JESS3
Encyclopedia
JESS3 is a creative
interactive agency
based in the Washington, D.C.
area, specializing in web design
, branding
, social media marketing
, infographics and data visualization
. The firm is noted for its work with clients including NASA
, Nike
, Facebook
and Wikipedia
as well as independent projects such as The Conversation Prism
and The Ex-Blocker.
. In 2009, JESS3 became Mashable's design partner on projects including their iPhone
application. As of 2010, the firm claims 15 full time employees, with more than 100 freelance partners, and offices in the United Kingdom
. Clients of JESS3 have included Nike
, MySpace
, Intel and Microsoft
.
public affairs network, for which they received a Webby Award nomination in 2009.
In addition to the election websites, JESS3 also developed the C-SPAN Video Library
, which launched in March 2010. The website provides access to the digitized C-SPAN video archives of over 160,000 hours of programming and won an ACC Golden Beacon award on September 16, 2010.
In July 2010, JESS3 collaborated with Facebook
on a project called Stories to help celebrate the social networking site's 500 millionth profile.The application allows users to share stories about how Facebook has impacted their lives, sortable by geographical location or by topic.
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 items for the service's users to acquire, as well as a special NASA pin. The first 100 users to earn the pin also received a JESS3-designed special edition map, "Search for the Moon Rocks". The same month, JESS3 organized a partnership between NASA and Foursquare to engineer the first geosocial check-in from space. On October 22, 2010, International Space Station
(ISS) commander Douglas H. Wheelock
checked in to Foursquare from the ISS and unlocked a new "NASA Explorer" badge. In addition, a customized NASA Foursquare homepage
was launched which provides information about locations of interest to the U.S. space program. Other projects JESS3 has developed for NASA include their "Buzzroom" website, which tracks NASA-related tweets, plus related images and videos.
, Transocean
, the Gulf Oil Spill
and other names and phrases into a dripping, black splotch within a user's browser.
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. The application was profiled in The Globe and Mail
, mentioned during a segment on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
and received media coverage internationally, including an articles in Glamour Magazine
UK. over 8,000 people have installed the Ex-Blocker plug-in.
At least one global hub city, 3 countries and one continent are unknown.
elaborately maps methods of communication across numerous online forums. The design appeared in an article about information graphics in the July/August 2009 issue of Communication Arts. In the spring of 2009, the agency designed a diagram called "The Twitterverse" with Brian Solis that outlines the expanding network of applications that function with the popular web tool.
In February 2010, the company released a video titled "The State of the Internet" on Vimeo
, which included a series of infographics outlining the rise of the internet and other information regarding popular social networking and media sites such as YouTube
and Twitter
. As of May 2010, the video had been viewed online over 1 million times.
. The site visualized election-related tweets about Barack Obama
and John McCain
as they happened, with data directly from Twitter's API. In June 2010, JESS3 developed a microsite for "My Discovery", the Discovery Channel
's 25th anniversary program.
Web design
Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser...
interactive agency
Advertising agency
An advertising agency or ad agency is a service business dedicated to creating, planning and handling advertising for its clients. An ad agency is independent from the client and provides an outside point of view to the effort of selling the client's products or services...
based in the Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
area, specializing in web design
Web design
Web design is the process of planning and creating a website. Text, images, digital media and interactive elements are used by web designers to produce the page seen on the web browser...
, branding
Brand
The American Marketing Association defines a brand as a "Name, term, design, symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's good or service as distinct from those of other sellers."...
, social media marketing
Social media marketing
Social media marketing is an addition to personal, small business, corporate, and non-profit organizations’ integrated marketing communications plans...
, infographics and data visualization
Data visualization
Data visualization is the study of the visual representation of data, meaning "information that has been abstracted in some schematic form, including attributes or variables for the units of information"....
. The firm is noted for its work with clients including NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
, Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
and Wikipedia
Wikipedia
Wikipedia is a free, web-based, collaborative, multilingual encyclopedia project supported by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its 20 million articles have been written collaboratively by volunteers around the world. Almost all of its articles can be edited by anyone with access to the site,...
as well as independent projects such as The Conversation Prism
The Conversation Prism
The Conversation Prism is a graphic that helps chart online conversations between people and communities, as well as the networks that connect the Social Web. It was created by Brian Solis, a blogger at PR 2.0, author, and principal of FutureWorks, and Jesse Thomas of JESS3...
and The Ex-Blocker.
Background
Founded by web designer Jesse Thomas in 2007, JESS3 is led by Thomas along with president and co-founder Leslie BradshawLeslie Bradshaw
Leslie Ann Bradshaw is an American businesswoman who is the chief operations officer, president and co-founder of JESS3. She has received recognition for her work at JESS3, including being named by Fast Company as one of the top female executives in the technology industry...
. In 2009, JESS3 became Mashable's design partner on projects including their iPhone
IPhone
The iPhone is a line of Internet and multimedia-enabled smartphones marketed by Apple Inc. The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007...
application. As of 2010, the firm claims 15 full time employees, with more than 100 freelance partners, and offices in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
. Clients of JESS3 have included Nike
Nike, Inc.
Nike, Inc. is a major publicly traded sportswear and equipment supplier based in the United States. The company is headquartered near Beaverton, Oregon, which is part of the Portland metropolitan area...
, MySpace
MySpace
Myspace is a social networking service owned by Specific Media LLC and pop star Justin Timberlake. Myspace launched in August 2003 and is headquartered in Beverly Hills, California. In August 2011, Myspace had 33.1 million unique U.S. visitors....
, Intel and Microsoft
Microsoft
Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...
.
Notable projects
In August 2008, JESS3 designed a series of websites related to the 2008 presidential election for the Washington-based C-SPANC-SPAN
C-SPAN , an acronym for Cable-Satellite Public Affairs Network, is an American cable television network that offers coverage of federal government proceedings and other public affairs programming via its three television channels , one radio station and a group of websites that provide streaming...
public affairs network, for which they received a Webby Award nomination in 2009.
In addition to the election websites, JESS3 also developed the C-SPAN Video Library
C-SPAN Video Library
C-SPAN Video Library is the audio and video streaming website of C-SPAN, the American legislative broadcaster. The site offers a complete, freely accessible archive going back to 1987...
, which launched in March 2010. The website provides access to the digitized C-SPAN video archives of over 160,000 hours of programming and won an ACC Golden Beacon award on September 16, 2010.
In July 2010, JESS3 collaborated with Facebook
Facebook
Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...
on a project called Stories to help celebrate the social networking site's 500 millionth profile.The application allows users to share stories about how Facebook has impacted their lives, sortable by geographical location or by topic.
JESS3 has served as social media adviser to NASA
NASA
The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is the agency of the United States government that is responsible for the nation's civilian space program and for aeronautics and aerospace research...
on multiple geosocial networking
Geosocial networking
Geosocial Networking is a type of social networking in which geographic services and capabilities such as geocoding and geotagging are used to enable additional social dynamics. User-submitted location data or geolocation techniques can allow social networks to connect and coordinate users with...
projects. In October 2010, JESS3 coordinated a joint project between NASA and Gowalla
Gowalla
Gowalla is a location-based social network. Users 'check in' at Spots in their local vicinity, either through a dedicated mobile application or through the mobile website. As a reward users will sometimes receive virtual "items" from check-ins. Items have developed to become a promotional tool for...
, creating NASA-related items for the service's users to acquire, as well as a special NASA pin. The first 100 users to earn the pin also received a JESS3-designed special edition map, "Search for the Moon Rocks". The same month, JESS3 organized a partnership between NASA and Foursquare to engineer the first geosocial check-in from space. On October 22, 2010, International Space Station
International Space Station
The International Space Station is a habitable, artificial satellite in low Earth orbit. The ISS follows the Salyut, Almaz, Cosmos, Skylab, and Mir space stations, as the 11th space station launched, not including the Genesis I and II prototypes...
(ISS) commander Douglas H. Wheelock
Douglas H. Wheelock
Douglas Harry "Wheels" Wheelock is an American astronaut. He has flown in space twice logging 178 days on the Space Shuttle, International Space Station, and Russian Soyuz...
checked in to Foursquare from the ISS and unlocked a new "NASA Explorer" badge. In addition, a customized NASA Foursquare homepage
Homepage
A home page or homepage has various related meanings to do with web sites:* It most often refers to the initial or main web page of a web site, sometimes called the front page ....
was launched which provides information about locations of interest to the U.S. space program. Other projects JESS3 has developed for NASA include their "Buzzroom" website, which tracks NASA-related tweets, plus related images and videos.
JESS3 Labs
In June 2010, JESS3 debuted the "Black Oil Plug-In" for Firefox that renders any mention of BPBP
BP p.l.c. is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas "supermajors"...
, Transocean
Transocean
Transocean Ltd. is one of the world's largest offshore drilling contractors. The company rents floating mobile drill rigs, along with the equipment and personnel for operations, to oil and gas companies at an average daily rate of US$282,700...
, the Gulf Oil Spill
Deepwater Horizon oil spill
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is an oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico which flowed unabated for three months in 2010, and continues to leak fresh oil. It is the largest accidental marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry...
and other names and phrases into a dripping, black splotch within a user's browser.
That same month, the company also introduced The Ex-Blocker, which enables users to prevent their web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
from showing their ex-lovers' activities and posts on various websites. The application was profiled in The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail
The Globe and Mail is a nationally distributed Canadian newspaper, based in Toronto and printed in six cities across the country. With a weekly readership of approximately 1 million, it is Canada's largest-circulation national newspaper and second-largest daily newspaper after the Toronto Star...
, mentioned during a segment on Late Night With Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon
Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is an American late-night talk show hosted by Jimmy Fallon on NBC. The show premiered on March 2, 2009, as the third incarnation of the Late Night franchise originated by David Letterman....
and received media coverage internationally, including an articles in Glamour Magazine
Glamour magazine
Glamour magazine means:* Glamour magazine, a U.S. publication aimed at a predominantly female readership* a girlie magazine aimed at a male readership featuring photographs of women...
UK. over 8,000 people have installed the Ex-Blocker plug-in.
Global hubs
JESS3 has teams in over a dozen cities, ten countries and four continents.| City (11) | Country (7) | Continent (3) |
|---|---|---|
| Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution.... |
 United States |
North America North America North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas... |
| San Fransisco, CA | United States |
North America North America North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas... |
| Brooklyn, NY | United States |
North America North America North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas... |
| ? |  United Kingdom |
Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
| ? |  Greece |
Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
| Paris Paris Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region... |
 Early Modern France |
Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
| ? |  Argentina |
South America South America South America is a continent situated in the Western Hemisphere, mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a relatively small portion in the Northern Hemisphere. The continent is also considered a subcontinent of the Americas. It is bordered on the west by the Pacific Ocean and on the north and east... |
| Boston, MA | United States |
North America North America North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas... |
| Austin, TX | United States |
North America North America North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas... |
| ? |  Sweden |
Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
| ? |  Germany |
Europe Europe Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting... |
At least one global hub city, 3 countries and one continent are unknown.
Data visualization
JESS3 has created and co-sponsored numerous visual design projects. A project titled The Conversation PrismThe Conversation Prism
The Conversation Prism is a graphic that helps chart online conversations between people and communities, as well as the networks that connect the Social Web. It was created by Brian Solis, a blogger at PR 2.0, author, and principal of FutureWorks, and Jesse Thomas of JESS3...
elaborately maps methods of communication across numerous online forums. The design appeared in an article about information graphics in the July/August 2009 issue of Communication Arts. In the spring of 2009, the agency designed a diagram called "The Twitterverse" with Brian Solis that outlines the expanding network of applications that function with the popular web tool.
In February 2010, the company released a video titled "The State of the Internet" on Vimeo
Vimeo
Vimeo is a video-sharing website on which users can upload, share, and view videos. It was founded by Zach Klein and Jake Lodwick in November 2004...
, which included a series of infographics outlining the rise of the internet and other information regarding popular social networking and media sites such as YouTube
YouTube
YouTube is a video-sharing website, created by three former PayPal employees in February 2005, on which users can upload, view and share videos....
and Twitter
Twitter
Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...
. As of May 2010, the video had been viewed online over 1 million times.
Other projects
For the 2008 US Presidential Election, through agency partner New Media Strategies, JESS3 designed the website AnOrangeAmerica.com and launched it on Election DayElection Day (politics)
Election Day refers to the day when general elections are held. In many countries, general elections are always held on a Sunday, to enable as many voters as possible to participate, while in other countries elections are always held on a weekday...
. The site visualized election-related tweets about Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
and John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
as they happened, with data directly from Twitter's API. In June 2010, JESS3 developed a microsite for "My Discovery", the Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel
Discovery Channel is an American satellite and cable specialty channel , founded by John Hendricks and distributed by Discovery Communications. It is a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav...
's 25th anniversary program.