Technology+Culture+People // テクノロジーとか、人とか、文化とか。

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The Obama/Biden presidential campaign won both the Titanium and Integrated Grand Prix, thanks to the effort’s digital savvy, its success in community-building and its willingness to allow the Obama brand to be created by consumers rather than top-down communications mandates.

Personally I was not surprised to see the Obama/Biden campaign win the Titanium, in a very good way. Their campaign was very efficient, elegantly implemented, created a very tangible result, and none the less very dynamic. The Obama brand was built and strengthened not by those who chipped in the money, but by those who came together and showed their support. I think this is very beautiful.

A year after the sweeping victory of UNIQLOCK, I think their success can be tied to a simple yet important marketing/branding strategy: an accurate segmentation of the target audience and the correct choice of meida. In other words, the Obama campaign had a clear message, had a clear vision of their audience, and from that chose the correct media to channel their message. For example, as of November 4th, Election Day, Obama had 118,107 total followers, whereas McCain -just 4,942. As of today, Obama has 1,600,265 followers, and McCain, who lost the election and doesn’t own a computer, had no reason to retain his page. On Myspace, Obama gained over 10,000 new friends from November 3rd to 4th, whereas McCain, just 964 (more about this can be read here).

The reason for Obama’s success using social/new media was quite simple: there is a strong overlap between his target audience and the core users of such service. In other words, Obama campaign had found and effectively used the media that was very closely tied with the everyday lives of their core target audience: progressive academics, those with higher educational backgrounds, and most of all the young generation. Social/new media, which most all have the ability of user interaction and social connection, played an extremely significant role in grasping the attention of the young generation and spreading the Obama brand widely accross the nation.

On a rather different note, I think the digital and integrated winners of the Cannes Advertisement Festival, since last year, are becoming more and more progressive and shifting away from the traditional deifinition of “advertisement.” It might be coming to a point where we have to reconsider the difintion of “advertising.”

It not just the fact that this kid is unbelievably adorable, but whats amazing is that he actually starts to anticipate the paper ripping. Initially he showed no reaction until the paper in his hand actually got ripped, but as seen around 1:00, after several tries the kid starts laughing simply by holding the paper. Perhaps his immediate memory got recalled simply by just holding the paper. He expected what was about to happen from past experience, which is, in a very broad term, what “learning” is. Kids are so cool.

Iran Updates (VIDEO): Live-Blogging The Uprising

This is an article by the Huffington Post, and all online news source. There is also a Twitter network of journalists who are in Iran reporting the situation. This is a truly fascinating attempt, and start of a new era of journalism. Information arrives in almost realtime, the facts are reinforcing of the urgent situation, and such information can no longer be suppressed by violence, canceling press pass of major news sources, and immobilizing journalists in hotels. What’s even more fascinating is that the Iranian security forces are trying to crackdown on the internet access of active journalists, but new proxy servers are being continuously provided from elsewhere; the boarder-less and cloud-sourcing nature of the Internet is overwhelming the attempt to censor information.

I guess the next question is, how can we let more people be aware of this? I’ve seen numerous blog articles and notes written on facebook and other SNS, but thats probably not enough; at least to what I’m aware of, my parents, sister, friends do not know about this live blogging deal. Should CNN and BBC start live blogging and tweeting too? And the question following that is “how much control journalists truly have in changing the situation?” At some point action these people must stop protesting, authorities must stop relying on violence, and Iran has to change. And they all have to happen very soon.

Oh wow.

Short film celebrating the sixth year of collaboration between LV and Takashi Murakami.

Joy of mother who discovered her ‘kidnapped’ son after 27 years… by Googling his name and finding his Facebook page

A mother has been reunited with her son 27 years after he was ‘kidnapped’ by his Hungarian father – when her sister stumbled across his Facebook profile after Googling his name.

Nice.

People + Technology = happy.

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Facebookで、幼い頃に離ればなれになった親子が再会。いいねー。人とテクノロジーが交わる所に幸せがあると、なんだか分からないけどテンションがあがる。

母親がイギリス人で、息子は幼いときにハンガリー人の父親に半誘拐状態で引き取られちゃったらしい。２７年ぶりの再会で、息子は英語が喋れないらしいけど、まーそんなの今までの離ればなれに比べたら屁でもないよね。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Elo7WeIydh8&annotation_id=annotation_647728&feature=iv

This is propbaly the world’s very first corporate website that is construsted entirely from annotations. Very nice. I guess what makes Book Oakly funny is not the annotation but the video itself, and we always have to keep that in mind: it’s not the medium that gives an idea value, but rather the uniquess of the idea itself.

I met with an old teacher of mine from middle school.

After talking to him, I realized that a good leader strives to gain respect. A bad leader assumes that they deserve the respect.

http://lab.andre-michelle.com/tonematrix

Intuitive, catchy, fun. No one has to be a musician to make music.

Or are we already musicians?

This web app reminded me a lot of Tenorion.

Honda Let It Shine

A new ad for the Honda Insight, Honda’s new hybrid car.

I’ve always thought there is something magical about “lighting,” like in the cinema, theatre, or even when we go star-gazing. The dark takes away the noise, the light makes us focus. When the two come together, we are drawn into what is simply there. I think this collaborative effort between Honda and Vimeo worked very well to create a spectacle that could never be achieved by TVCM alone. Could this be one of the ways in which TV and the internet could go hand-to-hand?

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ホンダインサイトの新しいCM。前からライティングは凄く魔法みたいな効果を持ってると思ってたんだけど、この動画ってなんかそれを上手く表現している気がする。映画館でも、舞台でも、星を見る時も、暗い所に光を放つものがあると、人の心はそこに引き込まれる気がする。このホンダとVimeoの試みも、テレビだけでは表現しえなかったスペクタクルを作り上げてる。テレビとネットが共存する形の一つかもね。