Thursday, February 21, 2013

Vine: What’s Cool about It?


When new exciting products come out I try to avoid all reviews and chatter about the product so that I can form my own pure opinions before they are skewed by others. I’ve been playing with Vine for several weeks now so I’m ready to share my thoughts.

So far, two key things stand out about Vine for me; creativity and a different view; literally.

Compared to YouTube or other video platforms, Vine seems to really be attracting creative and artistic people who are embracing stop motion and really pushing the envelope in artistic ways. It’s as if a bunch of young filmmakers were unleashed on me, and I get to watch Gumby and Pokey in a battle against Batman all in just 6 seconds. It’s fun, and it’s serving a different purpose than other video platforms.

Secondly, and this is what I enjoy most about Vine, is a reduction in selfies. I’m aware that many people enjoy using video platforms to show their face to the world, but that’s getting old and boring and the world is getting cluttered with selfies. Because Vine isn’t setup with a front-facing camera, I think more people tend to record what they see, instead of themselves, so now we get the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of others and I’m truly hoping that Vine will not change that feature. Now don’t get me wrong, many people still see themselves as interesting and worth looking at so they simply flip their camera phone around BUT I will say that there’s a great majority that are allowing us to see the world through their eyes, and this is truly refreshing.

So far I feel that Vine is pretty cool and has positioned their product as a unique tool that is here to stay. Also, it’s rather user-friendly and intuitive which is half the battle.

A few brands have jumped on the bandwagon so far, including Urban Outfitters who was one of the first, showcasing a video of dogs and another of beer (entirely unrelated to the brand).  I’ve also noticed a few agencies and companies testing out Vine, including BuzzFeed who is rather active; giving us an inside perspective of what it’s like to work there. Several celebrities quickly embraced the platform including Adam Goldberg and Jimmy Fallon utilizing the platform as a snapshot into their lives; just a few step beyond Instagram.

It will be interesting to see which big brands will embrace this platform for advertising, and since consumers hate ads it may just be the perfect place to keep their short attention span. Just imagine the pre-roll for a 6 second ad.

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

19 Trends for the 19th

This is not as easy as I thought it would be but this time I'm trying to move beyond trends from 2011 (thank you Jeff Dickens for your constant support cough cough). Also, I really need to make this list at the beginning of the month when I don't have to come up with so many trends simply to satisfy the blog title. Anyways, enjoy!

1. Stop motion
2. Cold brew coffee
3. Checking in with GetGlue
4. Rose gold
5. Pingpong
6. Snapchat
7. Fennel
8. Sophie the giraffe
9. Gluten free
10. Peplum tops
11. Herringbone
12. Unique ice cube trays
13. Keeping calm and carrying on
14. High top wedge sneakers
15. Mint (the color)
16. The Harlem Shake
17. Zombies
18. Retro swimwear
19. Google Hangouts

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone