BlondGorilla wins at the 2013 Australian Mobile Awards with the City of Perth Video Jukebox App

Perth-based BlondGorilla has won a major award at the national 2013 Australian Mobile Awards. BlondGorilla won for best app in the category of Performances for City of Perth Video Jukebox App. 

The Video Jukebox app gave users control over the City of Perth’s Northbridge Piazza LED big screen during scheduled times. Similar to a traditional music jukebox, you were able to pick from a list of music videos, documentaries and short films, and add them to the playlist for live playback to the screen. Kick back on the lawn, choose your favourite video and watch it switch live before your eyes.

Damien Blythe from the City of Perth who commissioned the project says: “Many people request different programming on the screen at different times, we began exploring how users could interact with the screen and put their own shows on.  First problem that we encountered was that locking one program per person would mean that the screen would be potentially locked to one show for an hour and not allow much interaction with the public.  Having the screen freely available to change channel would mean continual channel surfing by multiple users.  The idea of short 3 minutes content and local music videos seemed to be the way forward.  The essence of the task was to give our community that engages with the screen an opportunity to control it themselves, and put their favourite music video into a playlist like a traditional music video.”

Ryan Malone (left), Director of BlondGorilla says: “I’m completely stoked with our win at the awards, it further exemplifies that smaller specialised agencies in Perth can go toe-to-toe with the big boys over east and come out on top. We are very grateful to the City of Perth for the opportunity to work with them on this fantastic project and for us  it’s a great example of what we strive to deliver as a company – Using technology to help our clients engage with audiences they can’t reach through traditional means.”

The use of the app helps bring the community into the City of Perth and allows people to enjoy it in a new way, while at the same time providing education and exposure to international events, promoting culture and helping local talent. The app was also utilised for TEDGlobal screenings. TED and the City of Perth, with the support of TEDxPerth, invited the public down to the big screen for a specially curated program of TED talks screened each day during a week in June this year. Audience members were able to choose which talks hit the screen by using the City of Perth Video Jukebox app.

To check out the project brief or download the app, click here. See more on the the team at BlondGorilla on their website.