The team has just refreshed our AIR-based Top 100 Video widget with a great new Intel-sponsored skin. Download the latest version to apply a groovy new Intel desktop to your computer. To get to the desktop file click the in-stream Intel ads that appear at the bottom of the videos. Several performance improvements were also made to this release.

As if that were not enough: the FUZE "unbreakable" campaign microsite has just launched within AOL Music. Conceived in a brainstorm with Coke's online media agency, this advertiser program shows just how advantageous it can be to wrap great programming around a rich advertiser experience. The Flash site was built by the development team within two weeks (!), after a design gestation period of approximately three weeks (that is concept to sketch to approved design). We were fortunate in that the work was accepted by the clients very early in the process. They were great partners in that regard and helped us make the deadline by expediting approvals and empowering the AOL team to make it happen.


Check out the hammer and try to find the hidden clues :-)

For those of us that think visually and like to click on pictures (ok, that's most of us btw), PicLens is a pretty amazing app that brings the Web to life as a visual medium. Just download the extension and PicLens turns image and video feeds from top sources into an interactive "wall of media" that animates smoothly across your screen. So smoothly, in fact, that you may actually get motion sickness playing with it (like I did).

Like most interactive things it really has to be experienced to be appreciated. If you have ever felt that image or video search should be more compelling than this one is certainly for you. I recommend everyone on my team try it out. Though if you haven't wanted a more visual, interactive Internet than this plug-in will probably go into the "cool things" bookmark graveyard you never go back to visit. I do believe the new "Shop Amazon" feature is a stretch though.

Speaking as the General Manager of PIXCETERA, this one is a tough act to follow I must admit.

So what am I getting at here? Basically, we all need to shake it up sometimes and get different stimulus going to remain creative and fresh. Fight brain rust, you know? Try some of the following methods to see things from a new and different perspective and supercharge your innate sense of creativity.

Click "read more" to, um, read more.

This is kind of funny... and surprisingly useful as a reminder of some techniques that were getting a bit rusty for me. Not much more introduction is needed. Here it is. Thanks to Stephen Lenz for the forward...

Another company with a name that looks like a typo.

Apture is a killer new publishing application that lets you hook interactive multi-media modules from the Web onto your editorial. It has to be experienced to be really understood, so, for example, if you were writing a blogpost on the Aurora Borealis and wanted to provide definitions, pictures, and video from top sources like Wikipedia and YouTube, you could do so with just a couple of clicks. And then your audience gets to experience multi-media and related content on your website.

It's rare I say "wow" these days since I'm steeped in the Web all the time, but I have to say that this particular capability is stunning in its implications. Now ANYONE can have a site that is supported by some of the Web's top content providers (the Web 2.0 ones, that is).

Here are some examples of media stitched into a sentence (overdone for effect):
"The Summer's reigning blockbuster is still Iron Man, with Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull hot on it's heels. Me, I'm now rooting for The Incredible Hulk. And Will Smith's Hancock has yet to take a bow."

OK, the sentence is bad, but the multimedia in-page is really differentiating. Only real flaw is if there is no great content on any of those properties accessible within the application. For this type of interactive plug-and-play experience I can sure live with that.

I love this little video expressing the value of twitter as "real life". It's simple communication around a not-so-simple topic for many. Clicking more at the end of this video will take you into a primer on "social networking". Hey, not that most people reading these words need this type of thing, but the simple cut and paste paper approach is really engaging as tutorial. And sometimes we just need a reminder that not everyone lives and breathes this stuff like we do. Thanks for Geno Yoham for passing it on.

Since our website redesigns last year, our main pages have been re-fitted with a promotional module called "Cards on the Table" (or "CoTT" for short). This was a replacement for the classic "Dynamic Lead" module (the usual giant animated picture with text that seems ubiquitous on programming websites across the Web). I based the design on the simple notion that quickly exposing a site's value at the top of the page was a good thing for a time-starved audience. Since users don't have time for animations and rarely use controls to see more promotions, we had to come up with a new strategy to reach an audience skeptical that our sites had value. This post explains the design challenge of the new dynamic lead from a variety of angles and the outcomes.

please click "read more" for the goods...

I just reviewed the screenshots on USAToday and I look forward to checking it out next week. Always lots to learn when a major site does a re-do (117 million unique visitors can't be wrong, right?). That said, going through the gallery of screens available at this link, I am a bit...underwhelmed. Not sure what I was expecting, but the world's ugliest website (and, famously, one of the most successful) apparently did not really want to do a redesign as much as add a bunch of new features. That's cool, but the design itself is still wanting and really doesn't communicate "redesign" in my view. Again, excited to click around and get a sense of the new site. Always dangerous to throw rocks in this business as we ourselves have to put out redesigns that occasionally get trounced.

Obviously, their team needs to get ready for tons of complaints and hate mail, even regarding the improvements. That's just the way it is when you try to improve life for your users. The familiar is sometimes more powerful than a superior solution. You just have to have the courage to get through the initial freak out of the faithful. On the other side of the hill is probably (and hopefully) a larger audience. As we work on the next generations of AOL Programming, this factor always rings true in our work and our results.

Good luck guys!

Jonathan Meyers, the Program Manager for AOL News, passed on this great tip that we have posted an open competition cash-reward for an Elections experience. You can see it in the screen shot above at the bottom. All of the basic requirements are listing on the page.

For the uninitiated, TopCoder Studio is "the meeting place for clients who need creative work done and creative people looking to compete for that work." Nice to see an AOL project posted in an open marketplace like this.

My current picks from the major food groups of media: MUSIC, GAMING, PUBLISHING, and MOVIES. If there's anything good on TV I may include that as well. Since websites get covered here all the time, I'm just going to skip over those.

This set of selections is totally subjective, not endorsed by AOL, slightly skewed toward design, and, ultimately, pointless in nature.

warner bros.