Swedish furniture giant IKEA has launched a new social media campaign to create the first ever personalised 3D showroom on YouTube.

Based on users’ own information on Facebook, IKEA’s tool creates a bespoke 3D model that can then be explored and tailored by users to create their perfect bedroom.

The 3D showroom enables people to see detailed product information and to click through to IKEA.co.uk to purchase any home furnishings featured in the room.

Go to bed happy

Carole Reddish, deputy UK & Ireland country manager for IKEA, said the campaign is a result of trying to better understand people’s needs, wants and dreams.

“We understand that every bedroom is unique, it is a space that needs to fulfil so many roles; for some it’s a place to work, for some a sanctuary, above all though the bedroom is a place to sleep”, she said.

“This tool uses design, inspiration and lifestyle to show what’s possible when creating the room of your dreams, ultimately helping you go to bed happy.”

Charlotte Morton from Google’s Creative Agency Partnerships team called the campaign ‘forward-thinking’.

“This is an innovative use of social media illustrating what is possible on YouTube for a creative brand like IKEA”, she said.

Social media innovators

The Swedish furniture giant’s latest campaign continues in the innovative steps of their previous social media successes.

In 2009, IKEA created a huge social media buzz with their Facebook tagging campaign.

The idea was simple – the first one to tag their name on a piece of furniture in a picture of an IKEA showroom on the company’s Facebook page got the item for free.

Armed with a live YouTube broadcast, apps and hashtags, Kate and William are set to make internet history.

The couple has insisted on making their big day ‘the most interactive public event’ that will be accessible to everyone.

As big users of social media, the Royal Family is making sure there’s no escaping the modern Web 2.0 wedding.

YouTube and Google the centre of attention

In the heart of the new media frenzy is a live YouTube stream and a brand new live blog, developed by Google.

The innovative blog enables online viewers to find out extra information about the key moments and places in the midst of the action by clicking interactive links.

The live stream is commentated on through the live blog by the St James’s Palace press office. The entire body of coverage will be made available on-demand after the event.

What else?

On the app front, there’s plenty to choose from. The ‘Abbey 3D app’ takes you for a 3D tour around the historic church and the first ever ‘Royal app’ tells you the history of Royal weddings.

YouTube also hosts the official “wedding book” where people can send their wishes to the happy couple. Video-shy people can leave their wishes via a Facebook app, which will be collated, bound and given to the couple if entries reach 50 000.

According to TechCrunch, Google is also offering 3D imagery via Google Earth for people to get a “Royals’-eye” view of the wedding procession.

Google has touted the route to be “complete with 3D images of iconic landmarks and five species of digital trees”. Digital trees?

Record breakers

Some TV analysts are predicting record audiences of the century as more than 1 billion people are expected to be following the event via the “traditional” media.

This means a clear victory for Wills over his parents – the wedding of Charles and Diana reached a worldwide audience of 28.4 million.

Online, if all goes to plan, Wills & Kate have a chance of surpassing Barak Obama’s inauguration as a live web event.

Twitter is also predicting a new record in tweets per minute (TPM). Both Spain’s World Cup winning goal (3051 TPM) and Michael Jackson’s death (5000 TPM) are expected to be left royally behind.

So, unless you’re planning on going camping to the forgotten corners of the world leaving all electronic devices behind, there’s no switching off this one.

The first ‘Royal wedding with a hashtag’ is ready to break the records and put the web’s infrastructure to the ultimate test.

Almost six in ten consumers had watched music videos on their computers in the last three months while less than 2 in 10 had bought a digital download in the same time.

iTunes Store is the biggest payout partner for record labels but the research shows the preference of the listeners is for the music videos posted on YouTube and Vevo.

However, the report by Nielson also showed that music videos are still just behind digital downloads in the list of formats listeners are most willing to pay for.

Read full report here.

A feature-length film, produced by Sir Ridley Scott and made up of snapshots of thousands of people’s lives uploaded to YouTube, will hit British cinema screens in June.

Life in a Day, directed by Kevin Macdonald, pieces together 80,000 clips from 192 countries, with more than 4,500 hours of footage submitted.

Billed as a “snapshot of humanity” and a “time capsule for future generations”, it will be shown in Vue cinemas across the UK.

“Vue’s vision for Life in a Day offers a fantastic mass audience platform for our UK release,” said Liza Marshall, from Sir Ridley Scott’s production company, Scott Free.

“This was a project that was about attracting and engaging the audience in entirely new ways.”

The premiere of Life in a Day was in January at the Sundance Film Festival.

A YouTube video uploaded by “chipwaver” features a boot fight between a 1984 Macintosh computer and a 2007 32bit PC laptop.

A note on the video says that the intention is not to offend anyone.

“From a logic point the PC should beat the old Mac, by a CPU 216x faster and a RAM 15.625x bigger than the old buddy”, chipwaver writes.

“And the old Mac is loading a complete GUI-OS, as you can see by a ready to work Desktop. Just need another Disc with an App /or ext. HDD and there you are…”

As there are undoubtedly differences between the things the mid-80s computers needed to process when starting up, today’s technology still fails to impress.

And most importantly, what about that classic design – simply beautiful!

YouTube has announced that its users have uploaded more than 13 million hours of video content to its servers in the last 12 months, resulting in more than 700 billion YouTube video views.

If you do the math, it means that YouTube’s users have uploaded 850,000 minutes of video and watched 1.9 billion videos per day in the past year. In March, the Google-owned video site announced that its users were uploading more than 24 hours of video per minute. In May, YouTube revealed that it had surpassed 2 billion video views per day.

The company also disclosed that it now has around 15,000 partners creating millions of minutes of content. “We’re privileged to work with the most passionate and talented partners in the world, who produce and upload videos that inspire us, make us laugh and move us — and, most importantly, change the way we look at the world,” Tom Pickett, YouTube’s director of content operations and online creators, said in a blog post.

To celebrate, the video service is giving some of its most successful partners funds to help them create more original content. Five hundred top partners will receive $1,000 credits at B&H Photo in order to help them buy the equipment they need to improve their content’s quality. Some of the selected partners include Mystery Guitar Man, Shay Carl, and one of our favorites, musician Kina Grannis.

The whole point of the program is to bring more premium content to the pages of YouTube. Google is reportedly contemplating an acquisition of Next New Networks and has hired Malik Ducard, formerly a senior VP at Paramount. It’s an orchestrated effort to move away from funny cat videos to high-quality content that can be monetized.

From Mashable

German mobile phone company T-Mobile have had a YouTube hit with an advert for the second time in quick succession.

Featuring passengers at Heathrow Airport being greeted by singers, ‘Welcome back’ has received more than 2 million hits since it was posted on 29 October.

Created by advertising company Saatchi and Saatchi, the ad is a follow-up to last year’s The T-Mobile Dance, which saw Liverpool Street Station turn into a dance fest. The 2-minute clip has gained over 23 million views on YouTube.

A Gateshead-based production company has released a music video depicting the (in)famous ‘night out in the Toon’.

A short taster video of the forthcoming single ‘Morning’ by Polarsets features documentary style material on North East party people including rough drunken fights.

See if your night out in the Toon has made it onto the video:

Behind the unusual promo is a new production company, Decibel Pictures, who are specialising in multi-platform factual filmed content in the music industry. The company, run by Charlotte Johnson, started trading after taking part in the DigitaCity Fellowship programme at the University of Teesside.

The French Connection YouTique video-shop allows users to click on items on the video and buy them on the fashion retailer’s site.

The videos, which are being presented by fashion journalist Louise Roe, will feature fashion tips and style advice based on themes.

Users can also personalise the suggestions made in the video, and once they have created an outfit they like, they are taken to the French Connection site where they can buy the items.

Jennifer Roebuck, head of digital at French Connection, said “As well as being an entertaining feature that offers valuable information to shoppers, this means we’ll generate more brand awareness from YouTube users who are searching for anything from ‘little black dress’ to ‘how to dress for a first date’.”

The idea has already been trialled by brands such as Old Spice and Toyota in the US.

Source: New Media Age

Stanford University student Feross Aboukhadijeh made a bet with his roommate that he could build a real-time YouTube search in less than an hour.

It eventually took him three hours to finish, so the bet was lost, but the impressive stunt caught the eye of YouTube chief executive Chad Hurley on Twitter.

“Hey @FreeTheFeross! Loving YouTube Instant… http://feross.net/instant/ Want a job? ”, Hurley tweeted less than 24 hours after the of the 19-year old had launched his search.

Feross replied: “Hey @Chad-Hurley. Glad you liked YouTube Instant! Is that a for-real job offer? ”

As did Hurley: “@FreeTheFeross Are you ready to leave school? I’ll send you a DM (direct message).”

At the moment, Feross is working as an intern at Facebook where he’s said to be developing a “top secret” application which will soon be rolled out to users.

Feross said he didn’t struggle too much in recreating Instant for videos.

“I’ve built a lot of websites in the past, but none as quickly as I built YouTube Instant,” he said.

Try YouTube Instant here: http://ytinstant.com/

Source: Stuff.co.nz