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R EFLECTEUR
D I G I TA L C U LT U R E E X P L A I N E D
TOURISTS VS LOCALS
Geotagged photos have been around for
a long time now. Though they’ve spawned
many Flickr/Google Map mashups over the
years, these experiments generally aren’t
that interesting. A dozen different shots of
the Hollywood sign. Fifty shots taken from
various angles and in various weather con-
ditions of Notre Dame. Redundant content
and a clunky interface don’t make for a
pleasing experience.
But photographer Eric Fischer saw some-
thing in this mess that no one else did. Among the longitudes and lati-
tudes, he noticed that tourists tended to take similar photos. So he dove
into Flickr’s API data and created infographics to explore this theory.
These maps, which are posted to his own Flickr page, have caused quite
a stir among designers, travel enthusiasts and even city travel bureaus,
who are all linking to the gallery.
People are immediately drawn to the images - particularly to their own
city’s map or of ones they know well. Trying to decipher specific locations
and landmarks becomes almost a game. And because the tourists are
represented by red dots and locals by blue, you can parse the differ-
ences between what the two find interesting. Golden Gate Bridge and
Alcatraz for the tourists, Berkeley and the Mission for locals.
These images do require some work on the part of the viewer - they
are immediately beautiful but not immediately comprehendible. Lots
of atheistic value to grab us in, and enough complexity to keep us - no
wonder they’ve captured our collective attention.
Related Links: Locals & Tourists
A VIVAKI PUBLICATION • © 2010 VIVAKI • All Rights Reserved
PUT A PIN ON IT
Google Street View seems to have
become a fixture in digital culture.
Houses on fire, crimes in progress,
nudity and absurd scenes have all been
captured by the roving army of camera-
equipped vehicles. It’s no surprise, then,
that Street View holds the record for
the most recurring online service in the
pages of Reflecteur.
One of the side effects of Street
View, however, is that it lulls us into
believing that the world is exactly as
it seems on Street View photos. We
end up thinking that buildings never
change, landscaping is pretty much as it appears and that an individual
intersection still has a stop sign instead of a traffic light.
The latest example of Street View apps takes a very different perspective,
and the results are fascinating. HistoryPin is a project that combines
historic and old photos with Street View. Users can upload old photos and
superimpose them into Street View images. One notable example features
a photo from London in 1939, as the pall of war was cast over the city. This
solemn scene is superimposed on a very casual shot of the same location
taken by the Google Street View car. The black and white image effectively
blends in with the new image, and the result is a ghostly composite. The
effect is that of a time machine—it immediately transports the past into
the current, and in doing so makes for an eerie yet mesmerizing experience.
Related Links: HistoryPin
 R EFLECTEUR IS SU E 62 0 6 . 21 . 1 0

TOP SITES JOIN THE FONT FAN CLUB

We interact with many seemingly simple items in our day-to-day lives.
YouTube Items that took a lot more work to create than we realize. One such example
is fonts. Beyond graphic designer, who really spends time pondering why
the line in the ‘N’ is at that precise angle?
HolyTaco
Yet, the process of creating a new font entails hours and hours of planning,
Fork Party design and revision to convey the right effect. Even the relation of different
fonts to each other is debated and analyzed. Though many of us give fonts
very little thought, the community around them sees a well designed font
Unreality as a work of art. And this community creates a staggering array of fonts
that cover just about any need. For example, ‘Console Font’ is an entire
Zap2it alphabet of fonts made from classic gaming consoles and controllers. It’s
really cool and clearly creative, even to those of us who aren’t fontphiles.

Tested Much like the data visualization subculture, this font design community
is breaking into the mainstream in various places thanks, in large part, to
the digital tools at everyone’s disposable. And marketers, take note. Many
Mashable major brands have a leg up within this community - branded fonts are not
only seen as on par with designer fonts, but they are often also some of
TechCrunch the most recognized, praised and discussed fonts in the world. This is a
community that is often more than open to brand involvement.
Gamasutra
Related Links: Console Font, What the Font, Typography, 300&65
ReadWriteWeb

Fazed
UPLOAD THAT VIDEO AGAIN, PATRICK
In the last issue of Reflecteur we looked at Bad Translator, a site that
takes a phrase or sentence and translates it back and forth through
Gawker various languages to see what happens to the original text. Most times
it’s something very different because bits of information and nuances of
language are lost as the automated service transcodes the text word for
Laughing Squid word. In the video world a similar demonstration was taking place.

Engadget Patrick Liddell recorded a movie of himself reciting Alvin Lucier’s ‘I Am

Sitting in a Room’ and posted it to YouTube. Then he downloaded and
reuploaded the video a thousand times, posting various videos along the
Ain’t It Cool way. The final video is a far cry from the original - though you can still sort
of see the outline of a human, all the visual details are lost and the audio
Urlesque is completely intelligible. Though, like Bad Translator, the end result is
something related to and yet incredibly distant from the original input, this
result is much more surprising to us.
College Humor
When it comes to analog copies - hand drawn, photocopies, imitations-
flickr we expect a level of imperfection. But when it comes to digital copies, we
expect something very close to the original. When we save our photos to a
site like Flickr we find some comfort in the idea that this is a safe back-up
Buzzfeed of our original images. Yet, these videos show the amount of data loss and
change that happens when files are converted to and from various digital
Serious Eats formats - making it clear that digital versions aren’t always the perfect
copy we want them to be.
Geekologie Related Links: I’m Sitting in a Room 1000, Gawker, Boing Boing

TOP REFLECTEUR LINKS

Remake of Zelda II as FPS Premakes Collection The Scale of the Universe

Instants! Collection Creatures of the Mechazoic Era A Look at Sitcom Houses

If It Was My Home Predator Duck Hunt Animated GIF Akinator: The Web Genius
A VIVAKI PUBLICATION • © 2010 VIVAKI • All Rights Reserved

ABOUT REFLECTEUR
Reflecteur is a proprietary VivaKi tool monitoring
digital culture that provides ongoing intelligence
and unearths practical insights used by our clients,
our partners and us. It keeps track of a continually-
evolving area and is used to ensure marketing
efforts are calibrated to align with current digital
culture.
Reflecteur is a product of the collective wisdom
of the VivaKi organization, including all
A VIVAKI PUBLICATION • © 2010 VIVAKI • All Rights Reserved
R EFLECTEUR
NEW AT LIQUIDTHREAD: THE FUTURE OF OUR INTERNS
Is our world spinning faster or does it just seem like
it? We all live hectic lives and with all the news
feeds and status updates and communicating in
140 characters or less, it seems we’re conditioned
more and more each day to “hurry” or we’ll miss it.
Sure people are sharing more, but during a life
changing moment it seems people are focusing less
on what is actually happening and moreso on how
to script the perfect status update–quickly moving
on. Even during the big moments– graduation,
babies, weddings – it’s rare that anyone sits down
to reflect on and capture the exact emotion of new
experiences.
Enter FutureMe. FutureMe.org is based on the
principle that “memories are less accurate than
emails.” The idea is that amidst all the hurrying,
a simple email to yourself captures what you are
feeling at that exact moment while also taking a
magic 8-ball glimpse of where you think you might
be at any point in the future. By choosing the date
that it is emailed back to you, you are chosing which
version of your “self” you are addressing. Today, over
1 million letters have been written.
member agencies. We rely on Web 2.0 tools and
ethnographic techniques to identify and interpret
key digital behaviors. We then augment the most
culturally significant observations via original
articles with a focus on the rich layer of insights.
Its focus on digital culture allows Reflecteur to
provide a unique glimpse into the digital space.
For more information, please contact:
Erin Vogel, erin.vogel@liquidthread.com
ABOUT LIQUIDTHREAD
LiquidThread, a division of Starcom MediaVest
Group, is the result of merging three strategic
content creation units – MediaVest’s
connectivetissue, Starcom Entertainment and Pixel.
LiquidThread increases the scale and innovation
of SMG’s content creation, moving beyond
branded entertainment to create communities,
IS SU E 62 0 6 . 21 . 1 0
Our interns started last week and we took the
opportunity to use them as our guinea pigs. Let me
introduce you to them:
Chad Howard: Junior, University of Iowa
Kate Holden: Senior, University of Michigan
Jacqueline Perlman: Senior, University of Michigan
KC Walker: Junior, UW Madison
Jenn Weber: Senior, University of Michigan School of
Art & Design
Ellie Weed: Senior, DePauw University
They each wrote a letter describing this new
experience and what they hoped to do over the
summer. In August we will all get to read their
letters. FutureMe is an excuse to slow down for a
moment and truly reflect – not for your news feed,
not for your friend list – but just for you (or in the
case of our interns, for all of us). What would you say
to your futureself?
Reflecteur created & curated by
Ellen Bird ellen.bird@vivaki.com
Christian Kugel christian.kugel@vivaki.com
This issue’s agency contributors
Erin Vogel Kristin Mann
Nicola Smith Eric Bee
conversations and advocates for brand properties.
We design human experiences that people want to
engage with across all screens.
For additional information, sign-up on our website
and follow us @liquidthread.