This video takes you on a hypothetical tour through the last advertising agency on earth – complete with artifacts of what the agency execs were doing at the moment of extinction!

Being part of Bluewire, I am biased as to the importance of the web, but what do you think… Will advertising agencies become extinct?  Or will they thrive?

Thanks Brett Wiskar at Speedwell for showing me this!

Web Strategy Brisbane: If you’d like to get with the times & get your web strategy cranking, give Bluewire Media a call on 1300 258 394.

RIP Google Wave – Mashable
Google’s revolutionary product that blends email, instant messaging, file sharing & wikis “didn’t get the uptake they’d hoped for & Google won’t be continuing to develop Wave as a stand alone product.” It only launched in 2009.

Here at Bluewire, we think the problem was the product’s contagiousness, or lack thereof. Many of us were saying that we either couldn’t explain it to anybody else or never understood it ourselves in the first place. If something’s too confusing to tell your friends about, how will the idea take off? As we know now, it doesn’t.

Did you or anyone you know use Google Wave and how did you find it? Could you explain how it works to anyone else?

Getting people to do what you want them to do!

Lessons Learned from 21 Case Studies in Conversion Rate Optimization – SEOmoz
How can you make more people buy? contact you? download your ebook? sign up for your seminar or subscribe to your newsletter? This article covers it all, from making actions more obvious & increasing credibility to split testing enticing headlines. And of course, it’s full of case studies!

If you’re as excited about this as we are, get in touch and let’s get started!

Read on for more detail on shopping carts and “gradual engagement” (getting more information from users over time rather than making them sign up or fill out their whole profile before starting):

Checkout abandonment on the rise – Econsultancy
A quick article about the main reasons why people abandon their shopping experience, often at the last minute after they’ve added items to their cart and are about to pay.

The most obvious ways to combat this are: provide information about delivery and all charges upfront and make shipping costs really easy to find! Having to wait for a manually calculated shipping cost from the store owner is also a huge barrier for many people who just want to click “Pay” and wait for their goodies to turn up. Making users sign up for an account when they might not ever buy from you again is also more likely to make them not bother at all than become a repeat visitor. And of course, they want it to be fast to checkout.

Sign Up Forms Must Die – A List Apart
This article is from 2008 but unfortunately, complicated barrier sign up forms are still far too common. Would you agree that you’d be more likely to engage and stick with something if you already knew what it did and had even experienced it? And then the account was created for you??

This isn’t talking about contact forms or newsletter subscription forms, though they too can definitely begin by collecting just a name and email address and get other details later, but rather when you need to have an account to use a web application like YouTube or Twitter.

Back to the future

Will Ferrell’s Tour of Tech That Never Took – Wired
I don’t know about you, but I’m often painfully reminded that 2010 isn’t quite like we imagined it’d be 50 years ago. Sure, the future’s hard to predict but you’d think we’d have underwater cities by now! And why can’t I just hologram into the office rather than commute in on a machine invented in the 1800s? Obviously Will Ferrell agrees with me…

Plus, what if our favourite social technologies were advertised back when the future was exciting?

View the full size version >

List of common misconceptions – Wikipedia
If I told you that Napoleon wasn’t unusually short or that the Great Wall of China can’t actually be seen from space, would you believe me? What about that Thomas Edison didn’t invent the lightbulb? If that’s not blowing your mind yet, check out the Wikipedia article on common misconceptions! Good lunchtime reading for trivia buffs.

10 iPhone Apps for a Better Night’s Sleep – Mashable
You might already sleep with your iPhone, but if you need a plausible excuse, here are 10 apps to help you fall asleep, wake up and monitor everything in between. You can drift off with gentle guided meditation, make sure your alarm doesn’t wake you up from a deep slumber and a whole lot more!

A Showcase of Minimalist Workstations – Webdesigner Depot
I’m not sure if most of these are truly minimalist, but these are some really tidy desks in very pretty rooms! You might get inspired to renovate your office… or maybe just do that End of Financial Year Clean-up you promised yourself.

5 Cool Non-Profit Uses of Location-Based Tech – Mashable
While we’re in the midst of Foursquare “Mayor Battles” at the Bluewire office, some people are using the platform for good. These 5 non-profit companies are using location-based technology for fundraising, inspiring experiences and enhancing university graduation. Getting any ideas?

Fail Whale Cake Makes Sour Situation Sweet

Mashable found this cake from Argentina to help make us all feel better about the Twitter downtime lately. It just makes me hungry (but not for whales!)

Have you ever wondered why all Apple product mockups show the time at just after 9.40? Neither had I (nor had I even picked up on this peculiarity). But indeed, the iPhone’s clock displayed 9.42am. The iPad displayed 9.41.

I’ll let Fast Company explain:

Turns out Apple’s keynote organizers think about this stuff right down to the tiniest detail–and this is certainly one of the tinier details. They rehearse the presentation with Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller, and whoever else will be speaking, and time it so the big announcement comes 40 minutes in. They add a couple minutes to be on the safe side.

That means that when Apple puts that most important slide up, the one introducing the new hardware, the time on the static image of the device will be damned close to the time the packed room of journalists sees it for the first time. It’s just one more example of how carefully Apple prepares everything–that’s a detail we didn’t know about until a couple days ago, and they’ve been doing it for years, with no fanfare. Very cool, right?

Their level of perfectionism is at once impressive and intimidating, isn’t it!

See for yourself at Apple.com »

 
What did we do before Google?

Via Informavore.

 
Bing Maps raise the bar in online mapping technology

 
‘BIRD’ by Andrew Zuckerman

BIRD Ferruginous Hawk from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

BIRD film from Andrew Zuckerman Studio on Vimeo.

Anyone who’s seen Andrew Zuckerman’s incredible wildlife photography will appreciate this stunning video created to accompany his book called BIRD.

Via Kitsune Noir.

Since then, Bluewire Media has grown in leaps & bounds, becoming one of Brisbane’s leading web design agencies and servicing over 200 Queensland & interstate companies.

On Thursday evening we headed down to the Chalk Hotel & entertained by Luttsy, celebrated turning five in the company of our friends, clients & colleagues.

Designing websites for five years!

Thanks to everyone who came along & special thanks to those who donated such fantastic prizes for our raffle.

With your help we raised $1,322.30 for the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation – a charity that needs no introduction & one we are very proud to be able to support.

Lucky winners took home the following prizes:

- 2 Tickets – BAA Lunch

- Double Pass – Palace Cinemas, The Barracks

- 6 months of car washes – Handwash Cafe

- 5 Tickets – Albion Comedy Club & Restaurant

- $100 voucher – Chalk Hotel

- Apple Slinky Peeler – LiveItUp.net.au

- $100 voucher – Home Spa

- Original Painting – Peter Lewis Gallery

- Wine – Secret Vines Estate

- 5 PT sessions – Empowered Spirit

- Double Pass – Queensland Symphony Orchestra

- 2 Rounds – 18 Holes At Brookwater Golf Club

- $100 Voucher – Hotel Orient

- Bottle Of Wine – Mike O’Hagan (Mini Movers)

- 1 Weekend BMW Rental – Motorline BMW

Take a look at our Facebook Album to see snaps of the night.

Also, we made the Sunday Mail socials!

To find out more about Bluewire Media’s approach to web design call 1300 258 394.

 
Have a go at First Person Tetris. Frustrating, fun, totally retro!

The Bluewire team was joined by our SEO & SEM partners & friends, Reload Media at the lunch and then again at the Orient for some Christmas celebrations. The food was good, the drinks cold and the entertainment hilarious! Arj Barker had the crowd in good spirits over lunch firing a few low blows to the local advertising scene along with his usual comedy gold routine.

There were plenty of prizes up for grabs at lunch with over $10,000 in cash and prizes enticing punters to fork out for the raffle tickets for the charity fund raising effort. The BAA is to be commended for its great contribution to charity donating $5,000 each to the Hear & Say Centre, the Royal Children’s Hospital Foundation and the Starlight Children’s Foundation. Well done BAA!

It was a massive day and lots of fun was had by all. (You could almost say a few people had a little too much fun which I am definitely guilty of!) However with Operation Unite in full swing that weekend, you will be happy to know that no Bluewire Media staff members were caught up in the police crackdown on party revellers. Everyone was well behaved and a good, safe night was enjoyed by all which was a fitting celebration of all our hard work this year!

Be sure to check out more of the photos and videos on our Facebook page!

Plus here’s a video of some BAA streamer madness. You’ll notice Nic cops one in his eye, but he made a full recovery!