Imagine opening up the newspaper tomorrow morning, and seeing your very own customized content … Wouldn’t that be nice? 

FeedJournal, a program created by Jonass Martinsson does just that.  Users can choose their favorite RSS feeds, and have them appear in a printable pdf, in the typical newspaper format.

FeedJournal is a great visual tool and organizer for blog archive sections, internal and external newsletters, and online newspapers.  Users can get the look and feel of reading a newspaper, no matter the original form of the content.

This is a great example of how user generated content and digital journalism are encroaching on our traditional ideas and schemas of what journalism and newspapers are “supposed” to be. 

Let us know your thoughts on how RSS helps you stay in the know, and if you think FeedJournal will be successful in the long run as a vendor and as a tool.

Check out this example of “The Longert Chronicles."

-Rob Longert and PepperDigital

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The first modern movie that left an impression on me was Se7en by Imaginary Forces, in 1995.(This does not discount Saul Bass’s North by Northwest, but I just wasn’t around when it was released.)

Fast forward to 2008, we now have high movie graphic expectations and expanded visual vocabularies which can extend to architecture, fashion, television, movies, and the web.  This advanced technology leaves us yearning for a new way to create our own movies and stories using schemas for motion, sound and design.

Programs like Animoto are allowing everyday and corporate bloggers to do this; something that was once attainable only by working with a professional is now accessible to everyone with a computer.

The sample piece below, created by fellow PepperDigital team member, Rob Longert (he has no motion graphic experience), looks seemingly professional, sounds exciting, and begins to tell a compelling story.  The functions of Animoto are easy to use and the results are effortless, instant, homemade motion graphics.

Give it a try for your company or personal blog, as a surprise for your kids or as a present for your girlfriend, and they will surely be happy campers.

Feel free to send along your creations, we would love to hear your feedback and see your creativity!

~Johnny Sha and PepperDigital

Thanks to DemoGirl for sharing this great tool with us.

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Pepsi-Cola is releasing a new no-calorie, carbonated beverage named Tava with a campaign that is bypassing traditional television and print.  (I guess not completely, seeing how I found this story in the New
York Times.)

Instead, Tava has decided to put its efforts into its Web site, along with banner ads, and samplings of the product at various well-known establishments like Google and MTV.  What makes this campaign unusual is not the lack of traditional media, but the fact that Tava’s targeted audience is primarily men and women ages 35 to 49, not the typical younger consumer who has grown up in the digital world.

With more consumers getting their daily intake of news online and often skipping through television commercials we will witness more products launching via the web.   However, for the Tava campaign I’m not so sure Pepsi should entirely do away with print and/or television.  Word of mouth is still one of the most powerful tools for many successful campaigns and because Tava’s targeted audience is not known for utilizing the social networking sites (myspace, facebook, etc.) and tapping into blogs, I don’t know if Pepsi can rely on its primary target to hear and spread word of their new beverage digitally.

Ultimately, because many c-suites are afraid to stray away from the comfort of traditional media, I don’t see many comparable products launching a similar campaign to Tava until there are undeniable results showing that this a smart avenue to pursue.

- Jacob Ramos and PepperDigital

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