Category Archives: Cool Sites

Points of Control Map Released!

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The internet is a big place, with lots of people and companies trying to carve out territory for themselves. What would it look like if you could visualize the current landscape of the web? Which players are holding dominant positions? Who is making a move into new lands? Blend has teamed up with the great folks at the Web2.0Summit to find out!

After several months of effort and a lot of continent shuffling, we are pleased to announce the launch of the Web2.0Summit Points of Control Map!

web2.0summit Points of Control map

This is really a first iteration of the map, with additional functionality to be added in upcoming releases. We hope you enjoy!

Here are a few behind-the-scenes notes:

The team at Blend included and Joe, Nate on the development side. Karla and I did the design and illustration. We worked primarily with John Battelle and Janetti Chon from the web2.0 team. Their vision and broad knowledge of the current state of the web is what really enabled this map to become what it is. Continue reading →

Lebensader – discover this world

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I really like the style and creativity gushing from this cool animated film. The site offers a great gallery of artwork with a behind-the-scenes, sketchbook view of the visual development. You’ll definitely want to check out the brief video clip from the film, although I’ll warn you in advance, it leaves you wanting to see more.

More Lebensader here: http://www.lebensader-film.com/

Or, I pulled over a couple teaser sketches below: Continue reading →

Blend Interactive gets a new web presence (finally)

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It is years overdue, and months in the making (around all that pesky paying work), but it is finally here. Blend Interactive has launched our new website!

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Karla designed the old version of our site nearly four years ago. I think that’s about 127 in web years. I always thought it aged very well. However, we have been growing and changing as fast as web technology. It was time for a refresh. We hope our new site can better communicate all we have been up to, and give visitors a better understanding of what Blend is capable of. Just like moving into a new house, we are still unpacking, shuffling content around, and getting things situated where we want them. Check in often to see what is new at Blend!

Blend’s new site: http://www.blendinteractive.com

Create a font from your own handwriting!

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Type design meets instant gratification. Font Capture is a newly launched utility that will take a scan of your handwriting and turn it into an actual true type font. I admit I was skeptical when I first came to the site, but decided to give it a run and see how it turned out.

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The process was fairly easy:

  1. Download and print the template page
  2. Write all the letters in their appropriate boxes
  3. Scan and upload the completed template back to the site
  4. Preview the result and download my completed font

There are a few tricks to getting a nice result. Continue reading →

Twitter trend madness

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We have finally launched the Palm Trend Tracker!

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The site allows you to delve deeper into what people are talking about on Twitter. You can compare how often topics are mentioned over time, see when a topic popped onto everyone’s radar, and even where in the world a topic is trending! Note the “pre trend watch” where the site predicts the next topics that will make it to the top 10. Overall, this site can do some pretty cool stuff. I think Joe, Nate, and Tim might have broken a few laws of physics to make it happen (something about downloading and parsing the whole internet in real time…), but cool none-the-less.

Check it out here: http://palmtrendtracker.com/

Recently launched – Mid Market Innovators

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mminnovators_logo

This one has been turning for a while, but at long last we have launched Mid Market Innovators! This site, co-sponsored by Sun Microsystems and Intel, is a place to find articles and advice from leading authors in business and technology. There are also a series of webcasts schduled to give visitors the chance to interact with FM authors around these same topics. There is a lot of functionality built into the site, and the design turned out fairly well… if I do say so myself.

Check it out at: http://www.midmarketinnovators.com/

Re-envisioning water with Kohler

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We recently launched a site for Kohler, espousing the importance of conserving water. There are some cool ideas on the site, and a gallery of water-themed graffitis from a contest on Facebook.

h2o_visions

This project actually went relatively smooth. Considering we took this from nothing to a live site in about two weeks, the campaign has gone off pretty well. Chris knocked out the dev side of things, with Tim filling in around the edges.

Check it out at: http://www.h2ovisions.com/