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December 21, 2005
December 20, 2005
paused
Hmmmm Dave asked me this past weekend “why the lull in blogging… “ and i don’t know. Things have been busy i suppose. The audio blogging is fun though.
Let’s see what can i post for content? I sent this list out to the team here at work yesterday. We had a brainstorm the other day about how to collaborate with folks now working in texas and california, so the discussion was about collaborative writing tools and well this list was created and then I added other good stuff..
Collaborative Writing Tools
http://www.writely.com/ - currently the most popular collaboration word processor tool out there
http://writeboard.com/ - the other real popular writing tool
http://www.conversate.org/ - group conversation program
http://www.zohowriter.com/Home.do - online word processor, share documents
http://www.jotlive.com/ - live group note taking tool
Web & Usability Sharing like Apps
http://www.jybe.com – this like netlabs, its browse a website together type technology with chat and more
https://www.copilot.com/ - more of a “let me show you what I mean” type software via remote
Meeting Apps
https://www.gotomeeting.com/ - I hear this is the new end all be all webex like site
Project Management & Tracking Applications
http://www.rallypointhq.com/ - brand new, people are buzzin about it
http://www.sidejobtrack.com/ - web based job tracking, for contractors and freelances,
http://zimbra.com/index.html - a big suite of tools
To Do Sites
http://www.trackslife.com/ - used this one for awhile
http://www.rememberthemilk.com/ - a popular todo site with reminders
Collective Intelligence & Reviews
http://www.judysbook.com/ - its like angie’s list, but on a google maps, national size scale, cool use of empowering consumers and leveraging their collective voice
http://www.frappr.com/ - another google map experiment site, search by zip code, document your home town, 180,000 people have already
Photo Sharing
http://www.flickr.com/ you cant beat flickr, this is probably the end all be all image site on the net currently, tagging is in!
http://www.slide.com/ - slide rides on your desktop and on the web and continually shows your friends your pictures
Cool New Idea Sites
http://www.bandnews.org/ - band news tracks news dug up from search engines and the blogosphere regarding bands, it can also inform you on the latest from bands such as station 14 (once it knows of course)
http://fundable.org/ is a service that lets groups of people pool money to raise funds or make purchases.
http://www.peertrainer.com/ - its on my “soon to check out list”, I need every bit of support possible to keep me motivated to lose the poundage
http://www.typedown.com/external-01/news/yahoo-wordnews.php - I love sites like this, this one takes top news stories and does a kind of concordance with them creating a kind of visual representation of the data, the bigger the word the more times it appeared on all the news sites, visualization is cool and fun, it’s a unique way to sum up that moment in time on one page
http://sandbox.sourcelabs.com/livemarks/ - one of my favorite websites, livemarks shows you bookmarking in real time from delicious users, (delicious is a popular bookmarking site) - what you are seeing in livemarks is real time real people bookmarking sites, it tells you how many people are watching, and what the most popular links have been recently. Why should u care? Well, if yer curious about what people are getting into at the moment, new sites, new services, cool news, anything right about now, that is, livemarks is a good place to go – it is geared more for the techie of course.
http://www.mapbuilder.net/ - this a cool site where you can make your own google map pages, for example, we could map out all of our “experiences” in research around the globe, and give people a way to surf the map, see what we did where and so on, we could even attach images to those map points, audio, video, links back to our site and so on.
http://www.etsy.com/ this was one of the best beta’s of the year, it’s a collaboration buy/sell site for DIY crafters, joo young and Justine, Jeaneen, check this out…
http://www.netvibes.com/ is a dashboard site, more dashboards are coming, google has one, yahoo has one, msn has one, everyone wants to be your home page, your dashboard where you have all the essentials right when you connect.. netvibes is your open source, open module one, its pretty popular on the net, attach your gmail, your price watch, flickr, bookmarks, top news sites and more
http://www.whatshouldireadnext.com/ - what book should you read next?
http://www.peerflix.com/ trade your own library of content
News
http://www.dailyrotation.com/ - 300 tech site sources all in one page
Collect and Organize
http://del.icio.us/ - great tagging book marking site
http://www.onfolio.com/ - a few of these kinds of programs hit this year, its basically data harvesting, your bookmarks, images you’ve seen, things you like while browsing, whats a better way to remember it all, recall it all later, at the moment I use delicious as my master book marking archive, but some folks think tools like onfolio are the way to go
http://www.flock.com/ - flock is a new browser idea built on top of firefox, its aimed at bringing this tagging concept to a new level, its been talked about heavily in wired magazine, appeared in several biz mags, sign up and see!
Mashups – are site examples where two or more kinds of technology get mashed together to offer a new experience, examples like these show you the power of databases merged with mapping tools online, now think about a mashup of our data findings with enabling technology online like this, could create some cool deliverable materials.
http://www.chicagocrime.org/ - the most compelling mashup this year, Chicago crime, tagged, sorted and google mapped
December 18, 2005
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December 15, 2005
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holiday greetings from the flooz
Hello my people, its that time of year again where we reflect on what’s come before us.
Yahoo + Flickr + Delicious = ???
Yes its true, Yahoo, the YAHOOOOOians of yesteryear went off and bought Flickr and just recently – delicious and jumped into first place in being the most watched “hey maybe they’ll buy my web2.0 concept” company of the year. Yahoo is positioning themselves nicely for whats next to come, more tagging, more sorting, more visualization, or everything, ore ajax and snowfilled cookies. Who knows, but independents they are no more! Question is will Yahoo leave them alone? We just don’t know. Delicious is by far one of the greatest sites to hit the web in a long time and Flickr ain’t bad either.. 
GoogleSTUFF3000
Meanwhile on the other side of the fence Google is working on the incrediomagic-stuff-3000. They have been cranking out new innovations left and right lately – probably trying to be the next steve jobs release o matic company out there. Google Maps rocks, we all know it, we all love it and the competition bowed and quickly copied. Then theres the blog search that never really took off, or the RSS reader that begs me to switch from bloglines, ain’t happenin google, try again. Course they also have anatalyitcs, and coming up, music, and then books, and then toast, GoogleToast will let you known when your toast is ready, perfectly.
Watching Emily’s Hub
For me 2005 was all about watching the new web 2.0 entries grow on Solution Watch, Tech Crunch, and especially eHub better known as well, Emily. EM’s got the goods, listings, interviews, she does it all, keeps ya in tune with what web2.0 is out there right now, just begging for beta sign ups.
……. must work, more to come…
December 06, 2005
every day rituals
Every day I…
1. check out digg
2. check out diggdot.us
3. check out and watch in awe livemarks
4. check up on gmail
5. check up and delete spam in outlook
6. write up a to do list
7. check out whats new in flickr
8. check out random links like this one and this thing
9. think about what I probably should be doing
10. work
the xmas squirrel miracle
Hola my floozi’kuns, the time of the great xmas squirrel miracle is almost upon us! You all know the story right? The fabled story of the xmas squirrel that comes each year to wish us all a merry merry holiday year!
More to come…
December 02, 2005
C is a popular letter
C, its a powerful letter lately. Awhile back trend watching.com ran an article profiling “generation C”. Generation C is about how some segments of the market, people are part of the creation, control and collaboration of their interactions both with other like minds and with brands. After thinking about it I too started to see generation C and not just on the web, I started seeing it everywhere.
In my latest report here at work, the team and I outlined 4 C lettered words that summarised the jist of what we uncovered in our research – convienence, control, communication and comfort.
Yesterday I got the new VM+SD, (Visual Merchandise? + Store Design magazine) and flipping thru there I came across an article about the Retail Design conference that happened just a bit ago. In that article they talk about 4 more C’s – Comfort, Conversation, Clarity, Creativity from a future trends retail design perspective. They conference members all ranging in various fields of the retail design industry brainstormed on those 4 C’s and came up with new ones.. and yes more C’s – Customisation, Culture, Connection and Choice.
C is a damn popular letter lately.
Today in our team meeting we talked about our brand offer, our solutions that we plan to offer around brand research. Personally I think there is a ton to gain from farming the web for information on people. Tribes is a popular theme lately. Generation MySpace, another article i came across today, reveals a wealth of information and trends that are right out there now, tools accessible by all really to step into peoples lives, habits and get a taste for who they are– but its only a taste. Research needs to follow up on that, back that up and go further but its a helluva leveraging tool and process to start.
Course that gets me thinking about what next. I’ve been reading.. well more like listening to The World is Flat on audio cd this going to and from work. What an excellent book – get it. It spells out so much of what's happening out there, the world is getting flatter and flatter every day. People can do more and more and more by just tapping into the web. And thats one of many fatteners happening out there.
I started thinking about the research I just wrapped. About how people absorb experiences and transfer them to other brands. How ebay treats me affects how i want bank one to treat me, or how my experience with Subway effects how i perceive subs in general should be like. Can I build a persona off potential experiences on the web? Can i reverse the process, instead of building up from the user, can i drill down into them? What could a user who lies virtually naked on the web due to an open source mentality regarding their pictures, book-marks and blogging habits tell me about them in the real physical behavioural sense? Can i profile tribes? I’m sure i’m not the only one thinking about that. But consider the possibilities. In alot of our research we have participants go thru priming exercise to “get them up to speed” on what we’re about to talk about. But with the web these days, consumers are laying out the road map of priming like exercises everyday. The challenge to get them out of the collective hive mind and back into the individual really.
VM+SD’s article sums up some tasty considerations of consumers in the retail space. Where are they going tomorrow, everyone wants to know. I see their results and consider the parallels in our own research and in my obsessive info gathering I do on the web. I see them all connecting.
They report, that yesterday consumers wanted “experience and everyday luxury”, and that today consumers want “culture and connection” and that tomorrow consumers want “knowledge and culture”. In my own recent findings I’d agree, and studies don't match really, yet i find that the theme of knowledge is consistent between the two.
Looking at more results from conference here I start think about how this is all feeling like one big wave. It starts with early adopters and geek pioneers on the web crafting for need and just cause and its a hit or miss system of acceptability on the web and then that starts the buzz and that buzz starts to infect consumers and then they start expressing the need to take that buzz of wave to new places not just the web, and then it starts to spring up in brands, corporations take notice, retail stores begin to cater to that collective cash in model, entertainment begins to complement it, consumers return to the hive mind and the wave starts over again.
The conference report goes on to toss out some more goodness. The designer focus (from a retail stand point) yesterday was “broad market segment” cater to all is what that says to me, today is about the “targeted niche” and that is so true, so many niches out there, so many big brands are breaking out into speciality niches to grab consumers because the niche is seen as fresh and quick to change. Lastly tomorrow will be about “human touch and connection”. Human was a word in our most recent study that kept coming up. People want a human connection for certain activities, especially on ones that involved risk or possibility liability regarding the web. Its nice to know people still matter really, considering the state of where we are these days.
Lastly the conference broke out some big ideas that retailers should consider developing. I like that, I like the big brainstorm but then I want the go to action item, even if its a possible miss, go do something. For Baby Boomers the idea is a “memory broker”, and right away I agree. Just seeing the influx in media being created out there, people love to remember, and the photoalbum of old is gone, people cant easily attain it, not like they used to. Before it take pictures, get developed, insert physically into an album, its was DIY but you could do it, nothing fancy, today its a hodge podge of possible outcomes, technology make it easier to take pictures and view them but made it hard for us to remember, in a physical form. Remember is different than archive. I personally archive, however my mother wants to remember.
For X gens the idea is a travel exchange program that gives people the opportunity to exercise one of the big C’s, customisation, choice, control – they can help design a product or specific cultural experience. This isn't a real “new” thing, in fact none of these ideas are really new. Let me wrap my brain around this, what does travel exchange program mean really? Could that be like IKEA asking me, little ole me, to help them design a store? How cool could that be in getting me excited about their offerings to me as a consumer? And as a bonus I educate the hell outa them on what I would want? Seems like a massive win all the way around.
For millennials its all about clothes. There’s alot happening on the empowerment of clothing customisation scene. I’ve done it, threadless, neighborhoodies, very cool offerings, I’ve always wanted to design clothes really, i see looks in my head, visual cues that would seem to be pretty cool, everything from shirt slogans and cool long sleeve button down shirts appear in my head. I think it comes from being tall and having jack for options growing up. The big idea here is “design-your-own” apparel, you pick the fabrics, features and so on… and again its retailers seeing the trends, the wave thats happening right now online and seeing how demand for it ignites an deciding when to jump in. Threadless and all the other custom clothing companies on the web have paved the road and created the awareness in the consumers to help drive a concept in a physical store to be a real reality for them. It would work.
For the wee generation that is to be, another concept that isn't new really, its been done but at the time, the world just wasn't ready. The music store thats a cafe, bar, and wire/wireless tech haven for people. Whether this rolls out in the look and feel of a startbucks I don't know. But its an old idea. And I’m not convinced it will work. People do this already. I can create the whole experience in my car provided i got a forty on me and my wireless device. They called this one, the global trading post cafe. Trading post makes me think of the auction house in World of Warcraft. That is a popular place really. Add the niche market developers and put them all in this physical retail space and then wire it to the global net with cool visuals and audio and get starbucks or red robin or something to sponsor the cafe like atmosphere and maybe you have a concept there.
BREAK!
Ok so now think about this. We do this everyday. Jen in my office mentions how tom cruise is buying an ultra-sound machine to watch his baby grow – immediately after telling me she smirks saying quitely “whack job”. Now she has a perception of Tom, yet its purely based on hearsay, i mean we dont have Tom here in our office, its news, news thats been translated and retranslated and reworded who knows how many times, it could be hrs old, moments, hell even days, but she has a read on him.
We start talking about that read. How accurate do we think the label “whack job” is for Tom Cruise? She’s not just factoring in the news, or the progression of news and events over time that Tom has no doubt appeared in. She also factors in her “gut”, or womens instinct. So thats now playing into that as well. Then I add, hell what about the social influence of others, can we add that too? Before ya know it, we starting talking about accuracy of that “vibe” that Tom is a “whack job”, we agree it could be as high as 50 to 75% correct. Holy Shit folks, we’ve haven’t even done the research and we’re leaping to a 50–75% read accuracy on tom cruise being a “whack job”? And we did that in what a few minutes? Sure there was a history of reads Jen has taken in via the web. I think thats massivily interesting that we feel complelled to research to discover truths for others yet we ourselves will cut to the chase so to speak on matters for ourselves.
If we can do that on tom, why cant we do that on people in general. I mean we do that almost out of sight and mind really. We absorb and act, assume and react. What I think is interesting is how accurate we feel the answer is. We beleive it to be true until another source tells us it isnt. We are blank canvases ready to be drawn on at any moment. Our minds are so hungry to assess and analyze and take in new data.
Maybe the flattening of the world via the web is bad in someways. Truth doesnt matter as much as content. We dont seek out the truth, we seek out answers, or more so answers find us before we even have time to think of a question. Good marketing answers my need before I even realize I need it.
So many tasty ideas, so many different kinds of fuel to act on, think about, from social networks, to the ramblings of the soon to be yet its really here already web2.0. Much much to do.
December 01, 2005
is my living room ready?
People are still after my living room. They want their product hosting all kinds of content in my living room. Folks on the net are talkin about how microsoft should be concerned about Apple’s potential release of the mac mini DVR. To me the idea is big wooop. I don’t see the fear really. They talk as if its an untapped market… umm hello – tivo and cable already has it, why do i need yet another dvr solution. What does the mac mini do for me in my living room that my tivo cant do, proven btw, better? I mean everyone wants my living room, xbox 360, ps3, probably nintendo’s revolution, tivo2.0, a few dozen other boxes out there. I dunno. I think my living room is fine. But I keep getting the message it isn’t.
Some try and use the whole content leverage point of view. Per Jupiter Research…
“A mini with this capability could easily become a core part of the digital hub over time. Think enthusiast market first. Then think what happens when this supports HD with an integrated cable card. The PC is already a repository for music and photos. This could help move the transition to both home made video content as well as commercial stuff. iTunes is already doing well on music. Now add in episodic TV shows and movies. With integrated iPod support, Apple only boosts that device as the de-facto standard for mobile entertainment “
AND? I think its dangerous for Apple to think in global dominating standards like thinking it owns mobile entertainment. People own mobile entertainment. If Apple owns mobile entertainment today, who owned it before the ipod? Well lets see.. Sony and Walkman? I think thats shaky ground to stand on. Apple does well sure, but own it? No. Apple and other manufactures benefit by being available and accessible when users want them, and how well they all play together. A nano does me no good to throw a party with if all I have are headphones, need speakers, and no i dont want to buy more speakers, i have speakers, hell i had radio before apple arrived, intergrate, complement me, my lifestyle.
The other thing that gets me is the notion that because the PC is the keeper of all data, photos, videos, and audio, its the grand master of it. I have 3000 some images on flickr, how often do i really go thru them all? How often do I actually access that content? Sure I have it.. but do I use it. Do I relive it? I think people gravitate more towards the new than the been there done that over and over and over. Our minds are huge sponges for the new. We park it on a PC cause its the pack rat in us to save it, thinking, at somepoint we’ll be back. I mean in sheer entertainment value. I just think its a lame agrument point, basically telling me that a PC in my living room because its the box of all that i am is somehow gonna make me want it more so than my tivo i have now, or my cable on demand.
Apple has rubbed me wrong in recent months with itunes. Mainly due to my inability to find what i want. Its so lack luster, its selection just doesnt work for me, and when i do find something i like its not becuase i found via their system from the front door in, its cause i tore thru the site from the back way, side way, underground and so on.. meaning that their traditional access methods to find songs didint work, i had to find what i wanted from leaping around all over ther app.
I think the idea of watching lost on a video pod is interesting, just like watching lost on my psp is, or archos is, yes. thats neat. Short lived in some ways. An ipod that can record video, thats a bit more interesting, more interested in that really than getting lost on an ipod.
Its funny to think about how microsoft should be concerned, cause from my point of view, a mac mini dvr is basically trying to get 3rd or 4th place in peoples minds, they have nothing on tivo at the moment, i mean if microsoft is to be concerned about apple, then apple better plan to spend some serious cash to sway people off tivo, and can they even do that.
The race for the digital home is on… umm its been on for years. Tivo has it. Next.
I think people get all fuzzy eyed with Apple. Sure they have a knack of innovation, and more so in releasing and informing the public on their innovation. Thats even more key than the ipod itself. The ipod isnt unqiue from a technological point of view its unique in that everything that drove the message of what it was like to have an ipod, use an ipod and i’d even say that its accessorization of the ipod is what made the ipod successful. There were hundreds of mp3 players out there long before apple got in on the scene. I find it really hard to give them something as big as ownership over a realm of something. Its a powerful marketing poly but its not accurate.
If anyone owns the digital home right now its the power companies that keep it on, the manufacturers of LCD screens and the cable companies that provide content.
So microsoft should be concerned? Ok sure, so should Apple.
I still feel like they havent tapped into real usage yet. Do they really know what a day in the life of tv, heck entertainment access from a person is all about? What are the aspirations of that person, the needs, the wants, the desires which are all interconnected with that persons well being, state of mind, stress, time, and so on? Or are we simply trying to make the coolest box possible and then back it up with “you need it” marketing and hope that by some struck of luck it will land in the living room and be used to its fullest potential no matter what the constraints are and thus let own the home…. ha!