Connecting the Dots / An Agency Blog

With over a half million apps now available for iOS devices, it’s probably a safe bet that there’s an app for pretty much everything by now. Great apps are often built on a substantial level of technology, infrastructure, intellectual property, proprietary data, or workflow. And that’s why our recent work for Ecotrust Canada’s ThisFish program was so interesting.

Accessible across Apple’s iPhone and iPod, as well as BlackBerry and Android WebKit-based browsers, the ThisFish mobile site provides app-like functionality inside of the mobile browser, helping users trace their seafood before they purchase it.

ThisFish helps consumers make informed choices about the authenticity, quality and sustainability of the seafood they eat by tracing the catch from the water to the grocery store or restaurant, including who caught it, when, where and how. The service also aims to promote the fishing industry by highlighting fisherman, processing facilities, and retailers, creating transparency in the seafood business and rewarding those who responsibly harvest and handle each catch.

If this sounds like a complex system, that’s because it is. With multiple stops along the supply chain, each group helps support ThisFish by updating data (often through the mobile site), providing the consumer with information about their seafood purchase. See how it works.

We’re excited to have helped lend a hand, to bring this amazing project to life. Having a greater sense of what we eat and whether or not it comes from a sustainable source is an incredibly valuable proposition for consumers. We’re sure the folks at Ecotrust Canada are on to something.

Be sure to visit www.thisfish.info on your mobile device and trace your next seafood purchase!

Social media is unavoidable for anyone with a desk job and a finger (at least a little bit) on the pulse of things. Let’s face it, for those of us connected, sooner or later you’re going to get the distraction and head over to Facebook. For some employers, time equates 100% to money and every minute wasted is a dollar lost – an unfortunate but realistic factor of capitalism. But for many on the employee side, powering through the day can be a challenge when the social sphere is only a click away.

Continue…

As Apple’s much hyped App platform and iTunes Store have taken off with momentum unseen in any other proprietary commercial marketplace, an incredible number of varied approaches to feature integration have been approved and released for sale to iPhone users. And while the conceptual variation of Apps is as broad as the iPhone market itself, appealing to every possible need an iPhone user may have, I wonder, is there a place for novelty amongst the countless utilities that exist?

Continue…