May 17, 2013

Great Coders Are Today’s Rock Stars


We just spotted this video by Code.org that was published earlier this year. Watch Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, will.i.am, Chris Bosh, Jack Dorsey, Tony Hsieh, Drew Houston, Gabe Newell, Ruchi Sanghvi, Elena Silenok, Vanessa Hurst, and Hadi Partovi talk about their start as programmers. I’m pretty inspired and this post is sort of a dedication to all of our talented software engineers here at Side Studios.

“Everybody in this country should learn how to program a computer… because it teaches you how to think.” – Steve Jobs

Check out the video and learn more about this “superpower” that isn’t being taught in in 90% of US schools.

May 10, 2013

Culinary Art

We say, why limit your artistic abilities to paper and on-screen? If you haven’t noticed some of the culinary art that’s been on the Internet lately, you’ll be impressed. Kudos to those who can turn their noodles into Chewbacca, or make a baby basket out of fruit. Here are ten of our favorite food art finds:

PANDA RICEBALLS
Image credit: Jimmy Choo Pinterest

CHEWIE SOBA
Image credit: disposableaardvarksinc.blogspot.com

BABY FRUIT FOOD ART
Image credit: www.thezooom.com

MUMMY DOGS
Image credit: seakettle.com

SLEEPING RICE BEAR
Image credit: JPEGY

ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE
Image credit: Hong Yi

CURRY BATH
Image credit: Cutestfood.com

CAULIFLOWER SHEEP
Image credit: Triposentido

ANGRY BIRD PIZZA
Image credit: http://img.izismile.com

STRAWBERRY SNAKE
Image credit: gabrielcatalano.com

May 3, 2013

Cartoon Kevin

Fans of animation will get a kick out of Cartoon Kevin. Check out how animator Kevin McShane illustrates himself in the style of 100 other animators, including Charles Schultz, Walter Lantz, Hanna Barbera, Pixar, and Matt Groening.

A signature black t-shirt, blue jeans, and Chuck Taylor sneakers can really make a difference on someone.

Can you guess them all? See all the versions at http://cartoonkevin.com/.

April 26, 2013

Celebrate Neighborday on April 27

One of our favorite sites, Good.is has started a movement that we thought we’d share: Neighborday, planned for Saturday, April 27, 2013.

With the explosion of online “social” networking, it has only made it easier to avoid face-to-face contact in the real world. I mean, how many of us actually know our neighbors: their names, their phone numbers, what they’re about.

As Harvey Milk said, “If we wish to rebuild our cities, we must first rebuild our neighborhoods.” So, let’s do something about it. You may meet a new friend, emergency contact person, or source for sugar!

Here’s the link for how to get started, and if you know anyone in the below 18 states, tell them to join in on the fun. The below states don’t currently have any Neighborday celebrations planned:

Alaska
Delaware
Hawaii
Iowa
Kansas
Maine
Mississippi
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
North Dakota
South Carolina
South Dakota
Vermont
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

Learn more at http://www.good.is/neighboring

April 19, 2013

Twitter #Music App Now Available!


Twitter finally launched its much-anticipated Music App which lets you see what music is trending, emerging and find new music from artists you follow.

After testing the app with music artists and influencers, Twitter #Music will be available starting today at https://music.twitter.com and as a separate app for the iPhone through the App Store.

So what exactly does it do? It helps you find music that’s popular on Twitter and music based on the artists you follow. The app is centered around four pages or tabs, which you can swipe through to access. The first two tabs give you information about about what the collective Twitterverse is jamming to, and the last two focus on who you follow and your personal music taste.

  1. The Popular page shows you new music that’s trending across Twitter
  2. The Emerging tab shows “hidden talent found in tweets.”
  3. The Suggested tab shows artists you might like based on the artists you follow on the service and who they follow.
  4. The #NowPlaying tab shows songs your friends are listening to or tweeting about. So if your friend tweets that they are listening to a song by Rihanna, you’ll know it on that page.

Best of all, Twitter has integrated current music services like Rdio, Spotify and iTunes to allow you to play the songs right through the app or webpage. With iTunes, you will only hear a preview, but with Rdio and Spotify, users can log in with their accounts to hear the full tracks. Twitter says it will continue to work to add additional music providers to the app.

The Twitter #Music app will be out later today in the Apple App Store; there is no Android app yet.

Twitter smart! We’re ready to download some tunes.

April 16, 2013

That’s Niice!

We’ve spotted a great new search engine for designers that actually filters through all the [crap] stuff that Google finds, and only provides us with some good visual options.

Powered by Behance, Dribbble and Designspiration (for now), Niice (which is currently in beta) pulls in content from these sources (more will be added soon) and displays them in a simple, easy-to-consume grid, so you’ll be able to spot visuals that may actually inspire you.

It’s the ultimate search engine for creative people who are just tired of searching for “logos” on Google images to find junk that is just not appropriate. Since Niice only searches a few hand-picked “quality” sources, it only returns good results.

Here are just a few images that popped up when we searched for “surf”:

Or “logo”:

Or “handwritten font”:

Give it a try and see for yourselves.

April 12, 2013

Top Twitter Analytics Tools


Twitter, the free 140-character microblogging service founded in 2006 by Jack Dorsey and Biz Stone is, without doubt, a social media juggernaut. Any brand who wants their voice heard likely has an account. If not, they probably should if they want consumers to know about them.

Since Twitter popularity is often used as a benchmark of influence, and companies have also used the service as a way to engage with their customers – offering promotions and other specials – it’s important to be able to make the most of your Twitter account.

Here are some Twitter Analytical services we’ve noticed that help us dissect what all this stuff really means so we can provide the best Twitter strategy:

Twitonomy
It’s in Beta right now, but definitely check out Twitonomy. Twitonomy helps get detailed and visual analytics on anyone’s tweets, retweets, replies, mentions, and hashtags so you can be really productive. You can also easily find out those you follow but don’t follow you back, so you can try and harass them and win ‘em over.

Tweetstats
Tweetstats are statistics for Twitter. Check out this tool out for a glimpse into your tweeting style and and graph your Twitter stats including: tweets per hour, tweets per month, tweet timeline, and reply statistics

Portwiture
If you want a visual summary of your Twitter account, check out Portwiture. Frankly, you wouldn’t want to solely use this tool, but it’s a great Twitter analysis that allows you to visualize your tweets in photographs, grabbing photography from Flickr that matches the content of your most recent Twitter updates.

Foller.me
Also in Beta, Foller.me is a free Twitter analytics application that enables you to quickly analyze important stats about any public Twitter profile. Yes, any user; not just your own account. It gathers near real-time data about topics, mentions, hashtags, followers, location, and more. It also includes the time of day you usually tweet, and other things not shows on public Twitter pages such as join date, timezone and followers ratio.

Tweet Archivist
Tweet Archivist is a Twitter analytics tool to search, archive, analyze, visualize, save and export tweets based on a search term or hashtag. Tweet Archivist allows individuals to start an archive of tweets they are interested in. Once you make an archive active by subscribing to it, you are guaranteed not to miss a tweet. Tweet Archivist will poll Twitter hourly, archiving any tweet that matches your criteria, breaking down to top users, top words, top URLs, Tweet vs. Retweet Ratio, and the sources (Tools) tweets are sent with.

April 5, 2013

Helveticat Alphabet

We’re constantly searching for new and edgy fonts over here since the typeface you use makes a world of difference in the brand’s personality and communication.

So, of course, we’ve fallen in love with “Helveticat”! It’s about time a designer created a typeface made out of cats. We cat lovers here are ecstatic. It’s absolutely fun and whimsical.

How can we not post this on our office walls? Congrats to Bethany Lesko, the designer.

Here are some other fun fonts we’ve run into lately:

Butterfly Alphabet:
Letters and numbers photographed on the wings of butterflies.

Foodie Alphabet:
We love designer Vidhya Nagarjan’s unique choice of foods, which include such delectable edibles such as durian, naan, and udon noodles.

Alphabet Truck:
Photographer Eric Tabuchi has taken the Alphabet “Traveling” Car Game a step further with this cool, limited edition.

Which one is your favorite and how will you use it?

March 30, 2013

Not Your Run-of-the-Mill Starbucks

We’re loyal Starbucks fans here (yup, we make sure to stock our Keurig supply so we’re properly hydrated), so we were thoroughly impressed when we spotted this impressive Starbucks interior by Kengo Kuma, a studio from Japan.

Don’t expect typical ho-hum, generic interiors that characterize most coffee shops. Instead, at this Starbucks location in Dazaifu, Japan, you’ll find a slick, sophisticated, and peaceful aesthetic.

With over 2 million visitors a year, the shrine is one of the most visited in Japan. Since the Starbucks is on the path to the shrine, it was important to fit in with the other traditional buildings on the route.

According to the firm, “Location of this Starbucks is somehow characteristic, as it stands on the main approach to the Dazaifu Tenmangu, one of the most major shrines in Japan. Established in 919 A.D., the shrine has been worshiped as “the God for Examination.” Along the main path to the shrine, there are traditional Japanese buildings in one or two stories. The project aimed to make a structure that harmonizes with such townscape, using a unique system of weaving thin woods diagonally.”

We love the repetitive use of thin wood sticks, about 2,000 in all, to create a cohesive, cave-like space.

I think it warrants a trip to Japan for a coffee fix, right?

Photography is by Masao Nishikawa.

March 22, 2013

We’re Down with the Ponies!




Maybe inspired by the show “My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic” which has found a loyal audience called bronies, teenage and adult men who are fans of the animated TV series, or maybe it’s the loveable Budweiser Clydesdales that always steal our heart, or even Lil Sebastian (RIP) from the show Parks and Rec but there’s a new cool pony in town – Socks, who is inspiring a bunch of other viral ponies.

The Pony Dance, created by ad agency, Wieden + Kennedy, is the latest ad from UK-based Three Mobile that’s taking the Internet by storm.

Socks, a one pony dance sensation, charms us as he moonwalks and struts his hoofs across the Scottish highlands to the tune of Fleetwood Mac’s hit single, “Everywhere.” It ends with the appropriate tagline, “silly stuff, it matters.”

To get viewers to get involved and create their own customized dancing pony, the mobile company also released The Pony Mixer, a generator in which you can customize Shetland ponies dancing to various music genres, such as rock, Bollywood, hip-hop, rave, punk, and funk. There’s already a string of Pony Dance mixes circulating YouTube and the ad is generating quite a buzz across social media channels, using the #DancePonyDance hashtag.

Never underestimate the power of a plucky little pony. Brilliant, as the English say!

Check out the original video:

And here’s our version of a Bollywood pony! http://bit.ly/Yu1zGo. We’ve named him Dev :)