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November 30, 2007
From the Editor of Fast Company: A Clear-eyed Analysis of Apple
My 14-year-old son loves Apple. It's not just that he owns an iPod and a Mac laptop; whenever Steve Jobs makes a major announcement, he downloads the video on iTunes and watches it on his iPod. Just this week, he shelled out $129 of his own money to buy the new Leopard operating system. "I should buy some Apple stock," he told me last night. "That way we can rise and fall as a team."
Such identification--and fascination--with Apple is rampant. After one of our columnists criticized Steve Jobs a few issues back, we were deluged with hostile letters, a few of which appear in our Feedback section, beginning on page 25. Apple is widely admired for its customer-focused products, its enviable design aesthetic, its unmatched success with problem solving. American business needs an icon to believe in, and Apple has done nearly everything right in earning that status.
Continue reading "From the Editor of Fast Company: A Clear-eyed Analysis of Apple"
Posted by Robert Safian at 6:56 PM
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13 Comments
From Veejays to Ceejays? Firebrand's Ad TV
A couple of days ago, I happened upon an article in the Los Angeles Times about Firebrand, a new media company dedicated exclusively to commercials. Its TV show, "Firebrand," premiered Monday and airs weeknights from 11 pm to 12 am on ION Television. The show consists entirely of commercials, some as pure entertainment and some as paid placements (though the spots aren't explicitly distinguished by either category).
Are viewers clamoring to sit through an hour of commercials? Firebrand certainly has big backing -- its investors include Microsoft, NBC Universal, and GE's Peacock Equity Fund. And its CEO and co-founder, John Lack, was one of the minds behind MTV.
Continue reading "From Veejays to Ceejays? Firebrand's Ad TV"
Posted by April Joyner at 1:10 PM
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Education: Pre-Collegiate Branding
The next generation of business leaders certainly won't struggle with the concept of personal branding. Personal branding has become crucial at an even earlier life stage: the increasingly high-stakes college admissions process during the junior and senior years of high school.
It's well known now that one's online presence is just as important as one's offline persona, as illustrated by reports that some companies hire people to screen job candidates' social network profiles and search their name through Google. I recently read an article from the Dayton Daily News about the same screening process in college admissions. It makes perfect sense, as teens, ever active on Facebook and MySpace, may have even more of an online presence than many adults.
Continue reading "Education: Pre-Collegiate Branding"
Posted by April Joyner at 1:00 PM
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November 29, 2007
Sustainability: Because Sunlight Is Better For Us Anyway
It's a simple concept really: during the day when the sun is shining your light bulbs don't need to burn as brightly. With that in mind, Nebraska-based Axis Technologies came up with a product to improve efficiency and cut electrical costs at the same time. The Axis Daylight Harvesting Dimming Ballast works with fluorescent lights in commercial buildings; the company says it can improve energy efficiency by up to 70 percent on sunny days and can cut as much as a third off the building's electrical bill.
In lighting systems, a ballast is the device that converts the voltage that comes out of the electrical socket into a current the fluorescent light can use. The Axis ballast is installed much like any other ballast, but its potential for decreased energy usage is twofold. First, a dipswitch attached to the ballast allows all the lights to be dimmed by a certain increment (say 40 percent). More importantly, a photocell on the ballast itself measures the amount of sunlight in the room and adjusts the level of fluorescent lighting accordingly.
Continue reading "Sustainability: Because Sunlight Is Better For Us Anyway"
Posted by Liz Webber at 11:23 AM
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November 28, 2007
Free Rice: Feed the Hungry, Spruce Up Your English
On one of my more lethargic post-lunch procrastination sessions recently, after a particularly soporific curry, I stumbled upon Free Rice, a site that a friend had sent me a while ago but I hadn't really taken the time to look at.
Half an hour later my food coma had lifted but I was still clicking away. Talk about addictive… The thing was I didn't really feel all that guilty.
A sister site of Poverty.com, Free Rice aims to help people improve their English while simultaneously using the process by which they do to provide food to hungry people. A laudable goal (or two depending how you look at it.) How it works is the site provides a word and then provides you with options from which you have to pick the correct one.
Urbane
a) Lackluster
b) Suave
c) Wrathful
d) Bear-like
There's a mix of words so that the site appeals to people who have a very basic grasp of English as well as to the more erudite. The program keeps track of each word one gets right or wrong and then adjusts the difficulty level accordingly, hence keeping you interested.
Until yesterday, for every word you got right, Free Rice donated 10 grains of rice through the United Nations to help end world hunger. As of today, it has started donating 20 grains. Pretty cool…
I sent the site to a whole bunch of people I know and the overwhelmingly positive reactions it elicited got me thinking about how remarkable it is that something this simple can be so effective.
What can other non-profits learn? First and most importantly, if you can make doing good fun, there's nothing like it. People like to feel good about themselves, like they're responsible citizens of the world who care about more than shopping and football. But at the same time, if a good deed takes away from other parts of their lives, or is boring and tedious, the likelihood that people will do good decreases drastically.
Which leads me to my next point: simplicity is key. The great part about Free Rice is just how simple giving is -- no long and annoying forms, no credit card numbers, no billing addresses, no trawling through lines of disclaimers. Just a lazy click of a button and you can pat yourself on the back. Sounds a bit dodgy admittedly, but the site makes money off advertising.
Continue reading "Free Rice: Feed the Hungry, Spruce Up Your English"
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 4:51 PM
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Innovation Wednesday: Where Do Ideas Come From?
That's a core question here at Fast Company. I'm always interested to learn where creative people find inspiration. For Sir James Dyson, it's annoyances from everyday life; hand dryers that left his hands moist sent him off to the lab to create a better solution. For Brian Hassemer, a senior engineer at Motorola, the magnetic catch on his kitchen cabinets was the inspiration for closing a flip phone. Ayse Birsel found patterns in nature that suggested an organic angle (120 degrees) to incorporate in an office furniture system.
Last week I read a piece in the New York Times about Hollywood producer Brian Grazer. Imagine Entertainment, which he runs with director Ron Howard, is the production company behind hit movies such as A Beautiful Mind and American Gangster, as well as three of my favorite TV shows, Arrested Development, Sports Night, and Friday Night Lights. Grazer takes a remarkably disciplined approach to feeding his own eclectic mind.
"For the last 20 years," Allison Hope Weiner wrote in the Times, "Mr. Grazer has met each week with a person who is an expert in science, medicine, politics, fashion, religion - anything other than entertainment." A get-together with trial lawyers inspired Liar, Liar, a comedy about a lawyer afflicted with truth-telling. An encounter with a former F.B.I. agent led to the new Fox series The F.B.I.
"I want to do things that have a better chance of being thought of as original," Grazer said. "I do everything I can to disrupt my comfort zone."
Walter Sullivan, my wise and patient creative-writing teacher in college, used to advise the class, "Write what you know." It's great advice. But Grazer's weekly habit underscores an equally important principle: Keep learning.
So, my fellow InnoWedders, what do you do to get out of your comfort zone?
Posted by Chuck Salter at 3:04 PM
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From Hip-Hop to Geek Wisdom
A couple of weeks ago I attended Advertising Age's The Idea Conference, the ad trade's respectable attempt to bring together a mash-up of interesting thinkers. The one day brain dump began with an exceptionally freestyle monologue by hip hop mogul Russell Simmons, the urban analogue to Richard Branson. Amid his ramblings on meditation, creativity, and name dropping some half dozen of his percolating new businesses (intriguing ones at that: i.e. a financial services company and bank card for the 70 million consumers who don't have bank accounts), he also dropped some street wisdom on how he's achieved maverick status:
"Speak with a new voice. My job is not to repeat."
"Every idea I've ever come up with, no one liked. Anything they did like I knew
was a bullshit idea."
"I have faith in silence. You ain't gonna get shit from the noise."
After Simmons came an impressive lineup ranging from Barry Diller to Jeffrey Hollender (founder of Seventh Generation) to the earnest Utah marketing dude from BlendTec, George Wright, who dreamed up the campy YouTube extreme blending viral sensation "Will It Blend?" (yes, some poor marketing chap in the audience actually donated his BlackBerry for a live blender obliteration, as the rest of the marketing folks in the audience drooled with envy).
Continue reading "From Hip-Hop to Geek Wisdom"
Posted by Danielle Sacks at 9:18 AM
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November 26, 2007
The Wall Street Journal: Niche Audience vs. The Free Public World
Lately, I've been reading a lot of news reports about Rupert Murdoch's intentions to lift the pay wall from The Wall Street Journal online and I've been wondering if this is a good idea. During the course of my research about the proposed plan, I even came across two Motley Fool's reporters who were battling out the pros and cons of the idea.
Back on November 15, Rich Smith wrote:
"Brand: People believe that "you get what you pay for." By removing the price tag that tells people what WSJ.com's value is, Murdoch will devalue the brand."
While his colleague, Anand Chokkavelu wrote:
"By freeing the site, the trusted financial news source will attract more readers. How many more? If you believe Murdoch, 15 times more. He believes his 1 million online subscribers can be enlarged to as many as 15 million readers by ditching the cash register. And with more readers come more advertising dollars, especially if they turn out to be, in Murdoch's words, "the most affluent, the most influential people in the world.""
Certainly any numbskull with half a brain could see the potential in numbers of readers to be gained if the tariff were lifted. And there's also a potential cross-content strategy with the recent launch of the Fox Business News Network and MarketWatch. So if I can see what a numbskull can see, then what's my problem with Murdoch's plan?
Well, I think I'm hanging onto something that Rich Smith wrote about the brand. With a tried and true brand, both the audience and the advertisers know what they're getting when they do business with WSJ. But with a free-for-all -- even though Murdoch has stated that it will be an influential audience still -- I'm not sure what either the audience or the advertisers will get. Would WSJ.com just turn into some sort of portal á la Yahoo! or AOL? Is this the correct competitive landscape for such a product as the WSJ -- to run up against the likes of the Goliaths of content on the Web? AOL's target market was America -- in its entirety, after all. That's a wide market to cater to, and even harder to define a sweet spot for. Often being everything to everyone simply means being nothing entirely good at all.
But we could be looking at the Financial Times and The New York Times as the WSJ competition. That lot might make better sense, and ultimately set the objectives at keeping the product and brand a lot more pure.
But if traffic spikes to the extent that Murdoch predicts, then a serious content challenge will be faced. Will 15 million world readers be interested in the current content brand identity of the WSJ? Or will the content become totally diluted in order to reach this wider audience base? I'm opting for that latter on this one. And if that's how it's going to go down, then it's going to change the nature of both the content and the audience overall. Courting middle America isn't necessarily going to land you that BMW or Fidelity account. But I could be entirely wrong. Why go after less dollars spent in online advertising from luxury brands when there's more money being spent (and a better understanding of online) from lower-end brands?
I don't know, I'm torn on this one. I suppose that after the WSJ print became smaller, I've become more and more concerned about the demise of a stellar brand.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 10:38 PM
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November 23, 2007
Technology: Smarter Days
It has been two weeks since I got my new smartphone, the Palm Centro. I won't bore you with an extended tech review -- I think it's a great gadget, but I dislike the Web browser -- but I can review how my daily life has changed since I got it.
The Centro is not only my latest phone, it is the first smartphone I have owned. Since getting my phone, I am in greater touch with friends. Daily, I have been exchanging quick little missives via text messaging. Over IM, my friends and I have shared jokes or changes in plans. Such communication is great, but only a simple evolution from the routine of e-mail and IM on my work and home desktops.
The larger changes to my life have come in little ways. Last weekend after a the train ride ending at 2 a.m. I did a little Web surfing. Those minutes of browsing helped me to stay a bit sane after my bus failed to come. One night earlier this week, the music I had put on the Centro helped lighten my mood and reduced the stress I was feeling. Another night, a quick text message to my friend helped us rendezvous online for a few hours of Halo 3. One afternoon a quick Google search gave me the cross street to my destination -- a place I had never been -- even as I walked toward it.
These may be nice improvements to my life, but they pale to those still to come. Looking at the Centro or the iPhone or the Kindle, the idea that desktops and laptops will give way to the dominance of smartphones seems very likely. I look forward to: constant access to easy-to-use and comprehensive dictionaries and encyclopedias; location-based searching for businesses like restaurants or sales items in stores; simple applications for mobile social networking; enhanced reality features such as scanning objecting for additional information. Many of these can be done now using fringe software, but the day they become standard and everyone does it, is the day they start changing my life and everyone else's. And I am sure there are other innovations that will arise as smartphones continue to evolve, improve, grow more powerful and less expensive.
A conversation with my colleague Saabira made me think of the bigger picture. The mass-adoption of PCs changed our society, as did the Internet and the cell phone that followed. As the smartphone matures into a powerful and intuitive extension of people's daily lives, our society is guaranteed to go through unforeseen changes. I for one look forward to it.
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 10:00 AM
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November 20, 2007
Marketing: Lessons From Beer
Mmmmm Beer. There's nothing like a cold sip to wash things down smoothly. When recently, in passing, I asked a group people about their views on beer, I was offered a spectrum of different views: it's a comfort factor, an every day drink, the beginning of (or perhaps the end to) a wild night out, a lazy Saturday afternoon in front of the TV, a frat boy's drink, and for some (like a loquacious group of old men who ritualistically visited the pub I used to work at in London,) just a way of life.
Whatever its connotation for you, it's clear that beer, more than any other alcoholic drink, has a deeply entrenched fan following. A recent BBC article on beer got me thinking – perhaps the lessons we learn from beer can also be applied elsewhere.
The article lists 5 reasons as to why beer sales have slumped – apparently they are at their lowest level since the 1930s.
Health: There is a misconception that beer is less healthy, and more fattening, than other alcoholic beverages. But studies have shown that beer drinkers and drinkers of similar volumes of other alcoholic drinks, gain the same amount of weight around their stomachs (refuting the notion of the beer-belly.) The British Beer and Pub Association argues that a beer with the typical 4.6% of alcohol is less fattening than wine, and significantly less fattening than spirits, which contain 6 times more calories even without the sodas they are so often mixed with.
Dr Martin Bobak, an epidemiologist at University College London, argues that the idea that beer makes one fat stems from the fact that less educated people show a stronger proclivity to drink beer. In the West the less educated one is, the more obese one is likely to be, and hence, he relates beer drinking to education, and in turn to obesity.
The lesson here for everyone else is pretty obvious: people are becoming more and more health conscious. In an age of gym memberships and organic foods, if your product is labeled as having health issues, it could knock you out of the game. Keep this in mind as your research, innovate and market.
Food: Over the years, pubs have boosted their emphasis on food, and as a result beer has suffered. People tend to drink wine with their food over beer, plus nowadays people go to pubs not just to drink beer, but sometimes solely to eat.
This is pretty specific to beer and pub food, but there is something of a takeaway: Changes in context matter. Consider the bigger picture when you make business decisions. Is setting up a website going to erode your magazine for instance? Is allowing customers to sit around and read at Barnes and Noble, or listen to music at Virgin going to prevent them from wanting to make a purchase? A rise in something else's popularity, even if mandated by you, could erode your own market, so look before you leap.
Continue reading "Marketing: Lessons From Beer"
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 5:10 PM
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Media: Wikipedia, Plagiarism, and Procrastination
Shortcut-seeking high school and college students are not alone. Someone else plagiarized a passage from Wikipedia.
The lifted material didn't appear in a midterm essay, though. Instead, according to an article in yesterday's New York Times, nearly five paragraphs of an archived Wikipedia article about the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia showed up nearly word-for-word in the book “Black Gold: The New Frontier in Oil for Investors,” published by Hoboken-based John Wiley & Sons. In a strange twist, the author's name is George Orwel. (Yes, with only one "l," but it's close.)
Posted by Jason Del Rey at 12:10 PM
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November 19, 2007
Technology: Hacking the iPhone for Espionage
No, it's not enough that you can hack your iPhone to operate on the T-Mobile network, or launch third-party applications, or play games. No, someone had to go and demonstrate how you can -- quite easily, with some know-how -- turn an iPhone, or any smartphone, into a full-blown spy gadget. Go warm up your missile-laden Aston Martin, and then watch security expert Rik Farrow show you how it's done:
Continue reading "Technology: Hacking the iPhone for Espionage"
Posted by Chris Dannen at 12:55 PM
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November 16, 2007
Education: Dazed and Confused Over Metrics
What determines a good school? Usually the quantitative data -- most frequently standardized test scores and graduation rates -- carry the most weight in answering that question. On the qualitative side, there's student and parent satisfaction and teacher morale, among other factors. The key, as in all professions, is determining metrics -- figuring out how all of these different factors should be measured and calibrated. This past month, however, has included several stumbles in achieving this task in education.
In New York last week, much buzz -- and fallout -- ensued over the release of "report cards" for the city's schools. Each school received a letter grade (A-F) based upon student performance (weighted 30 percent), student improvement (weighted 55 percent), and school environment (weighted 15 percent). Because student improvement accounted for a majority of the grade, some schools with high test scores but scant gains from one year to the next were deemed to be failing. Conversely, some schools whose test scores continued to flag but had made significant gains were given A's.
Continue reading "Education: Dazed and Confused Over Metrics"
Posted by April Joyner at 2:41 PM
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Entrepreneurship: Online Dating Gets More Vain?
Online daters live and die by interpreting profile photographs. Sure, interests and hobbies are great, but when it comes to that crucial moment (to contact, or not to contact?) it's the photo that matters. Is it recent? Is it full-body? Is it even real? This week's Startup of the Week award goes to a site that's adding a new dimension to online matchmaking by actually allowing users to search for matches that resemble their favorite celebrities. The best part is: they're using Match.com's database to do it.
Posted by Chris Dannen at 11:41 AM
| 3 Comments
November 15, 2007
Starbucks Goes Red for the Holidays
With the holiday season beginning, retailers everywhere are donning their cheer inducing gear, organizing sales, and encouraging people to engage in frenzied bouts of spending – the current recession aside of course.
And there's nothing more holidayish than red. In keeping with the holiday spirit, or perhaps more aptly in the creation of it, Starbucks has unleashed its line of red cups for the holidays. I'd be surprised if sales don’t rise significantly. Last year, there was a 140 million dollar increase in gross profit in the last quarter of 2006.
Now I'm not really a die-hard Starbucks aficionado – I'll drink anything so long as it wakes me up – but the coffee giant's latest marketing move is worth some praise.
The red cup, dotted with white snowflakes and sporting a green Starbucks logo in the center, really does induce cheer. It makes people (well me anyway) want to drink something warm and comforting. And most importantly, it's self-advertising in a way that you just can't ignore. The red cups are so noticeable because they're new and for a limited time only, hence they stand out from the crowd. Like a pretty girl at an all boy's school, the bright red screams pay attention to me. But it does so tactfully by virtue of its exterior, in the name of holiday goodness and cheer.
On the go commuters carry the red cups everywhere, unwittingly acting as Starbucks advertising vehicles free of charge. It's only in the last few days that I've noticed how many people drink Starbucks coffee around my office – the new cups are all over the place and they're not easily missed.
In an added attempt at infusing holiday cheer in its customers, propagating the Starbucks brand (some people actually claim to mark the start of the holiday season by the launch of the red cup), and eliciting customer interaction, Starbucks has a micro-site that allows people to "start a cheer chain." This consists of dressing up a virtual you and your friend, and then sending a cheer (there are several to choose from) which is then passed on from friend to friend to friend…
All good marketing moves from a practiced retail giant that is somehow managing to indeed pass the cheer, and make some money in the bargain, seemingly without having to try all that hard.
Posted by Saabira Chaudhuri at 1:01 PM
| 10 Comments
Technology: Revision3 and Blip.TV BFF!
Web video companies Revision3 and blip.TV have formed a partnership to share content, with each website posting a portion of the other company's videos. As the Internet TV space continues to evolve it is inevitable that such partnerships will happen. As another Web video exec, Azureus CEO Gilles BianRosa, told me, "The market isn't really firmly established. It is easier to identify competitors when you have a market and market share." Moves like this will help create a more robust market.
And this makes perfect sense for both companies -- Revision3 creates video content, but its site isn't much of a destination. Now Revision3 will have videos accessible in more places, and blip.TV gets a variety of content with a built-in following. Perhaps I should have seen it coming -- When asked who he considered his competition, Revision 3 cofounder Jay Adelson replied: "We really not overlapping yet. Where I see competition is who is trying to get the same advertising dollars as I am."
My guess is that the playing field for web video creators and distributors will continue to get muddy as partnerships will continue to form and the public gets more comfortable with following online television shows. Where do you see Internet TV heading?
Posted by Kevin Ohannessian at 12:16 PM
| 2 Comments
Sustainability: A Holiday for Your Trash
Today is America Recycles Day. Yeah, I just found that out this morning, too. And surprise, surprise, Americans don't recycle enough. A recent Staples survey found that only 23 percent of respondents recycle their old electronics, while 41 percent either throw them in the trash or don't get rid of them at all. (What about the other 36 percent?) I definitely fall in that latter category and I blame my parents for that one; they have a television graveyard in their attic with every TV they've owned since 1978.
Staples and other likeminded companies are aiming to change those bad environmental habits. An article from Environment News Service outlines recycling initiatives by Staples, Office Depot and Xerox to keep us from tossing electronics and other office products filled with hazardous chemicals. However, I'm a little skeptical that people will be willing to pay to recycle, even if it is just $10, when throwing the item away is so much easier.
Continue reading "Sustainability: A Holiday for Your Trash"
Posted by Liz Webber at 11:44 AM
| 1 Comment
Design Thursday: Design Miami preview: Designer Tats
Want to pay the ultimate homage to your favorite artist? Now you can commission a limited edition tattoo by a range of trendy international artists, and spend the rest of your life as a walking gallery exhibit.
Design agent provocateur Tobias Wong announced last Friday at Core 77’s
Continue reading "Design Thursday: Design Miami preview: Designer Tats"
Posted by Linda Tischler at 11:22 AM
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November 14, 2007
Innovation Wednesday: Al Gore's Excellent Venture Adventure
Former Vice President Al Gore has added another gig to his already jam-packed resume: venture capitalist.
Gore announced an alliance between his firm, Generation Investment Management and the legendary Silicon Valley venture firm, Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers. From a statement issued by KPCB:
The partnership will provide funding and global business-building expertise to a range of businesses, both public and private, and to entrepreneurs. As a result of the collaboration, the chairman and co-founder of Generation, former Vice President of the United States Al Gore, will join KPCB as a Partner. KPCB will co-locate their European operations at Generation’s offices in London. John Doerr, Partner at KPCB, will join Generation’s Advisory Board.
Does the man not sleep?
Posted by Ellen McGirt at 12:06 PM
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November 13, 2007
Marketing: The Manliest Soup on Earth
I don't consider myself a particularly "manly" man, but when I watch the ads for Campbell's Chunky soup, I can't help but feel beguiled by the sweat-reeking, ass-kicking aura of machismo that (apparently) defines Campbell's Chunky. Of course, they're not serious about all this, right? Eating Chunky doesn't make you more of a man.
Does it?
Actually, it seems a lot of people think it might. Since the campaign started in 1997, the Chunky brand has seen "double digit" growth -- and it's increasing each year, as Campbell's hires more NFL stars to grunt and sweat in their commercials (the total is now 8).
Continue reading "Marketing: The Manliest Soup on Earth"
Posted by Chris Dannen at 4:26 PM
| 3 Comments
November 12, 2007
Tech Monday: First Look at the Google Mobile OS
The Google Phone isn't really a Google Phone or GPhone after all. What it will be is an open-source operating system for mobile phones. The project is called Android and it's a a software stack for mobile devices that includes an operating system, middleware and key applications.
From the Google info page about Android:
The Open Handset Alliance, a group of more than 30 technology and mobile companies, is developing Android: the first complete, open, and free mobile platform. To help developers get started developing new applications, we're offering an early look at the Android Software Development Kit. [Android]
In this YouTube video Sergey Brin and Steve Horowitz discuss the availability of the SDK, that it will be open source in the future, and demo some applications.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 7:11 PM
| 2 Comments
Technology: What's Cooking at Apple?
When unfulfilled Apple rumors don't die, there's usually a good reason. Having moved on from the iPhone, the tech rumor mill is now churning up new whispers of a game-changing Apple product: an ultra-thin MacBook. Ultra-thin laptops are nothing new. So why should we care?
Apple traditionally makes quick changes in its product lines; even seminal product re-designs happen inside of 18 months or a year. But when it takes the Cupertino-based company more than a year and a half to launch a product, it's either dead in the water, or deadly to the competition. It took nearly a decade of development for Apple to launch the first OS X. The iPod was a multi-year endeavor, and the iPhone took so long to develop that it developed an almost mythical aura in the tech community. We've been hearing about ultra-thin MacBooks for close to three years now, which means that if and when it arrives at the MacWorld conference in January, it will be a device that leaves other laptop makers scrambling. With the dearth of solid information that accompanies these rumors, I'll put my tech-spertise on the line to predict what we'll see in the ultra-thin MacBook.
Posted by Chris Dannen at 3:30 PM
| 5 Comments
November 10, 2007
Report from Blogworld: Closing Keynote With Mark Cuban
The following is a live transcript of highlights from Mark Cuban's closing keynote @ BlogWorldExpo.
Connection between Dancing With the Stars and blogging. Dancing With the Stars taught me value of different mediums. People complimenting me for blogs is nothing like little old ladies telling me i should have won and that I was cheated on Dancing With the Stars.
I started my blog in 2004 because I did an interview with the Dallas Morning News about the Dallas Mavericks. I expected to see a write up that equated with the conversation. What was written was different than the email exchange. I decided it was time to start a blog. I put up a link to the article and then put up the email exchange. The response was amazing and was an accelerator for me to start blogging.
All of a sudden they realized they weren't in charge of me. They had to realize they had to pay attention to people. Blogging isn't just about people getting things off their chest, it's a way for ideas and the truth to come out.
Over time I understood what blogging meant to me. Before kids and marriage I knew I could call up my buddies and we talked about everything on our minds: sports, tech, politics -- but it was limited to the 5 or 10 drunks I knew
I got to talk to a whole universe of people. It was about how everyone was responding to me. More than 1 million people read the blog in 2004, and the software couldn't support the comments. But it was the response coming back that mattered.
Are you honest in what you write or are you not? Are you just writing to get people to read. If you do that than you're no different than mainstream media.
I learned you have to be brutally honest. Once you are honest you can define your brand.
If you're gonna go the corporate route. MSM is trying to introduce blogs. If you're a reporter for the newspaper -- you're a reporter. Either you're a reporter or you're not.
As exciting as we think our opinions are -- we're gonna run out. I think I'm gonna be able to whip something out in 15 minutess and I say someone is going to call me on that. I wrote a blog recently about facebook about opening its api vs what google is doing for opensocial. As i started doing more homework I realized I was not only gonna look like an idiot to readers but I was gonna feel like one. It becomes stronger when you do the work behind it.
The blogosphere is changing and becoming corporatized. You have to compete with nonbloggers; it's your opinion vs The New York Times and The Dallas Morning News. You have to understand where you fit. As others enter your brand starts to dissipate.
Replenish yourself through good old fashion research and work. Decide if it's full time or part time. Is it who you are or not who you are.
When you take the step to get paid to blog you're going to lose ability to be perfectly honest. Someone is going to want something for paying your bills.
Bill O'Reilly is a moron. I've fallen into that trap. I've done my f you blogs. The hardest ones are the ones where you scream and yell at someone. It feels really really good. Then you remember these blogs are forever. The Internet archives are there forever. Whatever you write is going to be there forever.
What appears to be an honest answer that brands you today may not be in 2008. People Google you. When we hire people we Google them.
I don't hold myself back but I've got a lot more money than you. I don't care. I'm the luckiest guy in the world. I can sit up here and not care. But not everybody is that fortunate. But I'm not saying muzzle yourself. Just be honest.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 2:14 AM
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November 9, 2007
Education: Technology -- Academic Godsend or Demon?
As I've read through education headlines this past week, two stories struck me because of their oppositional views of technology:
View #1: Isn't new technology great? Maine's initiative to provide all seventh- and eighth-graders with laptops has boosted the state's writing scores.
View #2: Actually, technology can be a giant nuisance. In classrooms, laptops and electronics easily cause distractions, as seen in colleges nationwide. Samuel Freedman of The New York Times certainly isn't a fan. And (this is my interpretation, extending the sentiment further) if technology can create such havoc at the tertiary level, imagine the disturbances in K-12 schools.
Continue reading "Education: Technology -- Academic Godsend or Demon?"
Posted by April Joyner at 5:08 PM
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Report from BlogWorldExpo: The Cult of Blogging with Leo Laporte and iJustine
Highlights from 11.09.07 10:15 AM session @ BlogWorldExpo.
iJustine and Leo Laporte discuss the cult of blogging. Justine livecasts her life 24-7. Laporte utilizes many tools online to share his life: radio, TV, photos, message boards, The Life of Leo Blog, as well as other means.
Justine says learn to control; you don't have to Twitter everything you're doing. When it got really scary for her is when she looked in the archives and saw herself sleeping in a hotel. Everything she's livecasted is there forever, archived.
Both say another example of someone who has built up a cult online is Chris Pirillo. Laporte says Pirillo has used every form of Internet media to build his brand.
Laporte says he is making money podcasting because advertisers realize he has loyal listeners. All of this media is about engaging your audience, he says. You got to be careful, he adds.
Justine says advertisers want to have her endorse their products. She will not put her name on a product that she doesn't stand behind.
The short-term strategy is to cash in and loose your audience. The long-term strategy, Laporte says is to have integrity and wait for the right products to come along.
When asked what he uses to measure podcast audience he says he uses Podtrac, also to connect with the right advertisers.
The conversation moved into the realm of sharing and licensing content. Leo was asked about Creative Commons licenses. The licenses enable creatives to determine how others can use their content. You can also select setting for CC licenses on the flickr photo-sharing service.
Audience member asked how they see their brands evolving. Justine says she sees creating a platform to making a community like Leo making things possible for others who enjoy what they do.
Laporte says he loves working with these people. It's scary when you start making money, because things change. He still works in mainstream media in TV and radio, so for him it's a hobby and it all synergizes really well. He's created a brand of himself. When he appears on Regis & Kelly or is on a podcast -- five years ago he wanted to be the Martha Stewart of tech. He's not anxious about being a millionaire. He likes doing it the way he's doing it. People tell him he could be bigger with proper management. What's really satisfying to him is finding people who really have talent and helping them create their own voice and their own cult. On tech.tv he was the only one who had television experience. By sharing his own notoriety with Kevin Rose, Kevin was able to create a career for himself.
How does Justine separate her real world? She says it's difficult. She doesn't have a boyfriend right now. He grandmother subscribes to her RSS feeds and gets her Twitter updates. So her family is part of her life. Some people don't want to be public in her world online. She can't tag them in photos on facebook or things like that. This livecasting thing has been a social experiment.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 5:02 PM
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Report from BlogWorldExpo: The New Media Moguls Roundtable
Highlights from 11.08.07 5:15 PM Featured Panel Keynote @ BlogWorldExpo
Are blogging networks and blogging communities (group blogs) becoming more like MSM (mainstream media) or are they still blogs? That's the question I asked myself as I listened to this panel. And, does it even really matter? Isn't media going to become more like an intersection between the blogosphere and the mainstream with UGC (user generated content) playing a larger role in MSM?
Panel include: Richard Jalichandra (CEO Technorati), Roger L. Simon (Pajamas Media), Jeremy Wright (b5 media), Brad Hill (Director of Weblogs Inc.). Moderator: Jason Shellen (The Secret Agency)
Brad Hill: The future is richer media. We're getting more into video. Opening the door federating sites together and inviting blog brands that match verticals. Cooperating on content and business issues. 2008 seems huge to me for the whole industry hope it's huge for us as well.
Roger L. Simon: Moving in an environmental direction. Our site called energytrek. This site will be a place where everyone can go and record contributions in energy conservation arena.
Jason Shellen: What can new media learn from new media?
Richard Jalichandra: More likely to twitter than blog on a daily basis.
Jason Shellen: How does that factor into networks?
Brad Hill: Some of your readers probably read your site without ever visiting it. Push the brand off the site and into the pipeline where the audience is. It's an old concept that the people should come to you . Widgets is a big part. Remove from home base. Sharing traffic. Get your brand extended everywhere you can think of by every technology you have at your disposal.
Jeremy Wright: Just finished aquisition of a video network. Negotiating a podcast network. We shared our tech with a business blog network. We do everything we can to promote social content
Jason Shellen: How do you define blog? Tony at alwayson had problem with defining blog and huffington post and then other sites came along and called posting blogging.
Roger L. Simon: We can let it evolve and not control the word blog. It's a democratic publishing platform that opened up and changed publishing. Where do we go from here? Some of us made networks -- our model, huff post model, weblogs model -- all these different things. The Internet is the electronic equivalent of the pacific ocean -- endless. We are all kind of swimming along in there. Some will be lucrative and be there and be powerful. Son't worry about blog or media company just get in and do your thing.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 4:52 PM
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Report from BlogWorldExpo: Blogging and Television
Highlights from 11.08.07 4 PM session: Blogging and Television @ BlogWorldExpo.
I came to this session expecting a talk about the intersection of blogging and television, perhaps even some highlights on Vlogging (video blogging). It was definitely a good panel, each participant had great case studies to share and presented their information with clarity and insight. The but here is that it wasn't as fluid in terms of what was presented, as each participant came from extremely different backgrounds. Read on, and you'll see what I mean.
Kesu James worked with BBDO New York to create the HBO Voyeur Project as a case study in voyeurism:
The project Weapons of Misdirection in a sense is a MilBlog (military blog), except it's fictional. Based on soldiers from the US, Kesu created characters focusing on the story about depleted geranium. Therefor there was fiction mixed with reality. The DOD (Department of Defense) called the site fake, but people said they didn't care. Kesu says we are in a new era of communications where entertainment properties are recognized as entertainment properties.
James Hibberd is an award-winning journalist whose blog " Rated" covers primetime television programming for the Los Angeles-based trade publication TelevisionWeek and its New York-based sister magazine AdvertisingAge.
Hibberd came up with the Idea to take the dullest part of coverage (his coverage) and turn it into a blog. That was the daily rating stories. Everyone gets Nielsen ratings and they all do the same thing with it. He says he was getting bored with his own stories and decided to put it into a blog.
He says: Instead of just here are the numbers, here are the stories behind the numbers. People in the industry; why a show didn't or did do well. Within 4 months more traffic to the blog than to regular stories. Got linked on Drudge and others. We started adding Q&A's and more themed stuff around shows. Videos of rejected clips became a popular feature on site. Crain has started to syndicate to Advertising Age. Blog exists on both sites. Looking to syndicate even more. Even if you're a publication or business with formal or professional style there are ways to find blogging that works for you and improves your presence on the Web.
Josh Krane is Senior Vice President, Interactive and New Media of G4
He says: We are a small and newer cable network merged with tech.tv and redefined our brand. On air focus on men's entertainment and now broadening our reach of games. On the Web trying to move more and more into original production. Blog happened by accident. It turned into a TV product instead of trying to repurpose a TV product into a blog. It's a little easier to play in blogosphere. Our readers make their own podcasts and blogs so we try to get to them in their voice. Our blog is called The Feed.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 4:27 PM
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November 8, 2007
Design Thursday: Design for Democracy
If you doubt that design matters, think about the ballot you might have cast on this past Election Day—and then talk to Al Gore.
Two years before a blizzard of hanging chads froze Gore out of the Oval Office, a 1998 study found that punch-card ballots—which were widely used in the 2000 presidential election, especially in the two Florida counties that sparked a recount—were seriously flawed, with an error rate of roughly 15%. The study's title was certainly prescient: "Disenfranchised by Design: Voting Systems and the Election Process." Unfortunately, the report's wonky, understated conclusion—"recent research on voting systems demonstrates the need to improve usability..."—was virtually ignored.
But oh, how things changed after the fallout from the disastrous Florida recount. Spurred by a finding that poor ballot design cost Gore anywhere from 15,000 to 25,000 votes in Florida—which would have been more than enough to deliver him the presidency—a group of designers from AIGA launched an initiative to "re-enfranchise" voters, through design. Dubbed "Design for Democracy," the effort sought to redesign the entire voting experience, so as to bring clarity to everything from registering to navigating the polling place to casting the ballot to counting the actual vote.
Design for Democracy's crisp, intuitive ballots first tuned up in Cook County Illinois and the state of Oregon. Two years ago, that proof-of-concept effort led Design for Democracy to partner with the US Election Assistance Commission, to begin creating guidelines that will hopefully make balloting and polling-place material more comprehensible for all citizens. Basically, the designers crafted design guidelines for voting materials that can be customized by local designers, election officials, and printers for state and local jurisdictions. Their efforts are now supplemented by a book from Marcia Lausen, Design for Democracy: Ballot and Election Design, that amounts to an invaluable guide for voter advocates.
Those who equate design with decoration might wonder: how in the world can color palettes and typography create a better-informed electorate? The answer lies in the realization that behind every design is a process—a thought process. And just as unfocused design thinking brought us the debacle of butterfly ballots and chads in 2000, perhaps objective, pragmatic design thinking might make the interaction between the US government and its citizens a whole lot more trustworthy and efficient. A year from now, we'll know the answer, when the 2008 election returns come rolling in.
Posted by Bill Breen at 11:07 PM
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The Selling of An Album: Jay-Z's American Gangster
When Jay-Z (née Shawn Carter), the rapper turned music mogul and top Forbes hip-hop money maker (banking an estimated $34 million in 2006), first announced that he was inspired by the film American Gangster and was coming out of retirement, once again, to record an album -- like many of his true fans, I was excited. Others brushed it off as a marketing scheme. To come out of retirement because he knew that the movie, of the same name as his album, based on the life of Frank Lucas, an infamous Harlem drug lord turned snitch, played by Denzel Washington, was going to be a smash.
If that is the case, it proves Jay-Z's business acumen all the more. Where's the bad in timing a record release to a sure-to-hit movie? Though it's not the official soundtrack, best selling movies usually have best selling soundtracks, and since this is a soundtrack by extension -- ah, well, you get the math.
There's a few other things that Jay-Z understands about the music business, but I'm not too sure he's on point with some of his thinking. Long a target of the black market, in which bootleg CDs of official CDs are sold on the street, Jay-Z has always been cautious about leaks (in fact Jay Smooth of illdoctrine vlogs about what Jay-Z could learn from Radiohead's distribution of their own album in a digital format in this instance).
In that regard, weeks ago I preordered Jay-Z's album from iTunes. But the day of the album's release, Nov. 6, the album was not available on iTunes. In fact I had to check my preorders in my account in order for it to start downloading. I couldn't understand why the album was on sale at Amazon and not on iTunes. This required further investigation on my part.
While the album is available as both a CD and MP3 download on Amazon, the MP3s are only available if you purchase the entire album. On iTunes, on the other hand, the album is not available at all, which means only people who preordered as I did were able to purchase from iTunes. Here's a bit more about why.
Shawn "Jay-Z" Carter has announced that the LP will not be for sale through iTunes -- not because of disputes over DRM or pricing like the usual iTunes-related complaints. Rather, he doesn't want the album to be broken down into individually-purchasable tracks."As movies are not sold scene by scene, this collection will not be sold as individual singles," Carter said in a statement sent out earlier this week. Instead, eager listeners will need to purchase the full album from other retailers like Rhapsody and brick-and-mortar stores. [ars technica]
Now of course this can only work if the album is actually an album. In the case of Jay-Z, at least this time around, it is. It's a concept album, chronicling the rise and fall of a successful drug dealer. But unfortunately for Jay-Z, iTunes is in the business of selling singles. And I'm going out on a limb to say that even if he wanted to sell the album in its entirety as we see on Amazon, it wasn't something that Apple was willing to do.
What Jay-Z seems to be forgetting here is that P2P and Torrent sites haven't ceased to exist, and that people will make individual tracks available to friends on sharing sites such as these and other online storage sites. In fact, they might even make at least streaming of the songs available on imeem, a media sharing site for audio and video that uses a media player.
The music industry's understanding of how social media is affecting consumer behavior continues to elude me (Club Monaco -- yes the clothing company -- is hosting a conversation on this very subject in New York on Monday, with Ian Schafer, CEO and Founder of Deep Focus, an entertainment marketing company). On one hand, when they stop threatening sites like YouTube and imeem and partner with them, you think they get it. Then when they make moves like Jay-Z's recent move, you understand that the need to control comes from an understanding that there really is no control. At the end of the day, the consumer is in control, and ultimately, entertainment companies are going to need to listen to the consumer.
Once the final digital sales roll in, they definitely won't reflect the true number of fans who have acquired this music digitally. In fact, many fans will be upset when the album isn't available in formats they're used to. Those fans will be the very ones who seek other means -- or simply write the album off altogether.
Related Content:
Now, That's Entertainment Technology
When media and tech collide, the consumer wins. Prepare for a media world of unimaginable freedom and endless choices. By Chris Dannen
Slideshow: The Latest and Greatest Innovations in Entertainment Technology
The new wave of technology has the big names in entertainment cozying up to the new kids on the block. Look for significant shakeups in the music and television industries and small steps toward less conservative approaches infilm and radio. Plus, Web 2.0 finally clicks with Internet titans, and companies catch the gaming bug. By April Joyner
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 6:17 PM
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Report from BlogWorldExpo: The Future of WordPress
Liveblog of highlights from morning keynote session @ BlogWorldExpo.
Edward Sussman, executive vice president for the online and business development groups at Mansueto Ventures LLC and the president of the Inc.com and FastCompany.com network of sites interviews Matt Mullenweg founding developer of WordPress.
Matt: In terms of writing on the Web the tools suck. There's no spellcheck. No good way to tie blogs together. Pingbacks are rough. Comments are rough. There are things still fundamentally behind -- we're like in year four of a 10 year blogging history. We're thinking about every day how can we make it easy for people to publish their site. We're starting a firefox model, we're you can update from clicking a button.
Ed: Any big changes in video blogs and podcasts?
Matt: Photo blogs are still probably my favorite. It's rich media but I can still scan it. I would say a lot of the video stuff we're seeing today is reblogged content. Video is still tricky to do. Hard to encode these giant files. Audio casting is there. Not sure where it's gonna go. The written word, I'm still a fan.
Ed: Let's talk about your company and where you think you're going in a year, five years? You told me that part of your model was emulating Craigslist.
Matt: I love the Craigslist model in that -- if you ask Craig why doesn't he have ads on the site. And he'll say well the users didn't ask for it. They listen. A lot of the Websites that I interact with are a really bad date. They don't stop telling you about themselves and ask you how do you feel? How's that chicken.
Logistically we're going to get bigger. Especially on a global scale. Adding at least a developer in each language. Always going to be open source and I hope we stay alive.
Ed: Are you actively planning strategies for how you can monetize? Is that at the forefront or is it still in the background.
Matt: Capitalism is a working system. We did take a small investment about 2 1/2 years ago. If you look at companies making money on Internet, they've enabled others to profit. I think if there are ways to enable folks to profit and to keep it incredibly tactful.
Audience Question: What is driving WordPress forward?
Matt: At the time tools like geocities weren't sustainable in connecting with people. The tools I see working are the tools enabling people to interact with one another. I am a strong believer in open source. Selling software is completely die. As folks it's easy to get into these walled gardens. If we could create a framework that is opensource that enables us to run the data ourselves. I know this is incredibly geeky. I want the majority of content of the Web to be published open source. Right now Google did a survey looking at http headers and they published it. And it was like the people who had valid xml. .8% people on the Web had x pingback and that's us that's wordpress. My goal is to get that number up.
Audience Question: How can I monetize this for myself?
Matt: Start two years ago. All the numbers are trailing. Uniques over the past year. Political blogging is incredibly seasonal. You may not catch it this round. Start now. Fundraising. Contacting people. Getting in touch with people.
Posted by Lynne d Johnson at 3:38 PM
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Sports: Red Sox, Yankees No Match For…the Buffalo Sabres?
There has been some buzz this week about a new study conducted by Turnkey Sports and Entertainment. The 2007 Turnkey Team Brand Index ranks the local brand strength of every team, from 1-122, in the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL.
The key word -- and the stumbling point for some confused bloggers -- is local, as the purpose of the study was to evaluate team brands in their respective markets. That explains why the Yankees, clearly one of the most dominant sports brands in the world, come in at number 29. With competition from the Mets (43) and so many people moving to New York, it would be impossible for the Yankees to hold the same local sway as, say, the Cleveland Indians.
Of course, the study's limited focus also explains why the folks over at Deadspin filed the study under the heading "Useless Rankings." If we take a look at the results, what do they actually tell us?
Posted by Matthew Finkelstein at 1:17 PM
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Sustainability: Bottled Water Gets a Bad Rap
This just in: the bottled water industry is actually good for the environment. That's what Kim Jeffrey, chief executive of Nestle Waters, claims in a recent Q&A for the New York Times.
Not only do bottled water companies work hard to conserve the environment around the springs where they get their water, they also moderate greenhouse gas emissions from trucks by building plants close to the water source. Nestle is also phasing in a new bottle that uses 15 percent less plastic. Sure the industry is behind on recycling, but who isn't?
Somehow I'm not buying it. Clearly using tap water is better for the environment than bottled water. Jeffrey's other points, however, get at the real issue: people aren't buying bottled water in lieu of drinking tap water. They choose Poland Springs and Fiji water over Coke or Gatorade or Snapple. For the most part people are aware of the environmental issues with the industry, but that's not their main concern. They just want something to drink that isn't full of sugar.
Although growth in the industry has slowed, that doesn't mean people are buying less bottled water. They just aren't buying more. That seems unlikely to change anytime soon. It's going to take a lot more than global warming to convince people to just drink tap water.
Related Content:
Charles Fishman also talked to Kim Jeffrey for his article Message in Bottle, an in depth look at the bottled water industry.
Posted by Liz Webber at 11:35 AM
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Sustainability: $50 Million for Drywall?
That's what Serious Materials recently managed to raise for its EcoRock line of drywall set to come out next year. The reason investors are so excited about something seemingly so banal: Serious claims its drywall takes 90 percent less energy to produce than standard drywall, resulting in 98 percent less greenhouse gas emissions. When talking about an industry that creates 25 million tons of greenhouse gases each year, those numbers are significant enough to attract some attention.
"We look at it as the beginning of a new industrial revolution," says Serious president and CEO Kevin Surace. "What you're seeing is the opportunity to take everything that we do around us and get on the right side of the energy curve."
Continue reading "Sustainability: $50 Million for Drywall?"
Posted by Liz Webber at 10:31 AM
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