Numiko, an award winning Leeds based digital creative agency

Hmmmm… my second Twitter related blog entry this week!

Since the New Year I’ve noticed a slump in the amount of noise within Facebook.  Is this a Russell Brand style fall from grace?  Are people finally tiring of what was our favourite face(book) of the last two years?   Following US trends… will 2009 be Twitters year here in the UK?

Twitter has of course been well on the radar of digital media enthusiasts for quite some time, but it looks likely that Twitter will make the UK mainstream sometime soon… most probably announced by BBC Radio 1’s Scott Mills.

According to new data from online research firm Hitwise, Twitter was one of the fastest growing web sites in 2008, seeing a tenfold rise in UK traffic in the past 12 months.

The latest figures rank Twitter as the 291st most visited web site in the UK, up from a ranking of 2,953 for the week ending 19 January 2008. UK traffic to the site increased by a whopping 974 per cent over the period.

So… will you be Tweeting or Flocking Off?  Do let us know.

During the Hudson River crash and subsequent rescue operations for US Airways Flight 1549, major news teams flocked to the scene at midtown in Manhattan. Almost simultaneously, Twitter and Flickr users flocked to their iPhones, laptops, and other assorted devices to monitor the event – and even provide their own accounts.

This interaction between Twitterers and mainstream media may provide the template for a symbiotic relationship between mainstream and consumer-generated media in the future: CGM defers to mainstream media for factual information and mainstream media relies increasingly on CGM for images and personal accounts to enhance their stories.

Excerpt taken from Nielsen-Online – visit the link below to read more on how events unfolded and how Twitter and Flickr information made it to the mainstream to document this event.

http://nielsen-online.com/blog/2009/01/16/tweeting-the-us-airways-flight-1549-plane-crash/

Install this app (http://rjdj.me/what) on your iPhone, pop in your headphones and you could soon find your life enhanced by your own unique soundtrack.

Back in Oct 2008 Gareth blogged on ‘Mind reading music’ – well here’s something in a similar vain which is available for the iPhone – the RjDj app plays music which reacts to both your movement (using the phones accelerometer) and by also taking audio feeds using the iPhone’s mic – surrounding you with your very own realtime soundtrack.  I think this a really nice example of how the iPhone is inspiring creative individuals to explore how the iPhone interface can be used to allow people to explore their own creativity.

Check out this introduction video for a good demonstration of the apps versatility:

And this for an example of how some cool results can be achieved using the iPhone’s accelerometer:

The environmentally conscious designers amongst you might want to switch from Helvetica to using this:-

http://www.ecofont.eu/ecofont_en.html

A font that uses a series of holes and still remains very legible to reduce your ink footprint by 20%

Props to Dave S for finding about this.

Numiko have started the year as we mean to go on by being lauded by The Drum. We have won their New Years Honour as the ‘Best Digital Agency in Yorkshire’, a great achievement when you think of some of our competition, and a testament to our success and growth last year. Putting us squarely alongside our peers such as Code in Manchester and TH_NK in the North East, 2009 looks like being our year – again!!

If you want to read more, click.