That’s where Quixey comes in. A shiny new start-up company, based in California and providing a functional search engine for apps,  Quixey aims to address the common failings in adopting accurate app search keywords. Tomer Kagan, co-founder of Quixey, explains that many apps on Facebook, for example, “don’t even have a description attached –  just a name, (and) from a search perspective if all you have to work with is three words, it’s extremely difficult.”

With the app market growing rapidly, the problem could significantly worsen. To put it in context, across all platforms Twitter boasts more than 1 million apps; Facebook some 500,000. In Apple’s App Store, there are 400,000 apps. In the Android Marketplace, 300,000. This is coupled with web based apps and those developed with API’s from well-known sites like Dropbox, aswell as newer social networks like Google+ and a full array of mobile devices and operating systems.

Considering this dilema, Quixey came to the table recognising the increasing need to develop a new type of search, molded specifically on the unique characteristics of searching for hard to track down apps. Their solution is a “functional search”, which scans major app stores along with blogs, review sites, forums, and social media sites to build a comprehensive picture of what an app can do – through reviews, word of mouth, and demos.

This search engine allows users to type in queries such as “find the nearest Indian restaurant,” with results appearing as a list of apps which can be filtered by platforms. The search engine will also support Windows, Chrome and Mac apps and not just the usual Apple, Android and Blackberry options generally available.

The company will use investment of over $4 million to continue securing top-level partnerships with app stores and various other big third party app resources. In a recent interview with the Quixey team, they hinted that there are more than 25 potential partnerships in the pipeline with app stores, manufacturers and carrier networks. The more partners they have, the more effective the search engine becomes for users.

Along with their web based search engine, Quixey’s business strategy includes offering specialized search services to mobile providers, app stores and handset makers – at no cost to the company’s customers and uses their existing tools. One prominent idea is for a mobile provider or handset maker to fill a users phone with a selection of apps based on their personal interests. For example, one set of apps for journalists and a different set for doctors.

And for the future, the company has identified an opportunity to provide ad-supported search results along with organic results – similar to what you now get from Google. With a better understanding of how the world views an application, they can also allow developers to make changes on their end to better reflect that understanding. By tweaking these items, developers should be able to improve their rankings and ratings as they may think their app belongs in one category, while the public and apps users think it belongs in another. * Developer accounts are still in private beta for now, but Quixey is reporting a positive response from testers.

With reported competition among themselves and Chomp, Kagan says Quixey is thinking bigger than their mobile focused rivals: “We’re building with a different long term goal. We want to be a completely independent platform.”

After a play around with Quixey we found the results spot on! We’re looking forward to following it’s continual development and find it a useful tool for monitoring Digital PR, in terms of tracking the success and development of a variety of app releases.

Have a look at the below video from Quixey which explains exactly what they do:

The most recent visual assistance product to hit the app store is VizWiz. As well as giving you automated image recognition from intelligent software, it throws your questions open to a small band of volunteers standing-by on the internet – a human cloud, willing to donate ten seconds of their time here and there to describe photos which come in.

“The most popular type of question is a product that they have which has text written on it, a label with instructions. People want to know what it says, how to cook it or when it expires,” said Professor Jeff Bigham, the man behind the service.

In a perhaps unexpected technological development, blind people are now finding they need to learn the basics of photography in order to take advantage of these text and image recognition services on smart phones.How do you hold the camera up? And how close do you put it to the object you want to know more about? Angles, perspective, distance and light, are concepts that we take completely for granted but that don’t come naturally to people who have never been able to see.

The oMoby app is capable of recognising products from a photograph, and it it can’t automatically work out an image by comparing it to an image search engine, it sends out the request to a network of humans who answer in a similar way to the VizWiz app.

Steve Nutt from Hertfordshire who has been blind since birth explained how it took him two weeks to master how to frame a shot which he does in a very functional way, quite different to how sighted people would do it.

Jeff Bigham’s team sees the results of the camerawork coming from users like Steve. Not everyone gets it right with their first shot as it’s not always easy to frame the photos. Sometimes the centre is out of the photo. if they’re asking what is on a can of soup label, we generally tell them that ‘we can’t tell what this is, the label is likely on the other side of the can’.

These smartphone apps are a fantastic example of the difference to peoples lives that such technology can have. Makes angry birds seem a little frivolous!

On the 20th July 2010 James suffered a near fatal accident in Arizona Texas whilst participating in a crazy challenge of cycling, rowing and swimming from Los Angeles to New York. Whilst cycling, he was hit on the back of the head by a trucks wing mirror at 70mph, leaving him with lasting brain damage.
One year on, James is fronting a new campaign for the UK department of transport simply titled ‘Use your head. Use a helmet.’

In the ad created by AAMVBBDO London James explains that he credits his life to the fact that he was wearing a helmet, saying “I was lucky…if I hadn’t been wearing a helmet I would have died.”, before encouraging everyone to pass on the message.

Extraordinarily, James is back on his bike and on his way to a making a full recovery.
One of the best digital campaigns I’ve seen for some time, and will hopefully make everyone think twice before going for a ride without wearing a helmet.
Do you already wear a helmet? If not, will this make you reconsider?

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The site works by allowing you to select a topic of your choice and then search for related news articles, Tweets, Facebook posts, Flickr photos and then prompts you to drag and drop them into a multimedia story which can then be embedded into any website.

“We have so many real-time streams now, we’re all drowning,” Storify founder Burt Herman told the New York Times. “So the idea of Storify is to pick out the most important pieces, amplify them and give them context.”
The site is becoming increasingly popular in the USA with over 5,000 sites and blogs including The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR (National Public Radio) using Storify to create and share ‘stories’. With more than 13 million views accumulated over the past 4 months it seems that Storify really is the next big thing.

Fancy giving it a go? You can sign in with your twitter account and get started right away! We’d love to hear your thoughts!

The mobile marketing and multi platform competition, DS4 Seekers is essentially a massive game of hide and seek where players hide a virtual DS4s in the streets around them.

After registering on their Facebook page, players are given a virtual DS4 to hide across Google Mobile Maps and Streetview. Players are then rewarded points if they successfully hide it from competitors or if they find a rival’s virtual Citreon DS4s. The points gives the player one entry in the draw to win a brand new DS4, the more points won gives them more entries and more chances to win.

As tablet and smartphone sales set to eclipse laptop and computer sales this year, knowledge of how best to implement new technology combined with innovative digital campaigns like this is essential to companies wishing to stand out.

Reports from the USA suggest that facebook is doing more than just keeping people connected…it’s helping police to fight crime!
Local police across America have started using Facebook to post information on local cases and to ask the public for help.
Feedback from officers suggests that Facebook users really are helping them to catch the bad guys. “Witnesses are using our local page to give us really useful information,” said Sgt. Joe Smart of the Conroe Police Department (Texas). Police in the area have been using Facebook to profile suspects and criminals since May this year. Local people have through facebook directly helped to arrest three people and to gather leads on several other open cases.
Police are also using the networking site to posts heat maps to tell the public where thefts, burglaries, car break-ins and other crimes are happening in the local area.

Across the border in Canada, the Toronto Police Service is joining in on the facebook action. The force has a new social media initiative, encouraging officers to sign up for Facebook, specifically stating that they are a member of the local police force.
The goal is to have around 200 officers with online profiles by early November. The program is designed to improve communication between police and the public. “We’ve prevented some pretty serious incidents simply because people reached out to the few police officers that openly stated that they were in the police on their social media sites,” said Const. Scott Mills, the force’s social media officer.
Mills continued to explain that two years ago, a Facebook friend alerted him to someone posting anti-Semitic rants on their Facebook account, which led to the person’s arrest and prevented what police deemed to be a violent attack threat.
Earlier this month, the Toronto police website added a facebook page where users can report lost property, crimes under $5,000 and traffic complaints.

Across the country in Vancouver, police received more than 3,500 email tips (many linked to Facebook photos of the rioters) in the week following the Stanley Cup riot which resulted in 140 civilians and nine police officers being injured, and saw 101 people arrested after trouble broke out at the annual ice hockey tournament.

Social networking certainly seems to be helping law enforcement in the USA. What do you think about the police using social media? Would it work in this country? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

The application takes a light hearted approach to the serious subject by allowing users to pick the body they would like to ‘work on’ (titter titter) from a gallery of torso’s.
You are then walked through the two steps of Hands-Only CPR: calling 9-1-1 and pushing hard and fast in the center of the chest until professional help arrives.

New York ad agency Gotham created the application for the American Heart Association and Ad Council.
“We took a novel approach with the execution to increase the likelihood of viewer engagement and pass on — with the intention to help save lives,”
said Peter McGuinness, chairman and CEO of Gotham.

Nearly 300,000 out-of-hospital sudden cardiac arrests occur annually in America – 80 percent at home, according to the American Heart Association. A recent survey revealed that 70 percent of Americans feel ‘helpless to act during a cardiac emergency’ because they don’t know how to correctly administer CPR. Performing Hands-OnlyTM CPR on adults who suddenly collapse can more than double their chances of survival.

The campaign is accompanied by a television advert featuring Comedian and actor Ken Jeong (of Hangover fame) who holds a medical degree from the Universities of North Carolina (now there’s a Friday fact for you).

A fantastic digital campaign that engages viewers and can in just a few minutes teach them a lifesaving skill.”
To learn more about Hands-Only CPR and to have a go yourself, visit the Hands Only website.

Have a great weekend folks!

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The ad from LA Based agency TBWA\Chiat\Day…shows the bartender offering Santa a pair of Coca-Colas for himself and Mrs Claus. Santa declines the offer in favour of a (shock horror) Pepsi!
But Santa is enjoying his summer holiday, just wanting to relax and have some fun. “I’m on vacation! I’m going to have a little fun!” he tells the bartender before taking a big swig of the Pepsi. This goes down very well with the elves, who possibly didn’t do too well out of the Coca Cola ads!

Massimo d’Amore, CEO-PepsiCo Beverages America, explained that on the back of the summer campaign, activity around the American version of the “X Factor” will pick up. Advertising for the show will focus on Pepsi, which could be a major boom if the show’s success mirrors that of “American Idol” and its Coke sponsorship.

The campaign also includes radio and social-media elements. A “Naughty Elf” from the ad will take over the brand’s Twitter, and a Foursquare partnership will see consumers checking into summer locations, such as beaches and waterparks.

“We want for Pepsi to own the summer,” continued Mr. d’Amore. “It’s a time when people want to have fun, go on vacation. …the whole company is committed to really owning the summer.”

A really entertaining digital campaign…wonder if it will evoke a response from Coke!?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Here are a few interesting bits and pieces that have been showcased so far!

Imogen Heap’s Musical Gloves:

Singer/songwriter, Imogen Heap demonstrated what appeared to be a pair of magical, musical gloves during her performance at TED Global. The high tech gloves connect an interface to a live musical production system controlled entirely with the glove wearers hand gestures. Developed by Dr. Thomas Mitchell, a lecturer and researcher at the University of the West of England the gloves can record, synthesize and manipulate sounds live on stage by the artists hand movements.
Dr. Mitchell explained a little more about how the technology works:

” The globes take improvisation to a new level and frees the artist from interactions with electronic equipment on stage. For example by making a grasping motion the artist can ‘catch’ the sound of her voice or any other instrument, they can then filter these sounds by clasping their hands together and then ‘release’ the sound again by opening their hands. You can build layers of music, point and play invisible synthesisers and drums. The creative possibilities are huge and it’s really engaging to watch.”

How does it feel to fly like a bird?




Former fighter pilot Yves Rossy aka Jetman can tell you. Wearing carbon fiber wings, and powered by kerosene-fueled engines, Rossy has crossed the English Channel and flown over the Grand Canyon. The first man to ‘fly’ with jet-powered wings, he has managed to stay in the sky for as long as 13 minutes. For a pilot accustomed to manoeuvring commercial jets, the ability to fly without a plane is liberating:
“Suddenly you are almost naked and you’re flying, once you have tasted it, you need it. I’m addicted now.”

Rossy is not however complete mad man: he has a lever that can discard the wings in case of trouble, and three parachutes with a system that will activate one in case he loses consciousness in the air. The suit, including the four engines, weighs 55 kilos and allows him to reach speeds of 190 mph.

Watch a video of Yves Rossy’s flight across the Grand Canyon in May this year :

Phew…that was only day one at TED Global 2011! Looking forward to some more examples of digital and technological creativity as the week continues!

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The ‘Mobilise’ tool was introduced for the first time in the UK by Google’s Ian Carrington at a press conference ahead of the search engine giants Think Mobile event held in London this afternoon (Wednesday 29th June).
The service is being launched first in the UK, as opposed to the US, as the driving force for the tool came from Google’s research which showed that 24% of smartphone users in the UK are actively using their phones in-store to compare prices and specifications of products, and 28% of British smartphone users have used their phone to make a purchase.

“Mobile sites are still a barrier in mobile-commerce. We’re hoping to help businesses take advantage of this mobile opportunity with the new tool” explained Ian Carrington, Google’s mobile advertising sales director for northern and central Europe.

The tool itself provides a fantastic opportunity for SME’s to create another layer of exposure for their business. However with this easy access comes the risk of an influx of poorly constructed sites. The challenge for SME’s will be ensuring that all aspects of a communications strategy are taken into account to ensure a successfully integrated interaction with the public.

Thanks to @stuartdredge for the news!