Have you guys read BrandFlakesforBreakfast yet? If not, you should.

Thanks to them for passing the news along about this new, innovative Web site from the folks at Modernista. This Web site is actually not much of a site, as much as an online bookmark of sorts for all of their social media and Web 2.0 sites. When you visit the site, the first background image you’ll see is actually their Wikipedia page. NOTE: However, when you click on the link from our blog, our blog becomes the background. Amazing. Here’s what it looks like:

Their work is all shown on either YouTube for video or Flickr for print or other work. There’s a link to their Facebook. Click on the link to read news about Modernista, and it takes you to their Google news feed as the background. Really the only semblance of an normal Web site is the itty bitty navigation up in the upper left hand corner of the page.

www.modernista.com. I recommend checking it out. It’s a neat idea and I think we’re going to be seeing more of it as time goes on.

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com

I found this site and wanted to pass it along. It’s a blog aggregator that lists tons of great blog sites from around the world. I’m a big fan of Google Reader as an aggregator, but I REALLY like this site because it allows you to search for blogs in different categories–Great if you’re looking to find more blogs to keep up on. I’ve submitted a request for this blog to be listed, so hopefully we’ll be listed there very soon.

http://www.blogcatalog.com/directory/business/graphic_design

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com

Good morning all, and happy Monday. We’re getting back in gear after a windy weekend here in Baltimore, and one that stole an hour of sleep from us. But the coffee is fresh and hot, so we’re doing just fine…

I was just reading one of my favorite recent blogs from the folks over there at Plaid, and thought I’d pass along something they brought to my attention. My last post was all about Google Reader and how amazing it is for someone that enjoys reading and keeping up on important blogs. But what about people that are interested in reading blogs, but aren’t really sure how to find them? That’s why the folks at Blogged exist. Their site allows you to search for blogs by interest category. GREAT idea.

Check them out HERE.

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com

I forget how I found out about it, but I recently learned about Google Reader. It’s a great new application from Google that allows you to aggregate all of the blogs and news sites you visit on a regular basis. For me, it has solved one of the biggest challenges I’ve faced recently at work (ok, maybe that’s a little dramatic) and that’s “how do I keep up with all of the peoples’ blogs that I follow without having to go to each site every day?” That’s a lot to bookmark.

Signup was incredibly easy because I already had a Google account (Gmail) and it was very intuitive to use. All I had to do was to enter the URLs of the sites I was interested in and they started keeping track of every time new content was added. The best part is that I can just go to my Google Reader page and it shows me all the new posts from all the blogs I follow in one easy to use interface. It’s amazing - and today, I actually realized I could add a widget to my Google page that allows me to get a snapshot of reader right from www.google.com. Amazing.

I have 10 blogs/news feeds on my Reader so far. Are we on yours?

I also wanted to mention that I’ve been hearing a lot of buzz about Twitter. So much so that I’ve actually signed up for an account and am considering jumping into actually using it regularly. But to me, it seems like you have to make one heck of a committment to actually get much out of it…Am I right or am I missing something? Let me know what you think…..

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com

I was just talking to a good friend and brand strategy/PR partner of ours, Angela Walseng, about our Web 2.0 capabilities and realized I don’t think I posted a link to our work with the Department of Energy’s Solar Decathlon. We created the 2007 competition’s Myspace Page.

Here’s a link: www.myspace.com/solardecathlon07

Now go join and be one of their friends!

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com

Hi all -

This morning I read a blog posting on MediaPost.com that really resonated and I wanted to pass along to you. It was particularly interesting to me, because like another blog post I read written by Michael Margolis, it dealt with motive.

Email Diva’s column today talked about how, as marketers, we’re often forced to involve our clients (and become involved on their behalf) in social networking because, well, that’s what needs to happen for them to keep up with their competition. After all, isn’t everybody doing it?

But those aren’t necessarily the right reasons. It’s true - so many marketers and corporations do it, but they only do it for competitive advantage. Not because they truly believe it enhances the world as a whole, or the customer experience for that matter. And, like companies that try to exploit sustainability and get figured out, consumers are hip to what they’re trying to do.

Diva gives a great example of how to avoid this customer backlash–tie it in to a charitable and/or righteous cause. Orange Element did this recently when we were tasked with building a Myspace page for the 2007 Solar Decathalon. I’ll talk more about the Solar Decathalon in another post, but the bottom line is that we created a social network that was built around saving the Earth’s resources through a solar-power building competition. Pretty noble, huh?

Here’s a link to Email Diva’s blog post from today: http://blogs.mediapost.com/email_insider/?p=525. It’s a great read.

Garret Ohm
www.orange-element.com