Droooling over dribbble

For those who are unaware, Dribbble is a social hub for designers (mostly web folk) to showcase small screenshots of their latest work, in order to gain feedback from the community. I’ve been using it since early June and just wanted to share my thoughts.

Now, I’d heard great things about Dribbble before i was ‘drafted’ in by a friend. It seemed to be the place where all the ‘top’ web designers hung out, you know the same one who are topping the bill at the ridiculously expensive conferences, so it naturally got a lot of attention and created a desire amongst the rest of the design community to get involved.

The site itself was the brainchild of Dan Cederholm, and rather than being somewhere exclusive and aloof it had a nice way of getting others involved whilst making sure that the quality would remain. It manages to put the responsibility for quality on the shoulders of its users. It does this by only giving a small amount of opportunities to invite others, and being very clear as to your responsibility for ensuring the work displayed remains decent.

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Video & photo competitions using YouTube Direct

YouTube have expanded their API recently, and perhaps one of the most exciting aspects of this update is something they are calling ‘YouTube Direct’.

Direct now makes it incredibly easy to let users upload their own videos (or photos) on your own website. YouTube then provides an administrative tool for you to approve/reject anything that has been uploaded, with approved uploads being added automatically onto your YouTube channel. Obviously, these can also be displayed straight onto your website, also allowing users to rate and comment directly on your site.

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Introducing World Cup Stick Up!

After a half hour brainstorming meeting between me and Simon Wilson over a cup of coffee, and 2 weeks hard slog from the team at fuse8, I can proudly confirm that our fun World Cup website ‘World Cup Stick Up’ has now gone live!

The basic concept is this, you can upload your own picture, pick from one of the set sticker templates (currently Charlton, Keegan, Waddle, Beckham, Beardsley, Seaman and Graham ‘Turnip’ Taylor) and turn yourself into a football sticker. You can then upload your pic to facebook, where it creates your own World Cup Stick Up album. Twitter integration is coming soon.

Despite working on several pitches which have facebook connect at the core of the concept, and some experimentation with our developers, this is our first proper attempt at using it on a site. It’s been a hectic week in which we’ve experimented which the flash and javascript APIs, but we got there in the end, and it really has made a massive difference to the campaign. The vast majority of early visiting traffic has come from facebook, showing that a fun tool, and a snappy bit of copy on each upload can make a huge difference.

The last time we created a self-promo site at fuse8 was at Christmas, with our Powered by Sprouts website. The launch of that site was under similar circumstances, in that there is a crowded marketplace. Replace Christmas, for the World Cup, and as you can imagine there are a lot of agencies and brands doing their own thing. It was imperative this time that we created something that could be updated and tweaked periodically to maximise word of mouth. So, the idea this time was to create different ‘packs’ of stickers, so we can continually update and offer more choice on the site! The great news for non-England fans, is that the next pack is our first ‘Rest of the World’ pack, hopefully containing Maradona, Valderamma, Voller and Gullit! Keep an eye out on the site, and follow World Cup Stick Up on twitter to keep up to date with all updates.

Have fun using the site, and let me know what you think! Always great to get some feedback!

You’ve gotta love Moshi Monsters!

If you haven’t heard of Moshi Monsters then chances are you don’t have kids. It’s fast becoming THE social networking site for kids under the age of 13, and after a few weeks of playing with it, after daily persuasion from my 4 year old girl, I can proudly come out and say it’s brilliant.

The basic premise of it is simple, you create a cute little monster with a house, you look after it, buy it clothes and furniture and then mingle with other monsters. It is in essence a safe social network for children. It’s very simplistic, but the design and details make it great fun, and hugely addictive.

I’ve been doing a lot of research recently into designing digital content for children, on the back of being involved in the BBC @North initiative with fuse8, and Moshi Monsters hits the nail on the head. Cute characters with big eyes, great sound design, easy to use, and engages you on a daily basis to collect ‘rox’ (Moshi Monsters currency)!

It’s also educational, and that’s the main reason I keep going back with the kids. The daily quiz, which gets you the most rox, is a collection of different puzzles and quizzes. It’s a good way of getting kids involved in elements of maths, english and geography. There are also a selection of downloads for kids to colour in.

So, if you have kids, check it out, but be careful…it’s addictive!