More to come in the coming months on our thoughts on the future of shopping, paritcularly social commerce however in the meantime I came across this clip that it is well worth sharing:

With much excitement (and a few sighs of relief) we launched our first iPhone App today.

Go Somewhere Special was created for Moccona, to bring the romance of their beautiful television commercial Candles into peoples’ real lives.

The app allows you to set a romantic journey for your date, and then send them an invitation to follow it to a secret destination. They then follow the augmented reality line of candles, meeting you at your rendezvous point.

It’s really cool!

We originally conceived the idea when pitching for the Moccona business last year, thinking it would be awesome to push the campaign further than the usual online channels, and out into the real world. With a lot of hard work from all the farmers, and support and confidence from our client, it’s been great to see the idea go through concepting, design, research and development, and finally build.

It’s available now on the Moccona Romantics facebook page, and in the app store, and it’s free so you really don’t have any excuse not to give it a go. We’re predicting it will be a really great last minute romantic gesture for those who forget about next Monday (that’s Valentine’s btw).

Here’s the TVC that started it all:

Go Somewhere Special now, and let us know what you think!

I wasn’t really sold on the iPhone applications that promise you the artistic skills of the old masters, it seemed a little Etch A Sketch or Paint by Numbers. But it seems the iPhone is becoming a reputable artistic medium, with David Hockney exhibiting about 300 pieces at the Fondation Pierre Bergé – Yves Saint Laurent in Paris until the end of January.

David Hockney, iPhone drawing © David Hockney

Hockey ‘draws’ flowers on his iPhone everyday, and sends them out to friends. The ability to so quickly share his work seems to be the big draw card for Hockney, who says “Picasso would have gone mad with this. So would Van Gogh. I don’t know an artist who wouldn’t, actually.”

The works are actually being presented insitu, in actual iPhones stuck to the wall.

Read all about it.

Google’s answer to the iPhone – the Nexus One smartphone – may be yet to hit Australian shores but it’s already got Farmers' chins wagging.

The topic – not so much the merits of one phone vs the the other – though you can read about this here http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/15/torn-between-two-phones-nexus-one-vs-iphone/?ref=technology – but what the competition bodes for the future of the www.

While the smartphones might work well with their own software they don’t seem to be making an effort to get along with one anothers other services. Some commentators – namely Tim O’Reily - think this bodes a bloody period of competition that could threaten the interoperable web of today. In the 80s it was Macintosh v Microsoft – in the 2010s the war looks set to take place between Apple and Google.

O’Reily may be onto something. While it’s too soon to tell if the Nexus One will emerge as a serious competitor to the iPhone, some Farmers have already taken sides.

Those who like that Google’s Android platform is more open to developers champion the Nexus One. The others, like everyone else, are so deep in iPhone love they can’t see past their touchscreens. One Farmer has even suggested we change the phrase “the best thing since sliced bread” to “the best thing since the iPhone”.

What do you think? Will you trade in your iPhone for a Nexus One? And who’s your money behind in the war for the web?

BBDO Buenos Aires and Sake have completed the human race 10k campaign for Nike. Five celeb runners commentated on their race in real time, via a mobile phone and earpiece, and the resulting wheezing and insights were broadcast live and could be followed via Twitter, GPS and Google Maps. Over 650,000 people followed the race live and online. Watch the action at www.vimeo.com/7424458 and check http://thehumanrace.com.ar/envivo