Diptic: Tell The Story Contest

Posted on May 15, 2012 by Eric Burgess

I love Diptic and I’ve been using the app on my iPhone for some time now. It’s really intuitive actually and it can help put all of your photos from one event together in a really cool story-like way. For those that don’t know, here’s what Diptic isn’t:

  • It’s NOT an app that’s meant to replace Instagram or your iPhone’s in-built camera app. It’s meant to compliment it.
  • It’s NOT just for hipsters. It’s for everyone. Put any images you take together in series of two, three, five, etc. Fancy filters need not be present in your images to do so.
  • It’s NOT another social media picture sharing app. Again, it’s just meant to help you sequence your images to help tell a little story with them.

Here’s a sequence I put together a couple of months ago to showcase a spring outfit of mine:

Anyway, they have a contest running right now that is definitely worth telling you about. Here’s the official word from Diptic:

We’re running our first official Diptic contest! The theme is “Tell the Story,” so we’re looking for entries that use Diptic to tell a story. Whether it’s your child learning how to ride a bike, the seasons changing or something funny that happened last night, we want to see how you use Diptic to tell a story with your photos.

To enter, post your submissions to Twitter with the hashtag #DipticTellTheStory. Or, you can email them to us at contest@dipticapp.com.

We’ll post submissions here so everyone can see them. After the contest closes, the Diptic Team will review all entries and announce the winner on June 11, 2012.

Time frame:
Contest Begins: May 10, 2012 at 7 a.m. PST
Contest Ends: June 4, 2012 at 12 a.m. PST

Our judging will be based on:
Creativity, aesthetics, and best interpretation of the theme “Tell the Story.”

Prize:
The prize for this contest will be an OlloClip, the fisheye, wide-angle and macro lens for the iPhone that fits in your pocket!

Additional details:

  • Diptics submitted should have at least 2 frames
  • Maximum of 5 entries per person, per contest
  • App stacking is okay, but it needs to be clear and obvious that Diptic was used in each entry
  • By entering, you agree that you agree to the contest Terms & Conditions.

If you have any questions, ask @dipticapp on Twitter or email contest@dipticapp.com. Good luck!

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Gifture – The Instagram App for Animated Gifs

Posted on April 26, 2012 by Eric Burgess

A free new iOS App began circulating in the Apple App Store today and it’s called Gifture. It’s created by James McDonald, the Scottish UX/UI designer who, if you’ll recall had quite a bit of fun on YouTube with his Scottish accent trying to tell Suri to “create a reminder.” Gifture’s concept is simple just like Instagram only instead of taking one photo and applying a filter to it, you capture several different frames of a moving target or object. After applying your favorite filter to it, i.e. black and white, sepia, pop, monochrome etc. you upload it to Gesture and it turns it into a fun animated gif. Below is a quick snapshot I took on the app moments after downloading it. It’s very intuitive like Instagram. All it needs now is a big community to make it even more fun.

A quick time lapse of a Seattle street.

Will people take to dynamic hipster images vs. static ones? Time will tell.

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Sarah Lacy and Michael Arrington Drama

Posted on April 15, 2012 by Eric Burgess

Nearly a week has settled since PandoDaily’s Sarah Lacy announced in a blog post that former TechCrunch pal Michael Arrington was no longer on the board of her newly launched blog. What’s interesting to me about this story, is just how passionate this woman is about life’s “sell-out” factor.

For those not up to speed on this story, here’s a quick run down:

  1. Sarah worked for Arrington at TechCrunch
  2. When Arrington sold TechCrunch to AOL for $25 mil, Sarah was pissed
  3. Nevertheless, Sarah stayed on at TechCrunch after the acquisition until November, 2011
  4. Sarah launched PandoDaily in January, 2012 and Arrington, her friend, assumed a role as a board member and investor
  5. Sarah ousted him as a board member last Monday because he still wanted to be involved at Disrupt, a TechCrunch sponsored annual event

So passionate is she that she had to give Mike the boot? Why? What’s the big deal? Why the drama? Because Disrupt and TechCrunch and Arrington all wanted to play together – you got bummed out? Cry me a river lady.

 

 

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The Internet is Ruining Your Brain – Infographic

Posted on April 10, 2012 by Eric Burgess

A new study by Forensic Psychology suggest that online multi-tasking actually raises stress levels and lowers creative thinking overall. Beware power users!!

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Ben Huh from Cheezburger Network to get his own show on Bravo

Posted on April 5, 2012 by Eric Burgess

The average person on the internet doesn’t know what a “meme” is. I mean, they know what it is, but they don’t know that it’s called a meme. Ask most people about the website I Can Has Cheezburger and they’ll likely say huh? I mean, everyone knows about those beloved LOL Cats but they probably can’t make the connection between those crazy little cat photos and the very website that is behind them.

Reality television network Bravo hopes to connect you though with LOL Cat creator Ben Huh, his wife and the entire LOL Cat team with a new show appropriately titled “Huh?” We don’t know much more than that at this time as Huh has been uncharacteristically quiet about this rumor since Mashable broke the story.

Story developing…

That's me (left), Ben Huh (center) and @digitalkvan (right)

 

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Microsoft Cliplets: Are They Any Different From Animated GIFs?

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Eric Burgess

Neel Joshi, researcher in Microsoft’s Research division describes a “cliplet” as:

“A type of imagery that sits between a still image and a video and they allow you to capture a moment in time as opposed to an instant in time and tell a little bit more of a narrative.”

While designers might be quick to point out that this feature has been available for some time already as an animated gif, the Cliplet program actually does much of the work for you. Drag, drop, loop and export! Voila. Your Cliplet (or animated gif) is finished! No photoshop or design skills needed!

Truthfully, I’m not sure how much use this program will see despite how easy it is. I’m of the mindset that we’ve already moved beyond the Flash/Animated GIF/MySpace era and onto one where ‘less is more’ on the internet. To this day, Facebook still doesn’t allow the use of animated gifs. What does that tell you?

Microsoft Research Cliplets is provided free of charge and without official support. However, if you have questions or issues, you may find help at the Cliplets Forum, which is monitored by the developers and provides community-based support. You may also want to view our Tutorials.
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Windows 8 Start Screen Debacle Leaves Baby Boomers Frustrated

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Eric Burgess

Image credit: Long Zheng on Flickr

Last month Microsoft released the much anticipated Consumer Preview version of Windows 8 for those wanting to test drive it. Still far from RTM (Release to Manufacturer), the new Windows OS is already causing quite the controversy with its minimalist UI. The controversy? Baby boomers can’t figure out how to navigate back to the Metro-themed Start screen once they’re on their desktop.

Seen below is the dad of Lockergnome‘s Chris Pirillo. He’s trying out Windows 8 for the first time and to demonstrate how counter-intuitive it is, Pirillo films his dad’s frustration for all in his audience to see.

Pirillo’s video has already inspired other tech geeks around the world to film their dads using Windows 8 for the first time. Here’s another baby boomer dad trying to figure out how to get back to the Start screen. While Pirillo’s video didn’t reveal the Microsoft shortcut to the Start screen, this user’s video does.

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Seattle’s Local Brew Show

Posted on March 3, 2012 by Eric Burgess

If you’re like me, when the TV show Portlandia first came out you thought to yourself “Give me a break, Seattle can do better.” Well, Seattle can do better and it’s become apparent in the new online show launched recently called Local Brew.

Local Brew is funny. And, it’s funny not just to Seattleites. Their video “vignettes” as I’ll call them, play to all stereotypes- i.e. hipsters, cougars, tipping your barista and so forth. The best thing about the show is that the features are really short making the show perfect for today’s A.D.D. fueled internet culture.

Hey, whether you’re in Seattle or you’ve just stumbled across Socialrazzi because it’s the next best thing to Mashable, give Local Brew a look. #funny

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Can Facebook and Twitter Predict This Year’s Oscar Winners?

Posted on February 23, 2012 by Eric Burgess

Seattle social media agency, Banyan Branch, listened in on more than 3.5 million posts from Twitter and Facebook over a *one year period and came up with the following predictions for this year’s Academy Awards. Looks like our conversations online have The Help winning Best Picture and Brad Pitt winning Best Actor. Watch the 84th Academy Awards this Sunday, February 26 to find out.

*Data pulled from 2/21/2011 – 2/21/2012.

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Top 3′s with Tac Anderson

Posted on February 17, 2012 by Eric Burgess

Tac Anderson is one of the most interesting guys in social media you’ll likely never get to meet in person. I only say this because his career has literally taken him around the globe having moved most recently from Seattle, WA to London, England via a huge promotion at Waggener Edstrom as Head of Digital Strategies for EMEA. If he wasn’t the kind of individual who literally couldn’t sit still, he’d actually be thrilled to talk with you as he’s one of the most down to earth guys – ever. In between his day job, buying all three of his kids guitars at the same time and blogging like mad for all of his side projects, Anderson still found time to help us kick off this inaugural Top 3 post here on Socialrazzi. Enjoy.

Top 3 social tools right now?

  1. Ifttt.com
  2. Buffer
  3. Hootsuite

Top 3 reasons to be an expat in London?

  1. It’s so easy to get to the rest of Europe
  2. Amazing museums
  3. Castles!

Top 3 Euro startups to keep an eye on?

  1. http://Spotify.com
  2. http://Soundcloud.com
  3. http://www.peerindex.com/

Top 3 reasons you like working at Waggener Edstrom?

  1. Being at a larger independent agency gives us the size to do really cool stuff without a lot of the pressure of the big public agencies.
  2. We have great clients.
  3. We have great people.

Top 3 funny English sayings?

  1. A shed load (meaning a lot)
  2. When they say diary instead of calendar. The first time you hear an exec say, “Let’s get that in the diary,” try not to laugh.
  3. Pretty much anything said with an English accent is funny.

Top 3 things that drew you to a career in social media?

  1. I’ve always been interested in how communications technology affects our culture.
  2. I’m ADHD and that works to my advantage in this space.
  3. Being a geek is cool and I get to work with other geeks.

    Continue reading →

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