December 2008
35 posts
6 tags
The Internet = haven for fans
This quote from a WSJ article on Justin Vernon of Bon Iver got me thinking:
“The Internet played a significant role in feeding people the music…. It’s like wildfire [how it] spreads,” Mr. Vernon, 27, said before a show earlier this year in Philadelphia, where the band performed to a boisterous crowd of about 500 in a church basement. “That propelled us right into...
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“I am excited about the power of blog commenting to bring ‘intellectual...”
– Fred Wilson - I couldn’t agree more. In fact, I’d rather this blog be more of a forum for ‘intellectual discussions’ than just a place for me to rant. So join in the discussion.
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“The questionnaire contained information about the network’s plans to...”
– EngadgetHD
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Brainstorm: ways to improve "tumblr explore"
As I’ve become more and more hooked on tumblr as my place online to share thoughts, ideas, pictures, critiques, etc., I’ve also been finding myself more and more interested in finding other tumblelogs that I might find interesting, which has led me to the tumblr explore page.
The tumblr explore page is divided into 5 sections:
New Posts - a section showing the number of new posts...
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“Life is short and we have never too much time for gladdening the hearts of those...”
– Henri-Frederic Amiel in Journal Intime
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Yet another way to watch movies online
Not that Netflix, Apple, Blockbuster, or Amazon have Internet distribution figured out, but I’m not sure what the auteurs website is uniquely bringing to the party. Here’s what their website says:
The Auteurs is Berlin, Cannes, Toronto, and Venice - 365 days a year. It’s an online movie theater where you watch, discover, and discuss films. Fall in love all over again with the...
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Via Wired: Diary of a Self-Help Dropout →
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WatchCharlie Rose interview of Malcom Gladwell regarding his new book Outliers.
Observations:
I think Charlie wants to be Malcom.
It’s all about effort and luck (or circumstances).
We still don’t know very much about why someone becomes a success and why someone else doesn’t.
It seems to me that in order to succeed one needs to really love (flow) the thing in which they hope to...
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“Analysts at Gartner predicting that around 20 million people worldwide will be...”
– telegraph
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-21) →
George Gershwin (2)
Johann Sebastian Bach (2)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (2)
Antonio Vivaldi (1)
Deer Tick (1)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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“Today’s consumers want a richer, higher-quality media experience, and they want...”
– Simon Aspinall, Managing Director of Cisco’s Internet Business Solutions Group via Telco 2.0
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Conscious Consuming
I recently came across Trade As One and bought some of their products for a holiday gift. I was struck by the idea and wanted to see what was around the Net about Conscious (or Ethical) Consuming. Here’s what Wikipedia has to say:
buying products and services that are made ethically. This may mean with minimal harm to or exploitation of humans, animals and/or the natural environment....
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“At many companies, the personal brands of team members are surpassing the value...”
– Scott Hepburn via Being Peter Kim
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-14) →
The Coal Porters (31)
Moonbabies (30)
De La Soul (22)
Etta James (21)
Balla Et Ses Balladins (14)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
4 tags
We need a new word for consumer
I have recently been lobbying for marketing folks like me to use a new language when talking about the things we do. Specifically, I proposed the following language tweaks:
consumers -> people
campaign -> conversation
30 second spot -> 30 second interaction
direct response -> direct conversation
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) -> Vendor Relationship Management (VRM)
...
4 tags
Late Night With Jimmy Fallon →
As I’m sure everyone already knows (although it was news to me) Jimmy Fallon is replacing Conan when Conan replaces Leno. Given that news (and because I saw that Fallon was twittering) I went to check out the website.
After watching a few videos and generally perusing the site I was struck by the fact that Fallon is attempting to reinvent what it means to “watch” his late night...
2 tags
Ideas vs. Execution or Ideas & Execution?
I was over at infochachkie reading a great post titled, “Where have all the ideas gone”, when I stumbled upon this quote:
“Ideas are plentiful and cheap. Solid execution is rare and expensive.”
The point of his post is not lost on me, that is - good ideas are not, in fact, gone. We just need to see the world differently in order to understand one when we see it (and...
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“Tumblr is exactly the kind of start-up that’s supposed to be gasping for air in...”
– all things d
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“A 2007 study by the Brookings Institution and MIT found that a one-digit...”
– Huffington Post
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“Test scores, graduate degrees, and certifications—as much as they appear related...”
– New Yorker article by Malcom Gladwell, “Most Likely to Succeed”
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“It is enough to make one ask if new technologies — the personal computer, the...”
– New York Times, “The Freedoms That Technologies Help Bring”
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Social Network Profile Costs Woman College Degree →
In case you don’t have time (or don’t want to) click on the above link to read the story on Read Write Web, I’ll summarize:
College student is student teaching and performing like a college student
Her students (in High School) frequent her MySpace page, which her supervisor doesn’t like
College student makes negative comments about her supervisor on her MySpace page
...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-12-7) →
The Notwist (13)
Andrew Bird (6)
Wilco (5)
Sufjan Stevens (5)
Balla Et Ses Balladins (5)
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
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Wondering if DVRs are irrelevant
NewTeeVee reported today on a Magna Insights study that “predicts that DVRs will be in 52.3 million, or 44 percent, of TV households by 2014, up from 28.6 million, or 25 percent, at the end of the most recent third quarter.”
Reading this made me wonder when DVRs will become irrelevant. You may be wondering why? Here’s why:
DVR stands for Digital Video Recorder, and the...
6 tags
Algorithms aren't objective
Everything has a bias, even a computer based algorithm. The recent Techmeme announcement regarding hiring a human editor and Techcrunch’s response got me thinking about this. Here’s part of what Techcrunch said:
He’s hired someone to start vetting stories that the algorithm says are headlines, to either push them up or get them off the site entirely.
I believe this is a slippery...
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“But the most important side effect of more austere times is probably that...”
– trendwatching.com’s December 2008 Trend Briefing
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2008 Feelings: Overwhelmed & Used
Recently I came across the site We Feel Fine, which from the site:
Since August 2005, We Feel Fine has been harvesting human feelings from a large number of weblogs. Every few minutes, the system searches the world’s newly posted blog entries for occurrences of the phrases “I feel” and “I am feeling”. When it finds such ...
3 tags
The future of hidden gems
Can algorithms ever know us better than we know ourselves? That is a question without an answer right now, but it’s being debated all around.
I certainly don’t have an answer, but I do have another related question:
Will hidden gems or rare finds still feel rare or like gems if algorithms take all the EFFORT out of finding them?
My hunch is that part of what makes a hidden gem or...
My Top 5 Artists (Week Ending 2008-11-30) →
Andrew Bird
U2
The Beatles
Miles Davis
Dave Brubeck
Imported from Last.fm Tumblr by JoeLaz
3 tags
“So this is the question that gently haunts the Netflix competition, as well as...”
– NYT article on the “Netflix Prize” and recommendation engines in general.
1 tag
Procrastinating Again? How to Kick the Habit →
I wonder: do I procrastinate from blogging or is blogging a part of my procrastination?
Article from Scientific American.