Socialising Johannesburg

The following from friends at PSFK on the use of digital outdoor-scapes....

Nike’s Write The Future campaign is taking an innovative approach by merging social media and World Cup activities to forge a truly interactive experience. Fans can submit a 57-character inspirational message through Facebook, Twitter, Mxitt (a South African social network), and QQ (a Chinese social network) and choose an accompanying picture of their favorite soccer player to have it headlined on the Life Center, one of Johannesburg’s largest skyscrapers.

One hundred fan-generated headlines are selected each night to be displayed on Africa’s largest interactive LED screen. Measuring 44 meters high by 42 meters wide and hoisted 30 stories high, it displays fan messages for the entire city to read and be inspired by. When a message is chosen and displayed, the fan receives a personalized notification with a picture of the headline and the accompanying animation of their favorite soccer player.

Several years ago the same strategy was utilized by Gateway for a digital billboard in Times Square.

Watch a video about the campaign below and the Times Square photo that precedes it.

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PSFK is a trends, research, idea generation and activation company with a daily news site.

A recent clipping from the site, or whatever the digital equivalent is called, focused on a Wall Street Journal article authored by John Freeman, the acting editor of Granta Magazine. His essay, "Not So Fast" was adapted from his forthcoming book, "The Tyranny of E-Mail".

For those of us that consider the pace of our lives to be inextricably caught up in the web of the web, this is a must read. Twenty years from today, many of you may believe his words fall into an anachronism, sadly missing his point.

"The ultimate form of progress is learning to decide what is working and what is not; and working at this hyper-pace, e-mailing at a frantic rate is pleasing very few of us.

How many of our most joyful memories have been created in front of a screen?

If technology is to be used for the betterment of human life, we must reassert that the Internet and its virtual information space is not a world unto itself but a supplement to our existing world."

Read the essay here.