For years people have been wondering – when will Amazon redesign their site. Of course it’s been changed in small iterations over the years but all in all it’s not that far from what they launched in 1995. Amazon is absolutely one of the best example of a formula one shopping experience from a social networking and artificial intelligence perspectives. But now they’ve taken the whole thing a step further. Basement.org shares the news that Amazon has launched a new shopping experience called Amazon Windowshop Beta. Wow – I’m exited.
So what’s Amazon Windowshop Beta. We’ll it’s basically what it’s called – a window shopping experience. As you enter the shop you get to navigate with your keyboard through a papervision/cooliris experience type of interface. As you browse the images and categories Amazon obviously things you’ll start shopping – this is where they go wrong according to me. It’s fun the first couple of minutes to browse the products but I quickly find myself missing recommendations, reviews, other suggestions etc etc etc. The flash interface let’s you play around for a while but I quickly get tired of the whole thing and leave – long before my buy now finger starts to dazzle.
Why is Amazon doing this? That’s a question I’d love to ask the people behind this. When the rest of the worlds is fighting to make their sites more user friendly, simpler design and at least 10% as smart as Amazon.com then these guys go the other way. It’s a little 2006 this whole thing.
Instead, why don’t you go truly rich? Why doesn’t Amazon launch TV instead. I’m calling it TV cause I don’t mean Video. What I think Amazon should do is launch a bunch of TV channels online, hosted both at Amazon.com and other social networks. They should make sure the bring on some TV personalities that creates a show much like Fashion TV or Top Gear for example. Travel the world and do reports, review products etc. While you’re at it make sure you integrate the products closely or even inside the shows. Make sure you launch a couple of widgets and iPhone apps to support this new thing. Bring in celebrities to ad some spice to the show. By doing something like this Amazon would embody their store and give it personality.
Amazon! Amaze us an launch the best freaking online TV channel out there. And of course…don’t let this beta turn into an alpha.
Den här veckan är jag bland annat på Stockholms Universitet och pratar om digital kommunikation. Därför hinner jag inte riktigt med att skriva så mycket som jag vill här på bloggen. Men, passar ändå på att bjussa på gårdagens presentation om Internets historia och framtid. Ett urval av viktiga händelser som kommer påverka hur vi utformar kommunikation i framtiden. Presentationen slutar med en länkhänvisning till Kevin Kelly’s tal om Internets framtid. Titta på den om ni inte har gjort det. Klart sevärd.
If you’re heading a brand. Stop with everything you do. Head over to David Armano’s blog Logic + Emotion, cause the post that follows this illustration above might do a lot of good for your future career.
A couple of days ago I spotted this TVC above. It made me happy. Simple & informative yet a fun movie that left a positive feeling right behind my nipples. I instantly started to browse the net to get hold of the movie and blog about it. I was kinda sad when I couldn’t find it.
Today my Squash partner, Tomas Lestrup, founder of Swedish photography agency BSmart, same agency I worked with when I created the Kosta Boda campaign, stood me up on tomorrows game. He’s a sissy of course (haha) but then again he made me quite happy when letting me know that they, together with Jesper Kouthoofd och Henrik Timonen had produced the IKEA movie I was looking for.
BSmart – I can definetely recommend them. If you visit their website, have a look at the ‘this is the cast’ link.
Pepsi has rebranded their classic logo with the help of the Arnell Group. Without commenting anything on the actual design itself I must say I like the touch of incorporating a dynamic element in the logo. As seen on the bottles, the new logo (or at least part of it) features a redesign of the classic strip + that it’s different depending on which type of Pepsi it’s nailed to.
The debate is pretty tense (most people tend to think the new one shit) in forums and on blogs whether the new Pepsi log design is better than the old design or not.
‘Old Pepsi logo’
Personally I think Pepsi is seeing a drop in sales due to the vitamin and healthy drinks that are covering the shelves in bars and stores. The new typing and logo categorization is probably an answer to this. But as always, without the brief…how can we know if it’s right or wrong.
Lars Bastholm and I worked together on a Nike project at Framfab back in 1999. Ever since then I’ve had a great deal of respect for the man. He’s now the Co-Chief Creative Officer at AKQA New York.
The other day Lars wrote an article on Social Storytelling. Lars is commenting on the fact that some people in the business thinks digital cannot keep up the branding story. An opinion that according to me is based on the fact that people are afraid of change and believe things will stay the same for ever. Digital is changing everything, we just have to adapt to it and not try to bend the consumer into old marketing models, it’s not going to work.
Lars ends his article with six checkpoints that’ll help get you started mastering the art of social storytelling and invite consumers into the conversation. A great list. Personally I just love nr 5.
Look at any marketing effort as the beginning of a conversation.
Closely monitor the conversation and be ready to respond to consumers.
Provide consumers with tools that help them carry on the conversation for you.
Leave room for consumers to interact. Make sure your creative universe is big enough that there are unexplored areas.
The conversation is over when the consumers say it is, not when the media plan (or the budget) says it is.
I was reading a great post on the 7 ingredients of good corporate design when I found an interesting fact: “research by the Institute for Color Research reveals all human beings make a subconscious judgment about a person, environment, or item within 90 seconds of initial viewing and that between 62% and 90% of that assessment is based on color alone.”
That’s something to consider when choosing, changing or adding color to a brand. One of my favorite resources for Color is Colorlovers. Playing around with Kuler is another hobby of mine.
I wrote earlier today about Barack Obama and his tounge in cheek digital campaign. Then today I found through Greg Browns blog filtered that ads have started to
When I opened my mailbox this morning yet another mail from the Barack Obama campaign machinery had landed. The header read: Deadline tomorrow: Your Car Magnet. Quirky enough to make me wonder what it was all about.
I opened the mail and read: “I can tell you right now who’s going to win this election — [...]
Yahoo Pipes. A great tool. Right now I’m finalising my design RSS feed project where I’m putting more than 80 design blogs into a pipe and then after some filtering I can keep track of all 80. Sweet. Then as I tried it out today, out came a poster from a blog called DesignNotes. I [...]
Eftersom jag har en egen liten mediakanal här tänkte jag bara kort berätta att jag söker en egen kontors/butik lokal med fönster mot gatan. Centralt, city, gärna Östermalm. 35-65kvm.
Tips mottages tacksamt. Kontakta mig här.
ronnestam.com was voted Sweden’s first blog on Innovation, future trends and digital communication. It’s written by Johan Ronnestam. He's widely regarded as one of Sweden’s leading speakers and authorities in the field of modern creative and conceptual thinking and skill of innovating brands and their communication.
