongue-in-cheek. Creative. But it took a while to get into it and there was a lot of unnecessary dialogue. I’m not sure the majority of the people out there would have the patience to sit through it…but the humor DID help to keep my attention for a while.

zipcar

I’m torn. It’s a thumbs up and a thumbs down…together.

Socialnomicazation

Can we discuss the awesomeness of this video for a moment? Like seriously…take a moment and just…watch the thing.

Did you watch it? If you didn’t…you’re really missing out.

This video is bliss. It’s the kind of video that makes advertisers and marketers and social media experts and high techies and designers — basically, everyone — gaze in awe.

Why? Because it’s captivating and engaging. You don’t even have to CARE about social media or any of the stats and figures they’re feeding you…you’ll get sucked in from the first second. The music starts, and then you see all these colorful, fun icons in a pretty shape. And then…they hit you with a provocative question that makes you go, “Hmmmm.”

The rest of the video is an engaging blend of text, graphics, interesting statistics (even for people who don’t care about Facebook) and music. It sucks you in and you just…can’t…stop…watching. Well, I can’t speak for you…but I know I couldn’t.

It didn’t even bother me to find out at the end that it’s an ad for a book. Sometimes when I see these viral videos on YouTube, it bothers me when I find out it’s a secret ad campaign for denture cream or ferret berets or whatever. I sometimes feel tricked. But THIS one…this one did not bother me at all. In fact…as I watched it, I wondered who could possibly have produced such a fun video to watch.

Socialnomics is the name of the book. After seeing this video…I think I’ve been Socialnomicized. I think they succeeded!

Dropbox Love

I live pretty far from most of my family. The advance of the internet over the last few years has really helped us feel closer together. I’m a little more internet savvy than my siblings so I discovered a service called Dropbox and was so excited to see that they have the simplest, most fabulous homepage ever.

Smack dab in the middle of the page is a short video explaining exactly why we all MUST sign up.

Like…we totally can’t live without it. I’m glad they sorted that out so that I wouldn’t have to try to figure out what to say to convince my brother and sister. The video summed it up and now we’re all happily sharing pictures and documents.