Game Launch: English Tower

On and off the table for almost a year as a concept, and after almost 2 months of full-time development, our first facebook game English Tower has launched.

It's a simple word finder game with stunning design and intuitive interactions. You pass each level by finding enough words to fill up your progress bar, and with every board you pass, you keep that actual building to continue to build your own English Tower. Look for special badge floors through in-game achievements. And of course, challenge your facebook friends to beat your score on any level played.

Meant to help players have fun and learn, we actually use the Dictionary.com API to define words, and the Google Translate API to hear the pronounciation of the words.

Built all in HTML5, CSS, and JS (no Flash here). PHP + MySQL make up the backend RESTful API using CodeIgniter as the core framework. And it's all sitting on the Amazon Cloud for better scaling, speed, and reliability. Some of the sound FX were recorded in a studio and the others and all the music was generated in-house through a combination of softwares.

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Feedback? Throw it in the comments below.

Review: IFTTT

"The Internet is a series of tubes." Ted Stevens, Alaskan Senator

Those of us who work on the Internet know that this statement isn't the reality. That doesn't mean however that a good plumber for connecting parts of the Internet doesn't come in handy. In fact, several web sites over the years have tried to lessen the pain of connecting large chunks of web-functionality together including Yahoo! Pipes.

But there is a young service online that is taking a slightly different approach to connecting some of the webs hottest services together and making it so simple, anyone can use it without any coding knowledge. The service is called If This Then That (IFTTT for short), and they connect the Internet through events from different types of services. Each event is called a trigger and what you want to happen when that trigger fires is called an action. For instance, if someone mentions you in a tweet, then post that tweet to your facebook wall.

Currently they cover over 40 different services (called channels) with a combined task list of nearly 2,000 unique triggers/actions. Some of the ones I currently use allow me to auto-post to different services. So, for example, if I favorite an article in my RSS reader, then it will post that article's link to my Linkedin account and my twitter stream.

But these channels aren't just current web services, they also include SMS, email and even phone calls. So you could send yourself information, or trigger certain things to happen when you send a text or email or even if you call their number and leave a message. This means you could setup a task so that if you text IFTTT a certain message, then it will call you, for instance if your on a bad date.

The interface is very straight forward, walking you through each step, starting with the trigger.

Of course, if you don't want to dive into the channels and start figuring them out yourself, there is also a recipes section where you can see some of the other tasks people have created and shared.

And the best part about IFTTT, it's free! So check it out, and see how you can streamline your online life.

Next Step

Almost 2 years ago to the day, my wife and I stepped off a late-night flight with 8 bags of luggage and no idea what we were in for. We both had always wanted to live in London, so when the opportunity arose to not only work there, but to work with a long time friend and mentor, it was an easy decision.

The first few months were eye-opening and challenging in unexpected ways, but it wasn't too long before we started finding our local haunts and spending time with new friends from all over the world. And despite what you might hear, you can definitely find some really great food in England if you know where to look. The biggest perk has to be the travel. Last year, I estimate my wife and I traveled almost 50,000 miles to places we'd never thought we would visit.

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Of course, living in London isn't all travels and holidays, we also started new jobs with challenges we had never faced before. For me, I learned the most working within an international department, and also building my own development teams - one in London and another in Bangalore, India (you can read my first impression of India here). And of course working client side has its challenges and rewards, but more on that in another article.

In some ways the 2 years have flown by and in other ways it feels like I've been here for a long time. Regardless of the challenges, moving and working in London has been one of the best decisions I've ever made. I've learned so much about myself, how I approach work and how to balance my life. I've loved that our first 2 years of marriage were on our own, and that we were able to take on this adventure together. If I had to do it all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.

But new opportunities and new phases have a way of popping up periodically, which is why I'm excited to share that my next step will be to return to some familiar stomping grounds in Richmond, VA.

I will be rejoining the Martin Agency in early May as an associate creative director/technology and to say I'm excited really doesn't do it justice. It wasn't easy when I left 2 years ago, and I had always hoped to one day return if the stars aligned. Martin is a power house of amazing people doing amazing work every day. Check out their body of work here.

And even though quite a few friends and colleagues have moved from Richmond since we've left, I'm still looking forward to seeing some familiar faces.

But before I head back, I have one really big thing to do at work, and that's to fill out my team here in London. Currently there are job openings for a Technical Director and a Creative Technologist. If you know some people who might be a good fit, definitely send them the links.

Review: Unique Music Services

There are a ton of great ways to listen to music online that have been growing in popularity in the last 18 months (spotify, pandora, and turntable to name a few), but I wanted to point 2 different services I use a lot that I think are fairly unknown so far, and are completely free.

The first is tubalr.com. This is a pretty unique service in that it allows users to create playlists from YouTube videos and will play them in sussesion, completely free of charge.

You start out by putting in an artist name (or whatever search term you like) and it will find videos based on that term. As you listen to the different videos, you can favorite them for easy playback later. They also have popular styles lists you can start with as well. So far, the only downside is it doesn't let you create more than one list of favourites. But, it’s a young service, and the developer keeps releasing updates often.

Here is my current tubalr list - http://www.tubalr.com/individual11/favorites (don't judge me based on my afinity towards dubstep remixes and Lonely Island songs.)

The other service is wearehunted.com. This is my favourite site for discovering new artists and songs that I normally wouldn't run across. They recently updated their interface to make it even better for users to just listen to music in the background.

As you listen to infinite stream of randomly selected songs, you can “like” the ones you are enjoying and skip the ones that aren't your style. After doing this for several songs, you can tell the service to create a play list based on what it thinks you will like, and I find it to be pretty accurate.

They also offer free downloads for selected new artists and you can usually click over to iTunes if you want to purchase a song.

I'm sure there are a ton of unique music listening experiences that pop up everyday, but definitely give these two a listen.

Review: Pinterest

I use a bunch of different web, desktop and mobile apps everyday to help me get things done, be inspired and to do better work. I sometimes link to them, but I thought I would start adding real reviews to my blog about a few of them periodically to talk about how I use them. It will only be on apps that I actually like using and use often, and hopefully they will be on some obscure apps you might not have heard a lot about yet.

The first one however, you've probably been hearing a decent amount about lately, Pinterest. It's a site for hosting images and videos (although I almost never see videos) you find on the web. The process is very easy; you see an image on a web page you want to store, click a bookmarklet and "Pin" it. You can also create different boards to help you sort your pinned content.

The social aspect is a lot more subtle than on other sites, but I find it to be a lot more personal as well. You can follow other people and see all the content they pin, or you can choose to follow just specific albums of those people. You can also comment/like on any piece of content as well as re-pin it, which would allow you to instantly add it to one of your boards.

I've been seeing a lot of negative comments/questions about Pinterest lately saying it's just for women, and although women do seem to pin the most content, it's definitely for everyone. Here are a couple ways I use it.

Inspiration is an obvious use for pinterest, but I even categorize further into different types of inspiration including art, great ideas and typography. Once you start pinning stuff you find on the web, your boards will fill up quickly.

I also find it to be a unique way to find new recipes. I use the food category to look at different dishes that I might want to eat and then follow the link back to the original web page, usually a recipe. This, for me, has been a much easier way to get me to try new things than listing the ingredients. It has also lead to one of my favorite things to make, sriracha chicken.

And one of the ways I use it for work is to keep track of different illustration styles. This is great for having a large catalogue of styles for an idea, and then the link goes back to the artist, making it easier for me to get connected to them.

But not to worry, because there is no wrong way to use it, and the ease of use and sharing makes it a no-brainer to try out.

If you still need an invite, leave your email address in the comments, and I will send you one.

P.S. If you're still worried about the guy/gal ratio on Pinterest, check out this guide by Read Write Web.

Game songs

My team and I are about to launch a very cool word-find game on facebook in the next week or so (more on that in a later post) and I thought I would post the original music for the levels I made using GarageBand and some 8-bit samples.

We are still debating if it's the right tone for the game, but I like them and find them pretty easy to listen to in the background.

(download)

Different Languages, Part 2

In my previous article, I talked a bit about the different ways creatives and technologists talk about ideas. I focused primarily on the best ways technology can and should be used to fit into a creative concept, and not be the center of the story. This time I'm going to talk about how and when technologist should push for the technology itself to be an upfront part of the story.

Not every idea needs to tell a story or to be wrapped in a conceptual idea. Utilities for customers, such as the XBox app for Dominoes Pizza, or the Starbucks iPhone app) have a place in a brands portfolio right along side social media efforts and traditional media. Ideas can always support a brand message without repeating it overtly. And this is the other side of the coin when communicating between creative and technology, value exchange.

The first thing a technology person says when hearing an idea is "Where is the value to the user?". Technical people put reasoning behind most of their choices. They quickly recognize the give and take balance of time vs. value when it comes to digital experiences (and their own work). If this balance is off, the idea doesn't make sense to them.

Of course sometimes the value for the user may not be as obvious as a utility. Often, simple experiences that are created for entertainment only, have a great deal of value to users. If this were not the case TV, and by extension YouTube, would not exist. Which brings the concept of the idea full-circle back to "What is the story?".

It's a difficult balancing act between all these different concepts that can encompass an idea, but with the right talented people and the ability to communicate on the same wave length, amazing work can be done. And remember, a conceptual idea doesn't preclude a technology idea and vice versa.

Different Languages, Part 1

Part of my job leading Creative Technologies is translation. And I don't mean linguistically from English to French (although I am getting a little better at that). I mean translating the value of ideas between traditional creatives and technology-focused people. These 2 groups have 2 completely different vernaculars when they talk about ideas.

Whenever a technology-focused person presents an idea ("we should hook up Microsoft Kinect to a Twitter feed and generate real-time social art projects"), the creative's first response is "But what's the idea?" This question leaves many technology people frustrated and the feeling that creatives "just don't get technology." When what the creative is really asking is "what is the concept behind the idea? What is the story you're trying to tell?" Often, technology people miss the story itself and instead focus on how new and innovative the technology is.

For technology to be a major part of a story, it needs to be invisible to the user. One of the best quotes I've ever read on technology is from Arthur Clarke who said, "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." In advertising, the technology should be part of the experience itself, not the focal point.

In a project I worked on this year, This is My Story, we used a lot of great technology including Amazon Cloud Services, photo creation with users web cams, and dynamic image integration into a video. But the reason it was so succesful (about to hit 8.5 million videos watched and over 2.5 million videos made) is because the concept of allowing kids and their parents to tell their own story of what their future could like in 2020 was so compelling.

With technology evolving at a daily pace, there will always be new and innovative ways to tell stories; just don't forget about the stories you're trying to tell.

Of course, that's just one side of the coin. In the next article, I will talk about ideas from a technologist point of view and how their value can sometimes trump story telling.

2012 Resolutions

I can't jump into my new resolutions without first going over last year's to see how I did:

Cut my sugar intake in half - I did ok last year. I can still do better, but I didn't get any grande hot chocolates, so that's a plus.
Gain 10 pounds... of muscle - Fail! I'm still 135 soaking wet. Oh well.
Launch 3 personal projects - Mostly success. I launched a couple JQuery Projects, a Lorem Ipsum replacement and redid my site. I still have a few other projects which I started, that I plan to launch this year.
Post either to this blog or portfolio twice a month - 50/50. I had some good months and bad months for posting content.
Get to novice/moderate level of 2 new languages - Mostly fail. I got better a lot of the languages I work in, and played with a bunch of different new languages (and also studied French for a bit.)
Use more frameworks - Success! The more I work with frameworks in my projects, the faster I am able to get projects out into the world. My current favorite is Twitter Bootstrap.
Become epic at Rebirth for iPad - Success!
Collaborate more with awesome people - Mostly successful. I was able to fully build out my team in London and in India, but I still want to find ways to work with people in different skill areas and in different locations.
Remind my wife how much I love her to the point of annoyance - Success! But I can always do better.
Travel ambitiously - Success! India twice, Amsterdam, Edinburgh, Rome, Barcelona and Greece. Amazing places, amazing food.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with my progress on last year's resolutions. I can always improve which is why I have widdled my resolutions down to one for 2012. Create more.

That's what I want to do more of over 2012, simply create more. More posts. More projects. More art. And to kick it off, I have updated one of my personal projects today, the Scroll To JQuery plugin. I've fixed a couple small bugs and added the ability to use easing equations. It's not a massive improvement, but it's a good start for January 1st, 2012. Now all I have to do is keep the momentum going!

2 weeks with UP

My awesome wife knows about my obsession with gadgets and data, so for Christmas she ordered me a Jawbone UP. And she ordered it just in time, since they have closed off all orders as they work out a few things, but more on that later.

The device itself is a small bracelet that comes in multiple colors (I went with black) and sizes (I went with small due to my girlish wrists). Inside the bracelet is a bunch of miniature electronics including some LEDs, a sensitive motion sensor from MotionX®, a battery and a vibration motor. On one end of the bracelet is a cap that when pulled off gives you access to the 3.5mm plug for charging and syncing. On the other end is a tiny button that allows you to switch between the different modes. But that's only the first part of UP, the second is a free app for the iPhone that keeps track of all your data (you can use their site as well if you don't have an iPhone.) The bracelet will track all of your steps during normal mode and keep track of your sleep pattern during sleep mode. In addition, the iPhone app keeps track of the meals of you eat in a rudimentary kind of a system (take a picture, then in an hour it asks you how you feel.)

Overall, I found using UP easy to integrate into my day-to-day life. I usually take pictures of my food (yay instagram), and remembering to turn it to sleep mode when I go to bed and back to normal mode when I woke up was no big deal. The amount of data it collects based on the amount of work I have to do is very impressive, as you can see from some of the screen grabs below.

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Capacitor Issues

As I mentioned earlier, shortly after my wife purchased my UP, Jambox halted selling them, based on user feedback they were getting in their forums. Come to find out, some of the UPs had faulty capacitors, which were making it so the device wouldn't hold a charge (according to their own documentation, you should be able to use the bracelet normally for 10 days before it needs a recharge.) So they stopped selling them until they could fix the issue, and get it back into production. At the time of this writing, they are still not selling them.

How to do GREAT customer service

Jambox could have possible swept this issue under the rug, or dragged it out through the holidays hoping it would die down. Instead they met it head on, found the problem and released a statement. In the statement, they mentioned the exact problem, assured customers that the issues were not safety related and gave a refund to every single customer who purchased an UP, whether they had the problem or not. Even better, if you chose to take a Jambox credit instead of cash, they added an extra $50 to the refund.

The Bad

The rubber bracelet itself is nice, because it's suppose to be water resistant (you can even take a shower with it on), but it catches on things like sleeves or if you tend to be a restless sleeper, it will catch on the sheets. I'm hoping the next generation will be a bit thinner.
I haven't had the battery issues some are reporting, but after a week the button that controls the mode got very sensitive. It would change modes multiple times a day on its own if my hand was in my coat pocket for example.
It won't charge off the phone. I'm sure it's because of the output power of the phone, but still it would have been nice to be able to charge it on the go without needing my laptop.
I want to add more data. I'm sure design decisions had to be made for the app in order to keep it simple and minimal, but even if I could just click a small button when I drank a glass of water, I think that would actually be valuable in conjunction with the other data.

The Good

The vibrate motor is perfect! Very subtle, but noticeable. I was worried it would feel like having an x-box controller on my hand.
You can use it as an alarm, and the bracelet will vibrate around your alarm time, when it thinks you're coming out of sleep cycle. You can also have it go off if you're not being active (in front of a computer for too long for instance.)
It looks great and feels good. Jambox knows how to do simple design well, and as I mentioned earlier, you barely ever notice wearing it (and this is from someone who hates wearing a watch.)
For a first generation personal data collection device, it's surprising how much data it collects and how organized it is. If you're looking to find out more subtle information about your everyday life in hopes of becoming healthier, it's definitely worth trying.

With their really good return policy, simple design and enormous data collection, I don't know why anyone wouldn't try it. Look for it to come back on sale early 2012.