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I Have Twatted

How Does One Celebrate Peace? By Obliterating Hate via Missile, Of Course

Is it just us, or are only U.K. agencies getting in on this whole Peace Day celebration? Whatever the case, with Mother London creatives and Euro RSCG London both involved, Leo Burnett London is now also throwing its hat into the peace commemoration ring with an effort called “Missile for Peace.” While not quite a send-tweets-to-space deal ala NatGeo and Campfire, Leo’s “Missile” is aimed at supporting Peace Day by launching a hate-tweet-filled missile into the sky and watching it destroy the negativity.

In the clip above, you can watch HP automation engineer/missile project manager Roy Trzeciak-Hicks and son talk about the 20-foot projectile, which will be launched in a field in Cambrige, Central London, at 7:30pm local time this Friday. Feel like hating on hate? Well, feel free to take part by using the hashtag #Obliteratehate and following the initiative on Twitter @MissileForPeace. Hey, if the whole destroying hate part doesn’t work out, at least viewers should have a decent visual spectacle to remember the attempt.

Yes, We Received a Nerf Gun via FedEx and Here’s Why

This week, some interesting swag landed on our desk, namely the Nerf “N-Strike” (what, no Crotch Bat?) that you see above. While we initially thought Christmas came early, the note attached filled us in that it’s all part of promoting a little “tweet to shoot” experiment from Neiman Labs, the in-house R&D team at Philly-based agency Neiman.

While we’ve seen shoot-from-my-computer efforts before, and on a much more epic scale (remember Deutsch LA’s Twisted Metal promotion from earlier this year?), Neiman Labs at least rekindles our nostalgia by letting users play the classic game Duck Hunt just by tweeting. Between now and 5pm EST today and tomorrow, those who feel like kicking it old-school can use the hashtag #TweettoShoot and fire off a Twitter-powered Nerf gun that Neiman Labs set up in its office. Let the  R&D team break down the process of its experiment: “We rigged the gun to a 12-volt power supply and an Arduino Uno micro-controller. We combed the Twitter API for mentions of a specific hashtag. We rebuilt the classic Duck Hunt interface. We took over a room and streamed it live.” The stream itself is a little lagged and the gun we were sent actually has nothing to do with the effort, but we appreciate the gift and the chance once again to see that annoying dog. Check out a teaser video for the Neiman Labs project below.

T3 Seeks to Rally Twitter Nation Around Nokia’s Windows Phone 8 Devices

Seeing as T3 handles social media, app dev, online, and mobile marketing efforts for Windows Phone, it makes sense that the Austin-based agency is all revved up for today’s great unveiling of Nokia’s Windows Phone 8-powered Lumia 820 and 920 smartphones. To herald the launch, T3 has created a social aggregator highlighting the latest news surrounding today’s events, though reports are already coming in that Nokia shares have fallen following the unveiling. Sorry, we’ll avoid playing Debbie Downer any further, but you can check out the Windows Phone Hub here (screen grab below), which we’ve been told was set up to “to rally Twitter followers to spread the word” about the 820 and 920. We’ll leave that up to you.

Mother London Creatives Want to Give Peace a Chance

To celebrate Peace Day, which takes place on Sept. 21, the Mother London copywriter Henrik Dufke and art director Felipe Montt (art director) have unveiled a little project called “A Lap Around the World” (sorry for reading this as something else initially, fellas). Anyhow, peace on earth might be a pipe dream, but Dufke and Montt seem to believe in the cause and have taken to Twitter (where else?) with their “Lap” experiment. Their goal? To “…. see if we can make a tweet, promoting Peace Day, travel one whole lap around the world.”

How? Well, the duo has created a map, which is located at the “Lap” hub, that features pins of global tweets with the hashtag #PeaceDay21Sep. Dufke and Montt now have just over two weeks to complete a line of tweets across the entire globe. Will they succeed? Who knows, but we can’t fault them for their idealistic efforts.

LA Creatives Pit Romney Against Obama in Twitter Smackdown

With the Republican National Convention now underway in Tampa, we figured it’s rather timely and appropriate to shine a light on Twitter-centric effort dubbed “Smack a Candidate.” We’ve been told this hashtag-driven battle between Mitt Romney and President Obama is a little side project launched last week by L.A.-based creatives Michael Miller and Marcus Wesson, whose days jobs are at IPG shop, Dailey. Anyhow, as the trailer shows you above, “Smack a Candidate” encourages you to tweet #smackobama or #smackromney and let the presidential candidates (or amusing likenesses of them, at least) go at it. According to the “Smack” calendar on the site, today marks round 1 of 3 in honor of the RNC and goes down starting at 12pm PST. If only they punched harder, though…

Energy BBDO Vying to Become Less Destructive Version of Skynet

If you don’t know who Austin Scott is, he’s a creative who has spent the last several months as a senior art director at Chicago’s Energy BBDO and is trying his damndest to help the agency build up its digital chops. How? Well, after his “Kickcam” effort from a few weeks ago, which showed off Energy folks’ shoes in an instant via Tumblr, Scott has returned with a seemingly most ambitious project, a robot named eB2DO. According to Scott, said bot is a nicer version of his “cousin Skynet” and serves as a Twitter personality for Energy BBDO’s hub.

Equipped with the same tech as Kickcam (including Arduino and Processing), eBDO rests on the 9th floor of Energy’s office tweeting away. Scott explains further, saying, “Every morning at 8am he takes the temperature in the office and depending on how hot or cold tweets so you know if you should bring a jacket. He’s got a button on his head that say’s ‘Press in case of free food’ so everyone knows when to swarm the kitchen.” Don’t worry, bevvie distribution is in tow as well. Scott continues, “There’s also a special beer cart button for when the cart starts making the rounds. A light sensor takes a reading every night to tell if the building lights are still on and if people are working. So far theirs always been people working late. It has a bunch of other sensors as well and we plan to keep expanding his capabilities.”

While we take bets on when eB2DO actually becomes self-aware, you can check out the robot’s Twitter page here.

W+K, LAIKA Welcome Us to the World of ‘ParaNorman’

Like other pubs, it was the tie-in with Nike that first attracted us to this second collaboration between W+K Portland and LAIKA Studios, which first joined forces a few years ago for the Coraline campaign. The story around ParaNorman, which opened last Friday, centers on an outcast named Norman Babcock who can speak to ghouls. The concept carries over into W+K and LAIKA’s multi-faceted effort for the film that includes a look into the latter shop’s “Stop-Motion Zombie Lab” (boo for not allowing embeds), a #WeirdWins Tumblr, OOH unveilings, a free, downloadable “2-Bit Bub” gaming experience and, as mentioned, a Nike tie-in. Regarding the shoes, which you can see above, W+K and the film’s creators teamed up with the mega-brand to launch a Twitter contest where a tweet of your awkward childhood photos could win you one of 800 custom-made Foamposite sneakers. Check out one of the “underground web films” that spotlights the makers of ParaNorman below and two more after the jump.

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Reminder: Tomorrow, NatGeo Will Be Sending Tweets into Space

On a slow-ish news day, why not just let you all know that two months after first announcing its “Wow! Reply” campaign, National Geographic Channel and NYC agency Campfire will be bringing their idea to life tomorrow at noon EST. What idea, some of you may ask? Well, the parties involved decided to promote NatGeo’s new show Chasing UFOs over the summer by collecting tweets from fans (20,000-plus and counting) via the #ChasingUFOs hashtag and videos from celebs like Stephen Colbert (above), which will be launched into space from Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico tomorrow.

Why? Well, to commemorate the 35th anniversary of what’s known as the “Wow Signal,” , which is, you know, what basically validates Fox Mulder’s career. You can check out an image of Arecibo, which is apparently the world’s largest ground-based telescope, below. Credits after the jump.

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Mother London Creatives Play Twitter Ghostwriters

This feels somewhat interesting, though, unless you’re working at Mother London, you can sit your ass on the bench. Here is what we’ve been told is the “Mother London tweet seat,” which lets anyone from the agency commandeer the Twitter account, pick their own themes and get free rein to tweet, and solicit keywords to ghostwrite tweets for Mother folks. Yes, if you are all out of ideas, for this week at least, the creative team of Henrik Düfke and Felipe Montt are here for you, but just hit them up in the morning since we’re on London time here.

Digital Kitchen Rolls Out Indie-Loving Interactive Piano

Ladies and gentlemen, please meet “Stanley,” which is being described by its creator, Digital Kitchen, as the “world’s first interactive player piano” that will debut at this weekend’s Capitol Hill Block Party in Seattle (which is basically akin to the Pitchfork Festival). As part of the event, the indie music-loving Stanley has not only learned songs from each of the acts that are taking part (full, pretty awesome lineup here), but will now take your song requests and messages via Twitter. So far, Stanley’s amassed a mere 58 followers, but we’re sure this number will grow and, yes, we are quite anxious to hear what his refurbished, 100-year-old ebonies and ivories can roll out. Credits after the jump.

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