We live in the age of self promotion and personal branding. Everyone and everything is a brand, the brand you, the brand us, the brand them.
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn and Twitter have us scrambling each and every day to come up with a witty twit or a twitty wit or some contrived status update message pertaining to our current condition. We are at a new social impasse.
Our community here in Interactiveland is no different.
We are the specialists, we created this stuff. However now that everyone is a marketing expert, our jobs should be to take advertising off of the socioeconomic plane and blast it off into the astronomic so that we at least have some sort of gap between creative storytelling and selfless promotion.
Each one of us is a concentrated, jam packed, chock full o promotion.
We now live in the Digital Advertising Age. An age where our President is a web celebrity who won the election online. Our brands have all become mini celebrities creeping and crawling all over the internet. Everyday people have become micro-celebrities, choosing to display their lives, thoughts, ideas and neurosis online for all to see.
I am not sure if I was kinda loaded or perhaps just PRETTYLOADED when I first saw this new "curated" site by Big Spaceship.
Its a web site featuring pre-loaders, yep that's right, those annoying little buggers who sit there and remind you that you are either on a really slow connection or the load sequence on the site wasn't programmed properly. A little device conjured up to distract us from the fact that our instant gratification isn't being met as instantly as we like.
Right now it is simply a showcase of SODA members Big Space, Firstborn, Odopod and AgencyNet but I am sure they will let others play too.
I am not sure what I make of this contrived attempt at coolness through recognition of a small nuance that seems to not have gained its proper place in the 15 minute slot we call fame.
The preloader is sort of like the SMPTE color bars on a TV.
Its purpose is to serve as a waiting pattern while something else is happening in the back. Sure they can be cute, adorable, fun, interactive and they serve a very important role, however some things need to remain unsung, a hero in the dark.
Self promotion is a great thing. Trust me I am guilty of it each and every day.
Especially in the age where it is as important as breathing.
But in this case I would rather these four shops created those funny puppet characters that said those funny things and danced around the screen like they did when they were playing ping pong and foosball against one another.
I loathe watching preloaders when I come to a site and the thought of a site dedicated entirely to those nasty little buggers makes me cringe.
Good try Big Curator.
Maybe the next exhibition can be a tribute to the Form Field or a retrospective of the Send Button.
4 comments:
That is a very interesting point of view. However as a Flash Developer a pre-loader is after all a bit of an unsung hero. It's an attention to detail that is carefully thought out and provides the user a bite size glimpse of what's to come. Im happy to have been apart of a few of the preloaders featured on prettyloaded. Props to Big Spaceship and the other agencies for putting this together.
-j
Justen,
Without a doubt it is a very handy tool and can be as cute as a button.
As I said it is an unsung hero, however a site dedicated to preloaders seems a bit of a push.
In terms of a bite size glimpse, your correct it does serve that purpose however in many cases it grows old when it sits on your screen for too long, its a fine art and a very subtle touch that when done right can be cool but in most cases its spells out doom for those of us afflicted with ADD or who simply cant wait for things to load forever.
Perhaps the site itself should just be a preloader featuring preloaders simply preloading one another...
Craig,
I understand where your coming from. When an awesome preloader isn't accompanied by a great load structure the user's patience can be tested often bordering on cruel and unusual.
Exactly! Thanks for your comments. Much appreciated.
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