Not since the time of Moses has a tablet been the object of such reverence and devotion. Hark, the Apple iPad is here!

Inc.com has an interesting read on yelp.com's rise to success. One of the most interesting observations is yelp's exponential growth started after they began inviting their top reviewer's to a frequent open bar party. They encouraged the expansion of their content, and thus relevancy, by responding to the most basic uniting factor of their user base: the desire to go out and be social.

Cuker joined over 120,000 tech aficionados in the City of Sin for the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) on January 7th - 10th. CES is the the largest consumer electronic trade show in America, showcasing the latest innovations in wireless communications, digital video, Web development, and other technologies. In a sea of digital eye-candy, 2500 companies exhibited over 20,000 products that competed to wow the crowd. Though what happens in Vegas is supposed to stay in Vegas, there was lots of great information to take home. The three biggest trends for 2010, according to the buzz? Mobile, mobile, and mobile...

An Android taking over Earth? This sounds like a scenario pulled straight from science fiction, but it's not that far from the truth. Smartphone operating systems like Google's Android are poised for explosive growth over the next few years - in fact, research firm Gartner is projecting that mobile phones will bypass PCs to become the most popular devices used to access the Web by 2013.

Gartner warns that most websites, including enterprise-level eCommerce systems, are not evolving fast enough to meet this rapidly growing mobile demand. Sites that aren't optimized for the mobile Web risk alienating owners of handheld devices who will go elsewhere for quick information and online shopping that can be accessed with fewer clicks and faster browsing.

Will 2010 be the year of mobile? If you're not convinced, check out these stats:

• Estimated smartphone user base by 2011: 150M
• Estimated users of mobile web globally by 2011: 120M
• Estimated users watching mobile video by the end of 2011: 90M
• Date that Apple's app store hit one billion application downloads: April 23, 2009

Is your business ready for the mobile revolution?

How do you give away $100k, become the number one search term on google, top the twitter charts, and barely have your servers survive to tell about it? Sparkfun Electronics managed to do it. Sparkfun sells hobbyist and prototyping electronics, and has quite a fan base amongst the tech team here at Cuker! Check out all the action from their 2009 Free Day! Updated: They did a video recap of the action at their office.

We welcomed renowned triathletes Linsey Corbin and Chris Lieto to the studio yesterday for a day-long photoshoot for client Xterra Wetsuits. Working with photographer extraordinaire Tim Tadder, we got some great shots of the 2010 collection for the Xterra site that we'll launch in mid-February. Keep an eye out for the new site, and check out some behind-the-scenes photos from the shoot.

Check out this sweet site we dropped last month for Quiksilver. http://hometownhoodies.quiksilver.com/

Lots of well thought out details in the design from loaders to rollovers. The flash dev is solid as well. Notice the flexibility and how the elements move independently from the background while maintaing a great composition. The transitions are pretty seamless too. Jason, one of our designers, took the pictures used in the background with his plastic Diana camera. Not too shabby.

Google Labs has created a very nice, statistically driven visualization of what different percentiles of users see of your website. Where visual effect is key, it is critical to keep in mind what is actually visible!

http://browsersize.googlelabs.com/

Cuker Interactive was invited to the industry exclusive pre-launch party for the PacSun music tour last week in LA, and the event did not disappoint. We joined other guests that included Fuel TV, Brand Racket, Red Bull and Stamp'd LA for a fun night of music and mischief. After building the website for PacSun Music and helping to develop the branding campaign, it was great to see firsthand the impact of the project - giving PacSun fans access to some of the best new music being recorded today.

Conversations in Social Media - The Social Media Prism

Cuker attended Gen Art's Fresh Faces in Fashion LA 2009 with premier fashion client Stampd' LA. Stampd' has gained international recognition for the companies innovative and progressive style. Stampd' LA has used it's website as a vehicle to grow their business and promote their products internationally. Checkout more info on Stampd' LA at www.stampdla.com.