It’s been a busy summer; not only with the Euro Cup 2012, the Olympics and Paralympics, and the Mars landing, but also here around the office. It’s been a summer full of shoes as we started working with wonderful Lucia and her stylish shoe brand LLXLLQ. If you haven’t already, check them out here or read my blog post on them.

Now with the change of the season, I decided to make a new Spotify playlist. For a smoother transition I tried not to make it too dark and dusky. Don’t miss out on some colorful songs and access it now. No risk of fall melancholia!

According to Billboard, the No. 1 song of the summer of 2012 is “Call Me Maybe” by Canadian Carly Rae Jepsen. Thinking that you probably have heard it over and over this summer, it is not in the playlist (You’re welcome!). Instead, here are some fun covers and parodies for you:

Harvard Baseball (16,048,367 views):

Laina Walker a.k.a. the Overly Attached Girlfriend (17,221,174 views):

Pomona High School Staff (7,835 views):

Romney and Obama (530,341 views):

Happy Fall!

Anna
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Until then, a sparkling Spotify playlist for you –March Madness– to enjoy whether you are tidying and organizing or outside enjoying the sunshine. What is your favorite spring activity?

 Happy listening!

 Anna

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Here’s for you that needs to get into the right Valentine’s Day spririt, or for you who just want some sweet love tunes: A Valentine’s Day Spotify Playlist put together by the Herringbone team.

 Happy listening!

 Anna

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Music moves. And music lasts. Memories ingrain. If you were to choose one song to represent your personal or professional brand right now, which one would it be? Which song would you have us singing or dancing to? Which emotion would you want to give us?

Last week Google invited all its employees and their one guest to attend the new Cirque du Soleil show, Michael Jackson the Immortal World Tour, at the Oracle Arena in Oakland. It was a fantastic show; at times breathtaking and at some level deeply moving.

I was lucky to be invited. Our soon to be Herringbone team member was also there. I welcomed her to the “Herringbone team building event” and she laughed. For the moment we are riding on the wave, it will take at least a couple of years for us to rent the Oracle Arena.  The question is: which artist will we choose then?

Right now, we are jamming with Michael Jackson, visualizing ‘impossible things’, like performed by Cirque du Soleil. Join the ride!

Here is a link to the Herringbone Spotify Michael Jackson Immortal playlist.

Enjoy,
Johanna

Wrapp has been tested in the Swedish market and offers gift cards from Swedish retailers such as Cervera, JC, and Stadium.

So, how does it work?

Let me inform you with an example. Let’s say that Lisa has the Wrapp app on her smartphone. When she installed Wrapp she signed in through her Facebook account. Next week it is Lisa’s friend Victor’s birthday. Lisa buys him a digital gift card through the app at a store she knows Victor likes and offers gift cards via Wrapp. Immediately, the gift card shows up on Facebook and everybody (both Lisa’s and Victor’s friends), except for Victor, can see Lisa’s gift. Mandy and Maria see it on their newsfeed and decide to add on to the gift card. On Victor’s birthday the gift card shows up on his wall and a few more friends have added on to it. Victor can either install the Wrapp app, which is for free, on his phone to redeem the gift card or log in on a friend’s smartphone. Everybody is happy.

Wrapp is a fun and easy way for users to celebrate friends and family, but what’s in it for brands? Among other things, by offering digital gift cards through Wrapp, companies benefit from unique branding in a friend-to-friend environment without having to discount their brands (forget Groupon).

Wrapp has raised $5.5 million in funding led by a venture capital firm formed by Niklas Zennström, who is also a Skype co-founder. Other impressive names involved with the company are co-founders Hjalmar Winbladh (Rebtel, Send It) and Andreas Ehn (Spotify), and Fabian Månsson (H&M, Eddie Bauer) et al.

Get the Wrapp app here.

Herringbone wishes Wrapp lots of success in the US market.

Anna

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The Swedish-founded company Spotify has been a huge success, especially this past year with the US launch. Spotify recently started rolling out the 0.8.0 version, which includes updates and new features such as:

• Spotify Apps

This is a really good one. Spotify Apps are integrated apps inside Spotify such as Billboard Top Charts, Top10, and Soundrop, which help you discover even more music. My favorite is the “Rolling Stone’ app with playlists from the magazine’s own editors. You find the different apps in the sidebar to the left – “App Finder.”

• Spotify Radio

Spotify Radio has been updated and has a new cool look and users can choose from a variety of stations and tracks. It’s possible to skip as many tracks as possible. You can also create your own stations based on your favorite tracks, just drag them to the “Radio” in the left sidebar.

• ‘What’s New’

This feature has been updated as well and the user can e.g. see playlists and top tracks near her/him.

• Predictive search results

• Playlist search

• New “Buddy List”

• Add to Favorites

• Full-screen support for OS X Lion

If your account hasn’t been updated yet, make sure to fix that here.

To celebrate Spotify’s success and the new year that is upon us, I created a playlist. Get it here! Yeah… it might be a little cheesy, but 2011 has come to an end and a new year with new opportunities is about to begin. It’s time to wrap up unfinished business or to leave certain things behind us and start out fresh. It’s an opportunity to start over and become a better you. And make sure not to waste any time!

Anna

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Of course there are a few tricks to help you:

• Escape to the mountains. Lake Tahoe is only a few hours away.

• Visit a nearby IKEA store. Their assortment is nothing to write home about anymore, but you can still find sill, glogg, cheeses etc (IKEA branded nowadays).

• Light candles/fireplaces. California might be in more southern latitudes, but it still gets dark and pretty cold in the evenings.

• Decorate your house/cubicle/desk.

• Go ice-skating at Union Square or/and Justin Herman Plaza at the Embarcadero.

• Do something nice for someone. Even if you don’t have a lot of time you can spare a few hours to help someone needy. For example, through Little Brothers – Friends of the Elderly you can visit a lonely elder, since many of them spend the holidays alone.

• Watch Christmas movies. Elf and Love Actually are a must. “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear” which leads me to:

• Listen to Christmas music. At Herringbone we created a Spotify Christmas 2011 Playlist. You can find it here.

What do you do to get into the Christmas spirit?

Anna

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