A couple of newbies this week. One that cropped up while I was touring New Zealand and one that cropped up when I was prepping for a meeting with GSK this week. The other two just caught my eye.

Enjoy

A

Picasa (http://picasa.google.com/)
Anything that Google acquires has to be good and this doesn’t disappoint. Picasa is a free software download from Google that helps users locate and organise all the photos (and images) on their computer, as well as editing and adding effects with a few easy clicks. What’s more, it facilitates file sharing by allowing users to upload photos to a sharing folder (like Flickr) or for the more adventurous, post photos to their blog.

Zamzar (http://www.zamzar.com/)
Ever seen a video on the web that you wanted to download and use in a presentation? Earlier this week, I had exactly that problem and stumbled across this fantastic app that converts a variety of files and formats for free. Follow the process and in 5 minutes it’s all done for you. What’s more, it is free. Simple. Quick. Intuitive and easy to use. What more do you need?

Orange Unlimited (http://unlimited.orange.co.uk/)
I have previously mentioned that we would start to see an increase in advertising pushing people to use their mobile devices. Orange Unlimited, the IAB Creative Showcase’s winner for December is one such example. The Unlimited web page is a never ending strand of rainbow, that guides the user down the page. No matter how far you go, there’s always something else to look at. Does it have an end? Or is it Unlimited? You can even take away and share selected items of Unlimited stuff on your blog, MySpace, del.ic.ous or just send a link to your mates. No matter where you are on the rainbow, links will take you straight to what you want to talk about. IMHO it is an example of too much creativity, but it is fun and engaging. The question is, will it make you surf the web on your mobile?

Personalised magazines (http://www.idiomag.com/)
Customised content has long been held up as the Holy Grail of digital publishing, and idiomag is making that promise a reality with a personalised, daily digital magazine about music that is based entirely on members’ individual interests. Launched just over a year ago, UK-based idiomag uses a system of weighted tagging to customise both content and advertising to readers’ personal musical tastes. Readers initially name their favourite music topics and weight the relative importance of each of them in the content they will view. idiomag then uses that information to serve articles, tracks, videos and other multimedia content in a high-quality, audio-visual virtual magazine format that readers can enjoy in page-by-page fashion. idiomag has content partnerships with publications including Billboard, 365mag and Hip Hop Nation as well as popular blogs such as Aurgasm and BlogCritics. It has also built up a large team of its own journalists across the UK. As readers rate the appeal of the content they view, idiomag intelligently adapts subsequent issues to reflect those changing preferences.

Not insignificantly, advertisers benefit from idiomag’s personalisation system as well, with the ability to serve nonintrusive, full-screen and rich-media advertisements that closely match readers’ interests. A newly incorporated social element, meanwhile, uses Facebook integration to let readers get their idiomag within the social networking site, view their friends’ magazines and capture articles they like, submit articles, and view trends and favourites among the other idiomag readers on the site. idiomag also offers widgets to incorporate the magazine on other social networks, blogs or home pages. Subscriptions to idiomag are free for readers; advertisers are charged on a CPM basis, and revenue is shared with content providers based on their content’s popularity.

When readers get the content they want and advertisers reach their target audiences in a targeted way, it really is hard to see a downside. One to bring to other niches, localities and topic areas!