Text Tony Hawk 🛹 Abandoned Space Shuttles 🚀And Make Fun Games! 🎮

What could be better than texting Tony Hawk, hiding from Russians, or making games with stickers?

Hey Everybody! I hope your Monday is off to an amazing start! If not - grab another cup of joe and pull up a seat, because I have some fun stuff for y’all today.

Text Tony Hawk

Yes - You can now text Tony Hawk. I have no idea how many texts he personally responds to - but you can give it a shot.

Do it. Right now. 760-492-6712

You’ll get an automated message at first - with a promise that he’ll be reading and that he’ll get back to you. It may not be a direct personal message - but a group message (That’s what I received) but It’s still pretty cool.

So - what in the world is this? How in the world does his phone not explode??

Well, there’s a new app on the block called Community - and it enables leaders to reach their communities at scale vis good ole’ SMS.

Rather than try and summarize their mission - I’ll let their site page do the talking. 😀

Community enables direct, meaningful communication between community leaders and their community members.

Imagine getting to know and interact with your audience as individuals—with names and faces, interests and opinions, hometowns and pronouns. Imagine reaching every single one of them.

Imagine being social, without the conflicting commercial interests, toxicity, and data privacy* issues of social media.

Imagine speaking and responding authentically.
Imagine building deep and delightful relationships.
Imagine being truly seen and heard.
Imagine belonging.
Imagine Community.

Pretty cool, right? Community seeks to cut through the clutter that most social networks create. It reduces communication to a simple two-way stream. Texts received - and Texts sent. No tags, stories, hundreds of comments, DM’s, etc. etc.

It’s pretty cool - considering the kind of power that you could wield.

In marketing, getting someone’s personal email is great - but getting their phone number and permission to text them at times - AND the possible chance of them personally responding to you? Phew! That’s pretty incredible. (Can you say - an endless supply of data? 😍) Depending on a brand or celebrity’s power - you could influence a lot of people directly in their texts.

Flash sale? Boom. Survey vis an SMS bot? Easy peasy.

The app isn’t available to the public yet - but check out their site!

Abandoned Space Shuttles

If you fancy urban exploring and sneaking around Russian guards - I’ve got the perfect place for you. There’s an abandoned Russian Space facility in Kazakhstan that urban explorers have been “visiting” (IE sneaking in at the risk of being arrested or worse). It has a few half-built space shuttles that have been decaying since the end of the USSR.

Vice did a cool story with a photographer who sneaked in on a bicycle! He got in, took some epic shots, and got out safely. He did an exhibition, sold some pictures, and then a few days later . . . .

“I came home to find the door of my condo open. Instantly, I knew someone had broken in but it wasn’t the huge mess I expected. The only things missing were my Nikon camera—the big one that still had the rocket pictures on the card—and my laptop too, but nothing else. I guess they were at the exhibition where they saw my computer projecting all the Baikonur pictures. But they left six lenses in the same camera bag, as well as my backup camera, the Sony A7. So it was like, a little weird.

I called the police and they came in and I made a statement. Later, they called me back and said, “Look, it doesn’t make sense these guys took only your camera and laptop. So, we think it might be a sign from Moscow.”” Source (This Vice article is awesome!)

Scary, right? He got a good ole’ threat from Russia. 😱

I found this footage online of some urban explorers poking around the facility. Check it out!

Make Games with Giphy

Giphy! The gif search engine we all know and love has created an interesting product - a video game creator you can customize. It’s super simple and easy to use. Pick a template, add in some stickers as characters, and you’re good to go.

It’s REALLY cool because of the brand opportunities it presents - a whole new way for people to casually interact with brands. It’s a win-win scenario. People keep your brand at the top of their minds and share your games with their friends. Maybe you toss in an announcement about a new product, or a coupon code if they hit a particular score.

Oh, the possibilities!

Wendy’s is already on the ball with three games on the Giphy Arcade. Check them out here!

Here’s a direct link to the Giphy Arcade.

The Land of Random

Banksy has a BRAND NEW ONLINE STORE. Seriously, you can buy Banksy art now. It ain’t cheap but its pretty epic. 🙂

Someone leaked a picture of the Playstation 5 Developer Kit. It looks pretty wild! Will it be a taste of the final product? Who knows!

A Nurse and her daughter assisted some bikers after an accident. They stopped by the daughter’s lemonade stand as a way of saying thanks! It’s a touching video.

Do you obsess over Typography? Here’s a neat little article about some current trends. It’s not in-depth but it gets the creative juices going. That’s the important part, right?