MySpace is MySource
Posted by goodmind on March 13th, 2008
The new path to fame starts with a MySpace page, and the “lucky” ones who make it might eventually warrant a Wikipedia page – the online parking place for footnotes in history. Only time will tell if Eliot Spitzer’s “Kristen” will follow this trajectory. Her MySpace page is a quotable source for journalists and media outlets across the board, and accessed for background material much in the way high school students are purported to consult Wikipedia.
We’re not trying to make lemonade out of lemons or anything, but this scandal has seemingly legitimized MySpace as a reputable resource for information on just about anything. Perhaps more importantly, we now have a new method for attaining social media critical mass, with significant upside potential in terms of gaining “traditional media” coverage as well.
Bargain Appliances
Posted by goodmind on March 5th, 2008
Shopping for a new information appliance? A cross between a mobile phone and a laptop perhaps? The product your looking for is the Everex Cloudbook; the latest UMPC (ultra mobile PC) to hit the shelves of…Wal-mart? This $400 “subnotebook” runs on a Linux based operating system, called gOS Rocket, and is designed to function as a temporary travel computer. Ideal for motorhome owners come to think of it.
If successful, the Cloudbook could be the Trojan horse that eventually drives adoption further up the Linux appliance chain. Based on our own personal experience with Vista, we rather hope so. It also represents a bit of formidable competition to the ASUS eee PC, another Linux friendly UMPC for the road warrior in all of us, or at least the early adopter road warriors.
BIL and TED’s Excellent Adventure
Posted by goodmind on February 26th, 2008
BoingBoing posted an article titled “BIL is to TED as BarCamp is to Foo Camp.” The latter of which appear to be a network of user-generated conferences, and an annual hacker event respectively. If you’re playing along at home, BIL is the “self-organizing, emergent, and anarchic” forum for sharing ideas, the “bottom-up” counterpart to elitist TED. (TED coincidentally, is more or less the West Coast counterpart to the oft-alluded to PopTech conference).
TED is also distinct in that it was the subject of a recent piece in AdAge, as it will be engaging in a bit of its own crowdsourcing this week. Conference attendees will be able to create a product “from idea to prototype” in under 72 hours through Kluster; “a community for people who like to tackle projects and solve problems.”
Kluster uses a self described “powerful” decision making algorithm that can help large groups collaborate during product development, marketing/advertising initiatives, and event planning. This proposition will certainly be put to the test when all of those idea-generating egos attending TED have at it and try to crowdsource a product. We’ll keep you posted on what turns out.
Free for All
Posted by goodmind on February 25th, 2008
Apparently, consumers wont really need that tax refund after all. Who needs an incentive to shop when businesses are giving away goods and services for free…at least online. For a comprehensive overview, check out this lengthy article in Wired, or this exhaustive catalog of ‘free stuff’ from trendwatching.com.
We’re not quite ready to pass judgment on whether this is a long term “Freeconomic” movement, or just a powerful example that the internet enables a form of “Free-dom” that is just another word for nothing left to lose. We’ll have to mull it over while downloading some free Janis Joplin mp3’s from an ad-supported peer-to-peer music service.
Frugal Food
Posted by goodmind on February 22nd, 2008
With all the gloom and doom discussion on Wall Street about a recession, it’s easy to overlook what could be a bright spot for consumers. While traditional ‘inflationary logic’ would dictate a rise in prices on par with the rising cost of commodities, many familiar food brands are protecting their margins by listening to consumer preferences. According to a recent article in BusinessWeek;
“General Mills in recent months reduced the number of pretzel shapes in its Chex and other snack mixes to three, from 14. The company had pretzels in the shapes of the letters “H,” “O” and “T.” But research found (not surprisingly) consumers cared more about the variety of pretzel flavors than shapes. That move, combined with other manufacturing improvements, is saving the division more than $1 million a year.” (emphasis ours)
Depending on your penchant for snack food, an economic downturn doesn’t have to leave a bad taste in your mouth.
The Sociolinguistics of Censorship
Posted by goodmind on February 20th, 2008
Google News is making news, along with the United Nations, and small fry media outlet Inner City Press. It’s quite a scandalous affair really, with Inner City Press playing the role of “pint-sized Internet” whistleblower, exposing corruption and causing controversy within the bloated U.N. organization.
As it turns out, Inner City Press is actually just one person, with one “beat,” the United Nations Development Program. It also turns out that a “user” alerted Google to the fact that Inner City Press violates the Google News ground rule that listed organizations must have a minimum of two employees.
Matthew Lee, the Renaissance man behind Inner City Press received an e-mail from Google informing him that he had been “de-listed” from Google News, and shortly thereafter, his stories were no longer available through the powerful aggregator. Lee is rather suspicious that the U.N. is behind it all, hypothesizing a sinister plot to the effect of “I think they said, ‘If we can’t get this guy out of the U.N., let’s disappear him from the Internet.’”
While it is unfortunate that Google is apparently now desensitized to censorship at the expense of minority voices, there is a concurrent and less marginal outcry criticizing how difficult it is to “disappear” oneself from the internet. The transitive status of published content on the web is an issue that will probably be hotly debated for some time to come, particularly as it relates to who controls the removal of content. While the long term social implications are unclear, we can at least confirm that “disappear” is now officially a transitive verb.
(via Fox News)
How to Remaster a Classic Album
Posted by goodmind on February 15th, 2008
In simpler times gone by, a recording artist would most certainly balk at the idea of allowing their work to be sampled freely and liberally by other artists. Then Napster, DRM, iTunes, and American Idol all happened.
There’s plenty of giddy commentary on how the music industry business model has to change or die, and we’ve had trouble restraining ourselves on the subject in the past. Be that as it may, all signs point to an industry still steadfast in its commitment to producing an overpriced physical product, though consumer preference and buying behavior would indicate otherwise.
Is it really so surprising then that a pair of recording artists from previously referenced simpler times, have decided to eschew the industry standard of releasing a ludicrously overpriced digitally remastered Anniversary album, in a “beautiful new package, with extensive liner notes and photos, and featuring 7 previously unreleased tracks from the original album and a film?”
Though the re-issuing of “My Life in the Bush of Ghosts” by Brian Eno and David Byrne will be available with fancy packaging features, the contents of the 1981 album itself have some interesting features of their own;
“This is the first time complete and total access to original tracks with remix and sampling possibilities have been officially offered on line. In keeping with the spirit of the original album, Brian and David are offering for download all the multitracks on two of the songs. Through signing up to the user license, and in line with Creative Commons licenses, you are free to edit, remix, sample and mutilate these tracks however you like. Add them to your own song or create a new one. Visitors are welcome to post their mixes or songs that incorporate these audio files on the site for others to hear and rate.”
Branded Personalities
Posted by goodmind on February 8th, 2008
After yesterday’s post on Style Icons, we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to comment on this story about Oprah from the Chicago Sun-Times;
“What would it be like to walk into Oprah Winfrey’s consciousness?
You can get close by walking into the new Oprah Store, a mishmash of the star’s sayings, passions, gurus and even her closet, right down the street from Harpo Studios on Chicago’s Near West Side.”
The retail version of Oprah’s closet will have to be archival if it is to be truly authentic. Regardless of her positive social contributions and political influence, we will always expect the Oprah brand experience to involve shoulder pads.
Facebook Guerilla Tactics
Posted by goodmind on February 6th, 2008
What is it with kids these days? Facebook is (yawn) making mainstream news again as a social event planner for the socially minded. It’s hard not to be smug in this particular instance, given that the group presently incurring the wrath of users is a Colombian socialist guerilla army composed primarily of the 12-18 year old demographic.
If FARC headquarters weren’t purportedly located in the heart of the Colombian jungle, they would probably have their own Facebook group page too.
Maybe as little as a year ago, mentioning “Facebook,” “organized protest,” and “Colombia” in the same breath would have been interpreted as a reference to Columbia University’s planned expansion into a working class Harlem neighborhood. Now the reach of the Facebook network is more global, both in terms of users and “content.”
It’s perhaps even slightly more impressive that through it all, whether organizing its own child army, or the protest of one, Facebook is still tapped into youth culture, as per its founding ethos. You don’t have to look much further than the CEO’s headshot to know that indeed, a child shall lead them.
A Lending Crisis
Posted by goodmind on February 1st, 2008
In April we posted about a unique microfinance institution called Kiva.org. Back then, we referred to the site as “a peer-to-peer banking system which helps entrepreneurs in developing countries receive loans from socially conscious, social media savvy capitalists with at least $25.”
Some months later, the New York Times Magazine reports;
“Kiva is a philanthropic organization facing an extremely unusual challenge: maintaining adequate supply (people who need help) to meet demand (people who want to give it). “
Now the largest possible loan is $25, and it is the lend-ees who are having trouble securing them. It must be that .16 default interest rate.
