Some agencies own a specialty, which is to say they excel at a particular core competency. Then there's Stimulant, which owns a platform. Well, maybe owns is a bit strong, but Stimulant certainly does have a powerful presence on Microsoft's Surface -- a coffee table-sized touch-screen interface that's a big contributor to a future many believe will be dominated by a "digital screens everywhere" approach. As innovations achieved through the Surface project make their way into mainstream consumer electronics, advances made by Stimulant will represent the next-generation of connections brand marketers crave.
One of those advances was updating and redesigning Event Live, an event-based social media visualizer. If that all sounds a little esoteric, consider this explanation from Stimulant:
"Our fully redesigned and rebranded Live Stream application aggregates live tweets, images from Flickr, and news stories into a multi-directional animated 'stream,' creating a real-time display of relevant social content. Multiple users can simultaneously read, rotate, and explore all of the live data on the selected topics, and can even 'scrub' the stream itself backwards and forwards."
But while Event Live is certainly a next-gen app, Stimulant thoughtfully built it with accessible source code that's housed in Microsoft's code gallery, meaning that brands can easily re-skin the app for their own marketing goals.
Microsoft LiveStream from Stimulant on Vimeo.
One brand that's already taken advantage of Surface is Kodak, which used the screen to impress tradeshow attendees with a simple proposition: "Pick up a printed sample or object, place it on Surface, and have Surface reveal details on that object's printing methods, and what Kodak products were used in its manufacture." To build the app, Stimulant worked with Kodak, Obscura Digital (on this list), and the tradeshow exhibitor.
Stimulant: Object Recognition App for Kodak, PRINT09 from Stimulant on Vimeo.
Outside of the Surface platform, Stimulant showed off its penchant for visualizing data by working with Seattle radio station KEXP to build WebVizBench.com. The site works as an animated, interactive radio playlist that offers users the ability to browse through all tracks played on KEXP for almost the entire last decade. Users can sort by time, artist, popularity, or even album color.
WebVizBench from Stimulant on Vimeo.
The team at Stimulant frequently shares its insights on a company blog as well as at events like SXSW.
Stimulant is based in San Francisco with an additional office in Seattle.
