3 steps to viralizing your content August 13, 2009
Posted by Vasudevan in Technology news.Tags: Carl's Jr. Happy Star video, Carl's Jr. star uniform, imedia connection, Rob Dyrdek, skateboarder, viral marketing
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Saw an interesting article on iMedia Connection written by Tucker Aaron. The article talks about how to be successful with a viral video for the brand. The best example is the Carl’s Jr. Happy Star video, where famous skateboarder Rob Dyrdek shows off some tricks while riding around in a giant plush Carl’s Jr. star uniform.
Highlights
- The trick to the big idea: integrating the brand in a natural, efficient way
- Develop viral content across multiple platforms, such as games, email, SMS, and Twitter
- The best way to ensure that your video gets out is through paid promotional tactics
Read the full article here.
Do you modify and use stock photos without paying? Beware! August 13, 2009
Posted by Vasudevan in Technology news.Tags: image identification, image privacy, tineye
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May be you guys have heard about this company – TinEye. I discovered about these guys today and thought of blogging about them as I find them really cool!
TinEye is the first image search engine on the web to use image identification technology. Given an image to search for, TinEye tells you where and how that image appears all over the web—even if it has been modified.
It works like this. Firstly you upload an image (whetever you have) on to TinEye.
Then search. You will be amazed to see a detailed list of any websites using that image, worldwide. The image could be the same, edited, used creatively elsewhere, etc. For instance, see the images below. The first one, “origanal query image” if the image uploaded and returned with results of the same image being used elsewhere.
I became curious and tried one search. I was amazed to see that the image I’ve uploaded (I got it from a website) is a copy writed one from one of the leading stock photo sites. See below to believe.
So beware of design heroes, you are being watched!
How the flu virus infects? August 13, 2009
Posted by Vasudevan in Technology news.Tags: h1n1 virus, harward medical school, how flu, swine flu
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Came across an interesting presentation on how the flu viruses infect us. The presentation is by the Harward medical school. This is highly relevant now as the entire world has been stuck by the H1N1 virus.
Step 1
Influenza viruses are tiny infectious agents. Like all viruses, they cannot live and reproduce unless they infect and get inside our cells. Here you see influenza viruses outside and inside a cell. Let’s see, in eight steps, what happens when a virus infects one of our cells.
Step 2
Every virus is a bunch of genes wrapped in a coat of proteins. In viruses, the genes can be made of DNA or RNA. The genes of an influenza virus come in eight rods made of RNA. The outer coat of the flu virus looks a little like a burr that sticks to your socks after a walk in the meadow. In fact, the little spikes we colored brown, called HA proteins, are what stick to the cells in your nose, throat, or lungs.
Step 3
The brown protein spikes grab onto little yellow v-shaped structures (called receptors) on the outer wall of your cell (the cell membrane). The tip of the spike is like a key, and the receptor is like a lock: if the key fits the lock, the virus sticks to your cell. If it sticks, it then is able to enter your cell.
Step 4
Once the virus is inside your cell, it travels through main part of the cell, the cytoplasm, heading toward the center of the cell, the nucleus.
Step 5
As the virus nears the nucleus, it starts to come apart. Its genes enter your cell’s nucleus, along with chemicals called polymerases that can copy and multiply its genes.
Step 6
Once inside the nucleus, the viral genes start to use your cell’s energy supply and the chemicals called polymerases to make thousands of copies of themselves. Then they move out of the nucleus and back into the cytoplasm of your cell.
Step 7
In the cytoplasm, the virus’s genes make lots of new viral proteins, including the brown protein spikes. The genes and the proteins move toward the cell membrane and form into new viruses—thousands of them. And these viruses have a new mission: they need to break free of the cell they are in and go on to infect new cells. They push out against the membrane of the cell, forming little buds, trying to get free.
Step 8
Most of the budding viruses do get free: little chemical scissors cut them loose, allowing them to find new cells to infect. And so the same cycle we’ve just seen begins again, in another cell. When you get a flu infection, in the first few days millions of new viruses infect millions of your cells—until your immune system comes to the rescue and eliminates the infection. That’s it: that’s how a flu virus infects your cells.
