March 2014

Proud to announce that we’ve been working with an awesome organization called the Clean Water Tour, who’s mission is to “raise awareness for the global clean water crises by rallying consumers, businesses, government agencies and the investment community around the world’s leading water scientists and researchers.”

They’ve kicked off their very first event today in Austin, TX and teamed up with the world’s leading water scientists, researchers and technologists to form an online membership community that’s dedicated to tackling clean water issues and making an impact around the world. “We’ve designed the Clean Water Tour in an ultra-portable way, bringing the conversation into living rooms, schools, clean-water-friendly businesses and onto mobile phones,” says Conor Quinn, president of the Clean Water Tour.

To help Clean Water Tour with their online presence, we built them a responsive website with their ‘Watering Hole’ community system, several forms of media integration, and more.

We designed download cards, that will be distributed out today at the event in Austin to help promote the app as well as help those at the event easily gain access to the app.

Luke of Cool Hand Look put together an awesome video that will be featured on Christie Digital’s giant screen at the event. See the layout for the Christie Digital on-site screen display and the Clean Water Tour Sizzle Reel below.

Finally, here’s the sweet design of the app we built for Clean Water Tour, which is available to download on iTunes and Google Play today! The app lets you map the world’s water supply, grab a free track from Jeff Brinkman, join the ‘Watering Hole’ community and more! Be sure to download it here and be on the lookout for more Clean Water Tour events — coming to your area soon!

On Tuesday, March 25, Facebook announced that it will be acquiring the virtual reality technology company Oculus VR for $2 billion. Oculus VR’s much anticipated development is the virtual reality gaming headset, Oculus Rift, which allows the gamer to feel completely immersed in the game itself. Oculus Rift was initially funded via Kickstarter, receiving over 2 million in donations from the original goal of $250,000. Although VR technology is not a new technology in and of itself, the current developments are highly priced and generally unattainable- used primarily by the military and scientific community. Oculus Rift’s promise to be the first “truly immersive virtual reality headset for video games” at an affordable price for the general public is a huge and exciting deal for the gaming community and future realms VR may be incorporated into. Facebook’s announcement to acquire Oculus VR, however, has sparked both outrage and excitement in speculation about the future of Oculus.

Many of the backers of the original Oculus Rift Kickstarter have voiced their disapproval to Oculus VR calling them sellouts and even demanding refunds of their Kickstarter donations, emphasizing that they didn’t sign up to back the social-media-giant that is Facebook. While Oculus delivered on its promise of perks and dev kits to backers, the Kickstarter community remains upset because the start-u[p project they supported has turned to corporate money and resources. Many opponents of the sale to Facebook are weary that the future of Oculus Rift will shrivel and die as many small companies that get enveloped by larger ones do (think Flikr’s fall after it was bought by Yahoo) or that the focus of VR technology will stray from its focus in gaming into other VR realms. Such agitated and dampened opinions are being voiced everywhere from genuine discussion posts to cynical memes and comments across the internet. A top comment on Oculus VR’s own blog post laments “This is an epic betrayal.” Numerous contributors to the discussion thread also emphasize their disappointment in Oculus’ settling to be run by a company that might not have its best interests as a gaming company at heart.

Reassuring disheartened Oculus fans is Oculus founder Palmer Luckey who spent many hours after the acquisition announcement responding to dubious supporters via Reddit. One major hesitancy that is being strongly voiced is Facebook’s direct involvement in the Oculus Rift experience. Luckey has been responding in accordance with the press announcements - that joining forces will make production faster, better, cheaper, that Oculus will still operate independently with a primary focus on gaming and a wide future for VR, etc. - but he is also consoling and reassuring in his statements that emphasize the future of virtual reality as a platform and promising that “You will not need a Facebook account to use or develop for the Rift.”

As for Facebook’s stance, Mark Zuckerberg, who posted the acquisition announcement yesterday afternoon, claims that Oculus’ plans for gaming development with the Oculus Rift “won’t be changing” and that “Oculus will continue operating independently within Facebook to achieve this.” The post goes on to point out other areas in which Zuckerberg hopes to “make Oculus a platform for many other experiences” including sporting events, classroom and medical interactions, as well as adventures and hangout time with friends, the ultimate goal being to make “this kind of immersive, augmented reality…a part of daily life.” For those optimistic about Facebook’s newest acquisition, the reality of a sci-fi inspired virtual world seems closer than ever. And while there is undoubtedly skepticism in the air, there is also a voice of excitement sweeping the internet with inspired proposals for VR apps and indications of how the technology might be used in the future. Oculus’ new relationship with Facebook will afford it more resources and expansive opportunities that it may not have had independently. If Oculus really does continue to work independently then Facebook’s perks may be all the more helpful. Only time will tell as we sit in agonizing anticipation of how the future of VR will unfold itself to the world.

Artists have the ability to grow on you. We validated this statement in this month’s staff playlist. I asked all of our staff members to give me a couple bands that they used to absolutely hate, but have now come to love. Some of the choices will come as shocking.

This made for a pretty interesting playlist. Listen below and read the fun stories from each staff member as well.

Keir:
As a mopey insecure teen I actually hated mopey insecure British ‘80s bands like the Smiths/the Cure/Depeche Mode. A decade later I married someone who’s both well-adjusted AND a huge fan of those bands, so it was easy to let the hate go and finally appreciate so many overplayed classics that I missed the first time around:

The Smiths - “How Soon is Now?”
The Cure - “Fascination Street”
Depeche Mode - “Personal Jesus”

Calia:
The National. When I first heard their self titled album, Cherry Tree and even Alligator .... I really didn’t like it. I thought the singer’s voice was way too deep causing the lyrics to become buried behind his strange voice and the music itself just seemed boring. BUT BOY WAS I WRONG. They came out with Boxer, High Violet, and a real winner… Trouble Will Find Me and won me over.

Stand out tracks:
Cherry Tree (yes I love it now!)

Calvin Harris. This one’s more like a guilty pleasure but I seriously hated ‘Feel So Close’ until I myself experienced dancing to it with all my best friends and screaming the lyrics at the top of my lungs while fist pumping. I still listen to ‘18 Months’ while running and working out and love every second of it.

Stand out tracks:
I Need Your Love
Bounce

Haaris:
Prince - I love Prince now, but when i was a kid i didn’t get it, then he did the whole Batman Soundtrack. It was like i shook hands with the Joker buzzer in palm style. “Batdance” - Prince

NIN - Yeah i said it, anyone who knows me know that I love this band (borderline obsessed would be more accurate ). I went from thinking these cats were a bunch of industrial electronic dj’s that ripped the shit out of Joy Division drums to not missing a single tour from 1999 and on. How did such a swing from hate to love occur? The magic of a live show in 1999 at Madison Square Garden for the Fragility tour. After seeing that i must say I was WRONG, really WRONG, sorry Trent and Atticus. And like i said I haven’t missed a tour since the fragile….. “Where is Everybody” - Nine Inch Nails

John Legend- When he 1st came out I thought this guy was super soft for an R&B guy, so disregard almost anything he did, then Kanye put him on a track and going back Mr Legend, i was wrong sir, my bad. John Legend is solid in my books. “Who Did That To You” - John Legend

Got some extra cash? And by extra, I mean $1-2 million dollars? Well you are probably eligible for Pinterest ads with CPMs priced between $30 and $40 (AdAge).

Pinterest hasn’t fully brought its advertising service to the market yet, but these are the numbers that AdAge has reported came from “three executives who were briefed on Pinterest’s ad pitch”
(AdAge).

This premiere advertising service that Pinterest is aiming to launch will bring actual revenue to the social media service. Currently, the company has only raised money from investors. How much you ask? Oh just a mere $564 million dollars.

Pinterest tested promoted pins with different advertisers, but those promoted pinners were not being charged since Pinterest CEO Ben Silbermann wanted to first test this feature to see how users felt about this type of content on their feeds.

Although Pinterest advertising is in the works, they have not announced a set date as to when this service is officially rolling out.

Check back here for more updates!

South by Southwest, the Film, Music and Interactive festival of Austin, Texas, has grown every year since its inception in 1987. True to tradition this year’s festival, which took place March 7-16, was a huge success, featuring exceptional keynote speakers, films, performances, apps, games, and so much more. This year was also unfortunately host to more drama and destruction than in years past. Below you’ll find an overview of the festival’s most compelling moments.

The SXSW film festival spanned the course of nine days and premiered everything from the anticipated feature Veronica Mars, to world premiere and winner of the Documentary Feature Competition The Great Invisible. Below is a short list of some of the films that made a big splash in Austin this year.

Six full days of musical performances showcased over 2,200 “regional, national and international acts.” For a comprehensive list of performers click here. Here are some picks of the many notable artists featured at this year’s SXSW Music festival.

Social media marketing has its challenges. At Oniracom, we navigate these challenges by employing a team of experts dedicated to providing the most engaging campaigns for clients. Our Community Management team works on behalf of clients to brainstorm and craft campaigns aimed at engaging the client’s audience in creative new ways. Our goal is to provide small and medium business owners with actionable advice for overcoming the challenges of social media marketing using the assets that are currently available.

In January of this year Beats Electronics launched Beats Music, an online music streaming service designed to curate music for listeners through a variety of sources including algorithm, professional and user input. As of March 4, 2014, Beats Music has announced its acquisition of Topspin Media. Topspin, launched in June of 2007, is an online application that provides direct-to-consumer merchandising and marketing for musicians and other creative professionals. In yesterday’s blog post, Beats Music blog post, Beats Music announced its deal to acquire Topspin and its plans for the future to combine “music discovery and direct relationships between artists and fans in a revolutionary way.” Topspin noted in its blog announcement that customers will experience no immediate changes, and that a Beats Music team is now working in Topspin’s ArtistLink to “lead the industry in empowering artists in their service.” This deal was spearheaded by previous Topspin CEO and current CEO of Beats Music, Ian C. Rogers. A veteran in the digital marketing world, Rogers noted his excitement in integrating Topspin with Beats Music to create his “unique vision” that is the future of music streaming and artist/fan interaction.

Our wonderful office designer Matthew has been working on a pretty cool project to enhance our office space even more. If you’ve been following us on Instagram, you’ve probably already seen the finished product.

We’ve had various Oniracom elephants in all shapes and forms scattered around the office, but we have never had something as epic as this!

Matthew used krylon flat clear spray paint to create this faux frosted window look. That’s a mouthful. Try saying ‘faux frosted window look’ 5 times in a row.

We love the finished look. It’s going to put a smile on our faces to see our Oniracom sign every day in the office!