Services Rendered:
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The Project:
I am unique (or IAU) was built for Foxtel (the Australian equivalent of Sky) to
support the release of their new set-top-box, the iQ2.
The site was conceived and conceptually designed by Lowe in Sydney, with Tom Markham, Head of Digital, the main
creative force. The flash front end was built by Terabyte and the
back end & Facebook Connect functionality was coded by Ubiquity, also in Auckland.
The audience was pretty broadly defined (the client wanted to
reach everyone they could) but it was specifically aimed at more
web-savvy users - those comfortable using social networks for
example - in the hope that they would drive word of mouth about the
site.
IAU is innovative because of its interface - bringing together
content about a person they and their friends have uploaded, and
from all over the web via various API's and web services (including
Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and LastFM), and displaying it in a
completely unique (if you'll excuse the pun) way.
The user uploads an image of themselves, which becomes their
"portrait" in 3D space, and then adds various items of content - an
image, some text, an RSS feed - to it. For every piece of content
they add their portrait fractures into more shards, with part of
their portrait image on the front and the content on the back.
These shards hang in 3D space and can be manipulated using the
mouse and keyboard, allowing a user to navigate and view all the
different pieces of what makes someone "unique".
If the user has a Facebook account, they can create and log in
to their portrait via Facebook Connect, and the application pulls
through and displays their FB friends who have IAU portraits.
Anybody can contribute to a portrait (unless the owner locks
it), and although the site isn't a social network it can feel like
a little like one, with crossposting of content and Facebook
integration.
This was a pretty big project, which required a lot of
collaboration during the build between all parties, quite a
challenge with half the team in Australia and half in New
Zealand.