Express your inner bad photographer * Deleted Images

Thx to Epic-Fu, one of my favorite sources, for this one…

deletedimages.com – Where you can upload and share images that you would otherwise delete. I have to say I love this concept.

I share the same obscure photographic behavior of my grandfather, who would go to picnics and only take pictures of (up close) flower pedals and wood textures, instead of the ole’ fake smile family shots. Half photographer / half scientist, he was more interested in finding truth in the small and abstract details.

It is amazing what you can find when you lose the big picture and focus on things that you might otherwise overlook. People are loving deletedimages.com because it gives them a platform and permission to do so. Whether it be slightly blurred, accidentally cropped, or over/under-exposed, these images all have stories behind them. Don’t get me wrong, I totally see value in planned composition, and at the same time all things in life naturally have color, line and form, so an unplanned photo opens our eyes to an unintended perspective on the situation, which can be exactly what is needed sometimes.

<< For example, artists have been doing this for years. Check out the album cover for Washing Machine, Sonic Youth

Lunch 2.0 * Portent & Widemile

A coworker and I attended another downtown Seattle Lunch 2.o with an insightful informal discussion with Portent Interactive and Widemile. Hats off to Josh Maher for organizing this tech synergy and tasty food.

Portent Interactive, who helps organizations “realize exponential growth using the Internet”, presented an interesting Time of Conversion vs. Conversion Rate research study based on 10 sites over a one-year period, including 7 e-commerce and 3 non-e-commerce. Based on their data, direct to site, organic search, and pay per click have the highest generated revenue with less conversion time. Surprisingly, their data indicates that video, social networks and corporate blogs have the longest conversion time, with lower revenue. I wonder how a similar study would compare in the next coming years as the social network adoption rate increases (i.e. Facebook) and video delivery continues to improve.

Widemile, who “optimizes conversion rates with multivariate testing, presenting a case study of the Weather Channel Interactive. Their initial goal was to improve conversion (of the landing page) by 30% and the actual increase was by 225%. The incorporation of Flash significantly outperformed any static counterpart. It sounds like their testing methodology is solid and they know what to do with the numbers to move forward.

Caveman’s Crib * Geico’s Evolution

Have you seen the Geico Caveman’s Crib site? It allows the user to explore the private rooms of a modern day caveman bachelor pad. This non-linear exploration includes multiple rooms, media devices, and other flash stickiness. They have even managed to incorporate the iPhone right on time. I love the way it was produced. It utilizes interactive multimedia and includes awesome video and graphics.

This virtual landing pad is at the tail end of successfully produced viral TV commercials, which easily found their way to YouTube and is part of the gradual shift from TV programming to an demand everything. Who cares what Geico sells…I wouldn’t be shocked if this story evolves to be an actual web series, or even movie. Daniel Baldwin has my vote for lead or supporting character.

Mobile Content * Old Hat New Hat

With the iPhone buzz, rippling into business as usual mode, what I am stoked about is the idea of rich mobile connection. It just makes sense to have in-flight access to the world. Why be chained to a clunky monitor, flat or otherwise.

With the convergence of social (web 2.0) media and Apple’s lead on accessible mobile devices, we can live life, and stay connected with old and new important things in our lives. Maybe the MIT $100 laptop for every child, should actually be in the form of a mobile device. As speech recognition and touch screen technology evolves, we can finally get ride of the keyboard + mouse hardware band aids and stop hurting our posture unnecessarily.

What I am equally excited about is how mobile devices will continue to shape the design of content. With the optimization of sound, movement, size, color and emphasis, as always old ideas will be taking shape in new form. What we can expect is stunning and concise visual information.

National Geographic * Global Warming Effects

This Global Warming Effects interaction is a an effective use of information design and interactivity. – someone dugg this AM.

National Geographic continuously delivers effective informal learning content by incorporating effective design elements.

They utilize grid, color and emphasis, which engages the user and raises their information to the top.

They also deliver amazing podcasts, videos and games to target different learning styles. They even incorporate personalization in some of their games to help with engagement. The graphics, animation and video editing are quite spectacular. Check them out.