Android Obsession

Ever since I got the sweet new Nexus One for Christmas, thanks Goog, I've been obsessed. I haven't blogged much about it because, well, everyone else is writing about it, a lot. But, for the record, I love it. The Creative Lab (my group at work) has been very involved in the marketing, and the guy that sits next to me designed the logo....so basically, I feel proud, and almost famous.

Somehow (probably late one night) Jonathan started making our team members into droids (modeled after the little green dude above). They looked so cool, Andy (big Berndt) said he should make a droid for everyone. Here's what he made for me:
And here's a poster of the whole team:

Happy Googleversary to Me!

Yay! Today marks 3 years I've been with GOOG. Crazy crazy-- I've been in an (almost) monogamous relationship (with occasional cheating with Facebook) for 3 years. For that reason I'm posting 3 shameless google/self promotions:

1. Last week the events team used our Favorite Places Maps idea at their event for media professionals. People could add their own favorite places to the map with maps pin stickers. Here's a pic of me at the event, standing proud with my brainchild--and frightening media executives:
2. This is a pretty neat video for an even sweeter project. (Keep watching it gets cool after about 40 seconds)

3. In my opinion, one of the most underused but useful tools is MyMaps....even more underused but useful is embedding it into your own site like this: (ps- I havent updated this in at least 6 months, sorry)

View Natty's NYC in a larger map

* Photo above is actually a celebration of Allison's birthday, not my Googlversary...

Favorite Places- SPOTTED!

So last week I posted a shameless self promotion for the campaign we launched last month-- Google Maps Favorite Places. Yesterday while on the walk to my first Physique 57 (NYC's version of the SF Bar Method in half the space and for twice the price), I spotted one of the banners on a SoHo street. Obvi I made Kron do a photoshoot with me and the banner, which probably caused 4 times as many people as normal to look at it. Now that's effective marketing...

I Suck at Photoshop

Lucky me got to go to Photoshop 1 class today at New Horizon's Computer Learning School. (Thanks Sergey for providing full reimbursement for such fab professional development programs). It proved more useful than the videos and was actually a pretty sweet intro to the PS3 (as such seasoned users as myself call it), and even if I can't make anything legit, at least I will understand when people on my team talk about layers, CMYK and gradients... which is more than I could say yesterday.

I got to go with Kron (Allison Kronick), which was an added bonus/distraction. We both did really well paying attention while our teacher demonstrated how to turn a picture he took of a corvette (which he called the "vett") in a parking lot into this dazzling image:
I must also mention that for the first 3 hours I thought the "vett" was part of the photoshop lingo meaning something like base image....Really. After 6 hours in the classroom I started to feel like an antsy 6th grader and started practicing my skills by making really professional looking images of Kron and sending them to the Creative Lab to show off my new skillz:
To which she replied:

Anyway, I'll be installing that program on my machine STAT and hopefully creating some more worthy images shortly. Lookout, Ed.

Favorite Places

Shameless self promotion: 2 weeks ago we launched Google Maps Favorite Places. Basically we asked local experts and celebs in NYC and SF to create MyMaps to show their favorite places on the map. Video here. We then created custom maps pins for each celeb. We launched it with a bomb event at SF City Hall, where Gavin Newsome spoke and I stood outside city hall and greeted people coming to the event:
For every person that asked me where the event was, I got at least one city related question such as "Where do I go for Jury Duty?" and "I'm looking for a birth certificate for my daughter..." Classic.

To thank me for my work on the campaign Ji (lead designer on the project) made me a custom pin:
Which basically sums what I do on my team: spirit/resource fairy and bartender?

Next Generation Music Video

Whoa this is a really cool interactive music video....I don't quite understand how it works but it's wicked killer technology and fun to play around with. Clearly sent to me by Aaron who is coolest, smartest, 26 year old on our team. Yeah, I work with geniuses.

Friday the 13th

My idea for a homepage change...mock courtesy of RV.