Category: Personal brands

An outfit designed by a player of The Sims 2 is now available in almost 1,000 H&M stores world-wide. The clothes are the result of a design contest in which all Sims-players could take part. The context involved designed a piece of clothing based on the style of H&M. The uploaded creations could then be seen in six virtual fashion shows. Entries by at least 1,000 designers were judged by over 100,000 people. It generated around 500 million impressions. The winning design is recognizable in H&M stores by a special The Sims 2 label and brand.

Supercook puts together a recipe based on the ingredients in your home. You look at what's in your fridge, pantry or kitchen cupboards, add your ingredients and the search engine will find recipes that allow you to make a meal immediately. Useful when you want something quickly and don't have time to go to the supermarket (or when it's closed).

The biggest world wide job search engine CareerJet is now also available for the Russian job market. Careerjet searches for all vacancies at Dutch interim offices, newspapers, companies and other job websites. The list of vacancies is then shown based on the criteria of the person looking for a job. This list refers a person to the original job offer where one can apply for the job immediately.

The Dutch television guide Veronica Magazine is now available for the iPhone.

Through the Dutch site Startpagina Verkeer (Startpage Traffic) it's now also possible to obtain real time detailed information regarding traffic jams. The information originates from the TomTom.

The International Olympic Comitee, the IOC, will broadcast its own images of the Olympics in Beijing via YouTube. In countries where the television rights haven't been sold and in countries where those rights haven't been sold exclusively, the IOC will takeover the role of broadcaster. The games' organization won't have to make deals with television broadcasting companies because it'll place the images directly on the internet. No full sports competitions will be offered, but solely summaries and highlights. Inhabitants of 77 countries (such as Afghanistan and Ethiopia, but also Saudi Arabia, Singapore and Thailand) will profit from this move.

Readers of the American newspaper the New York Times will get a special frame on the technology and business pages. In this frame they'll be offered a special selection based on their LinkedIn profile. (LinkedIn is a social network for business professionals.) Members that are active in the energy sector will for instance receive relevant news from the energy market. Besides that it is also possible to share the news from the New York Times with LinkedIn contacts or to start a discussion with people from the user's personal network.

When one looks up a route, Dutch Routesite Routenet automatically calculates the actual fuel costs based on the type of car and fuel used. By entering the car's license plate number the model of the car, the fuel consumption and the actual fuel prices are looked up. Based on that Routenet calculates the cost.

The Dutch living concept Stay or Go calls the members of its community on Grohe Rainshowers to test a special kind of shower head. This was sent to the members through email. By clicking the link in the email a personal page is created where the users only need to add their zip code. The rest is already filled out and users can then click 'send'. That's all you need to do to sign up. Then Grohe selects people based on their profile, including their zip code.

PC Zapper groups together all watched videostreams of broadcasting companies, of Dutch video sharing sites or other video sources using Dutchcharts (Dutch). This way a Top 30 can be created. Videos can be clicked on and watched immediately.

Through CitySense inhabitants and visitors of San Francisco can see where the masses are in a city with one press on their BlackBerry. Through GPS and WiFi-locations of other (anonymous) CitySense-users the BlackBerry displays real time where in the city the most people are gathered. You can see whether it concerns a busy restaurant, overcrowded bar, or a steamy club. Also ideal for when you're looking for an empty bar stool or don't want to go out where all of San Francisco is at that moment.

Through Dutch housing site Zuka buyers and sellers can chat with one another directly. Typical questions that aren't (as) easily caught in a database - for example 'from what time will the sun be shining in the garden?' or 'when was the exterior painted for the last time?' - can easily be answered in this way. In an extreme case one might even be able to make an offer from the chatroom.

At GreenNote American students can get financing for their college/university studies through acquaintances. The student creates a profile and adds, alongside the desired monetary amount, a photo, information on finished courses and in 'my story' the reason the money is needed. And of course why they think that lending them money to go to college is a good investment. From there the student can start to approach people.

If people are interested in offering a loan, GreenNote formalizes this through a legally binding contract for both the student and the person offering the loan.

The line between banners and widgets (an intelligent coding behind a space on a website that can be shared by different websites) is slowly disappearing. This example shows a banner of an event that users can mark. This way users can put the date directly in their diaries, invite friends, set a reminder (maybe the user wants to decide later), put it on their personal page on Facebook (without showing it to friends or other people) or just book tickets straight away.

With Air, Bed & Breakfast you can spend the night in people's homes. You only pay a small fee.