Anna Von Mertens paints aura readings taken from classical portraits and photographs of iconic people, commenting on the ‘soul’ in art in the digital age with the resulting ghostly images.
http://www.annavonmertens.com/portfolio.php

Many artists use pencils to create works of art. Dalton Ghetti, on the other hand creates miniature masterpieces on the tips of pencils!
http://bit.ly/9Rw8l6

Eyebeam is the leading not-for-profit art and technology center in the United States. Founded in 1997, Eyebeam was conceived as a non-profit art and technology center dedicated to exposing broad and diverse audiences to new technologies and media arts, while simultaneously establishing and demonstrating new media as a significant genre of cultural production.
http://www.eyebeam.org/

Closer to home, Cuban artist Carlos Garaicoa has an exhibition in IMMA at the moment. He has been working since the early 1990s using a multidisciplinary approach that includes architecture, urbanism, narrative, history, and politics.
http://www.imma.ie/en/page_212197.htm

Google has made another significant change to their algorithm which has seen a monumental development in how search results are displayed in the natural section. This has far reaching consequences for four key stakeholders.

For Brands
Previous to the change, advertisers battled for the real estate in natural search results against Publishers/Affiliates and Retailers for the share of voice on their products. Look at how many times Amazon would dominate search results on brand items which they themselves were only a retailer of, or quite often, merely an access point to other retailers who sold the product. Apple iPod would have been a good case in point. Previously, if you typed in Apple iPod the search results heavily featured Amazon, Play.com and other third parties who either sold the product or published information on the product i.e. Publisher/Affiliates.

That landscape is now turned on its head. Google are giving the Brand owner more voice and therefore causing a detrimental shift in traffic for Publisher/Affiliates and Retailers alike. Type in Apple iPod and Apple have approximately 80% of the share of voice within natural. This could result in less being spent on brand terms in PPC by large brand advertisers. Alternatively, Google are offsetting this potential impact by driving third party PPC sales by the very act.

For Consumers
A poorer experience? When consumers type in a brand product, not only do they want to be provided with access to the brand owner’s site, they also want to access the rich tapestry of information that sits on third party sites. Pages that are information rich on user experience and product reviews which brand product pages don’t typically cater for.

Google claim that providing more results from the same domain will provide a “deeper set of results for navigational search queries”. However for these searches, many of these extra “deeper results” from the same site were already available as site-links in the normal results making this change unnecessary for many searches.

For Publishers/Affiliates and Retailers
Third parties will now have to find other sources of traffic through other channels – PPC, Display, Social, Offline advertising etc. In general, it is a detrimental move for third parties and could impact the sales of brand products by decreasing their visibility on independent sites.

Eamon Collins, Cybercom’s resident Search Expert and Industry Analyst commented –

“This change by Google who claim it will make for richer results for navigational queries seems to be an unnecessary step towards favouring bigger brands and diminishes a searcher’s options overall. SEO results seem to be negatively impacted in favour of driving more PPC clicks and ultimately a poorer search experience overall.”

In summary, this move, while focused on providing greater navigation from Google, is an unnecessary step for consumers based on their wants and needs. If consumers tend to populate most of their clicks in the top 2/3 listings, having brand owners populate 7/8 natural listings seems a pointless move by Google, benefiting brand owners more so than consumers. Having a larger set of results from the same domain will undoubtedly help big brands with their reputation management but for the general consumer it is restricting their choice and impeding their search. If the page is full of results from the same domain, many people may turn to click on PPC results instead. Or, as recently reported, people may click away from Google and into the arms of Bing.

Google launched Gmail phone calls in the US this week, with one million phone calls placed in first 24 hours of its release. Read more on PC World.

Embarking on a little Facebook research when considering a new hire? According to an article from ReadWriteWeb.com this will soon be a thing of the past in Germany. The government there has introduced a draft law that would restrict a company’s ability to consult social networks like Facebook when making hiring decisions. The company could use the Internet in general, and job-specific networks like LinkedIn, but not social networks.

On the sustainability front, we were intrigued to learn that MIT researchers tested the first prototype of the Seaswarm, a pack of robots that use nanotechnology to suck up oil from the surface of the ocean for immediate processing.

Mark Oct 29th free in your diary – Jack Dorsey, Twitter co-founder is coming to Dublin, where he will speak at the Dublin Web Summit

Techcrunch covers Yelp deals, launched officially in San Diageo this week. They must be feeling the pressure from group deal site groupon.com Bring on the Dublin deals!

And just because we have loads of biking enthusiasts in our midst… Garmin rolls out touch screen-based Edge 800 cycling GPS – Is it too soon to mention Christmas presents?

Much like the Facebook 500 million and Your Stories by Google Twitter Tales aims to bring stories of its users together by asking the simple question ‘How do you use our service?’ A great source of case studies when you need them.

EuropebyEurostar is a new social media platform by Eurostar. The site crowd sources reviews of destinations like Paris which are served by the train and offers unique insights into the cities hidden gems. Great for planning last minute getaways!

Hmmm Foodspotting…. website and app that lets you share photos of good food and recommend it to others. It also recently featured on The Times Top 50 list.

The Fridge is another social network except this one is ‘private’. Same principle as Facebook except you won’t be sharing your content with 500 million members just a personal group that you create.

After months of testing and internal wrangling, Digg have finally released version 4. The new redesign is a testament to the influence of social as My News takes centre stage in the new interface displaying stories “digged” by you and submitted by the people you follow.

Load times have improved significantly and the content submission process now features the “Digg It” submission bar top and centre (you no longer have to navigate to a separate page to submit content). Facebook and Twitter’s influence is obvious as submissions can now be shared through these channels as well as email.

There is a lot to digest and for a full review we recommend you check out Ben Parr’s piece on Mashable. Of course, we’d love to hear your thoughts on the new offering, good or bad? Too little? Too late?

Facebook continues to expand its offering on a monthly basis with recent releases like the Open Graph and “Like” button. They are now turning their attention towards local marketing. As with all of Facebook’s new initiatives, most of the online chatter is asking how Google intends to combat this and, more importantly, how it will position itself as a leading social decision making engine.

There is no doubt Facebook will put Google under pressure, but a lot of the claims regarding Google’s demise are wide of the mark. Although Google is losing market share to Yahoo and Bing, we shouldn’t forget along with their search dominance, they also have a 98% share in mobile and are banking on location based marketing for mobile being a considerable revenue stream.

In relation to search, there has been a lot of misinformation recently on how Facebook, Twitter and other social metrics are affecting search results. There is no evidence of metrics from these properties being used in the main algorithm however they may use social metrics when applying their QDF algorithm. Dave Harry has some great information on this subject in the post “The Evolution of Ranking Signals: Google is Getting Past the Link”. It discusses how Google can move towards behavioural data and social data. If the search engine results are based on those areas it becomes more difficult to rank a website based on spam tactics. You are not going to spam yourself (behavioural) and will not build a network of obvious spammers (social).

Google has its own social graph through user’s Google profile which, if connected to their Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and friend feed accounts, provides Google with plenty of social content which can then use to enhance a person’s search results. These ‘social results’ were rolled out recently in Google US and Google UK but are still in beta.

Alongside Google’s own social graph, it already has a wealth of information on users’ online behavior and tastes through their past search history. Personalised search means results are no longer the same for each user. They now include Google Maps, Google Places results, tweets, and forum results, all relevant to the user who is searching.

In a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, explains that Google already roughly ‘knows who you are and where you are’, and from past searches what you like. Google’s goal is not to simply return a list of the best results for a given search, but to tell you ‘what you should be doing next’.

Inhabitat’s mission is to track the innovations in design and technology that are pushing architecture and home design towards a smarter and more sustainable future. The website is full of really interesting and inspiring designs like buildings built from books and swimming pools made from dumpsters. Green design could save the world!

Patagonia are taking social and corporate responsibility one step further with the Footprint Chronicles a the well-designed interactive site allows consumers to track social and environmental impact of specific garments. Offering unrivaled corporate transparency, users can learn of the good and bad involved with manufacturing outdoor clothing facilitating discussion about the environment and ultimately leading to more educated decisions about what we consume.

WithIntent is a UK website that ‘up cycles’ many of the thousands of tents that are left behind at festivals each year. The tents are remade into functional waterproof clothing and accessories that are then resold at the festivals!

The Cloughjordan Ecovillage or ‘The Village’ in County Tipperary is a 67 acre site that serves as an alternative model for sustainable living. The land has three broad uses with space allocated for residential, woodland and farmland. The first of its kind in Ireland the Village is leading the way with a host of sustainable features including a solar-and wood-powered community heating system, a green enterprise centre with hi-spec broadband and a centre of education for sustainable living.

Well, finally the long wait is over. Facebook has taken the plunge into the world of geo-location with their long awaited Facebook Places. Not good news for Foursquare as highlighted in Nick O’Neill’s AllFacebook piece “Facebook Punks Foursquare, Gets Them To Announce Nothing”. Foursquare will have to pull something pretty special out of the bag to counteract this maneuver from Facebook. As for the new offering, well essentially according to the Facebook’s Graph API documentation, developers will be able to access the read and search APIs as of today. However the write APIs are to remain in “private beta” with a limited set of partners.

Over the last few weeks Facebook has been tweaking Notes and changing ‘Like’ buttons but this really could be the coup de grace for other LBS services. This announcement now enables a new class of location-powered applications to reach the mass market for the first time and drive significant value to businesses and developers. So what is possible?

Well there are three key components: share where you are, find where your friends are, and discover new places around you. It will be available on mobile devices (web) and on the company’s new iPhone app as of tonight.

Check-ins are part of the platform and so is adding places. It has photo tagging functionality so you can “tag” friends that are with you at a specific location so everybody doesn’t have to check-in on their own. What does this mean from a privacy perspective? Well you can remove any check-in and settings are defaulted to friends only. “Here Now” is on after you check-in and tagging only lets you tag your friends while notifying you whenever you’re tagged. In addition you can remove any tag and turn off being tagged in Facebook Places. On the iPhone app, you can report a place if it’s inaccurate or don’t want it on the system.

And from a developer’s point of view? Well according to Justin Smith from InsideFacebook, Facebook has created new extended permissions for Places. To be able to get a user’s check-ins, developers will need to request the “user_checkins” extended permission. To be able to get a user’s friends’ check-ins as well, developers will request the “friends_checkins” extended permission.

Once that is done, Facebook says developers can do three things starting tomorrow:

1. You can get details on individual check-ins
GET https://graph.facebook.com/[checkin_id]

2. You can get a list of check-in information about specific places, pages, or users
GET https://graph.facebook.com/[place/Page/user_id]/checkins

3. You can search for recent check-ins for an authorized user and his or her friends

Let the games begin!

Given the recent environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, this particular image struck a chord with us. Used as part of a Humble campaign back in the 1960s, the oil company openly boasts about its ability to melt a glacier! The accompanying text reads as follows:

“EACH DAY HUMBLE SUPPLIES ENOUGH ENERGY TO MELT 7 MILLION TONS OF GLACIER!

This giant glacier has remained unmelted for centuries. Yet, the petroleum energy Humble supplies- if converted into heat- could melt it at the rate of 80 tons each second! To meet the nation’s growing needs for energy, Humble has applied science to nature’s resources to become America’s Leading Energy Company. Working wonders with oil through research, Humble provides energy in many forms- to help heat our homes, power our transportation, and to furnish industry with a great variety of versatile chemicals. Stop at a Humble station for new Enco Extra gasoline, and see why the “Happy Motoring” sign is the World’s First Choice!

The new Cadbury campaign designed to boost Britain’s community spirit and bring a “spirit of play” to the UK ahead of the 2012 Olympics is a game of two halves. The “Spots v Stripes” campaign conceived by London agency Fallon delivers an integrated approach including Nemoesque TV adverts, print, online, events and social media sites, with separate Facebook pages for Stripes and Spots.

This is a ‘bait it’ campaign with the TV adverts drawing you in to investigate the social media site www.spotsvstripes.com, where you can join a team and compete in any game you wish, from golf to tiddlywinks, building up national totals online for each side. It’s a bit reminiscent the British 1966 show It’s a Knockout.

TV adverts drive people to social media through to real world events, with Cadbury soon to undertake a national tour in order to get the whole of the UK involved and ultimately promote the Challenge Bar, a milk and white chocolate bar divided into three sections; one spotty, one stripy and one chunk in the middle which the Spot and the Stripe must play for. Each Challenge Bar has one of 20 different games printed on the inside of the wrapper to get consumers playing for the “winner’s” chunk and driving people online to claim the points for their chosen team.

In addition, the concept of play is brought to life through a YouTube clip titled the Importance of Play (reminiscent of Volkswagen’s The Fun Theory ). The clip explores why play may be the single most important factor in determining our happiness and success.

This campaign highlights the importance of an integrated approach to online and offline marketing activity.