It’s hard to find a good stuff reader. Twhirl and Tweetdeck are good for Twitter and every other social networking whatever service has its own Air app, but there’s no one place you can put all your stuff in a readable and usable way. Enter Skimmer, a stuff reader by Fallon, an ad agency in Minneapolis. Presumably named after the great comedian and talk-show host Johnny Carson, Fallon has decided to brighten up its front walk with a unique Air application that brings Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, Blogger, and Facebook to one place.
Why is an ad agency creating a Twitter app? Had you ever heard of Fallon before this? Didn’t think so. Moving on. [Folks have pointed out they did the BMW films and a few other campaigns. Feel free to ask some people on the street who they are, though, and I believe you'll be quite surprised.]
The folks at Fallon who showed me the service described it as a feed reader for designers. Fallon’s precious art department wanted to use the services we peons use every day but the application design was too muddled and messy. Their solution? Roll their own system using the latest in user interface design techniques taken from the catwalks of Paris.
The application, available on Fallon’s website, is still pretty wonky. It crashed a few times for me on OS X and there are still some issues in posting Tweets. The real differentiator, however, is the way Skimmer shows Flickr photos, videos, and avatars. The photos and videos appear in-line whenever your Flickr freunden post new pics or your YouTube favorites churn out another video. The system also allows you to add large, hi-resolution avatars to your account so other Skimmer users can see the true you and not some 50×50 pixel representation.
There are three screen modes – full, widget, and regular. The fullscreen mode is for crazy people who want their readers to take up the entire screen, the mid-sized is just about right, and the widget turns the reader into something more like Twhirl.
If I were a high school chemistry teacher I’d write “Good ideas but needs work” on the top of Skimmer and hand it back with a B-. The app needs some technical polish – in terms of usability it’s already pretty slick – but if you’re looking for something to bring a few of your services into one fairly attractive app then give Skimmer a try. It can only get better.
Going to play around with it for a bit, this is cool. But I still doubt it can compete with Google reader.
well, it doesn’t do rss, so there’s that.
Looks nice, but how is its functionality any different from what FriendFeed already provides?
I have heard of Fallon… for at least 10 years. They do fantastic creative. Very interesting, but not surprising, to see them throw an app out into the mix. The shop is very innovative and I love to see them pushing like this.
Had not heard of Fallon “before this”?:
BMW Films, Buddy Lee, Sony ‘Balls’ campaign, Live Richly, Amazon Theater off the top.
Seriously?
Fallon is huge! They’ve created some of the most popular campaigns in the last few decades.
I guess you might not know them by name, but you definitely know their work:
-Buddy Lee, BMW Films, United’s Time to Fly, Holiday Express, those Sony Bravio Color commericals…
haha umm, okay I guess Matt and I have the same thought…
The big caveat is, you have to provide the app with your passwords for all those sites, and some people are not comfortable with that.
I’m perfectly fine with not getting chocolate in my peanut butter for now.
No kidding. Where’s the OAuth?
I don’t mind handing out my twitter password, but my Gmail password (for YouTube and Blogger)?
You must be joking!
and that privacy policy… wtf?
Eager to try this out but the website is down.
very easy to replicate and build.
You’ve obviously never built an AIR application… this app took thousands of hours to build but go ahead and replicate it, we’ll see your version sometime next year.
Awesome app!!! love it till now!!!!
Havent heard of Fallon?? One of the top Ad agencies in the country?? anyway, moving on…
I’m not in your world, guys. I now recall that Fallon folken told me they did the BMW films, though.
hahaha. You do though, have access to search the internet, don’t you John?
They are an old agency that continues to push the boundaries of what an ‘ad agency’ should/could do. Glad to see they are making waves regardless!
Fallon goes back a lot farther than 10 years. They almost single-handedly proved great advertising could be produced outside of NY. They owned the award shows, first with clever ads for restaurants and churches, then for clients like Lee Jeans and Hush Puppies.
The agency that began as Fallon, McElligot, Rice paved the way for agencies like Crispin. They found new ways to be an agency, and perhaps they’re doing it again.
Whether that’s the case or not, in your post you seem to be snickering out of ignorance. I’m certain the internet could have provided some good background for you to get up to speed before you started writing.
ignore my cultural ignorance and try the app.
Ignore your ignorance? Wha? Help me here: I don’t understand the line about naming “Fallon” after Johnny Carson. This is beyond ignorance. Or were you thinking of Jimmy Fallon. I think you need a vacation. Never mind the app.
This definitely looks going, going to try it out
they’re down
that was my concern.
Site is backup.. We got techcrunched!
just grabbed the download no probs from http://fallon.com/skimmer
Fallon Worldwide is one of the world’s most innovative branding companies. For almost 3 decades they have become one of the break through creative leaders. Never afraid to take a chance. Never afraid to take a client’s branding to the next level of experience. This is no different. Fortune follows the brave. They have always been brave in the arts. Fallon’s work has been seen all over the work and will continue to. So give Skimmer a break people.
Will it be possible to use skimmer in conjunction with Tweetizen (http://bitly.com/NYqAI) ?
Do people “on the street” know the names of any agencies?
I think it’s interesting Fallon would do this. What is their motivation? What’s the ROI?
If you have AIR install issues, you can download the air file from:
http://cdn.clou...mmer_1.1.69.air
“Feel free to ask some people on the street who they are, though, and I believe you’ll be quite surprised.”
… while you’re at , ask those same people what
“TechCrunch” is. I think you’ll be even more surprised. And sad.
this part of thier privacy policy is slightly disturbing (especially from an ad agency)
“We may share your information (including, without limitation, personally identifiable information) with partners, subsidiaries and affiliates of Fallon Worldwide.”
can you targeted spam-a-rific?
Fallon is a storied ad agency. International Harvester is a storied agricultural machinery company. The equity in either industry is questionable in developing and publishing an aggregation app to a cross-industry audience of early adopters. Which isn’t to say that the app or developers aren’t good. However daffy the app, it’s at least an attempt to gain relevance in the new social medias on the Interscape.
“If I were a high school chemistry teacher I’d write “Good ideas but needs work” on the top of Skimmer and hand it back with a B-.” If I were an English teacher, I’d give you an F for grammar.
Why. Just curious.
Well, the design is pretty neat, but come on, it takes like 400 Mo of RAM after 10 minutes of use …
Skimmer looks lovely, but I think I’ll shy away from it from the point of view of the Ts & Cs. Not too keen on Air applications anyway.
I wrote a related post here on Skimmer, lifestreaming, and encouraging behaviour change if anyone’s interested:
http://designan...treaming-norms/
Thanks for the article.
Fallon’s in-house creatives didn’t design it. They actually had a freelancer do the entire Skimmer interface. I’m surprised they outsourced it.
great app
And the agency didn’t do any of the development either. They must have no creative and technical talent to do something like this internally.