Sunday, September 27, 2009
Saturday, September 26, 2009
"The Web As Random Acts of Kindness" - Jonathan Zittrain's TED Talks Video
via ted.com
A great TED Talks video documenting how random of acts of kindness are molding our online experience, whether we realize it or not.
Friday, September 25, 2009
Dear Rupert Murdoch: We Won't Pay For News Online. Sincerely, All Of Us.
Courtesy of BusinessInsider.com:
" Asked what they would do if their favorite news site suddenly began charging, 74% of respondents said they would "find another free site," according to a Harris Interactive study commissioned by PaidContent UK. Only 5% said they'd pay to continue reading.
We wonder if studies like this will put any kind of damper on Rupert Murdoch's plans to charge for access to much more of News Corp's online news and entertainment content -- from celebrity pics to the Wall Street Journal. "
Is The Dollar { $ } The New Yen { ¥ }, Or Is It The New Peso { $ } ??
via cnbc.com
Courtesy of cnbc.com:
" The falling US dollar is expected to get even weaker, moving to the center of a carry trade and encouraging global investors to borrow more dollars to fund higher-yielding currencies and assets. Is this necessarily a bad thing and does this mean the dollar will become the new yen? Peter Schiff, president of Euro Pacific Capital, shared his thoughts.
“I don’t know when [the dollar] is going to strengthen,” Schiff told CNBC. “The dollar isn’t the new yen, it’s unfortunately the new peso.”
Schiff said the yen carry trade is over and the new Japanese government is even talking about the benefits of a stronger yen for the domestic economy.
“The yen has gone a lot higher but the dollar is going to go a lot lower, which makes it ideal,” said Schiff. “Not only can you borrow dollars for very cheap and earn to carry by investing in higher yielding assets, but the dollar is going to fall sharply. So anyone who puts on the carry trade is going to make a ton of money.”
Schiff said the Federal Reserve will soon run into the dilemma of either having to supply the carry traders with an endless amount of cheap dollars or put a halt to the carry trade and aggressively raise interest rates, which will “bring on a much more severe recession than anything we’ve experienced so far.”
Meanwhile, Schiff said he owns the Australian and Canadian dollars as well as the Japanese yen.
“I own a lot of Japanese yen—I think it’s breaking out and the chart looks fantastic,” he said.
“I wouldn’t be looking at any pullbacks from these currencies. There’s a much better chance that the dollar drops through a trap door…I’ve been shorting the dollar for years. I do it because I own foreign currencies, precious metals, and foreign stocks.” "
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Emergence of Microsoft's Amazing "Courier" Tablet-Science Fiction Becomes Science Fact.
via fastcompany.com
From Fastcompany.com / Gizmodo.com
" Check out the video of Courier in action--Gizmodo's apparently obtained the information from directly within Microsoft's secret development team. (The video file shown last night was titled "projectwood" but don't be fooled into thinking that's a Microsoft code name.) It's a dual 7-inch screen unit with Wi-fi, GPS and camera built-in.
It's amazing, isn't it? The kind of amazingly futuristic UI that we've seen a thousand times in sci-fi movies, infused with Surface-like powers, promising a crossover between a Star Trek digital pad, and The HitchHiker's Guide to The Galaxy as depicted in the movie, and the voice of that spooky lady in the Palm Pre ads. It's also, according to Gizmodo, absolutely real, in development and currently at a "late prototype" stage. You will, allegedly, be able to buy this thing soon. "
Tuesday, September 22, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Sprint-T-Mobile Merger Could Hit Static In D.C.
via mediapost.com
From Mediapost.com:
" A report in the U.K.'s Sunday Telegraph that Deutsche Telekom AG is considering buying Sprint Nextel sent the U.S. carrier's stock surging on Monday, up 11% this afternoon. Citing unnamed sources, the article said the company could make a bid for Sprint in the next few weeks.
The merger would give fourth-ranked carrier T-Mobile and third-largest Sprint a combined 78 million U.S. mobile customers and position the new entity as a more formidable competitor to Verizon Wireless and AT&T. At least one analyst welcomed the deal as beneficial to the entire wireless industry because it would mean less price competition.
"There's just too many cooks in the kitchen in the U.S. wireless market right now, and the logical route to consolidation is a combination of Sprint and T-Mobile," Craig Moffett, an analyst at Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. told Bloomberg. "This is an industry that is calling out for consolidation."
But news of a possible T-Mobile-Sprint merger comes at a time when the government is looking broadly into competition in the wireless industry. The Federal Communications Commission last month began a formal inquiry into areas such as exclusive deals between handset makers and carriers, wireless billing practices and whether current conditions in the wireless market allow for new entrants.
The major carriers have opposed increased regulation in large part on the grounds that there's already robust competition in the wireless market, with consumers have a choice of four or five providers in a given market. But the merger of two of the four biggest U.S. carriers would undercut that argument, leaving only three national operators.
Given the heightened scrutiny the wireless industry is already under in Washington, it doesn't seem regulators or Congress would look favorably on such a deal that would further limit competition. So even if Wall Street is cheering the proposed match, don't expect the deal to get a warm welcome in the capital if it comes to that. "
Friday, September 11, 2009
Watch 'The Breakfast Club', 'Carlito's Way', And Other Films/TV Shows For FREE on AT&T's Uverse
AT&T, in partnership with Hulu.com, has launched its new video portal, http://entertainment.att.net/tv , with a broad range of free-access movie/tv show content, such as:
Movies
The Breakfast Club
Carlito's Way
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas
Along Came Polly
The Last Temptation of Christ
TV
Lost
Ugly Betty
30 Rock
The Office
Monk
How I Met Your Mother
Dexter
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
" Is Every Tuesday 'Fat Tuesday' For Marketers on Facebook? " (Tuesdays Have Highest CTRs)
via mediapost.com
From Media Post.com:
" Is every Tuesday Fat Tuesday for marketers on Facebook? According to new data from social media services provider ViTrue, that's the day of the week when click-through rates are highest on content posted on the walls of brand pages on Facebook, at 9.89%.
More broadly, the click-through rate on wall posts on marketers' Facebook pages was highest from Monday through Wednesday, averaging 9.72% before dropping sharply to 4.39% on Thursday, and dropping further to 2.67% and 2.7% on Friday and Saturday. On Sunday, the rate starts rebounding, at 7.63%.
The findings follow ViTrue's initial release last month of click-through data for brands' Facebook wall posts, which average 6.76% and stand in stark contrast to the anemic rates for display advertising generally on Facebook and other social networks. The company comes up with its estimate by assuming that about one-twelfth of the total Facebook audience is online at any given time, available to see a message.
The number of fans a brand has is also factored into the calculation, with the total number of clicks on a specific post divided by the number of fans who saw it, adjusted to reflect that not every fan is on Facebook all the time. So if a brand has 100 fans and a wall post gets five clicks, that's a 5% click-through rate. But if only 20% actually saw the post, it would be a 20% rate. It comes down to a mixture of math and educated guesswork.
The latest research goes a step further by suggesting that certain days of the week might be better for launching a promotion or other marketing effort on a Facebook brand page. "This highlights the importance for marketers of having a well thought-out communication strategy for updating their brand page and when to create wall posts to get the optimum response," said ViTrue CEO Reggie Bradford.
He surmises that response rates are generally higher early in the week when people are more active on Facebook fan pages, and drop off as users turn to other pursuits on the weekend. Rates start to ramp up again on Sunday as people begin planning the week ahead via Facebook.
"The point isn't to say only do wall posts on Tuesdays," said Bradford. "The point is that there are differences among days of the week and thinking has to happen behind the wall posts so you can maximize the impact."
Shiv Singh, vice president and global social media lead at Razorfish, agreed that the timing of new messages on Facebook pages is an important consideration for marketers. "So the question ViTrue is trying to answer is a very valuable one." But he added that interaction can vary among specific pages depending on a variety of factors including the type of content and audience demographics, making it hard to generalize about the timing of new posts.
He added that he'd have to dig deeper into ViTrue's research and methodology to gain more assurance of its validity.
In the coming months, ViTrue plans to refine its research further by releasing an analysis of click-throughs on wall posts by daypart. ViTrue's findings are derived from its Social Relationship Manager suite of planning and reporting tools, which it launched last month. The sample data is compiled from wall posts garnering nearly 200 million fan impressions from March through August 2009.
ViTrue does not disclose how many Facebook brand pages were included in the study, but says it encompasses several Fortune 500 brands across several categories.
"As tools and platforms become more sophisticated, we'll see more segmenting of messaging by daypart and all those other types of measurement," said Bradford. "
" The 10 Levels of Intimacy in Communication "
via pleaseenjoy.com
Great visualization and compelling analysis from Ji Lee, @ pleaseenjoy.com:
10 Levels of Intimacy in Communication
" The digital age has changed the ways in which we share our most important opinions and innermost secrets. We chose different communication platforms depending on the level of intimacy we feel towards the recipient of the message and the nature of the message itself. The combination of technology and weight of information has given us new rules for just how we communicate with each other. This chart also ponders the question: Do more options to communicate with each other connect us or alienate us more? "
Monday, September 7, 2009
"Everybody's Got Mixed Feelings About The Function And The Form; Everybody's Got To Deviate From The Norm" - RUSH - Vital Signs
via youtube.com
Contemplating the Frank Zappa quote,
" Without Deviation From The Norm, Progress Is Not Possible. ",
reminded me of the classic song, "Vital Signs", written by Neil Peart, performed by RUSH from the 1981 album, "Moving Pictures".
"Vital Signs"
Unstable condition: A symptom of life
In mental, And environmental
Change
Atmospheric disturbance--The feverish flux
Of human interface And interchange
The impulse is pure--Sometimes our circuits get shorted,
By external interference
Signals get crossed--And the balance distorted
By internal incoherence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a mood lifter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody's got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody's got to deviate
From the norm
An ounce of perception, A pound of obscure.
Process information at half speed.
Pause, rewind, replay, | Worn memory chip,
Random sample, hold the one you need.
Leave out the fiction--The fact is; This friction
Will only be worn by persistence
Leave out conditions--Courageous convictions
Will drag the dream into existence
A tired mind become a shape-shifter
Everybody need a soft filter
Everybody need reverse polarity
Everybody's got mixed feelings
About the function and the form
Everybody's got to elevate
From the norm
Thursday, September 3, 2009
R.I.P. DJ AM | Tommie Sunshine's 'Barletta - Whisper' Tribute Mix {Soundclound.com MP3}
Barletta - Whisper [Tommie Sunshine's 'Tribute To DJ AM' Mix] by tommiesunshine
via soundcloud.com
Courtesy of Soundcloud.com. R.I.P. DJ AM.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
" Boob Tube Still Dwarfs YouTube " {Chart}
From businessinsider.com's 'Chart of The Day':
" Watching Web video is popular and growing, but people still watch remarkably more video on their TVs than on their computers or cellphones, according to Nielsen.
And when looking at average time spent watching each, TV viewing actually grew more -- per hour, per person, per month -- over the last year than Web video. Last quarter, the average U.S. Web video viewer watched 3 hours, 11 minutes per month, up about 1 hour each, year-over-year. But the average U.S. TV viewer watched over 40X more video: 141 hours per month, up about 2 hours year-over-year.
Meanwhile, watching mobile TV is still a niche activity: Just 15 million Americans did it in Q2, according to Nielsen. That's just about 6% of the U.S. mobile market. And time spent watching declined about 20 minutes per viewer, per month. "
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