Conair Consumer Products Inc. (with our assistance) has recently released its newest product with a contest micro-site, driving its line of hair related products to a whole new level.

Conair, Helps You Tame The Beast

For all you lovely ladies out there who can’t seem to take control of that beast we all call “hair”, I introduce to you the Infiniti Nano Silver by Conair. Simply put, it is the #1 most effective hair straightener on the market. The person who thought of adding steam to a hair straightener is an absolute genius. Not only does it make your hair look vibrant and lustrous, removes all frizz and protects it from the humidity, it takes no time at all. Take my words and check out the website to see what other features and benefits this product has to offer, www.conairsteamstraight.com.

Aside from my obsession with this fabulous “life-saver”, you deserve a little S.O.S. too. The “Tame the Beast” website, was a concept conceived by Conair and 76design/Thornley Fallis. It is your gateway to owning one of these magnificent hair straighteners along with other Conair and John Frieda hair related products. The contest closes on December 17th so don’t wait too long, visit the site, watch some videos, enter the contest and most important…don’t forget to tell your friends. The secret needs to be unleashed so go spread the word.

ENJOY!

You might remember last summer’s viral campaign for Snakes On a Plane that had Samuel L. Jackson calling everybody to invite them to the premiere (while making insightful remarks about their jobs, the cars they drove and how much time they spent on their hair). It was pretty cool — so cool that 1.5 million calls were made in the first week. No wonder they call him the busiest man in Hollywood.

A year later and Criss Angel has stepped it up a notch with a really well executed campaign to promote his show on A&E called Criss Angel Mindfreak.  The campaign uses some really slick video splicing and dicing on a phony Youtube-esque site to totally freak out your friends just like a call from Sam Jackson out of the blue would.  On top of the video stunt, Criss then calls your friend a couple minutes after they watch the video (presumably to give them enough time to unfreak their mind) to confess that the this trick was staged and they should check out the new season of his show.  Which, in my opinion, totally kicks ass.  He has freaked my mind on many occasions.
Same basic concept as Snakes on a Plane but a better execution.  Nice work.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About the Mobile Web…but Were Afraid to Ask

Speaker: Brian Fling, The presentation

• author of dotMobi Developers guide

Why the mobile web? Mobile subscribers in the world: 1/3 of the worlds population has access to mobile device. By 2010, 1/2 the planet will have access to a mobile device. So, how many people actually use the mobile web? 60% of users of mobile will access the mobile web once a month – which is less that global internet users.

Location based services (LBS) will cause a big shift in use of mobile web. LBS contextualizes the web.

Mobile strategy. There is a critical need to balance technical, business and user goals. In the mobile industry there are many important factors to consider.

The 3Cs of the mobile web: cost, content and context. Lose anything that doesn’t support those goals.

Mobile Information Architecture. Keep categories short and simple and give a taste of the content to reassure the user is on the right path.

Clickstream / Clickpath. Diagram content layout and paths to content. Any pointers in developing IA?

3 types of phones: feature, smart phone and pda. The feature phone has largest market share. We must design for feature phone and design vertically.

The mobile web standard. The predominant web standard is XHTML-MP. The transition is easy to do. The CSS spec is different and not all attributes are supported. Recommend to use document styles rather than rely fully on external style sheets. Make sure to link document type, use well-formed code, avoid tables, place navigation in the content body, use access keys in the primary navigation (use ordered lists in conjunction), and link phone numbers: (<a xhref=”tel:+16132317166″ mce_href=”tel:+16132317166″>+1 (613) 231-7166</a>). It is feasible to programmatically adjust the markup for mobile – but Fling recommends using handheld css and mobile specific site.

W3C initiatives: mobile web best practices, mobileOK, device description.

“One web”: principle of making the same information and services to users regardless of the device used. Fling says the mobile web should be more contextually relevant.

There are over 50 mobile browsers. Focus on five: a Nokia, Motorola, Samsung or LG, Treo, Blackberry.

Publishing methods: domain: 76design.ca/mobile or mobile.76design.ca; server side checking and redirect; different top level domain such as 76design.mobi.

The device detection dilemma and there are 2 solutions. There is a simple device detection route: it includes a couple tricks to using user-agent information and sends one website. An advanced device detection may include different website for each device. Mobile stylesheets sometimes detect device.

Testing. Testing on desktop is a great start. Opera and Firefox have tools specific to mobile testing including user-agent switching in browser. Emulators are also helpful. Device testing: test as much as you can. Testanywhere emulates many different scenarios. Usability testing and field testing is also helpful.

Showcase

• .mobi Mobile Ready Report
• mobiledesign.org