It’s a day that most of us take off work. Some of us go to the pool, some of us start up the grill and some of us just sit around doing nothing much at all. It’s often relaxing and fun, but we need to remember what the holiday is all about. I found a pretty good brief description online at History.com, they said…

Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday of May, commemorates the men and women who died while serving in the American military. Originally known as Decoration Day, it originated in the years following the Civil War and became an official federal holiday in 1971. Many Americans observe Memorial Day by visiting cemeteries or memorials, holding family gatherings and participating in parades. Unofficially, at least, it marks the beginning of summer.

To see more photos, videos, and other interactive content online, check out the History.com link.

So wether you’re sitting by the pool, hanging out with friends and relatives, or marching in a parade, let’s all remember to give thanks to all of the the men and women who gave their lives over the years and to the men and women who continually help protect our great country.

Happy Memorial Day

Jason Davenport / Going Interactive

Follow Me - Twitter @GoingJason / LinkedIn Jason Davenport

Follow Going Interactive:
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Flickr | Vimeo

Well, with Lala soon going away, I guess I’ll have to find a new way to post songs on here. I guess for the time being, I’ll just stick to posting one song from YouTube.

The Black Keys – Magic Potion (myspace)

Method Man – Tical (myspace)

I got a surprising email last night from LaLa.com. I’ve had an account for a couple years and although don’t use it everyday, I have really enjoyed it’s vast library of old and new stuff. Of course the listen for FREE part was pretty cool too and initially what took me to the site in the beginning.

So if you’ve never visited LaLa.com, it’s too late now. A while back Apple decided to buy LaLa. The market speculated that is Apple’s move into a cloud-based media strategy. Of course as we all know, Apple is pretty hush-hush until they really want us to know things. So after a while, I forgot about the whole thing, until last night. I received this letter…

Dear Jason D.,

The Lala service will be shut down on May 31st.

In appreciation of your support over the last five years, you will receive a credit in the amount of your Lala web song purchases for use on Apple’s iTunes Store. If you purchased and downloaded mp3 songs from Lala, those songs will continue to play as part of your local music library.

Remaining wallet balances and unredeemed gift cards will be converted to iTunes Store credit (or can be refunded upon request). Gift cards can be redeemed on Lala until May 31st.

Click here or visit Lala.com/support for more information, or to view Lala’s Terms of Service.

Thank you.

Lala

©2005-2010 la la media, inc. All rights reserved.”

The possible good news? Well, there’s also speculation about iTunes.com launching some new innovative online service in June of 2010. The timing of all this seems pretty perfect, so I guess we just wait and see now. At least it’s not just a bad economy and might even help revive the music business a little. I’m always rooting for musical artists, I know it’s hard as heck to make money these days.

And for all of us who loved LaLa, we can only hope that Apple can make it even better (as opposed what they are doing to Flash that is… boo)

Cheers

Jason Davenport / Going Interactive

Follow Me - Twitter @GoingJason / LinkedIn Jason Davenport

Follow Going Interactive:
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Flickr | Vimeo

Small Black – EP (myspace)

Oberhofer – EP (myspace)

I’m going to be using Lala as a way to post music for you to sample. If you don’t already have a Lala account, I highly recommend signing up for one. It’s free and an awesome way to find new music or listen to albums you haven’t listened to in a long time.

Diamond Rings – Wait and See (myspace)

Broken Social Scene – Forced to Love/All to All (myspace)

Darwin Deez – Darwin Deez(myspace)

Even if you are a PC guy / girl, you gotta admit that the “I’m a Mac” Ad campaigns from the past few years are really good. Apple has always been a stand out organization who leads vs. follows.

In regards to the TV spots, it was and is always exciting to see a new one hit the screen. We all want to see what they were gonna do next! I’d guess that this “I’m a Mac” overall campaign will definitely go down in pop-culture history along with some other memorable campaigns from the past.

We here at Going Interactive definitely love our Macs (and yes we have PC’s too!). So I was happy when Phil sent me this link. It’s from AdWeek and it has every Mac commercial organized by year / date. It’s pretty neat to see how they’ve kept it going from 2006 – 2009.

Here’s the link to see them all on AdFreak (and thanks for gathering them all in one place guys!)

And here’s a few of our team favorites…
- #61 “Top of the Line”
- #13 “Better Results”
- #45 “Off the Air”
- #56 “Time Traveler”
- #8 “Touché”

Hope you enjoy.

Jason Davenport / Going Interactive
Follow Me - Twitter @GoingJason / LinkedIn Jason Davenport

Follow Going Interactive:
Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Flickr | Vimeo

We’re excited that Atlanta participates in independent film. If you’re a movie buff but really enjoy some of the lesser known flicks then you might want to check this festival out.

The Atlanta Film Festival—one of only two-dozen Academy Award® qualifying festivals in the U.S.—is back. It is the largest and longest-running festival in the region, welcoming an audience of over 25,000 to discover 150+ new independent, international, animated, documentary, and short films, selected from 1,800+ submissions from all over the world. It is also the most distinguished event in its class, recognized as Best Film Festival by Creative Loafing, Sunday Paper, 10Best and Atlanta Magazine. Atlanta Film Festival’s executive director was honored as 2008’s Best Festival Director for a National Film Festival at the International Film Festival Summit.

Atlanta Film Festival screenings often include in-person dialog with filmmakers, providing audiences, artists and industry professionals with meaningful opportunities to network, interact and engage. Recent festival guests have included Josh Brolin (NO COUNTRY FOR OLD MEN), Eddie Vedder (Pearl Jam), Michael Ealy (BARBERSHOP), Jasmine Guy (DIFFERENT WORLD), Chris Moore (GOOD WILL HUNTING,), Howard Zinn (The Peoples’ History of the United States), Ray McKinnon (THE BLIND SIDE), Walton Goggins (THE SHIELD), Margaret Cho (DROP DEAD DIVA), comedian Jeff Foxworthy, Tichina Arnold (EVERYBODY HATES CHRIS), John Sayles (PASSION FISH), Hal Hartley (SIMPLE MEN), Carlos Cauron (RUDO Y CURSI) and Patterson Hood (Drive-By Truckers). *copy supplied by AFF website

“A must for movie buffs, this festival serves a feast of narrative driven movies, shorts, documentaries, and animation.” — Atlanta Magazine

“The Atlanta Film Festival’s Opening Night guarantees great film and a hip indie crowd” — Atlantan Magazine “Arts and Power Issue”

2010 Festival Dates: April 15-April 23
ATLFF is an Academy Award® qualifying festival for the Best Live Action Narrative Short and Best Animated Short categories
Voted Atlanta’s Best Film Festival by Creative Loafing, Sunday Paper, Atlanta Magazine and 10Best.com
The 2010 festival will be ATLFF’s 34th year
Over 21,000 attended the 2009 festival

Learn More at the Atlanta Film Festival Website

My friend Mike Dyson posted a link to this on Atomsplit.com this week.

It’s a really cool little site called Codeorgan that turns the html web code of your site into a synth music piece.

What it does is analyze the “body” content of any web page using a complex algorithm to define the key, synth style and drum pattern most appropriate to page content.

Here’s what GoingInteractive.com sounds like.

Here’s what this Blog sounds like – slightly Seinfeld intro like.

Here’s what Google.com sounds like.

Here’s what usatoday.com sounds like.

Does the “music” of the code of the site match the identity of the site?

It sure does seem so!

They also have a nice little player you can embed to play on a particular page.
Like this:

We at Going Interactive are pleased to announce that we received another great award for best Web & Interactive Marketing – Web campaign/microsite and our work on the Printies Website and Design Studio!

The AMYs are the annual marketing award of the American Marketing Association Atlanta chapter. The AMYs celebrate more than just great creative — they reward companies that craft innovative strategies, unforgettable creative and produce outstanding results.

It was a pleasure to celebrate all the work everyone created and to see all the marketing campaigns, ideas and talent under one roof.

Going Interactive - Agency Conference Room turned to Printies War Room

We’d especially like to thank all of the Going Interactive teammates who gave blood, sweat, and tears for what seemed like 24 hours for 7 days a week. We could not have done any of this without such a dedicated and hardworking group who worked together on finding creative solutions to very difficult obstacles.

Special thanks goes out to Lead Developer Randall for his all of his hard work and for breaking new ground on the Adobe AIR front for GI.

Jason for design, usability, and direction – and – Doug for overall project management, testing and strategy.

Brad for all his efforts in the Flex world.

Zach for all his Flash support and work on the front-end.

Phil, Matt & Sherry for video work and tons of testing.

Thank you to our families and friends for all their support, as it kept us all going knowing they were cheering for us every step of the way.

Going Interactive Team enjoys a pizza lunch from our client Printies

More About the Award Winning Project:

Printies Design Studio is a new Hi-Tech Arts & Crafts toy that allows your child to turn their designs into stuffed toys using your home computer, inket printer, and patent pending Printies fabric sheets. Each child becomes their very own toy artist by using the amazing online design tools and created their own custom plush stuffed friend.

Going Interactive used a unique combination of Adobe Flash, Flex, and AIR to develop one of the first RIA style kids toys of it’s kind. After only being live for only a months, there are thousands upon thousands of users and has been growing steadily throughout 2010. Click to find out where you can buy the Printies Design Studio.

To learn more, contact us at Going Interactive.

Web: www.goinginteractive.com.

Phone: 770-643-3014

Email: info(at)goinginteractive(dot)com

Follow Us: Facebook | Twitter | LinkedIn | YouTube | Flickr | Vimeo

We’re proud to announce that our work on the Printies Design Studio has been chosen as a 2010 Atlanta AMY Awards Finalist in the “Web Campaign / Microsite” category.

The Printies project included both the web site MyPrinties.com AND the Printies Design Studio AIR Application that customers download and design their customized stuffed toy “Printies” in.

Here’s a link to an previous log post explaining the project.

We’ll find out whether we win the big prize at the AMY Awards gala on Thursday, March 11 at the Fox Theatre. Bust as they say in Hollywood, “It’s just an honor to be nominated”.

Last year we were fortunate enough to bring home a big AMY statue for our work on MyBoxercraft.com and a finalist statue for Ron Clark’s GreatAmericanTeachersClub.com.  And the year before that it was two biggies for RubiksRevolution.com

We’re glad our hard work continues to bring us good luck!