7-Eleven Store Locator – Explaining the ingenious possibilities
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Lonely Duck, Mobile, Work, iPhone
Hitting the ground running
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Lonely Duck, Mobile, Work
2010 just started and things at the Lonely Duck office are more productive then ever. We are working on a couple of great projects at the moment and we are making new connects almost every day. Not that everything leads to a new project or a client but it is nice to see that people are interested in our work and that the marketeers now feel that the iPhone is a marketing channel to count on and wants to be there.
How one should go about when choosing the way to appear in this new channel of course differs between different brands. The most common thing we see is that this doesn’t really matter from the client point of view. Just to be in the iPhone or any other mobile phone can be good enough.
I can’t say that I can totally disagree with that. Not that I believe that simply getting your logo on whatever app out there is the way to go, even if that has been done numerous times already, but there is a truth in that more and more people are looking through their mobile phones to see the outside world and help them with their everyday lives. To be able to support this behavior, lighten up the day and perhaps offer assistance in daily situations can be a great customer- and brand care. Doing this without charging a buck is perhaps not always looked upon with the greatest gratitude but most certainly boost the value of the brand if the service is helpful enough.
This can be elaborated on for ages of course. But let’s just say that I feel that 2010 will be an interesting year.
Enough talking, let’s make this happen!
Looking back on 2009
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Lonely Duck, Portfolio, Work
Things is going really well for us at Lonely Duck. During 2009 we have produced some great apps and different web solutions for major brands. Some of which hasn’t seen the light of day yet, but expect some great releases early in 2010.
Recently we also got some recognition for our work with The LIST when the Spinn PR Awards gave it a gold in “Word-Of-Mouth Campaign Of The Year” and bronze in “Digital Campaign Of The Year”.
So for 2010 things are looking great. We already have a couple of projects started and a couple more will begin in January. It is looking like we are getting up into the Flash saddle again and perhaps even combining it with the iPhone. We will also get a new co-worker with some awesome programming skills.
That’s about it for now. Perhaps next post will come with a new design of this blog and a new-years resolution to update it more often. Day-To-day thoughts about Interaction Design, iPhone & Flash dev can be found on my Twitter
Another app signed and delivered + some thoughts
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Lonely Duck, Portfolio, Work, iPhone
Earlier this week we released a new app. It was the Jabra STONE, an app promoting the newest hi-end bluetooth headset from Jabra. The app is free to download on the app store and allows you to simulate stone skipping. Of course in the app this is done by throwing the rounded stone shaped bluetooth headset over calm black water.
It is always interesting to see how an app does sales wise on the App Store and how people find their apps. We at Lonely Duck have always worked with the notion that most people don’t browse through the back catalog of App Store to find that special app that they crave at the moment. Often it is the highest rated apps or the newst that gets all of the attention. And if people don’t discover your app during the short time the app is fresh, chances are it will get buried under the massive amount of app released each day. Of course the top lists on the App Store is a great booster to any app, but that’s a tough place to get in. We believe that viral / real world word-of-mouth might be the most successful way to gain reputation on an app.
As observed on the release of the Jabra STONE a small Japanese blog posted a video on the app with subsequently lead to an enormous upswing in downloads from Japan. This was not something that we ourselves had any part of and if we had it wouldn’t feel nearly as cool. We believe in people and when most iPhone app review pages charges a couple of $ to give a good review they are really hollowing out their own integrity and it just feels fake.
We believe in the power of the people!
Need some iphone work done?
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Design, Lonely Duck, Mobile, Portfolio, Work, iPhone
If you are looking for someone to bring your iPhone ideas to life, look no further. At Lonely Duck we are currently working hard creating new exciting iPhone applications and will soon start to create the same for Android. Check out our work so for at http://www.lonelyduck.com/iphone. Within a couple of weeks there will be even more cases on display
Recent work
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Actionscript, Design, Lonely Duck, Mobile, Portfolio, Work, iPhone
Well, so much has happened since the last post I’ve made on this blog that I don’t know where to begin. Anyway, I have now moved to Stockholm and I really like it! An awesome city full of creative inspiration. It also feels great to work more closely with my coworkers at Lonely Duck.
Back to the interesting bit. We have been working with a couple of different projects since April and I thought a couple of them deserves to be mentioned. Back in August we released Darkroom Music a retro themed full flash video website for the digital music company Darkroom. The sits lets the user experience the digital music creations of darkroom while full screen videos makes you wanna move even more. The site lets you share or embed the music of Darkroom through Facebook and other social sites.
Apart from a couple of various flash projects we at Lonely Duck have continued working with the iPhone and have recently released two apps. The one that we invested most time in is Tower Attack, a game that takes the Tower Defense genre and gives it a little twist. The goal is to plot the ultimate way to make it past the towers, make sacrifices on the altar of altruism and synchronize the attack. The goal is to let the grey alien with the mysterious briefcase reach the castle. See a couple of screen shots and read more here!.
During my vacation I found the lack of an app that contains drinking songs quite frustrating so we decided to fill that gap. The app is simply called Snapsvisor and contains 99 schnapps songs sorted in various categories. The user can choose to create his/her own songbook that will come in handy during festive occasions. Read more here!
So this was a short summary of sorted highlights since last time. We´re currently working on a number of exciting projects both for the iPhone and the web and I will present the final projects when it is possible.
Take care!
The bird is the word
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under 2d, Actionscript, Adobe Flash, Lonely Duck, Portfolio, Work
Lonely Duck just released the new website for Peacock Advertising Agency. A full flash website featuring their clients, news as well as prior and current projects, all with a whisper of box2d physics. Check it out at www.peacock.se!
Also, to everyone out there, happy easter from us at Lonely Duck.
Newly hatched
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Actionscript, Adobe Flash, Design, Lonely Duck, Mobile, Portfolio, Work, iPhone
Just prior to easter Lonely Duck released a project that we´ve been working on. The project is a digital facelift of 7-Eleven. To do this we have created an iPhone application and a brand new website. The application helps people locate the nearest 7-Eleven store and even throws in great offers exclusive for people using the app. It is of course free to download but sadly it only works in Sweden. The app has in only 1 week entered the top 10 free apps in Sweden. Happy easter!
Paper: MiniBands – A collaborative mobile music concept
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Mobile, Papers
About two months ago I presented my master thesis. A concept for mobile music collaboration. Here is the full paper for anyone interested. Please refer to this paper if referencing any of the content.
Abstract
We have come a long way since industrial society, where specialization and monotone labor was part of a bigger distributed cognitive system. Today society rewards creativity, ideas and versatility. Teaming up with others for additional competence is a natural way to get this process started. One and the same person could come up with ideas, create and test them, and eventually launch them. Demands on music today are high, it needs to be mobile, accessible and (almost) free. The concept of owning music has become a loose concept since the introduction of Napster, Limewire, Kazaa, DC and torrent programs that through different approaches has made music more or less free. Being able to listen to music wherever we are is something that has been taken for granted since the first walkman. But what about creating music? So far this has been a very stationary process that requires expensive equipment and a lot of time. This thesis aims to turn an advanced process like music composing into a mobile concept where beginners, as well as trained musicians, could find their way. We had to research ways to create an application that could reach as many users as possible and be easy enough for beginners, while at the same time challenging for experts. Music creation is often a collaboration between artists/musicians, each of them an expert (virtuoso) on their instrument. On MiniBands a band still consists of band members, and why should it not? In the concept we propose in this thesis we want to keep some of the individual virtuoso expert approach, but make it easy, mobile and accessible. A band will still consist of different members, each with their own, perhaps favorite, instrument. MiniBands, the system that we propose in this thesis, allows an easy, mobile interface where users have to develop music in cooperation with other users and eventually publish and distribute it over the web. MiniBands will work closely with artists but even closer with users. Allowing users to try their MiniBands skills with professional musicians will be an incentive that could bring a lot of amateurs to the application. MiniBands will be a completely new way to interact and create music that might be different to that which experts (artists) are used to. This thesis discusses what will make users want to be a part of the Minibands concept and how to create the application for web and mobile. Unlike other popular music games Minibands is not about hitting notes at the right time but about creating actual music. And unlike other musical sequencers Minibands is about creating music together. MiniBands does not intend to replace music-making as it is, but it might give composers an easy way to record their ideas or help to spawn new ones, through an intuitive and playful interface.
Download the full paper here
Lonelyduck-a-licious
Posted by Fredrik | Filed under Design, Lonely Duck, Work
So.. Lonely Duck has a new site. A little simpler than before, but much more flexible and succumbing to the standards of the web. It it powered by the ingenious wordpress theme grid-a-licious by superb and it looks great. Check it out here
Lonely Duck HQ
Liljeholmsgallerian
Crib de Johansson / Westin
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