Hex, Beats and Rants… Evolution Phase

MySpace.com is getting increasingly annoying with their rampant use of the CAPTCHA verification technique. I have to enter letters when I add a friend, use it to edit my own profile, use it to reply to a bulletin someone else posted… it is seriously getting out of hand. The internet is all about speed. I do not want to have to sit there and decipher these warped letters to edit my own profile, or write a quick note to a friend.

I know MySpace has had their share of trouble with spammers, but using this technique globally for every human interaction is going to drive myself away. If I feel this way about it, how many other people feel the same way? Then MySpace becomes a hindrance, an annoyance, everything short of fun.

I have been a fan of VideoCopilot.net for some time and I’ll tell you why: Andrew Kramer offers compelling well-done video tutorials that make After Effects seem like a snap, and it’s free. I highly recommend this site for learning. The general tutorials assume you have knowledge of After Effects and how to do the basics. Andrew has a great sense of humor in the tutorials which keep the atmosphere light and entertaining. The more advanced tutorials teach some pretty cool effects.

VideoCopilot.net now offers free basic training as well. You can check out the basic training tutorials here, and check out their more advanced tutorials here.

Take a look at the trailer for their basic training series below.

Tribal DDB in Chicago concepted a microsite in support of their spring Lowe’s campaign. The microsite was built by Firstborn. You should check it out as it is super cool. I personally love the ‘design your own backyard’ tool. The branding is great, fun factor is high, and product integration is also subtle yet informative.

www.welcomebackspring.com

How do you like my lawn design? I think it rocks and wish I had an actual yard I could do this in. Go make your own!

The grass will brown over time so you need to water it, then mow it even. It’s so fun! Maybe it’s just the ‘guy’ in me. Haha.

I have closed comments on this blog entry. I think all the parties involved have responded and do not want the mudslinging or finger pointing to get out of hand. I think everyone has valid points and I also stated my own preference below. If you have any direct comments, please relay them directly to the email addresses below for 2Advanced or Beatport.  Thank you.

So I wrote this blog entry about how 2Advanced out of Orange County, CA copied Beatport.com’s GUI and IA, but, as it turns out, it was a client of theirs that supplied the completed IA. Eric Jordan, owner and visionary of 2A also happens to be in the music scene. I had assumed that because of this it was his own pet project, a new business endeavor. I was wrong.

Eric professionally responded to a post I made on plat4m.com, 2A’s blog, calling out the fact that MasterBeat.com is so so so so close to Beatport. See the examples below, click to enlarge, then read his response.

This one got sent to me by Beatport.com Support today:

Jtrcmca,

Not a lot of people understand what happens behind the scenes with these client projects, so I thought I would address your concerns.

The client (Masterbeat) came to 2Advanced with the entire information architecture completely documented from A to Z, and wanted to go head to head with Beatport. We had little to do with any information architecture other than making suggestions and coming up with some of the cool features for “Control”, the Masterbeat backend which allows artists to upload their tracks.

Despite the NUMEROUS suggestions we made to “do something different from Beatport’s UI”, the client inevitably came back to us with the following statements every time: “Well, Beatport does it like this…” or “I’d like to do something similar to how Beatport does it….”. Believe me, we gave a lot of push back, but in the end the client always wants what they want, and its their dollar. We walk a fine line between making our own recommendations and actually upsetting the client for not giving them what they want.

So, despite the clients natural tendency to ask us to emulate much of Beatport’s IA, I feel we did an excellent job in enhancing the functionality and making many improvements over Beatport’s UI. We will be pushing a new version up shortly for the client which has some really unique features. I think if you dig deeper, you will see that our interface is immensely more functional and has an attention to detail which Beatport lacks.

Eric Jordan
President / Chief Creative Officer
2Advanced Studios, LLC.

A friend at work who is really into gaming showed me this video today. He recently bought his iPhone because Apple released an iPhone SDK (Software Development Kit) and gave programmers 2 weeks to come up with some games. In the space shooter below, the game uses both the iPhone’s touch screen for firing as well as it’s accelerometer (the thing that knows if the phone is sideways or vertical) to steer. The result looks like a lot of fun.

Super Monkey Ball from SEGA

Spore from Electronic Arts