dontclick.it

A very interesting group (the Institute for Interactive Research) has created a website to study the effects of the mouse click. I know, it sounds somewhat boring but it really can provoke thought and some frustration. I first visited the site and had no clue what they were talking about when the homepage copy read: “click here for the last time before entering the project.”

It turns out they’ve built an entire interactive website that requires no clicking–just mousing over. It can be very confusing at first, but as they say, you’ll get the hang of it. If you happen to click however, a big ‘tv static’ screen will appear asking you to tell them if your click was intentional. I’ll admit it, my first click was unintentional. I was trying to get somewhere by clicking.

All in all, I think they’re idea is creative and could produce some interesting data. I wonder if they’ve released anything about their findings. I think the act of not clicking might speed up surfing just a little bit. It also relieves big computer laps of the constant mouseclicking sound (still doesn’t do anything to remedy the loud keyboard-typing though).

One drawback is that you may accidently ‘mouse-over’ something you didn’t intend to. I can see users trying to navigate their mouse throughout a website like a maze, trying not to let their mouse touch an undesired link.

Check it out. Tell me what you think. Should we get rid of the ‘click’?

Man in the Dark — More Flash Website Artwork

Recalling my earlier post about flash museums, I’ve found the website to the creator of jacskonpollock.org. His name is Miltos Manetas. I was very impressed with the artwork that this guy created. He doesn’t just do websites, but also paintings and ‘videos after videogames.’

One of my favorite works is his Man in the Dark. At first you see a blank, black screen. But then this morph-able figure of a man slides into view. If you move your mouse around the screen the man follows. Strangely enough, the man follows in a series of pieces, like someone cut him up into a bunch of different horizontal slices–like a 3d sculpture puzzle. What’s incredible, is that each piece moves just a few milliseconds after the other, making it look like you are dragging him around by his head.

Try clicking the screen and watch as the man begins to multiply indefinitely until you click again.

Campus Advertising Campaign – Eat em and Beat em

Last semester, our advertising group had a project was to create an appealing advertising campaign for M&M’s. We came up with some powerful ideas.

The situation was challenging. How do we promote awareness/sells of m&m’s candy on any university campus? Also, how do we include a charity organization in this type of campaign? How do we promote a women’s volleyball game to a student body that won’t go to women’s volleyball games? Finally, how do we create this campaign for only $50,000 or less?

First, we decided to play off of competition. At any large university, there is generally a large rival school. Our school’s rival was the University of Utah. Competition on any level can really get students motivated to action. Most rival-team sporting events have the highest attendance–sometimes far surpassing the rest of the year.

We decided that a plan to use the latest online techniques was the best way to start a viral marketing campaign. Viral marketing would yield the most results and be the least expensive. We would start with facebook groups. Then, we would promote the games through unique print advertising around campus. The advertisements would show the Red (U of U colors) M&M with a evil and sneaky looking face infiltrating campus. The idea would be to Eat em (eat all the red M&M’s possible) and Beat em (beat the “Red team” at the volleyball game and at sumo matches throughout the week).

We would have large sumo suits, appearing each to be a different colored m&m’s–one red and one blue. Particpants would have the opportunity to fight the Red M&M by joining facebook groups and going to the matches filtered through different days of the week of the game.

We also developed a website that would allow users to play an online flash game to fight the Red M&M. They could also view the latest press release about the “Red Scare” that was happening on campus. The flash was developed by my friend, Gabe Thayn.

It turns out, our mock-advertising campaign did well among surveyed students. A classroom of advertising students also approved the project.

Flash bum – interesting site

As we were coming with domain names for our new flash project, “flashbum.com” was mentioned. It is a great name that isn’t too “in-your-face” but also contains the good keyword “flash.” Unfortunately, the name was already taken.

However, the owner of that domain wasn’t just a sly domain purchaser with no actual intent on using the name (I find that a lot when searching for domains. Most of the time, good domain names are taken and used for nothing but meaningless, irrelevant text ads). He’s a sweet flash guy that lives in New York, doing flash freelance work.

I liked his website. He used a cardboard, ‘bum’ look. The background looks like rough, dirty concrete covered with polaroid photos and ripped pieces of paper. You can slide around the concrete and look the different objects strewn about. In his Chinatown section I watched some of his videos. In them, he is standing, or sitting out on the street with a cardboard sign that reads “will flash 4 food.” He makes interesting comments to passersby. I pity the guy if he is really a bum… However, he can’t be that bad off for he must at least have a computer and the latest version of flash (or maybe he just uses the local library computer labs).

Anyway, I encourage you to check out his site. He even has New York City sounds playing in the background.

Flash Website Museum–another art form

Olive Garden. Late. 1:20pm.

Today, we had our official kickoff business meeting for a new and totally progressive flash website development idea. And yes, I was a little late. My kind associates were pleasant enough to overlook my tardiness, and we subsequently had a productive meeting in the midst of salad, breadsticks and tasty Zuppa Toscana soup.

I won’t give it all away here–but let me tell you–it will be sweet! Thirstyflash.com will be your guide to the latest news coming from the team.

Flash websites are becoming more and more sophisticated. The web is quickly becoming saturated with high quality, interactive, enticing flash sites. Flash is an art form. I would categorize it among the rest of the visual art forms: painting, sculpting, photography, dance, ….flash.

Yes, I can see, not too far in the future, a Metropolitan Flash Museum located in downtown Manhattan right next to the Guggenheim (maybe it will be the Guggenheim). It would contain entire walls set up as plasma screens displaying interactive touch-based, sound-based, motion-based, and whatever-else-based flash videos and websites. In fact here is one of my personal favorites. I think it would have to be in the main gallery.

I’ve come up with the name,Thirsty Flash, because there is a certain connotation with the word, “thirsty.” Someone who is thirsty is in need of a drink. I have a friend that always said he’d like a root beer when he was thirsty. Me? Good mountain hard water is where it’s at. Thirsty flash will be for those that are thirsty for anything flash–games, movies, websites, advertisements, the whole bit.