Starbucks Coffee Company is turning 40 this year. In honor of this milestone, Starbucks is taking the opportunity to move forward with it’s branding and where the company itself is going. They have decided to yet again tweak the logo and this time the Siren is being pulled out of her “Starbucks Coffee” ring to allow for further opportunities as the company expands their offerings beyond coffee.
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Our friends at Tradeweb, a leading global provider of online marketplaces for fixed income and derivatives, needed a little help with their holiday card, so we were happy to oblige with a fun, winter themed game. After a thoughtful holiday message from Tradeweb, users can hit the slopes for some fast paced skiing action. Race down the mountain, avoiding snowmen and trees as you go faster and faster! Our resident production coordinator Jino Savaglio holds our office record at 36,000 points! Can you beat that?

Click here to see the holiday card.

As a long time fan and subscriber, one of the best things about DIRECTV is their customer service. It shows the first time you pick up the phone to order service or ask a question about your receiver. Part of what makes their customer service so great is made possible by online training courses made available to their thousands of reps. Reps can log into the training sessions, get current on DIRECTV messaging, and even earn prizes by completing courses. We recently helped DIRECTV expand their library of online training modules with a 5 minute animated overview of the “On Boarding” process that describes the first 90 days of a new customer’s experience. After watching the animated overview, reps are invited to play a special game that not only reinforces the themes of the lesson, but also works as a reward for completing the training. Tuesday provided animations, copy editing, voiceover and created a new game that reinforces the training and will keep learning fun.

Q:  Name
A: Devin C. Johnson

Q:  Company
A: iVillage/NBC Universal

Q:  Title
A: GM, Digital Works @ NBCU

Q:  What time did you get up this morning?
A: 6am

Q:  What has been your greatest achievement to date?
A: Greatest achievement to date is a little Girl named Carys Grace… Hey Care Bear, Daddy loves you.

Q:  What was the last film you saw at the movie theater?
A: Salt

Q:  What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail?
A: Entrepreneurship… not that I don’t love my job, but if this digital thing doesn’t work out, I could run a killer Food Truck

Q:  What technology most changed your life?
A: TIVO rocked my world in 2002… I’m cheating on you with a Time Warner box, but you will always be my 1st love.

Q:  Facebook, Twitter or the App Store?
A: Facebook

Q:  What is something people would be surprised to know about you?
A: I was a wish granter for the make-a-wish foundation for 10 years… Changed my life. PSA: Consider donating… http://www.wish.org

Q:  What food will you never eat again?
A: Sweetbreads… fool me once, shame on you Argentina

Q:  What are you listening to right now?
A: Erykah Badu, Eminem, Fresh Beat Band, Laurie Berkner’s I want to go fast

Q:  What are you currently reading?
A: Strategy and the Fat Smoker; Doing What’s Obvious But Not Easy

Q:  Do you like your handwriting?
A: Hate my handwriting.

Q:  If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
A: Burnt Sienna was always my go-to color…it’s brownish and unique, what’s not to love

Q:  Any new and exciting news you’d like to share with us?
A: Keep an eye out for the new Momtourage.com

Social Media is here to stay and will only continue to grow in its reach and influence.  Is your website social media ready? Being social media ready means making all your web and mobile content ready to be easily shared, posted, retweeted and so on. Integrating social media readiness into your marketing strategy is an inexpensive way to help distribute the content you work so hard to create. Let your great content work for you by adding Facebook “Like” buttons across key pages or share tools within your content. For instance, we enhanced NBCU Video On Demand to integrate share features across their Consumer Site. Now users can easily spread the word about their favorite On Demand movies like Vertigo, It’s Complicated or the documentary favorite Babies.

If you would like more information about how Tuesday can help make your site and promotions more social media ready, please contact Diana Scott (diana.scott@tuesday.com) 818-755-2241. Whether it is boosting your share features, creating games for people to play and share or integrating user generated content from your fan pages back to your site, we can help you.

The iPhone 4. Does it even need an introduction? Probably not. If you didn’t know it was out or even know what it is, then you are living under a rock and I can’t help you. Humorously, some people had no idea why I, and hundreds others, were standing in line at the Grove on June 24th for over three hours to get the phone. Some guessed the new “Twilight” movie. Um, as if. (Quick, what movie is that from?)

Within the first three days of hitting the market, the new iPhone 4 sold more than 1.7 million units according to Apple’s press release. By now I’m sure it’s well over 2 million. That is “the most successful product launch in Apple’s history,” according to Apple CEO, Steve Jobs. And we’re talking about a phone that you can’t even make calls with your bare hands, apparently.

So what’s all the hype about? Is it worth it? Should you run, not walk, to your nearest Apple store? What follows is my humble opinion of the new iPhone 4. There won’t be a lot of tech talk or statements backed with copious amounts of testing. Just an honest opinion with commonplace observations.
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Last month the 2010 Cable Show took center stage at the LA Convention Center giving top executives from cable operators, content producers, distribution networks and technology companies a chance to get together and explore the continually evolving industry. Of course a bevy of cable celebrities were also there to provide entertainment including The Kardashian’s, Omorosa, Hulk Hogan and many more. You should have seen the lines for pictures!

Scott Seward, our President, and I attended to support our partners and keep tabs on the latest developments in the cable industry. One particularly hot topic this year was EBIF, the industry supported Enhanced Binary Interchange Format being integrated into Comcast’s Xfinity Remote and other devices.  There was also a lively general session that brought together CEOs of from top cable, tech and entertainment companies for a discussion on evolving business models.  The panel emphasized the importance of ensuring that technology not be a barrier to content creators.   If you missed the show, don’t fret:  many of the individual sessions are recapped on the Cable Show Blog.

NBC Universal Studio Operations has a fantastic, content rich website that describes and promotes their studio facilities.  To further improve their site, NBCU wanted to streamline it for location scouts, producers and directors touring the backlot.  This was accomplished by auditing the primary website for the most relevant content and redesigning it for mobile displays.  The site puts all the most important information at the finger tips of filmmakers while keeping their other hand free to steer the golf cart.  Fire up your BlackBerry or iPhone browser today and have a look!

Harris Interactive has recently unveiled a revolutionary technology that provides companies with astounding customer research.  This technology, called Research Lifestreaming, connects with customer’s social networks (of course, they give permission for the access) and offers companies insight into their social habits.  To help its successful launch, we created a stylish animated overview and microsite that gives Harris Interactive clients a great first impression and informative introduction to Research Lifestreaming.   Check it out right here and contact us or use the website if you are interested in learning more how Research Lifestreaming can help your business grow.

The Animated Gif.

Remember the blessed days of Geocities when people, myself included, would sprinkle their newly made websites with all sorts of horrible animated monstrosities. The ever present “under construction” banner with the little man digging was a widely known classic. As a result, I feel like when you string the words ‘animated’ and ‘gif’ together people start to cringe just a little. Unless you are talking to a pre-teen who already owns an iPhone, iPad, doesn’t know what 8-track is and can’t comprehend the world without DVR. She wouldn’t know what the hell you are really talking about.

Matthew Cooper and Johnny Kelly are the brains behind I Am Not An Artist which started out with an initial 56 animated gifs and aims to grow into a space where other designers and creative types can participate by uploading their own gifs here. The project is an ongoing work in progress commissioned by the Elisava School of Design with concept, creative direction and design by Soon In Tokyo, a communications agency made up of former Elisava students and Teachers. The idea behind it all is to express that while designing can be fun there are a lot of frustrating, monotanous, and routine aspects to being a designer. You can see more of these animated gems after the jump.

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