ouroboros

W+K @ Cannes

W+K has four entries shortlisted for this year's Cannes Cyberlions.  Work on behalf of Nokia ('Music Almighty' and 'Somebody Else's Phone), Laika (Integrated campaign for the feature film 'Coraline') and Old Spice ("Swaggerize Me") has been highlighted.  And some nice props for our Nokia partner agencies FarFar for their E66 and E71 'Unloader' work, and R/GA for their N-series 'Vine' work.

Alice.com - would you buy CPG's from this old woman?

I know - I was hoping for something else, too.  And if you are looking for Mr. Cooper's August 2009 midwest tour dates and locations, click here.  Or listen to him now while you read.


sooo...was hanging on Mashable, when I came across their positive review of newly launched Alice.com - though a Web Van investor posted a "get serious"-type comment.

In the "I-can't-believe-anyone-would-do-this-but-hey-the-offers-aren't-half-bad-and-shipping-is-free" category, Alice.com offers some interesting tools, a decent product selection for launch, and lets you both buy your regular CPG purchase items direct (w/ free shipping via UPS) and/or set preferences and receive (email) reminders on when to restock. 

blah blah blah.

But one feature really stood out for me: the way alice.com uses coupons to create value and urgency using three variables - # of personal uses each coupon afforded, the offer expiration date, and the remaining number of available uses for the offer.  See the sample below on Old Spice:



Amy Jo Kim would be proud.  If you haven't seen her presentation on putting the "Fun in Functional", it's worth a read:

Putting the Fun in Functional

View more OpenOffice presentations from amyjokim.

conspiracy thought #42: when it wakes

<wtf>

I'll go back to advertising in a second, but humor me:

We increasingly use technology to externalize our inner life, and in so doing become an interconnected web of socio-cultural dendrite/axon linkages across social nets and microblog tools, newly capable of collective/connective action.  These micro-thoughts accrete to an outsourced 'collective unconscious' in the cloud - the new "reservoir of the experiences of our species."

Buddhist thought calls the dichotomy between inner and outer, between self and other, 'maya', or illusion. 

So what if we aren't individuals, per se, but in reality, 6 billion neurons, creating linkages and meaning for a mind that's slowly waking up with each new neuron that connects to the whole?  The world coming on line, connecting, a being shrugging off sleep in geologic time?  And when Jormagundr finally releases his tail, we're just an intergalactic Willy Loman with a meeting to make? 

Or that our new/accelerating interconnections aren't creating something new, but unleashing/unveiling something very very old?

And when it wakes, we go back to just being a billion bizarre little neurons in a greater consciousness?

"In the mythology of the Aztecs...the present fifth epoch is called Nahui-Olin (Sun of Earthquake), which began in 3113 BC and will end on December 24, 2011. It will be the last destruction of human existence on Earth. The date coincides closely with that determined by the brothers McKenna in The Invisible Landscape as “the end of history” indicated by their computer analysis of the ancient Chinese oracle-calendar, the I Ching. The Mayan calendar comes to an end on Sunday, December 23, 2012"

Or will someone hit snooze for another millenia or two and give us a shot?

</wtf>

alright, alright, I'll go back to looking for a brand using twitter well.

and reading Perry Bible Fellowship comics.

Qik in Iran

Twisualize this:

So I get pinged by Tim Nudd for an Adweek interview via twitter for #tweetfreak on the subject of 'availability'.

then twitter went down.  poetry.  Hopefully its because of the postponed maintenance to help Iranians tweet their streets, but still funny.

At the same time as these shenanigans, Kara Swisher wrote a great piece on Twitter as the Forrest Gump of International Relations -  some choice bits:

"...Harvard University Professor Jonathan Zittrain said: 'It is easy for Twitter feeds to be echoed everywhere else in the world. The qualities that make Twitter seem inane and half-baked are what make it so powerful.'

Zittrain was being quoted in a New York Times piece today about the use of Twitter by those protesting the election results in Iran, as other means of modern mass communications–such as email, Facebook and texting–got blocked.

In other words, Twitter is so simplistic and silly that it is a perfect digital tool to overthrow a government–which is kind of makes the trendy microblogging service the Forrest Gump of international relations.

While not always reliable, masses of people chattering away has always been the most fluid way in which news has been disseminated and received. Although much of that can be mundane and borderline idiotic, one cannot deny its impact.

What one can deny, though, is the hype that inevitably follows in the wake of every one of these breakthrough technologies like Twitter.

That’s a mistake, because it is how the tools are used by people, more than the tools themselves, that should be the focus."

Nice, Kara!

wei?

wei?
Originally uploaded by theshanghaieye

nice...this one off flickr.

ATM'S that make me laugh

Few and far between, but this one at a Chase caught my eye.

Brick Lane, London

Commercial Street, London

Great Eastern Road, London

How can't 5 + 1 = crazy delicious?

Play Her Off, Keyboard Cat

Another reason to love the web. 

Piping hot video memes, from BrotatoChip via cairomedina.com:

Xob on it

Basic premise for Claire Miller's Monday NYT piece on tech startups = "you need more of a business model that ad revenue off eyeballs".  My favorite quote on the subject comes from Jeff Bonforte, CEO of Xobni (a search tool/functional layer  for Outlook):

"Ads are an inefficient business model, making indirect revenue as a result of behavior and advertising to people who don't want to see them or for whom they're irrelevant."

Wha-BAAAAMMm.

The web is full of tools

You had to got here, didn't you?  No really.  We are seeing lots of really interesting (free) tools emerging from the mist to help savvy marketers track their meme-contrails in digi-space.  A host of them I've used in the past week:

Backtweets.com: Enables you to track WHO has sent a particular URL around, as well as the method folks used (email, IM, twitter, etc.).  Great way to see not only what's buzzing but who's buzzing about it.

Tweepz: Lot of folks let you search the content of tweets, Tweepz let's use search Twitter profiles for user's particular predilictions - the only problem being, of course, that the tool will only let you search what they've chosen to make explicit, and yes, Virginia, tastes changes and not everyone reveals everything - still, great as a directional tool and one that lets you rank by #followers, #following, etc.

Bit.ly+: I'm still reeling with this one - grab any bit.ly URL, add a '+' after it and drop it in your browser bar and get all the info behind that link.  Given their default position within twitter (and tweetdeck) this is the first of many analytics tools for tracking mini-URL propagation, and giving folks a glimpse into the new frontier of real time idea propagation.

Betaworks' Borthwick on Flow

"Think" blog author John Borthwick, CEO of Betaworks, wrote a fascinating piece entitled "Distribution...now", about the emergence of the "Now" web - an interactive experience fed by the flow (or streams) of real time data.  It's well worth the read, and here's some bits:

"Dave Winer put it this way: 'think about Twitter as a rope of information — at the outset you assume you can hold on to the rope.  That you can read all the posts, handle all the replies and use Twitter as a communications tool, similar to IM — then at some point, as the number of people you follow and  [that] follow you rises — your hands begin to burn. You realize you can't hold the rope you need to just let go and observe'  

...[data stream] context is provided mostly via social interactions and gestures.    People send out a message...[their] network pick up from there.   The message is re-tweeted, favorite’d,  liked or re-blogged, appropriated with attribution to creator or the source message...it spins, picking up velocity and more context as it swirls." 

Manzai

well of course.

Fun Stuff

If you saw Kutiman's "Mother of all funk chords" youtube mashup, now you can watch it on yooouuutuuube.  Gotta tell you - addictive.

Just in time for Mother's Day, MomsRising.org offers a personalizable "Mom of the Year" video through, yes, "CNNBC.com". Yes, I made and sent.

And Google releasing O3D api.

H1N1 Apocalyptic Mashup Fun

Swine Flu live on Google Maps. 

And if Swine Flu IS the end of humanity, you can tell your grandkids you followed it on Twitter  @CDCemergency!   Oh wait - no you won't.

Brrrrr.

View H1N1 Swine Flu in a larger map

Beverage USB/NFC

Poken

talking poken on 12seconds.tv Thanks to Shingo, Mai and Yuko for showing me their Pokens.

GeoCities, R.I.P.

Pour out one for your homepages.

Facebook Rights - and Ad Model Fail

We were having an internal debate about the Declaration of Independence today, while at the same time, voting is closing on the proposed Facebook Governance Documents. 

I know you know.  And I know you know that if Facebook were a country, its 200+MM population would make it the world's 5th largest (they just passed Brazil)

And here are the proposed "Guiding Principles" (hum "Mine eyes have seen the glory" as you read):

1. Freedom to Share and Connect

People should have the freedom to share whatever information they want, in any medium and any format, and have the right to connect online with anyone – any person, organization or service – as long as they both consent to the connection.

2. Ownership and Control of Information

People should own their information. They should have the freedom to share it with anyone they want and take it with them anywhere they want, including removing it from the Facebook Service.  People should have the freedom to decide with whom they will share their information, and to set privacy controls to protect those choices. Those controls, however, are not capable of limiting how those who have received information may use it, particularly outside the Facebook Service.

3. Free Flow of Information

People should have the freedom to access all of the information made available to them by others. People should also have practical tools that make it easy, quick, and efficient to share and access this information.

4. Fundamental Equality

Every Person – whether individual, advertiser, developer, organization, or other entity – should have representation and access to distribution and information within the Facebook Service, regardless of the Person’s primary activity. There should be a single set of principles, rights, and responsibilities that should apply to all People using the Facebook Service.

5. Social Value

People should have the freedom to build trust and reputation through their identity and connections, and should not have their presence on the Facebook Service removed for reasons other than those described in Facebook’s Statement of Rights and Responsibilities.

6. Open Platforms and Standards

People should have programmatic interfaces for sharing and accessing the information available to them. The specifications for these interfaces should be published and made available and accessible to everyone.

7. Fundamental Service

People should be able to use Facebook for free to establish a presence, connect with others, and share information with them. Every Person should be able to use the Facebook Service regardless of his or her level of participation or contribution.

8. Common Welfare

The rights and responsibilities of Facebook and the People that use it should be described in a Statement of Rights and Responsibilities, which should not be inconsistent with these Principles.

9. Transparent Process

Facebook should publicly make available information about its purpose, plans, policies, and operations. Facebook should have a town hall process of notice and comment and a system of voting to encourage input and discourse on amendments to these Principles or to the Rights and Responsibilities.

10. One World

The Facebook Service should transcend geographic and national boundaries and be available to everyone in the world.

Wow.

Impressive, inspiring, thought provoking.

SO where does the "Ad Fail" part come in? 

Despite near-continuous, above the fold, high visibility FB profile page placements for the past week or so, only 536K+ members have voted.  

That's about .2%. 

And only 109K FB'ers (that's ~.05% of the total pop) have become "Fans" of the ''Facebook Governance Page', meaning they will receive updates and posts about any conversations or proposed changes to the documents. 

So in a community of 200MM+, only about a half million are participating in creating the global guiding principles.

Wow.  All they had to do was click and vote.

Twice as many people voted for the guiding principles of what has become for many an indispensable social utility, as were sacrificed for Whoppers in a single promotion.

Sheniak in Tokyo poses deep questions...

Daniel Sheniak, W+K Communications Guru, exploring the streets of Tokyo in a culturally sensitive fashion, wonders, "in our migration to micropublishing, have we turned our back on macro-living?"

"Has culture shifted its focus from achieving great things to mindless celebrity pursuit (aided and abetted by technology proliferation)?  What could the million people on twitter have done other than follow Ashton on Twitter?"

I'd argue that technology provides the framework for us to do great things together - and Ashton Kutcher's twitter-palooza meant 10,000 malarial nets for the cost of a click.

What do you think?

Cell Fatwas

[found @ textually.org]

Fatwa Issued Answering Cell Phone during Aayat

A Muslim organization has issued a fatwa over using verses from the Koran as ringtones, saying that answering the call while the aayat (verses from the Koran) is going on is a sin. It argues that people answer calls midway through the aayat, leave the verse incomplete. TechTree reports via Channel 4.

"The panel of clerics in Kanpur India, also said that taking a cellphone to the toilet as it rings is a sin because aayat cannot be heard in a toilet."

Other cell phone related Fatwas:

-- A Fatwa Against Ringtones - An imam at a Mosque in Saudi Arabia issued a fatwa against mobile phones after one rang during prayers on Saturday, playing Arabic pop music.

Got to do a short TED talk...

I was chosen by curator Chris Anderson to deliver a short talk during TED2009 on the coping strategies we've developed to deal with how "available" technology has enabled us to become.

I talk about an emergent 'culture of availability' - a culture that doesn't just allow or enable always-on connectivity, it expects it.  The more connected we CAN be, I argue, the higher the obligation/expectation to reciprocate when someone seeks to connect with us. 

Consider the "acceptable lag" between receiving a voicemail and returning a call, receiving an email and replying, receiving a text message and replying or receiving a direct tweet and replying.

With all this connection comes the danger that in our mad rush to be everywhere, we end up  nowhere.  That the technology we use to connect, actually separates and isolates.

I've been meaning to post that presentation and the commentary behind it, but TED.com beat me to the punch and put the talk up today.  Here it is:

BTW - here's a pic of the TED theater, when I came in the day before for a soundcheck and left with my innards frozen in icy terror.