Web Fonts: The final frontier

Tired of looking at the same 20 fonts on the web yet? I love Tahoma and Comic Sans as much as the next guy but wouldn’t it be great for designers and brands to be able to use any font they want? Sure, there are solutions using flash or graphics but we need something that maintains best web and SEO practices. With groups like Typekit, Font Squirrel, Ascender, Font Bureau, and now Google’s recent launch of their Font Directory, I think we’ll see some acceleration in bringing more fonts to the web. While these groups work with type designers and foundries on licensing models for web distribution the browser manufaturers will have to work to catch up technically. A font intended to display in print at 600dpi may not look so good at 72dpi, but hey, I remember a time when there were only 216 “web-safe” colours. Here are some examples of embedding machine text, i.e., no use of graphics, into web pages.

Taking Time to Unplug

We here at Dashboard are all about the latest and greatest in technology – but we don’t work all the time. Of course, in our industry it’s easy for work to infiltrate our lives. Even when we’re not working, we’re probably on the Internet, or watching TV or at the movies – and it’s hard to turn it off. You try not thinking about an awesome 3D website while watching Avatar!

Even while playing the latest video game, say Starcraft 2, you may be interacting with people and accomplishing something together, but it is very rudimentary in its interaction. The mentality of “Just one more level…Just one more level” can come to permeate a players psyche and they can lose touch with reality and some of their personal interactions.

My solution when this happens? Peace and quiet. No email, no phones, no Starcraft 2. I retreat to The Bruce with my wife and son and we do everything outdoors. It’s important to me that my family and I experience nature and all of the things that the outdoors can offer. Obviously, living in Canada only allows for a certain amount of time a year when people can experience the outdoors in comfort, but we have the best backyard in the world – we need to explore it to its fullest!

Whether it be the Bruce Peninsula or any of the other great outdoor spaces that Ontario has –  get out there. Pick your own apples, ride a horse, take a hiking or canoe trip, visit a farm. All of these activities – while devoid of the newest technology – can also make you feel more complete and will occupy a space within your soul that technology never could.

Remember that as technology continues to evolve and we continually become more entrenched in the newest innovations, we must remind ourselves that at some point, just like our pieces of technology, we all need to shut down and reboot our systems.

Meet Stan

The ING DIRECT news never stops! On top of all the THRiVE Chequing events, there’s Stan! Stan is the front man for THRiVE. In an animated short film, Stan takes you through the awesome features and amazing benefits of this new no-fee chequing account. A charming Saver who longs to only bank with ING DIRECT, Stan tries to convince his skeptical friends that branches are just a façade, what really matters are the savings.

Watch Stan on ING DIRECT’s Facebook  page and while you’re there, become a fan.

Faces in Places

Facebook has been busy.  Open Graph, new  design and layout changes to Pages, it’s all making it easier for brands to work with and communicate on Facebook. It’s no wonder,  integration is on every marketers to do list. Add a couple of movies featuring the social network and all seems very well for Facebook. And they continue to roll, all systems go.

This week Facebook officially announced it’s rumoured and hotly anticipated new check-in feature – Places. Check-ins aren’t anything new, a few players have been at it for a bit (Yelp, Gowalla, and Foursquare) but even their combined user base doesn’t come close to Facebook’s 500+ million users.  Facebook could easily show up and crush these smaller check-in services, but they didn’t. So why not? Well they’ve all partnered through some form of integration. Why would Facebook even consider this? And why would the others hook up with Facebook?

What’s in it for Facebook.
The learnings from the other services to start. Facebook has sat back and watched and examined the errors and successes of others, and hopefully applied the learnings to their new product. The big reason is easy adoption. Foursquare alone has 3 million users and these users should be considered early adopters by Facebook. Furthermore these early adopters are most likely influencers in their social circles, so by including them through integration, their social graphs who are not into check-ins will be more likely to adopt the habit on a platform they are familiar with.

What’s in it for the Others.
Well really it’s an extended lease on life for the others. They have the opportunity to evolve their service to integrate with Facebook. This for them is a much better option than being trampled by the giant. For them to survive they need to adopt and evolve plain and simple. They too will also gain from the added exposure to new users through Facebook. Foursquare had their biggest day for sign-ups after the announcement of Facebook places. At least for the time being, Foursquare is reaping the benefits of Places.

So how does it all work?
Although the service is not available to Canadians yet, there is an iPhone app, a HTML5  based mobile site (http://touch.facebook.com) and a desktop client to be released in the future. Basically users can check-in to venues, see who’s around them , and find out “cool new places”, sounds pretty familiar doesn’t it?

When a user checks in, the update appears on the Place page of the venue, and a message is posted to a friend’s wall. At that time, a list of friends will briefly appear, and the user has the option to either check their friends in, or be checked in by  others.

According to Facebook If a friend checks you in, you will receive a message. You will have the option to approve or reject the check-in. If approved, you will appear as checked-in. If you refuse to be checked in, you can still be tagged, if you allow it. Users also have the option to un-tag themselves, this works similar to photo tagging on Facebook.

At this point it’s unclear what opportunities advertisers and brands will have with Places. I imagine a similar deals and offers currently available in Foursquare could be in the works.  So will you be checking yourself and friends in using places? Or do you just find this way too creepy?