Tweetrush For all you infoporn lovers, here’s a site that keeps track of various Twitter stats. For example, the most popular hour to tweet is 15:00 UTC (EST, subtract 5:00), the least busy hour is 8:00-9:00 UTC, and the average number of tweets per person per day (TPD) looks to be hovering around four or five. My daily average is four. Dammit, that means I’m average.
Sarah Palin’s Wikipedia entry received an overnight makeover. According to the Houston Chronicle, more than 30 edits were made to Palin’s page in the 24 hours before McCain announced her as his V.P. The first edit came around two in the morning on Thursday, August 28th, long before Obama took the stage at the DNC. Someone should develop a way to keep track, in real time, of the edits to Wikipedia entries. Call it “The Fortune Teller.”
Defining the Designer of 2015 Interesting, if not somewhat predictable, findings from AIGA’s and Adobe’s research into what will characterize a designer some ten years from now. According to them, the most important quality of a designer will be his or her meta-disciplinary study and practice: “Designers must be able to draw on experience and knowledge from a broad range of disciplines, including the social sciences and humanities, in order to solve problems in a global, competitive market of products and ideas.” Maybe my heavy dose of film and art history courses will be considered valuable in the design world after all.
Whole Foods on Twitter I’ve always been a big fan of Whole Foods, and now I like the company even more. Last week they twittered: “$25 WFM gift card for first 5 people betw. 12-1 today at customer service desk in produce at [Austin, TX WFM] pass phrase: avocado!” They say they’ll hit up a new store this week. Hopefully Ann Arbor’s! They also sent a Twitter user a $25 gift card for being their favorite tweet of the day. What a fantastic relationship to have with your customers. Update: Looks like the $25 gift cards for favorite tweets are a regular occurrence. Awesome!
WALL-E: The Sequel A romantic comedy, WALL-E-2 centers on a love triangle between WALL-E, EVE, and her new love interest Auto-MATOR.
iPhone App: Telegram I’m very intrigued by this new application, which dubs itself “as personal as calling, as unintrusive as SMS and as instant as email.” Basically, it allows you to record short voice messages and send them to a friend or group of friends. It’s like push-to-talk with a twist. The interface looks great, it works internationally, and messages can be sent via WiFi or the cellular network. The cost is $9.99, and I imagine your friends must have Telegram too for it work, but this app could prove quite interesting.
Coolspotters Case Study Mark Boulton Design put together a nice case study of the work they did on the recently launched Coolspotters. I really like how they work in black and white before introducing color to the layout. Great way to focus on and tackle one problem at a time.