Why It's Great to be Dutch

2 of many reasons: Van Houten Cocoa and Ecofont

What: Ecofont, the brainchild of Dutch creative communications firm, SPRANQ, that uses up to 20% less ink.

DCF: Holey font! "After Dutch holey cheese, there now is a Dutch font with holes as well." Save your ink and get the free font download here.

i think i would die without macaroni cheese.

What: Twistori

DCF: Enter the minds of the Twitterati. Twistori displays what people love, hate, think, believe, feel, and wish on Twitter at any given time.

Michigan crushes Ohio State again - on Wikirank

What: Wikirank, a trending tool that lists the most popular topics on Wikipedia and allows you to compare the traffic for different search terms (i.e. Michigan vs. Ohio State - The Michigan Wikipedia page is the clear winner (obviously) with 41, 493 page views in the past 30 days vs. only 1,666 PVs for Ohio State. Go Blue.)


DCF: Like Google Trends, Wikirank provides yet another place to find a snapshot of news and consumer topics of interest. While Wikipedia's audience is smaller than Google's (leading to less diverse trending information; 60.9 MM uniques for Wikimedia Foundation Sites vs. 148.9 MM for Google sites), I like the utility of Wikirank's homepage, which allows you to view both the most popular topics of the day and of the past 30 days. The Beatles, Watchmen, and Natasha Richardson are leading the past 30 days as of now, with the morbid topic of "Deaths in the 2009" ranking at #9.

You can also compare the Wikipedia traffic for several topics of interest (i.e. Michigan v. Ohio State), and then search for articles related to the topic on Google News, Twitter, and The New York Times with one click.

Check it out.

Answering the question we've all been dying to know...

What: The Juicy Juice Child Personality Quiz - "You might find that your child is insightful like a carrot or mild-mannered like a cabbage."

DCF: Well, Juicy Juice has outdone itself. We can now all discover our inner vegetable while making up answers about the veggie eating habits of our imaginary children.

P.S. - I'm a carrot. I'm proud that my friends are sweet potatoes, cabbages, and hot peppers.

Watch your bottom.

What: To sit, or to squat? Charmin helps us decide at sitorsquat.com, where you can search for public restrooms and view "sit" or "squat" rankings submitted by users.

DCF: Love that a brand is partnering with this site in beta - it's a fresh, contextually relevant environment for Charmin that embraces the cute, yet slightly edgy Charmin bear (enjoying the animated bottom...) Sidenote - The Hotel Pierre at 61st and 5th has a 4-star "Sit" rating, while the Starbucks at 575 5th Avenue has a 0-star "Squat" rating.

Beyond the Google Map

What: A few interesting sites that have found a way to use Google Maps for niche interests, ranging from environmental concerns to travel to panoramic photography

DCF: The cool factor here varies by concept...

Flood Maps - View a map of the new coastline for sea level increases ranging from 1M - 14M. Scary.

Wines and Times - While this site leaves much desired from a design perspective, Wines and Times offers a robust listing of wineries across the United States, as well as their hours of operation.

Panedia - Scrolling panoramas of over 7,000 locations (defaulted to Australia - love it.) Similar to Street View, but a more smooth and visual experience.

mezzoman - Type in two addresses to get a suggestion of places to meet in the middle

Broadway2Day - See a map of Broadway shows filtered by date and genre...especially helpful for hunting down rush tickets!

As if Ingrid Michaelson weren't awesome enough...

...she now wrote a song about Twitter.

DCF: Take a listen. Enough said.

Behold the Twitter Influencers

What: WeFollow - a user-powered Twitter directory exposing the most popular players in the "twitterverse" across different subject categories

DCF: Find and follow the Twitter influencers. Britney rules the celeb category. Ashton leads the actors. Predictably, Obama is at the head of the political bloggers, and CNN conquers the news rankings. Browse the # tags (pronounced "hash tags") on the right to search the top players in social media, blogs, travel, marketing, and more. The beauty of the hash tag system is that you can also add yourself to the WeFollow directory by "tweeting" up to three # tags to @wefollow. i.e. For my Twitter handle (@avh531), I could tweet: "@wefollow: #digital, #random, #cool" to be classified in the categories of "digital," "random," and "cool" in the directory.

Nuts for the Sqworl

What: Sqworl.com

DCF: While I love delicious, Sqworl takes social bookmarking to a new level with cleanly designed pages featuring thumbnails of your favorite sites, which are arranged in themed collections that you can then share with friends via a public url. In honor of this both beloved and feared mammal, check out my recently created collection a.k.a. "Don't Steal My Nuts": http://sqworl.com/?i=70ced6

Sqworl doesn't let you tag content yet, so delicious is still king interms of organization and sharing functionality (you can't connect with other sqworl users yet either.) But, it's a cool and fresh take on social bookmarking worthy of use, and I'm excited to see where it goes next (my hope is that the thumbnails will upload faster...) Register and check it out.

DCF Blog Mantra

1) There's something digital about it. 2) I think it's cool and worth sharing. 3) You think it's worth reading.

It's a beautiful partnership.

Welcome to The Digital Cool Factor.

avh