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Monthly Archives: June 2013
Monthly Archives: June 2013
Sending Your Own Kisses! Coolest Tech Discovery of the Week!
Google works on art projects around the world and has labs that use their creativity to come up with new ways to use the internet and to communicate. They also work with different brands to create combined projects like this burberry kiss project.
I just tried it out by sending Nestor a Happy Father's day kiss and card- you can send images or text along with your kiss. But what is really fun about this project is that it is animated.
The entire process is interactive. You first say you want to send a kiss. Then you take a photo of your own lips in the shape of a kiss right from your computer. Then you choose your lipstick color if you are a girl. If you are a guy you send your regular skin color lips. I guess if you want to send lipstick colored lips you can:).
Then you create your message, you add the email address you want to send your kiss to. The envelope gets sealed with your original authentic kiss.
You then can watch the kiss traveling the world to its' destination on the 3D website. It is fun, the song is great and it is quite a joy to watch. You also see other people's kisses floating to their destinations.
On this map you can actually see all the kisses being sent around the world in realtime! http://kisses.burberry.com/map/
All kisses are private unless you choose to share. You can share them on google plus of course!
Try it out now at: kisses.burberry.com
Burberry Kisses is the latest campaign in our Art, Copy & Code project, an ongoing series of brand partnershipsto re-imagine how brands tell stories in a connected world. With this project, we’ve tried to create a beautiful experience that comes to life across all screens, and helps connect you to the people who are important to you, wherever they are. For more details on the campaign, see our agency blog or visit our website.
Google's CEO- Larry Page and David Drummond the Chief Legal Officer at Google came out with their official statement regarding the latest requests by the United States Government and the rumors of PRISM.
The rumor is that Google gave the U.S. Government access to their servers through a secret program run by the National Security Agency called PRISM.
Google's official position is that they have NOT joined any secret program and have not joined any government program of any country that would give those governments secret access to their servers. Google is not giving anyone information about their users' internet activity.
Google is very adamant about making sure that EACH and EVERY request by any government fulfills the law in which that request is based. Google has a full legal team that reviews every single request by any government that requires them to turn over information. If the request does not fall within the law- it is not granted.
Verizon received an order to turn over millions of user records and data by the U.S. government. This of course, creates a lot of other press articles about other companies, Google included.
Google stands by their position that there needs to be transparency in any requests made for their users' internet activity or records of any kind. That is why they have their Transparency Report page. Google is the first company to create such a page.
You can see by this chart that there is a continuous increase of requests for information about our internet activity which is very worrisome as to the errosion of personal liberties and the danger of subverting the freedom of expression.
“But the level of secrecy around the current legal procedures undermines the freedoms we all cherish.” Larry Page
It is bad enough that third party aggregators get the MLS feeds and then sell the leads to the listings that you worked to procure back to you, the agent.
1. But did you know that a homeowner can list their property as a FSBO on Zillow too? Yes, for FREE, they can list their house for sale by owner on their website, in case you did not know that.
2. If you have a widget from them ( see, I don't want to use their name over and over again- because that helps their branding on Google) on your website you are telling Google that they are the authority for homes for sale. Of course, you are not as big as they are, so the authority benefit goes to that link to them and not back to you.
3. They bought Postlets. Did you know that whenever you create a postlets flier and you have that on the internet, there is a link back to their website at the very bottom of the postlet under the flier?
From an SEO standpoint – these are not in your best interest.
From a listing agent standpoint- this is not in your best interest.
I know, many agents tell me they have to play the game or they lose business. I have never believed that one must compromise their principles, values or business in order to make a profit. There is always another way.
Of course, it is all up to you how you play the game and how you run your business. But real estate agents who don't pay attention to the actions they take online are the ones who begin to wonder why they no longer have their website ranking on the first page of Google, and guess who has taken your place! Agents are the reason for their own loss of control of their inventory.