The Small Agency of the Year Awards was held in Denver last night to honor and celebrate the work of small and mid-sized agencies around the world. Presented by AdAge and Creativity, the annual event is designed for agencies to gather and discuss the unique challenges faced by today’s market.

Founder and Creative Director Tim Barber was present at the conference to accept the honor of Small Agency of the Year, West Region in which Odopod was co-named with Zambezi, an agency in Venice, California.

AdAge quotes, "[Odopod's] 55-person shop's clients include Sony, Electronic Arts, Tesla Motors, Google and IWC. While Odopod does traditional advertising and branding, what caught the judges' eyes were the retail experiences it created for Tesla, the Trends Dashboard and website it created for Google, and the EA Download Manager, which did for EA Sports' PC games what iTunes did for Apple."

We're extremely thrilled to be recognized for our work in both communications, UI innovation and product work. This combination allows us to step out of the box and innovate for our clients at a fundamental business level.

Odopod was also recently recognized as one of the “Top 25 West Coast Agencies to Watch” by iMedia - a group that closely monitors and recognizes the agencies that move, shape and lead digital. Odopod was named as a key agency that has advanced interactive marketing through big ideas, brilliant creative, cutting-edge technology and pursuit of excellence in the digital space.

Thank you to everyone who continues to celebrate our work. With so many big things happening here, we couldn't be more proud and thankful to be recognized for all that we're doing.

We learned a lesson pretty early on as we tried to figure out what to do with our live stream on FWATV: if you want to make something cool, give it to the nerds.

Since we've given our development team the camera and the freedom to do with it whatever they wished, we've gotten nothing but exceptionally cool experiments in live video by hooking up Processing and Kinect applications to our feed.

We've applied various "filters" that react to movement in our studio space. To name a few, we've had a filter that makes the scene look like a giant, moving painting, a filter that applies tiny bursts of pink bubbles that appear when anyone moves, and a Kinect application enabling odopodders to draw via hand tracking.

Check out the gallery of filters we've used so far and tune in each Thursday from 2-3pm PST on FWATV as we continue to experiment with live video using Processing, Kinect, and whatever else we can dream up.

We're extremely pleased to announce our ongoing digital agency of record relationship with Plum Organics, maker of delicious, premium and organic foods for babies and toddlers. Odopod has been working with Plum to design and launch a digital strategy that brings its personality to life in fresh and engaging ways to capture the hearts of the Modern Mom. With an appetite for innovation, we've been working with their team on the 2011 campaign which recently kicked off with the Babies for Yum! caption contest on Facebook.

For the contest, Odopod conceived and designed a custom application that allows participants to create, vote and share out entries to their social graph, encouraging deep engagement and viral spread. In just the first three weeks of an eight-week program, Plum has already garnered tremendous results including a huge increase in their fan base with over 37,000 fans to date.

We can't wait to see how the campaign grows as we continue to craft new initiatives through 2011. Visit Plum Organics on Facebook »

We're extremely proud to announce the launch of the newly redesigned ea.com. The new site is minimal, clean and focused, allowing EA's huge library of game content to truly shine.

Each game has a customizable and scalable page template within the unified EA platform. These templates accommodate a wide variety of content needs specific to each title, allowing game pages to feel unique to the game's core attributes. All the must know info on game titles have a home on these pages and includes as many stories, videos, pics, trailers and news items as each game has to offer.

We are thrilled to have worked with the talented people at EA on the new site and look forward to continuing our work together on all things EA.

Check it out and let us know what you think »

Our partnership with Sony continues with a new launch for PIIQ - Sony's slick, new brand of headphones. The site features a multitude of finely tuned interactive details including rollover animations, subtle movements and navigational elements.

The full product lineup gives visitors huge, sexy product images, sharing tools, sweet product pairings, and the ability to add comments with Facebook integration. The PIIQ Team pages offer up inside details of new members, their gear and stats and the news section keeps fans up-to-date on all things PIIQ.

There's quite a bit of cool stuff to check out so take a look at the new Sony PIIQ and let us know what you think.

This Wednesday, The FWA is launching its newest project, FWAwebTV.

Basically, a huge group of renowned agencies around the world will be streaming live video from their office spaces, each for one hour at a time. The lineup includes some of our great agency friends and promises to be a pretty neat look at the agencies you love, nearly 24 hours a day.

Of course, Odopod will be there too, streaming live every Thursday at 2pm PST. There might be some excitement. There may even be danger. But mostly, you'll get a chance to take a look inside our sweet office space and catch the studio hard at work.

Thanks to a recent AdAge survey on the origins of the more unique agency names, we're finally revealing the untold story of how we came to be called, Odopod.

"When we started Odopod we wanted to create a company with the ideas and resources to execute big and the metabolism and culture to behave small," said Founder and Creative Director Tim Barber. So when it came to naming the company we combined two pieces that got at this big/small idea.

And Pod [because] at the same time we liked that we were a compact team that grew ideas, like a pod -- the compact, protective enclosure of a seed. For the record, Steve Jobs stole our thunder a year later when the iPod launched."

So there you have it.

Maybe you live really close to Santana Row in San Jose. Maybe you live very far away from Santana Row in San Jose. Either way, you can now experience the Tesla Retail Store Kiosks right from your desktop.

Launched on Teslamotors.com today, the Design Studio allows site visitors to customize and configure Tesla Roadster models to buy or fantasize about buying. You can trick-out all the bits you'd expect - paint colors, accents, interior options, wheels, hood, entertainment - and check out how much your customizations will cost, all in this cross-device friendly, HTML5 interface. That means it looks just as sexy on your iPad as it does on your desktop.

From the Tesla press team:

“The Design Studio’s goal is to personalize the Tesla experience,” said George Blankenship, Tesla’s VP of Sales and Ownership Experience. “It’s the most advanced configurator any automaker has come up with, letting you choose exactly what you want, look at it from every angle, and see it in the wild.”

Tesla’s Design Studio is consistent with the company’s new retail strategy that launched with the Santana Row showroom. Reinventing the car-buying experience, this strategy focuses on digital interactivity and educating prospective customers about Tesla’s advanced electric powertrain technology and vehicle engineering.

Check it out and let us know what you think.

The launch of the new Tesla store at Santana Row in San Jose includes three gorgeous touch screen experiences designed and developed by Odopod with Tesla Motors. The experiences immerse visitors in Tesla owners’ stories, vehicle innovations, and enable them to configure their own Roadster for purchase or sharing with friends.

As Tesla's digital agency of record, Odopod designed the experiences to fit within Tesla’s unique retail strategy, one that rethinks the entire approach to selling cars. Odopod and Tesla continue to collaborate to produce digital experiences that augment the purchasing process and make for a remarkable experience.

An excerpt from Tesla Motors press release:

Today Tesla Motors reinvents the car buying process with the grand opening of its store in the popular Santana Row retail district of San Jose, California.

...The Tesla Design Studio will also debut on Teslamotors.com. Built using HTML5, the Tesla configurator provides an intuitive interface for users to design their Roadster from a computer, smart phone or iPad.

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We're thrilled to have worked with such an amazing group of people at Tesla to bring the innovative retail experience to life.

For more information visit these links:
Teslamotors.com
Press Release
Exclusive Tour Of Tesla's Showroom With Apple's Retail Guru

We're extremely pleased to announce that The California Academy of Sciences Field Guide to Golden Gate Park iPhone app has been nominated in the 15th Annual Webby Awards!

The app is a location-aware navigation tool that guides users to all of the amazing features, wildlife and hidden gems the park has to offer. Full of adventure walks, hikes, wildlife guides and park history, the app has something for everyone. You can even add your own species sightings to the map! Pick it up in the App Store and discover Golden Gate Park for yourself.

We'd love to get your support for the app, so vote for us in the Webby's People's Voice Awards. We're nominated under Mobile & Apps > Education & Reference.

We're also honored to announce that Sony Internet TV with Google TV, Sony PIIQ and Sony HDTV with 3D have all been named Official Honorees in the Consumer Electronics Category. Special congrats to all of our clients and partners at Sony Electronics.

Thanks for the love!