Type in the address of the home where you grew up and watch the video unfold. It’s probably best to let you experience it yourself instead of explaining what happens.

It was built as an experiment for the Google Chrome browser so you’ll need to download that for the best experience if you don’t have it. It sounds like it’s working on some other browsers though.

Check it out for a really innovative spin on a music video!

And while I’m at it, a shameless plug about my own blog. Nothing more than photos, videos and recipes documenting our days…check it out » www.styleandsyntax.com

Take a picture with your smartphone

If you’ve never scanned a QR tag with your phone before, the process is surprisingly simple. All you need is a smartphone and a program that reads QR tags. Once you have a program installed simply turn that feature on and scan the code with the phone’s built in camera. For many phones, the program required to scan QR tags is already built in, however some phones require that you download a scanner manually. If this describes you, you’re in luck because downloading a scanner is very easy to do. The hardest part is finding a program that is compatible with your phone. The Kaywa reader seems to be available for most smartphones (Here’s a list). If your phone isn’t listed there, this site has already gone through the trouble of compiling a pretty extensive list of scanner programs. Just find your phone on one of the lists and click on the corresponding link. Once you’re at the download site, it should be pretty easy to figure out the rest for yourself, but if you have any questions, feel free to ask them in the comment section or email me directly at asteiner@gunnjerkens.com

Want to create your own QR Code? Now you can

UPDATE:

Scan below to be one of the first to check out the mobile version of our blog:

The story is about Alec Brownstein’s search for his dream job in advertising, the result of which was one of the coolest pieces of self promotion I’ve read about in a while. Give it a read:

While Googling his favorite creative directors last summer, Brownstein noticed that there were no sponsored links attached to their names. Since Brownstein Googles himself “embarassingly frequently,” he assumed that the creative directors did so as well, and thus he decided to purchase their names on Google AdWords.

“Everybody Googles themselves,” Brownstein explained. “Even if they don’t admit it. I wanted to invade that secret, egotistical moment when [the creative directors I admired] were most vulnerable.”

Since Brownstein was the only person bidding on the names of the five creative directors he most admired, he was able to get the top search spots for a mere 15 cents per click. Whenever someone ran a search for one of the creative directors’ names, the following message appeared at the top of the page: “Hey, [creative director's name]: Goooogling [sic] yourself is a lot of fun. Hiring me is fun, too” with a link to Brownstein’s website, alecbrownstein.com.

Over the next couple of months, Brownstein received calls from all but one of the creative directors whose names he had purchased. And finally, at the end of the year, he received a job offer from two: Scott Virtrone and Ian Reichenthal of Y&R New York.

The whole campaign cost him $6.

(Via Mashable.com)

Click Here to read the full story.

This is a great idea and all but this sort of seems to be pretty much a rip-off of “One Day on Earth.” My old college roommate is actually producing that project and told me about it months ago. Check out their trailer:

Can you say knock-off?! Am I crazy to think this is way too similar? I know “One Day on Earth” has a lot of great videographers participating on that day. I’d be curious if, by the nature of YouTube, the “Life in a Day” project might have more banal submissions of day-to-day life.

Either way, I hope that you check out both projects and, if possible, support both with your videos on the respective days.

Introducing Attention Auction, now in beta. It’s exactly what it sounds like. Folks put a price tag on their time, and if your willing to pay the price, you are guaranteed that they will both read and reply to your email.

Everyone on the site has a profile that details his or her skills and areas of expertise. So, when you are hoping that the talent scout for the next HBO series will read your email describing why you are perfect for the lead role, you can find them and pay a price that may lead to stardom. Pretty neat. Now, the hard part: how much is your time worth?

I brushed off my old-school Hotmail account (since you need a Windows Live account to use Spindex) and entered in my Facebook and Twitter account information, as well as some RSS feeds. In one way, it’s an aggregator so you can see all of the updates from all of your networks in one place with the ability to filter them down (e.g. update the stream to just see the Twitter updates of people you follow). You can also make status updates directly from your dashboard so it’s easy to send something out to your Twitter followers, your Facebook friends or both simultaneously.

However, the FUSE Labs team made a point of telling everyone that Spindex is not just an aggregator. The real power of it is that it lets you see what your friends, family and network are talking about at any given moment, and you can also search your networks’ updates for any topic. So you’re really able to explore your topics of interest in the context of people you’ve trusted enough to be part of your (online) social circle.

The right side of the dashboard displays recently shared links, recent photos and news stories. You can also see your personal “trending” topics – this is what people in your community are talking about or sharing as opposed to something like Twitter’s trending topics which looks at all user activity. Mine is pretty boring since I follow or “like” a lot of social media or advertising people in order to stay on top of what’s going on in the industry. So I can count on “Facebook”, “Twitter” and “iPad” being trending topics for me.

When I search “iPad” from my trending terms, my stream filters to only show content where my network is talking about the iPad. If I scrolled down, after those posts would be public updates with that term. In the right side, Spindex shows me some articles that are relevant for that search term (powered by Bing, of course).

Or if I click on something from my stream, it updates the right side with relevant articles based on those keywords. For example, Spindex looked at this tweet about typography and returned more links to articles and sites about the same topic.

Or you can do a search for a term in the top search bar and it will return your friends’ tweets and status updates with that term and relevant articles (i.e. “wedding”).

I am still messing around with and getting used to Spindex (I didn’t even get into the subtrends feature!), but I am liking it so far. As more and more people adopt a more social way of being online – not just updates of what they’re doing or where they are but also sharing articles or sites that they find interesting – this is going to become an increasingly valuable tool. When you look for a recommendation for something, you probably reach out to your friends first; Spindex makes it easy to do so.

I went to a session on about Brands and Customer Communication and one of the speakers was Ilana Rabinowitz from Lion Brand Yarn. When you think of a yarn company, you might not think of a company that’s on the forefront of social media, but I love how the Lion Brand Yarn uses their social media presence as a way to connect with their customers. Ilana spoke about the fact that, at the core, all of the decisions they make are based on emotions, including their buying decisions. At the craft store, their products are just one section of a huge wall of yarn; social media lets them create that emotional bond with their customers.

Go to their Facebook page to see how they’re creating a community surrounding their brand. They aren’t just racking up “Likes” for the sake of having a large number; their fans are commenting on posts and contributing to the community. In late April they asked a simple question – “What’s your favorite rainy day crochet or knit project?” – and they received over 860 responses. Similarly, their blog posts give customers the opportunity to share their experiences and points of view. A good example is when they asked which activity “makes you better,”  knitting or crocheting. Browsing through the hundreds of comments, you’ll read some simple and some emotional words about what knitting or crocheting brings to a customer’s life. And those emotions are immediately getting attached to Lion Brand Yarn who gave them this forum to share. (You can check out some top responses in this later blog post.

When someone has a knitting question on Twitter, @lionbrandyarn comes to the rescue. One user received a handy tip from Lion Brand via Twitter and re-tweeted it to her followers, thanking @lionbrandyarn. The brand also posts demos on YouTube with over 120,000 channel views. They also give free patterns and discounts to people in their community. Their President did a video thanking their Facebook Fans when they reached 50,000 Fans.

Social media has given Lion Brand a way to build a customer base with an emotional connection to the brand, and this connection not only translates into paying customers but also brand advocates. Ilana told a funny story about how, for Earth Hour, they announced they were going to turn off the lights for one hour in an effort to affect climate change. Apparently, the words “climate change” created a firestorm among some customers who didn’t believe in that concept. But the funny thing is, before Lion Brand had to jump in, their own customers were defending the brand for them. By creating that emotional connection, their customers felt the need to stick up for the brand.

When I think about how I’d like to feel about the brands in my life, I wish I knew more that were doing what Lion Brand Yarn is doing.

It’s going to be exciting to bring the information, ideas and contacts back to the entire G/J team and really brainstorm on how all of the innovations can be translated to our clients’ online worlds.

In meeting with the different exhibitors, it was easier for me to understand their products when I put things into the context of how our clients would benefit from. I looked at everything from SEO-optimization tools to social sites that help plan and coordinate community events to even a cloud-based font service. That’s right, I am not hogging this trip with a social and traditional media agenda completely; I am coming back with some goodies for the design team!

More to come…

If you’re unfamiliar with Kawasaki, he is one of the most active marketers on Twitter. He’s also the wizard that brought us AllTop.com, which is a must-explore site in my book. The day I discovered this site was like the day I first tasted sushi – quite epic.

Guy’s presentation covered tons of fantastic search tricks and tools that even I, in my extreme geekiness, had never heard of. He definitely knows every angle of Twitter and how to maximize real-time search to propel your mission, whatever it may be. Some of the insight he had to share was really mind blowing, and his blunt approach to addressing Social Media concerns was very refreshing.

Some quick links to check out are: AllTop.com, @CleverAccounts, SmartBrief and ObjectiveMarketer.com

I’m looking forward to a full month of incredible content, so stay tuned for more goodies!