Intuition for play and purpose

Luis Von Ahn, a professor at Carnegie Mellon University is putting the collective intelligence of internet users to good use, and he's doing it in a resonant way: games. Von Ahn devised two easy online games, The ESP Game and Phetch that put active users together in an internet version of charades. One person sees a photo and tries to give clues for the others to go out and find it.

Through these games, Von Ahn is giving people a fun way to solve a problem that cannot be solved by computers yet, called "human computation." The trick of these games is that descriptions for every image are logged--and stored as tags. The ESP site claims that every image on the web could be tagged in a matter of weeks should the game be played as much as other popular online games. And he very well could be on to something. During a speech at Google, Von Ahn pointed out the unharnessed potential of people playing games online....

Wigetization: Daft Punk Promo Widget

Daft Punk, the French electronic duo known for making music that scares your cat and using robots for live shows, have decided to promote their new live album, Alive, with an embeddable widget, which allows visitors to listen to previews of new tracks, buy the single, read Daft Punk’s biography, read the newsletter, and see a photo gallery of the band.

“Standard” promotional tools are giving way to user-syndicated web based promotion and social networking - at costs that are next to nothing.

via Mashable and Brand Republic

Makes You Think.

"Interesting Snippets" is a flickr site for Lynette Webb, a Senior Strategic Insights Manager at Google UK (previously incorrectly described (by me) as Director of Futures). In her own words, it's "my personal dumping ground for various cool quotes, the odd stat, as slides to talk around when describing how things are changing online and in media & communications generally."

It's essentially a blog that is headlined with an interesting picture and quote (often from a blog, article or speech). I would love to ask which usually comes first: inspiration from a photo, the stat or a broad idea that she finds can be articulated in one of the first two.

What's Next: The New Keyboard for the Texting Generation

Given I'm just a couple years out and, as many who know me would agree, still as prone to immature humor as ever, one of my favorite sites continues to be College Humor. While running through the RSS feeds today, caught this article on what a keyboard redesigned for the texters and IM junkies among us may look like. Silly as it might be, makes me wonder if this would actually be met with success...


The left...

and the right side...

can't forget that number pad

Trash Talk: Plastic Bag Gallery

The Photographers’ Gallery invited people to submit photographs of plastic bags spotted around London and elsewhere which can be viewed here.


[…]Reminding us of our ability to consume and dispose, this project provides the public with their own platform for visual expression and is part of the Gallery’s continued remit to encourage further audience participation and highlighting photography’s influence in everyday life.[…]

via GHAVA

Guilty Pleasure: OS Bape

Fashion appareller Bathing Ape's website is more like an Operating System that loads onto your computer, not on the web per se. Nothing dangerous happens, prob not sticky enough to leave it on forever, but an interesting approach toward maintaining Bape's "band apart" ideals. Accepting this BAPE OS is sorta like bondage games - with a brand you like.
The top left corner (consider it the safeword) exits out when you're bored with it...or gotta get work done. It actually works in the background on my MacBook, so you may never need to exit out, actually.

A great strategy for a passion brand like uber-luxe Bape...the average Wal-Mart and Meineke Mufflers prob can't roll like this, though.


thnx to Simon Law for the pointr.

Virtuality: CSI Murder Investigation Enters Second Life

Next week 10/24 CSI:NY will be taking it's mainstream audience- and a historically traditional network- into the virtual world for an hour of murder mystery. The episode will feature the detectives perusing the world for clues as they try to solve the case, and will attempt to draw people in by inviting them to CBS.com for a "live simulation" of Second Life and the chance to be virtual detectives to see if they can crack the mystery. The NY Times has more details, worth a read.

An interesting and perhaps the most mainstream play since virtual world buzz began to get people engaged with Second Life. Could potentially be a turning point for 2L: if, even after the counterintuitive and confusing process of getting started and moving around is simplified and tied to a network TV show, people still don't engage, what then? What's next in the evolution of Virtuality? On the other hand, if it's executed well and gets a strong reaction, what's the next step to deepen that engagement?

I'm not a fan of the show- truth be told I've never seen an episode- but I'm definitely eager to see how this turns out.

In the meantime, suppose we'll have to settle for the trailer while we wait a week for that virtual goodness.

Radiohead Did It Again

I thought about disclaiming off the bat that I am a diehard Radiohead fan, but then realized that's like saying I have two arms and two legs--describes nearly everyone.

Radiohead has built itself into a category of untouchables through decades of unbelievable work. It's one of the few bands ever to evolve with changing times and produce drastic evolutions from album to album.

Now, Radiohead has turned the inner workings of the music industry on its ear. Today, Radiohead released an album that you can buy for whatever price you like. On its own site--not through a record label. Name the amount and you will own a digital version of the new album. By cutting out the middleman and eliminating physical products to distribute, Radiohead keeps most of the money. In theory--the site is so overwhelmed with traffic that I can't get it to load.

Maybe the real disclosure should have been that I am predisposed to thinking anything Radiohead does is awesome. In reality, it's probably not a sustainable business model for anyone but the top artists who have a devout following of millions, but it is a signal that there are ways to distribute music outside of EMI and iTunes.

Brave New Media: How Facebook Users Spend Their Time

Compete.com blog discusses "how Facebook users spend their time".

Not unsurprisingly, people spend most of their time browsing profiles, but using applications is getting up there in terms of number of users, and the time spent is almost as long.

And speaking of Facebook Apps...Compete data show that Facebook activity grew 32% from May to August, 2007, with more than a third of the growth coming from the new applications.


And furthermore...O'Reilly released a report The Facebook Application Platform and it has good and bad news. Good: there are nearly 5000 Facebook applications, and the top applications have tens of millions of installs and millions of active users. Bad news: 87% of the usage goes to only 84 applications! Only 45 applications have more than 100,000 active users. "This is a long tail marketplace with a vengeance -- but unfortunately, the economic models (for developers at least, though not for Facebook itself) all rely on getting into the very short head."

Here's the distribution of active users among the top 200 developers. (Some developers have multiple popular applications.) As you can see, the drop-off is extremely steep:


Doh! Tim O'Reilly says: "This doesn't mean that Facebook won't become an important platform for developers, just that a throwaway Facebook app is not the ticket to quick riches. Embracing the Facebook opportunity requires more than just optimism."

via O'Reilly Radar and Compete.com Blog

Guilty Pleasure: LOL Cat Rewrites the Bible

Beloved by cat fans, humor fans, and internet-randomness fans, LOLCat has taken one more step in formalizing its language as, well, a real language. LOLCats is translating the Bible.

Excerpt from the Book of Matthew:

19. Joseph was all liek "Oh snap, dis embarrassin. I's gonna hide mah wife".

20. But when he was tihnkin, zomg, angel frm Ceiling Cat was in his dreems! Angel sayed "Hai, don't be fraided to has Mary for ur wife, cuz her baby be frm Holey Ghosty."

For more LOL Cat love: Time Magazine article from July.

Guilty Pleasure: PassiveAgressiveNotes.com

The name is self-explainatory. Not since Hot Chicks With Douchebags have I seen a more amusing display of wild humans behaving in their natural habitats.

The American Mustache Institute

In case you haven't heard, there's a Fallon Mustache Contest going on and I'm a proud participant.

It started yesterday, the same day that New York Times advertising columnist Stuart Elliott wrote this feature on the American Mustache Institute (leadership pictured above).

As Elliott points out, this is more than a humor site. It's a net-roots PR effort designed to raise awareness for an annual event held in St. Louis, called 'Stache Bash, that raises money to fund a baseball league for disabled kids.

So instead of sending out a few press releases and crossing their fingers, they created a community with a fun hook that caught on with bloggers and even mainstream sports media.

According to Dan Callahan, a VP at Fleishman-Hillard in St. Louis (Omnicom) and one of the guys behind this idea (and, presumably, his mustache):

“...based on where things are headed, we thought we could do better by creating a community” through the online poll because “the idea of online community-building is the future.”

Ah yes, The Future.

The poll that launched the site last summer asked visitors to vote for the Top Sports Mustache of All Time.



Write-in candidate Keith Hernandez won.

Now they're asking us to vote on who deserves to be on Mount "Stachemore".



Are they really going to carve a memorial to the greatest mustaches of all time? I hope so, as long as the kids still get their baseball gear and everything.

And by the way, from Wikipedia: "The word is pronounced with the stress either on the first syllable or, more properly, on the second syllable."

'Stache on ya.

(Fallon Mustache Contest updates to follow. End date: Nov 1, 2007)

Social Currency: Cavemen on Primetime TV...But Does It Matter?

Peep a short clip of one of the Cavemen- of Geico fame- on the View:



Whether or not you like the campaign, got me thinking that, despite how much quirky characters can win attention from the masses, it can be a dangerous trap to fall into. Seeing it as an end (ie creating a TV show just because people "like" your characters) and not a means to an end. Attention is great, but if it doesn't translate into results, all is lost.

Example: a lot of people love commercials for Bud Light, Miller Light, and (my personal favorite) Miller High Life commercials. But, as funny as I think the latter are, do I drink it? Hmm...

Nike (and in particular Jordan) are some of my all-time favorite commercials...but I haven't bought a pair of either since I was in middle school.

Point being, it's attention getting creative, people talk about those spots, even love them...but do they act? Surely I'm inserting my own bias with these examples, so back to the point- I'm not saying the Cavemen haven't brought any results for Geico. But who is going to watch a TV show based on them? Who cares? :30 of them may be funny...but 30 minutes? Seriously? And even if people watch it...are they switching to Geico?

Anyone else have an opinion to throw in? Will you watch the show? Do you even like the Cavemen? If you're a Geico customer, what does it all do for you?

Virtuality: Google Planning to Launch "My World"

Ars Technica (Art of Technology blog) reports that Google is prepping it's own entry into the field of Virtual Worlds, potentially named "My World". Students at ASU (a school Google has a strong working relationship with in the past) this weekend received questionnaires that "hinted strongly" at the possibility that they would be among the first to test such an app later this year.

(Screengrab of the questionnaire courtesy of the MacRumors forum).


A logical step for Google, given that they've already made a foray into Virtuality with Google Earth.








And a significant move, not because it's just another virtual world for people to choose from, but because it is a mainstream tech giant adopting what some decry as little more than a passing fad, and it's yet further evidence that a 3D internet is the next logical progression of our digital lives.

A few snippets from the article:

"The notion that Google might test the new service with ASU students isn't very outlandish, then, so the question is more a matter of what the service will be rather than if it will come to fruition."

"To us, it seems that a virtual world is natural progression of Google Earth and its 3D representations of... well, the Earth. Users could create avatars, like those in Second Life. The "street view" feature of Google Maps could be incorporated, as well as Google SketchUp, with avatars being able to walk around on actual streets and enter real buildings to check out what's inside and socialize with other avatars. But the purpose wouldn't be to rival Second Life and all of its fantasy, sex, and moneymaking schemes."

"Whatever "My World" ends up being, we think that Google will go much further than just competing with Second Life—if the company makes it functionally useful and ties it in with services that people already use, it may have a chance of succeeding at getting average Internet users to participate."

Virtuality: Social Media in 3D

Caught a post over on adverblog about the launch of a new social networking site for your virtual self, Koinup. The site allows you to connect all of your virtual world experiences in one network- your activities from Second Life, World of Warcraft, The Sims all in one location, where you can post content of your adventures (video of a recent SL trip for example) and browse through the virtual lives of the sites other members.

This brings an interesting new layer to all of the talk around virtual worlds. KoinUp elevates the discussion above "worlds" and highlights the trend that our online activity is increasingly becoming virtual, so much so that we now need a social web to bring together all of the virtual identities that define us in the digital space.

I just came across this (thanks Aki) and while interested, still haven't quite decided where I see this going and how "big" it may be. Any readers out there more familiar and care to weigh in? For those of you in virtual worlds, do you see yourself social networking your virtual identities? Are you so dedicated that, in addition to maintaining Facebook, MySpace, and your other real world social webs that you would start a virtual side?

DO: "it's up to us"

Mark talks a lot around here about a growing sense of autonomy among Americans. The increased sentiment that “it’s up to me” and subsequent actions to protect “me and mine.” I grew up with a dad who staunchly believed in the right to bear arms, just in case the government went so askew that citizens needed to take up arms in correction. So I’ve had trouble reconciling my historical perception of autonomy with Mark’s more evolved version.

An article in Time magazine this week helped me bridge the gap. It profiled a new way of living, the EcoVillage at Ithaca (EVI). Liz Walker, a co-founder, describes her vision for EVI as “trying to create an attractive, viable alternative to American life.” It sounds really great. Over 150 people live in the community, and they all work together to reap benefits of communal food, daycare, and laundry.

But it’s not a commune. These are people who are dedicated to reducing their carbon footprint (and are very successful in doing so) by changing the way they live (not just planting 80 trees to make up for that vacay in Mexico).

And they’re not hippies. The community is very technologically advanced, adopting some bleeding-edge conservation concepts. Homes are “Norman Rockwell meets Al Gore,” and run up to $300k, yet there is a waiting list to join.

A second example of people getting together for change is happening in Philadelphia where crime has reached an unacceptable level. A group of concerned citizens, comprised of local executives and men who worked on the Million Man March, brought a proposal to the Police Commissioner: allow them to organize as volunteer peacekeepers. The plan is to gather up to 10,000 men to patrol the streets—unpaid and unarmed—to watch out for criminal activity. The thought is that a roving band of bystanders and witnesses will deter would-be criminals.

I guess now that I read this post, the examples aren't all that far from the essence of my dad's point of view: he was just protecting our right to take matters into our own hands and these people are taking action on that right.

via NPR

Guilty Pleasure: Graf Innovations

Animation Walls from Blu




More





More from 6meia

via Wooster Collective

Live Web in Plain English (as Advertisement)

Common Craft strikes again, this time for the new Google Docs app - yet another smart play at making Google your dashboard for digital living (Facebook is aiming at becoming your dashboard for social life).



*Google Docs don't work for Safari...so, ya'll lemme know how it's workin'.

Emoticon Celebrates 25 Years

Mashable notes that the ubiquitous emoticon is 25 years old. Happy Birfday Emoticon (sing the song, ya'll)!

It turns out that the emoticon was not just an afterthought, but a much discussed idea addressing a problem early users of the system were having in separating sarcastic comments from serious ones. Carnegie Mellon professor Scott Fahlman proposed a smiley face to indicate joking and an upside down one to indicate unhappiness in a thread (captured below).



Respect the architect and recognize game.

Marc Ecko: "The Ball Is Now Yours"

Fashion designer/entrepreneur/pop culture maven Marc Ecko, the man who tagged Air Force One, has made his next move.

Revealing himself Monday as the winning bidder in the online auction for Barry Bonds' record-breaking 756th home run ball (cost: $752,467), Ecko appeared on The Today Show to announce that he is turning the fate of the ball over to the fans.

"I bought this baseball to democratize the debate over what to do with it," Ecko said. "The idea that some of the best athletes in the country are forced to decide between being competitive and staying natural is troubling."

Visitors to Vote756.com can choose between three options:

1. "BESTOW IT" (as is into the Hall of Fame in Cooperstown)

2. "BRAND IT" (with an asterisk before delivering it to the Hall)

3. "BANISH IT" (by sending it into outer space on a rocketship, never to be seen or heard from again)

Now Ecko is at the center of the greatest sports debate of our time. Every major sports media outlet is reporting on this story and will continue to do so. Whatever the public chooses, he will again make news by honoring the results of the vote.

He has successfully written himself into sports history using his bank account and his brain.

Ecko could have easily spent as much on a TV branding campaign, but instead he has honored his audience with something more -- a voice in a matter they care about.

I wouldn't have guessed that he could've topped his Air Force One stunt, but he has. That was a provocative piece of entertainment that struck a chord. This is democracy at work.

And all of it is perfectly, elegantly branded. Cheers Mr. Ecko. You're my marketing hero of the moment.



(PS - I voted for the asterisk as a statement against an era, an era facilitated by greed and leveraged by men of low moral character)