A Gangnam Christmas, Thanks Perth

With Psy’s Gangnam Style music video having reached almost 1 billion views, it seems nothing can stop this meme from morphing into glorious absurdity. A Christmas light show in Perth consisting of 41,000 light bulbs, 2,000 light channels, two kilometres of cable and set with precision to Gangnam Style has become a YouTube hit. Sadly, the plug was pulled on the show in real life when crowds became too large. On a side note, the classic Downfall meme has been cleverly mixed with Gangnam Style to create a highly memorable mash-up.

Aunty Meredith Feels the Love

Last month we covered instacane.com, a site that collated all the Instagram photos that people posted in relation to Hurricane Sandy. This week Lach Hall (our regular columnist) alongside Yann Micuta and Chriss Duell have created a site that pays tribute to the Meredith Music Festival. Called Thanks Aunty, the site collates all Instagram photos people have taken at the event (certainly a lively bunch there) and adds the functionality to send thank you notes to Aunty Meredith, the festival organiser. We expect to see more brands launch sites like these in 2013. 

Get Your Cools On Before the Hipsters Do

The Cools is a new social marketplace for fashion, design, and art, which customises your user experience by what you deem to be cool.  Signing up is free and as easy as connecting your Facebook or Twitter profile to the site. The beauty of The Cools is that the items you browse are tailored to your tastes based on a sign-up quiz, what you mark as cool and which influencers you follow. Not only can you buy directly from designers and artists, but you can also put your hand up to sell your own work. What are you waiting for? Get on this before the hipsters do.

The World’s First Analogue App for iPhone

Whilst most app developers have been making analogue features digital, case in point Instagram, we now have a real analogue app on our hands. The folks at Honest&Smile in Barcelona who brought us The Love Box, a hand-made video mixer for iPhone, went back to the drawing board to bring the masses the world’s first (yes, I’m calling it) analogue app for iPhone, the AbracadabrApp. Housed in an original Moleskine notebook, the AbracadabrApp allows you to film a two-sided video using one iPhone camera lens. By moving a mirror on a slider users can video record two sides of a conversation at once, naturally appearing as a split screen. There are even manual Instagram-like filters. This crowd-funding project has already reached its target on Rock The Post with 11 days still to go. Get in quick before the first editions sell 

Facebook Messenger Makes a Play for WhatsApp’s User Base

Facebook has released a Messenger update for Android that allows non-Facebook members to use the app by entering their mobile phone number. After speculation Facebook would try to acquire WhatsApp, they seem to have instead decided to compete for users. Whilst some think Facebook will take a successful challenge to WhatsApp, we’re not convinced. Given Messenger’s clunky interface, temperamental notification issues and slower image upload functionality, it will be a while yet until Facebook Messenger will convert devoted WhatsApp users. Making an update for iPhone would be a start.