JESS3 explained

JESS3
Type:Private
Genre:Creative agency
Founder:Jesse Thomas
Location City:Los Angeles, California
Location Country:United States
Area Served:United States
United Kingdom
France
Key People:Jesse Thomas, Chief executive officer
Industry:Web / Print / Multimedia
Services:data visualization
social media strategy
infographics
branding
web design
Homepage:http://jess3.com

JESS3 is an interactive agency based in Los Angeles, CA, specializing in data visualization, social media strategy, infographics, branding and web design.[1] The firm has worked with clients including Google, Nike, Intel, Facebook, ESPN, and Samsung.

Background

JESS3 was founded in 2007 by web designer Jesse Thomas, its CEO. JESS3 is a creative interactive agency[2] specializing in producing videos and graphics to explain complex information through "visual storytelling".[3] [4] The firm originally focused on design work, and later added services including social media strategy, research and development of interactive installations.[5] The firm's eventual name was conceived by Thomas when he was a student, who replaced the "e" in his first name with the numeral "3", inspired by Eminem's logo. The firm's clients have included Nike, Intel, Microsoft, NASA, MySpace, Facebook, Google, Yahoo! and Samsung.[6] [7] From 2009, the company became Mashable's official design partner on projects, including their iPhone application.[8]

, the firm has 30 employees and offices in locations across the United States, in the United Kingdom and France.[6] [3] [9] JESS3 is headquartered in Los Angeles, California, and has an additional office in Oklahoma City, while previously having established offices in Denver, Orlando, Portland, Oregon, and Washington D.C.[10] [11] [12]

2013 Geeks on a Plane scandal

In 2013, CEO Jesse Thomas participated in the Geeks on a Plane program. While drunk on an Indian beach, Thomas took a video of his naked and drunk friend AlphaBoost CEO Matt Monahan. Thomas then uploaded the video to YouTube and posted it to JESS3's Twitter feed. As a result of the fallout of this incident, JESS3 lost most of its employees and clients.[13]

Projects

Data visualization

JESS3 has created and co-sponsored numerous visual design projects, particularly infographics and media installations. In October 2010, JESS3 created a visual representation of Foursquare check-ins at polling locations on voting day, in cooperation with the Voting Information Project, the Pew Trusts and Rock the Vote, providing a sample of foot traffic at each location.[14] [15] In August of that year, the company created the "GeoSocial Universe" infographic, comparing the sizes of the largest social networks including Skype, Facebook and Twitter to the total number of mobile device users, and the mobile user base for each social network. An updated version was released in May 2011 and was featured in TechCrunch.[2] [16] [17]

At the International Consumer Electronics Show in January 2011, JESS3 created a social media installation for Intel providing a visualization of real-time social media interactions at the event.[18] Later in 2011, the company created a media wall for Samsung at the SXSWi festival in Austin, Texas. The installation presented a visualization of social media activity at the festival, including photographs, tweets, popular topics and geosocial check-ins.[19]

Video

JESS3 produces animated videos for clients including ESPN, for whom they created a short video explaining the Nielsen ratings system[3] featuring hand puppets and papercraft.[20] [21] The company has produced videos for Google including a stop-motion video demonstrating Google's mobile Gmail system[3] and an animation explaining how Google Translate works.[22] JESS3 has produced videos including The State of Wikipedia, a video commemorating Wikipedia's tenth anniversary, narrated by Jimmy Wales,[7] [23] and The State of Cloud Computing, explaining the concept and history of cloud computing, sponsored by Salesforce.com.[24] Similar projects have included a video produced for The Economist illustrating data collected in its Women's Economic Opportunity Index report.[4]

The company also creates videos as independent projects, including a web video titled The State of the Internet, which it released in February 2010.[25] The video included a series of infographics outlining the growth of Internet communications since the 1990s and had been viewed online over 1 million times within three months of its release.[26]

Design and social media

The company has undertaken a wide range of social media and design projects, including websites for C-SPAN, the Discovery Channel[27] [28] and NASA, and collaborations with Facebook, Twitter, Gowalla and Foursquare. In August 2008, JESS3 designed a series of websites related to the 2008 presidential election for C-SPAN,[29] for which they received a Webby Award nomination in 2009.[30] In August 2012, C-SPAN announced that JESS3 had designed its "Campaign 2012" website, which provides video coverage and social content for the Democratic and Republican conventions.[31] In addition to the election websites, JESS3 also developed the C-SPAN Video Library,[32] which launched in March 2010, and provides access to the digitized C-SPAN video archives of over 160,000 hours of programming.[33] The archives won an ACC Golden Beacon award on 16 September 2010[33] and a Peabody Award in March 2011.[34]

In July 2010, JESS3 collaborated with Facebook on a project called Stories to help celebrate the social networking site reaching 500 million users.[4] The application allows users to share stories about how Facebook has impacted their lives, sortable by geographical location or by topic.[35]

JESS3 has served as social media adviser to NASA on multiple geosocial networking projects. In October 2010, JESS3 coordinated a joint project between NASA and Gowalla, creating NASA-related virtual items for the service's users to acquire, as well as a special NASA pin.[36] [37] The same month, JESS3 organized a partnership between NASA and Foursquare to engineer the first geosocial check-in from space.[38] [39] On 22 October 2010, International Space Station (ISS) commander Douglas H. Wheelock checked into Foursquare from the ISS and unlocked a new "NASA Explorer" badge.[40] In addition, a customized NASA Foursquare homepage was launched providing information about locations of interest to the U.S. space program.[41] Other projects JESS3 has developed for NASA include their "Buzzroom" website,[42] which tracks NASA-related tweets, images and videos.[43] [44]

More recently, the company created a redesigned homepage for Samsung.[45] [46] In 2011, the firm designed Facebook pages for NIKEiD that allow users to create customized running shoe designs.[3] In September 2011, Forbes announced that JESS3 had designed the artwork for a 60-page graphic novel titled The Zen of Steve Jobs, created with and to be published by Forbes magazine.[47] [48] The graphic novel depicts the period of Steve Jobs' life in the late 1980s following his exit from Apple and then his later return to the company.[49] [50]

JESS3 Labs

In June 2010, JESS3 released the "Black Oil Plug-In" for Firefox, rendering any mention of BP, Transocean, the Gulf Oil Spill and related names and phrases into a dripping, black splotch within a user's browser.[51] [52] [53] That same month, the company also introduced The Ex-Blocker, which enables users to prevent their web browser from showing their ex-lovers' activities and posts on various websites.[54] The application received media coverage internationally, as well as in the U.S. including a mention on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.[55] [56] [57] over 8,000 people had installed the Ex-Blocker plug-in.[58]

The company has partnered with author Brian Solis on several JESS3 Labs infographic projects. A project titled The Conversation Prism elaborately diagrams types of communication across numerous Web 2.0 services.[59] The first version of the infographic was released in August 2008, an updated version in March 2009[60] was featured in Communication Arts magazine[61] and in October 2010, the company released a third edition.[60] In 2009, JESS3 created a similar diagram called "The Twitterverse" with Solis, which outlines the network of applications built on Twitter's API.[62] [63] The company also worked with Solis on "The Social Media Brandsphere", a diagram illustrating how brands can use social media to engage with customers.[64]

External links

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Interview With the Entrepreneur . 30 May 2008. Technosailor.com . 27 October 2010.
  2. Web site: The State of the GeoSocial Universe. Jesse Thomas . 24 August 2010 . Mashable . 27 October 2010.
  3. News: Value Added: An exchange program for entrepreneurs. Thomas Heath. 13 October 2011. The Washington Post. 18 October 2011.
  4. Web site: Jesse Thomas of JESS3 discusses inspiration, team players and his future strategy . Kyana Gordon . 22 March 2011 . psfk.com . 18 October 2011.
  5. Web site: What It Takes to Build a Thriving Design Business on the Web . Stephanie Buck . 9 December 2011 . Mashable . 12 December 2011.
  6. Web site: Inside the Mind of One of the Web's Hottest Designers. Jolie O'Dell . 26 July 2010 . Mashable . 27 October 2010.
  7. Web site: The State of Wikipedia . jess3.com . JESS3 . 15 November 2011.
  8. Web site: Mashable iPhone App Launches! . Pete Cashmore . 1 April 2009 . Mashable . 27 October 2010.
  9. Web site: JESS3 About . jess3.com . JESS3 . 15 November 2011.
  10. Web site: Our 2011 expansion: 6 offices and counting . Bradshaw . Leslie. 9 August 2011 . jess3.com . JESS3 . 15 November 2011.
  11. News: D.C. design agency Jess3 moves headquarters to Los Angeles . Bill Flook . . 29 June 2012 . 16 August 2012.
  12. News: JESS3 opens office in city . The Oklahoman . 10 August 2011 . 2B.
  13. News: Martinez . Fidel . Video of drunk, dong-waving CEO sends two startups on a downward spiral . 6 May 2013.
  14. Web site: Foursquare I Voted . jess3.com . JESS3 . 26 October 2011.
  15. Web site: Check in and vote on foursquare . 28 October 2010 . blog.foursquare.com . Foursquare . 26 October 2011.
  16. Web site: Infographic: A Look At The Size And Shape Of The Geosocial Universe In 2011 . Rip Empson . 20 May 2011 . techcrunch.com . AOL . 18 October 2011 .
  17. Web site: The 2011 Geosocial Universe. Neil Vidyarthi . 19 May 2011 . socialtimes.com . Mediabistro . 18 October 2011 .
  18. Web site: Behind the scenes at Intel's CESLive social media installation . McCarty . Brad . 13 January 2011 . The Next Web . 26 October 2011.
  19. Web site: Samsung SXSWi Hub. visual.ly . 18 October 2011 .
  20. Web site: Watch These Puppets Explain Everything Worth Knowing About TV Ratings . Brian Barrett . 16 September 2011 . gizmodo.com . Gawker Media . 18 October 2011 .
  21. Web site: ESPN TV Ratings 101, Puppets Explain TV Ratings Process . Rusty Blazenhoff . 19 September 2011 . laughingsquid.com . 18 October 2011.
  22. Web site: Google Translate Video . jess3.com . JESS3 . 15 November 2011.
  23. Web site: The state of Wikipedia by JESS3 . 21 July 2011 . Splashnology . NetrinoMedia . 14 November 2011.
  24. Web site: The State of Cloud Computing . Dugan . Lauren . 17 November 2010 . Social Times . WebMediaBrands . 15 November 2011.
  25. Web site: The State of the Internet . JESS3 . 22 February 2010 . Vimeo . 27 October 2010.
  26. Web site: JESS3 Video Viewed Over 1 Million Times . 27 May 2010 . Capitol Communicator . 27 October 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101029211823/http://capitolcommunicator.com/News/tabid/116/EntryID/1052/Default.aspx . 29 October 2010 . dead.
  27. Web site: Discovery Communications My Discovery . JESS3 . 27 October 2010.
  28. Web site: Small Discoveries . Robin Sloan . 13 July 2010 . Twitter Media . Twitter . 27 October 2010 . 22 October 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101022125901/http://media.twitter.com/836/my-discovery . dead .
  29. Web site: Zdnet C-SPAN Launches Gadget-Fueled 'Debate Hub' as Social, Political Destination . Andrew Nusca . 25 September 2008 . ZDNet . 27 October 2010 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090712045235/http://blogs.zdnet.com/gadgetreviews/?p=381 . 12 July 2009 .
  30. Web site: The 13th Annual Webby Awards Nominees & Winners: Politics . 5 May 2009 . The Webby Awards . 27 October 2010.
  31. C-SPAN To Provide Live, Gavel-To-Gavel Convention Coverage, Commercial- and Commentary-free . . August 2012 . 9 August 2012.
  32. Web site: C-SPAN's Online Video Library Now Open to the Public . 17 March 2010 . C-SPAN . 31 October 2010.
  33. Web site: ACC Awards Golden Beacon To C-SPAN's Video Library . Mike Reynolds . 16 September 2010 . Multichannel News . NewBay Media, LLC. . 29 October 2010 . 25 July 2012 . https://web.archive.org/web/20120725030353/http://www.multichannel.com/article/457243-ACC_Awards_Golden_Beacon_To_C_SPAN_s_Video_Library.php . dead .
  34. Web site: C-SPAN Video Library Wins Peabody Award . 31 March 2011 . c-span.org. C-SPAN . 3 January 2012.
  35. Web site: 500 Million Stories . Mark Zuckerberg . 21 July 2010 . Facebook . 27 October 2010.
  36. Web site: FirstNews Briefs for October 15, 2010 . 15 October 2010 . Wireless Week . Advantage Business Media . 26 October 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110929183703/http://www.wirelessweek.com/News/2010/10/FirstNews-Briefs-15/ . 29 September 2011 . dead.
  37. Web site: NASA, HBO join mobile check-in game . Doug Gross . 14 October 2010 . CNN . 26 October 2010.
  38. Web site: NASA astronaut 'checks in' on Foursquare from space. Sara Jerome. 22 October 2010. Hillicon-Valley. The Hill. 25 October 2010.
  39. Web site: First Foursquare badge unlocked in space . Eric Kuhn . 22 October 2010. CNN . 25 October 2010.
  40. Web site: Foursquare Now Allowing Check-ins From Space . Matt Fitzpatrick . 23 October 2010 . NBC Washington.com . NBC . 25 October 2010.
  41. Web site: Astronaut Posts First Foursquare Check-In from Space . Chloe Albanesius . 22 October 2010. PC Magazine . 25 October 2010.
  42. Web site: Houston, We've Had A Check-In: NASA Astronaut Just Used Foursquare From Space . 22 October 2010 . WorldTech24 . 29 October 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20110718114843/http://www.worldtech24.com/business/houston-we-ve-had-check-nasa-astronaut-just-used-foursquare-space . 18 July 2011 . dead.
  43. Web site: Q&A: NASA's Stephanie Schierholz on navigating the frontiers of social media . Meghan Keane . 23 July 2010 . E-consultancy . 29 October 2010.
  44. Web site: NASA Invites Reporters To Next Space Shuttle Launch And Tweetup . 18 October 2010 . Spaceref Interactive . 29 October 2010.
  45. Web site: Measuring social media ROI: social web is good for business . Jen Consalvo . 12 December 2010 . Tech Cocktail . 14 November 2011. Jen Consalvo .
  46. Web site: Samsung shares its Social Media Success . Willis Wee . 12 December 2010 . Penn Olson . Tech in Asia . 14 November 2011.
  47. Web site: Steve Jobs Graphic Novel Preview From Forbes. Dianna Dilworth . 23 September 2011 . Mediabistro . Web Media . 29 November 2011.
  48. Web site: Publish different: B-to-b media find multiple ways to pay tribute to Jobs . Sean Callahan . 7 November 2011 . B-to-B Media Business . 28 November 2011.
  49. News: 'The Zen of Steve Jobs': A New Graphic Novel From Forbes. HuffPost. 10 October 2011 . 22 November 2011.
  50. News: Introducing The Zen of Steve Jobs: A Graphic Novel . Caleb Melby. Forbes . 8 September 2011 . 29 November 2011.
  51. Web site: Oil spill Firefox plugin blacks out BP across the Web. Christina Warren . 2 June 2010 . CNN . 27 October 2010.
  52. Web site: JESS3 Creates Firefox Plugin for BP Oil Spill; BP Adds VP Cheney's PR Pro . 2 June 2010 . Capitol Communicator . 27 October 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101028144442/http://capitolcommunicator.com/News/tabid/116/EntryID/1058/Default.aspx . 28 October 2010 . dead.
  53. Web site: Oil Spill Firefox Plugin Dirties Your Browser With 'Black Oil' . 1 June 2010 . HuffPost. 27 October 2010.
  54. News: 'Ex-Blocker' deletes all mentions of ex from your Facebook and other social networking sites . Matthew Lysiak and Erica Pearson . NY Daily News . 18 July 2010. 27 October 2010.
  55. News: How to Erase Your Ex From the Internet. Dakshana Bascaramurty . The Globe and Mail . 15 July 2010. 27 October 2010.
  56. Web site: The Ex-Blocker on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon . SlideShare. 27 October 2010.
  57. News: Block Your Ex . Jean Hannah Edelstein . Glamour Magazine UK . 22 July 2010 . 29 October 2010 . https://web.archive.org/web/20101012033319/http://www.glamourmagazine.co.uk/love-sex-relationships/g-spot-blog/2010/07/block-your-ex-application . 12 October 2010 . dead.
  58. News: Add-on that can erase your ex . Ian McCourt . The Irish Times. 11 October 2010 . 29 October 2010.
  59. News: The new networking . Bill Lohmann . Richmond Times-Dispatch . 31 May 2009 . https://web.archive.org/web/20090606065522/http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/lifestyles/leisure/article/S-FACE31_20090527-204924/270241 . dead . 6 June 2009 . 27 October 2010 .
  60. Web site: Brian Solis and JESS3 bring a new Conversation Prism into focus . Chad Catacchio . 13 October 2010 . The Next Web . 26 October 2011.
  61. Web site: The Conversation Prism in Communication Arts Magazine. JESS3 . 30 June 2009 . JESS3 . 27 October 2010.
  62. News: The Future of Twitter Visualized . MG Siegler . The Washington Post . 1 June 2009. 27 October 2010.
  63. Web site: Powers of Ten for the Twitterverse . Simon Mainwaring . 2 June 2009. PSFK . 27 October 2010.
  64. Web site: The Social Media Brandsphere. Thomas . Jesse . 23 August 2011 . Forbes.com . 15 November 2011.