internet cool?!

I discovered the book Generation T recently and it inspired me to do come bubble surfing. I stumbled on two things you should take a peek at.

You definitely need to check out Sclipo. It is a video sharing community focused on demonstration and learn through videos and live webcam. You can research just about anything, health, clothes, gadgets, sports, software, cooking, cars, etc. The best part? Scippo features the ability for you manage, promote and teach your own skills via your webcam. Rad.

As with any social network, theres all kinds of distribution and ranking functions in order to “evaluate videos and Sclipo members, helping others find good stuff fast.” Its funny how most of the 2nd generation video sharing networks are becoming more niche in the way you might expect a “channel” on Television to.

Then, while popping around Sclipo I found this video from the Threadbanger bunch. Sweet.

But enough about that. I need to figure out what class I’m going to go teach. Any suggestions? :)

Hey peeps. You owe me a friggin’ beer. Pay up.

So I found this pretty neat little web toy called Foamee a while back. It is a free service that helps track who you owe beers to (and vice-versa) using Twitter.  And Yay! Foamee now has support for coffee! Just follow @ioucoffee or @ioubeer on Twitter (you are Twittering by now, right?) and follow these steps:

 Send someone an I.O.U. for coffee or a beer likey here:

@ioucoffee @meat99 for being like, totally awesome.

Then keep track of those I.O.U.s (for beer and coffee!) on your people page (here’s mine). Kinda a fun Twitterati way to send a thanks and a smile while using twitter the way you always do. Interneato!

cool geek note:

You automatically get a profile on Foamee once you actually “Tweet” a beef, coffee, etc. What’s more, it has a little script that instructs Foamee to follow you once you decide to follow it.<p>

I love this thing: Its the new Asus Eee PC 4G. Small, capable, very cheaply made and get this:

* Weighs about 2 pounds
* Has WiFi
* Runs Xandros Linux - no frills and totally hackable
* Has an integrated webcam, microphone and speaker jacks
* Gets the job done

UM. Yeah - it costs $399. (Your iPhone was 400.00).

My favorite part (and why this is relevant)? This thing is small, light, and cheap. The perfect hackable toy for use in interactive installations in or out of the home or office. I predidct this little guy is going to change everything.

Oh and one more thing. Seeing a trend people? More value, less money. We’re all in love with the latest gadget - true, but not everyone is prepared to spend 800.00 hundred dollars to own a new Kindle, when for the same money, you could have a computer that does it all.

Non profit agencies have been fighting for the low cost computing market for years. The truth is, it all should be low cost and with a price tage (and functionality) like this, this thing will get hacked, designed, re-designed, mounted to someone’s refridgerator, slapped on a remote control car, mounted to the back of an SUV on Pimp my Ride and could quite possibly run be the engine that put digital pants on your ass and this table in your living room.

2008 will bring more product designers to the realization that hacking and adapting technology is an important component in development of new ideas.

Related post: interactive snow projection

 

So, advertising has become a battle field between valuable, interactive brand experiences and broad-based one way messages. Yes?

Gotcha.

And “interactive advertising” (what some people call that stuff we do)* is blowing the doors off traditional brand messages for a myriad of reasons, not the least of which being that interactive measurement systems are laser focused, sharp and malleable. Read: NOT simple and empty like those in TV, print and radio world. Yes?

Hmm. Ok.

Then you really need to meet this guy. Because:  a. He doesn’t get it. b. Sadly, he’s not alone. And c. This thinking is part of “the problem.”

Silly me. And I was here building a company around usesless things like “interaction rate,” “time spent,” “cookies,” “clicks,” “google page rank,” and imagine this, “BUZZ.” What was I thinking?

*POKE doesn’t. :)

I’m now blogging on the POKE blog too! Thanks Charles

Yay!

Hulu is has no respect for the viewer.  It’s NBC’s last-ditch effort to hold on to their old business model.  It is a big, “old media” idea stuck in a digital world. It’s not a RICH concept and ultimately, it will fail.  I can hear the manical boardroom laughter now:  “Give away the content for free (just like your boob-tube); force viewers to watch commercials; maintain our existing advertising revenue channels; keep paying our jack ass old timer VP’s salaries; screw Apple and retain control.”

Bwahhahahahhahahhahah! 

No.

So NBC told Apple to f- off.  Fair enough.  Where were they when the last round of over-priced, content controlled BS burnt up entering the atmosphere? If I remember correctly even Sony had a plan were you were basically “renting” the download for $3.50. At a certain point the audio stopped working unless you paid more.  Yeesh. Hulu doesn’t feel much better. NOTHING is distributable. It’s a flash movie with no embed tags and no real sharing mechanism. Remember the DRM issues of music/video past? This feels like the same mistake all over again!  Why, why, why?!

This all probably sounded super duper while everyone pontificated safely from NBC’s leather couches (I’ve seen em, they’re nice!) when they sat around and plotted the sans-Apple way forward. But you know what? It won’t work. There’s no room for a rogue game in town. We’ve got shit to watch - and no time to worry about where we now can or can’t watch it. Is NBC going to come out with their own hand held video player too!?  Hey, perhaps they can get into telephony! Yay! Ok, I’ll stop. But you get my point.

Haven’t we learned anything?  Just like the iTunes Store, the only way online video distribution is going to succeed is if you can get every TV show / Movie from one source, that has no DRM platform (or at least a common one) and not have to worry if it’ll play on your computer, ipod, tv, whateverthefuck.  People want to watch their media on the device they choose and aren’t going to be “beholden” to one network just for a certain kind of content.  They’re not going to pay for the same content multiple times to have the ability to use it in multiple devices. They’re just not. They’ve been teased by the spoils of iTunes, limewire, the WEB in general and they’re not turning back just because NBC says so.  Fuck, haven’t they heard of Bit Torrent?

The best part, gang? Their tagline. “Watch your favorites. Anytime. Anywhere.” Seriously? Do they even know what that means? Jaysus, my Panasonic DVD player works better on my commute than Hulu. Sigh.

Fakesteve takes this one home for me:

So, fair enough. Bring on the big media cluster fuck. Roll out all the different systems that don’t work together. Bring on all the different kinds of software, none of which will work as well as iTunes. Bring on a zillion different user interfaces, a zillion accounts you need to set up, a zillion new usernames and passwords and a list of which services can work on which devices in which format. Right. When you’re good and tired of that, we’ll be here waiting for you.

Well said. 

Verdict on Hulu:  I give it 6 months before they realize no one is coming back for repeat visits and 12 months before they announce it as a failed experiment.  Will Apple take ‘em back?  I wouldn’t.  But then again, I’m a just terrible person.  :)

 

 

Sitting here waiting for MK Simon Aaron to pick me for day two of POKE Summit 1.0 and I realized I hadn’t updated in a bit.

Been thinking a lot about unique Christmas presents for this year and something dawned on me. The wave of print self-publishing tools that has been crashing over us recently is a great personal way to tell someone how totally awesome you think they are.

Better yet, the formats are kinda interesting too. Take Lulu for example. Lulu enables would-be printed content moguls to break into “publishing.” Books, videos, CDs, DVDs, calendars, reports can be then distributed around the world at 2x’s the author royalty as other traditional methods. Yay!

So why  not use their paperback format and write a loved one a story to put in their stocking?  Or, how about you choose the catalog format and pick all the priceless things you think are great (or not?!) about them? Cheesy? No - personal. My favoirite idea - and remember where you heard this one - is to take the travel guide format and reverse it to plan a trip for someone. Give them the guide as a day by day plan of your awesome vacation you bought em? Not enough money for a vacation? Make one up for a trip to the Zoo, whatevs.  It’s the thought that count’s, geez.  :)

Hokay soh, all this desktop pubishing gifting reminds me How. Not. New. all of this really is.  Remeber Aldus?  Pagemaker?  PRINT SHOP? Oh boy did I make some weird shit on my C64 back in the day. Sorry Mom.  Lol.

K, peeps.  Out.  Happy Xmas hunting.

 

Generally speaking, I don’t like when advertisers try to exploit tragedies or borrow too much interest from current events. It always seems to me like those tactics are executed in the same way a company would use a super-model to advertise a computer rather than just let the consumer experience the product for all its beauty the way the designers meant them to.

This traditional and old school thinking still plagues the advertising industry and the brands they represent.

Below is an ad from a recent campaign using Harry Connick Jr. to promote a new Lincoln while attempting to be part of the discussion of the New Orleans rebuilding effort. What seems interesting about this whole thing to me is not the advertising pundit politics but rather how the actual consumer speaks about it when they are given the opportunity.

If you read the comments from here and here, you’ll see that there’s quite a range of opinion on the attempt - from negative to flat or positive feedback. Kind of interesting considering the headline of the Autoblog entry was “Outrage expressed over Harry Connick Jr.’s Lincoln ad.” What I think they meant was that “The advertising industry is a bunch of babies yelling at each other for no real reason and Ad Age started the fire.” :)

The caption from Ad Age:

In this Young & Rubicam spot, Ford exploits the victims of Hurricane Katrina to advertise luxury SUVs.

Biased much? Geez.

One blog is an industry blog, (Autoblog) riffing off of the second (Ad Age posting) that was flaming the attempt at this type of advertising. But the comments and response on both blogs tend have a life of their own. The Ad Age blog’s comments tend to be a little inflammatory (like the article itself) at times but still range from flat to positive and back again. The comments on Auto blog are quite different.

This one sums if up for me:

When is enough enough? Why is everyone so easily offended. I wish the whiny babies of the world would just please shut up already.

The advertising pundits are freaking out. The automotive blog reader (consumer?!) doesn’t care. PEOPLE SEE WHAT THEY WANT TO SEE. They are the consumer, they’re smart and they’re what…? That’s right. IN CHARGE. So get used to it.

As one commenter asked: Where is your focus?

Mine was on Mr. Connick Jr., and his stories. Think about this and how you see the world. Half full/empty?

Let’s debate!

Hey gang - quick one here I’d love to start a conversation on.

Sight sound and motion is the heart and soul of all push communication. It also makes all kinds of valuable interactions infintly more valuable, yes? So what about the science of getting you to remember things? Personally - I’d rather have the consumer remember my brand because it has meaning FIRST. I can’t help but wonder if this is just snake oil in disguise.

Ok. Sure. Knowing that -

What are your thoughts about Aural ID’s or (sound identities)? Here is an interesting example I discovered on SML, (thanks Ming!) where a Music and the Moving Image class at the Université de Montréal created an exploration of the dna of the Intel sound identity.

From the video info:

What does music communicate in this 1990s ad? What does the famous 4-note Intel Inside jingle mean and how does it work?

Apparently the Bengals have had some success with last year’s Consumer Content campaign. They are at it again, asking fans to create fan content that expresses their Bengals passion. Nice. Chad Johnson impersonations, touchdown dances, keg stands, body painting, insane tailgating parties, its all there on the Bengals video page.

The site also serves as a Bengal’s fan community where fans around the world connect.I think this might be a first for a sports team, unless anyone knows of another experience like it? If you do, post em in the comments.

Rawk!