With Facebook recently unveiling their own location-based service, the press has itself in a tizzy trying to wrap its head around the impending arrival of the year of location. Y’know, the one we called out back in March. But no worries, we’re glad you’re all coming around. In fact, we’re going to spend the next [...]

We figured our creative folks would appreciate Flavorwire’s 10 favorite user-generated typography music videos, including the Daft Punk tribute shown above. Of course, Flavorwire’s responding to the meteoric rise of a typographic video for the catchiest string of f-bombs ever (and here’s the link in case you have no idea what we’re referencing). While these [...]

After all our talk of QR codes and Stickybits and barcode marketing, we’d be remiss if we didn’t take a second to pat ourselves on the back here at Upshot. As part of Pacifico’s sponsorship of the US Open of Surfing, we rolled out a program via QR code for the event’s attendees. Better yet, [...]

After last year’s SXSW Interactive conference, when our heads were still spinning with augmented reality apps and location-based social networks and gesture based technologies, we came to an unexpected conclusion: many of the most engaging consumer interactions were being delivered via plain ol’ streaming videos. Part of this success was attributable to steadily-improving content, but [...]

As the Cannes winners continue to trickle out, we’ll have plenty more to say about the implications for marketing trends at large. But, we felt like we had to say something about the winner of the Cannes Direct Lion, shown in the video above. The award went to New Zealand’s Special Group, for their work [...]

Despite proclamations that we live in an on-demand, instantly accessible world, we nevertheless continue to find ourselves waiting around. Waiting in line. Waiting in traffic. Waiting for downloads. Just… waiting. Thankfully, all that waiting’s become far more tolerable with the ability to entertain ourselves via mobile devices, ubiquitous media, and a slew of immersive sensory [...]

In our previous discussions about user-generated content, we’ve noted that consumers do need to be incentivized to participate in these campaigns, but that “incentivize” isn’t necessarily a code word for “give them free stuff.” You may remember our coverage of One Frame of Fame, which is one of our favorite examples of rewarding consumers with [...]

Thanks to everyone who attended Upshot’s first Smartshot webinar!  For those that missed it (or just want to see it again), we’ve posted the webinar above. If you’d like to learn more, we encourage you to check out our previous entries on the topic: “POTTY POSTING” Column: What the Web Will Be Like with Facebook’s [...]

Well, then! Despite being only a week old, Facebook’s new social plugins (i.e. the “like” button which we covered in this week’s Potty Posting) have already been added to over 50,000 websites. Looks like we’ll have to continue boring George Parker with Facebook talk. In the Potty Posting, we emphasized that the ultimate potential of [...]

While we did hit on a bit of augmented reality in our SXSW Dispatch, we’ve seen so many great applications in recent months that it seemed like the right time for a massive AR roundup! (It also seemed like the right time to officially add an Augmented Reality category to the Technology menu above.) As [...]