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Amazing Architectural Photography

christobal.png Stumbled upon Cristobal Palma Photography the other day. Immense collection of international architectural photography form the following architects:

Alberto Mozo

Alejandro Aravena

Alison Brooks Architects

Benjamin Murua

Cecilia Puga

Emilio Marin

Eric Parry

DSDHA

FAR Frohn & Rojas

Felipe Assadi

FOA

German del Sol

Hawkins/Brown

Hudson Architects

Iturriaga & Strabucchi

MVRDV

Mathias Klotz

Oscar Niemeyer

Pezo von Ellrichshausen

Plasma Studio

Sebastian Irarrazaval

Smiljan Radic

Teresa Moller

Thomas Heatherwick

Zaha Hadid

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New Yorker Conference 2008 Videos are up

Check them out the on the newyorker website or subscribe to the podcast via iTunes newyorker.png

I’ll post some commentary on individual lectures as i watch them.

Here is a summary of the speakers from the website…

REINVENTING INVENTION
Malcolm Gladwell on the challenge of hiring in the modern world.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
DECONSTRUCTING THE AIRPORT
Paco Underhill talks with Malcolm Gladwell about how to remake air travel for the twenty-first century.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
THE POLITICS OF GLAMOUR
Francesco Vezzoli talks with Michael Specter about cinema, kitsch, celebrity, and democracy.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
HUMANITARIAN ENGINEERING
Amy Smith talks with Rebecca Mead about applying new technology in the developing world.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
THE FOREVER CAMPAIGN
Rahm Emanuel talks to Ryan Lizza about the Democratic primaries, Hillary Clinton’s future, and what the first hundred days of the Obama Administration might look like.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
23 AND YOU
Linda Avey and Anne Wojcicki talk with Michael Specter on genetics.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
THE GREEN CITY
San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom talks with Dana Goodyear on what it means to be green in politics and in the world.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
A MORE PERFECT UNION
James Surowiecki discusses the future of the labor movement with Andy Stern, the president of the Service Employees International Union.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
CREATIVE INTELLIGENCE
Jane Mayer talks with Eric Haseltine, the former chief technology officer of the U.S. intelligence community.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
NEUROBOTICS
Yoky Matsuoka, the director of the neurobotics laboratory at the University of Washington, discusses how brain signals can control prosthetic limbs, and other advances in the hybrid field of neuroscience and robotics.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
MAKING MUSICALS ROCK
Duncan Sheik talks with Susan Morrison about “Spring Awakening” and reinventing the American musical.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
CONSTRUCTING CULTURE
David Adjaye talks with Thelma Golden about architecture in contemporary culture and what buildings can be in the twenty-first century.
WATCH THIS VIDEO
PLAYING WITH FIRE
Bill Buford talks with the chefs David Chang, Daniel Humm, and Marc Taxiera about their influences and the future of the culinary world.
WATCH THIS VIDEO

Web Trend Maps

webtrend.pngInternet Trends - Visually overlaid on Subway Maps. Good Stuff. I especially like the Forcast and Brand Experience overlays.

From a great group over at Information Architects, Japan.

Web Trend Map 2008
Web Trend Map 2007

iA Japan Predictions
2008
2007

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Healthcare Clinics

Touching piece on 60 minutes last night. Watching hundreds of people converge on a convention center for basic health care needs (eye glasses, dentistry, checkups) was incredibly sobering. The arguments for and against universal healthcare have merits on both sides, but there must be a better way to provide healthcare than this. US citizens need options other than the emergency room, which would probably bankrupt most lower income citizens.

Take a look for yourself…

Link to 60 minutes story

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Online Ad Networks

I am doing some research and compiling a comprehensive list of online ad networks. Here is my list thus far.

Yahoo! - Right Media - Blue Lithium - Yahoo! Search Marketing Services (code name panama)

Microsoft - Drive PM - Microsoft Ad Center

AOL - Tacoda - Quigo

AdBrite

quadrantONE - Newspaper conglomerate (The New York Times Co., Gannett Co., Tribune Co. and Hearst Corp)

Advertising.com

ValueClick

Casale Media

Tribal Fusion

Traffic Marketplace

Specific Media

DrivePM

24/7 Real Media

CPX Interactive

Burst Media

Undertone Networks

Precision Click

AdDynamix

More to come…

The Deck - Creative Centric Network

Federated Media

Mobile…

HipCricket

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TED Conference coming to Long Beach!

I am very excited that “my favorite conference that I have no chance of getting tickets to” is coming to my home town of Long Beach, CA. Any one who might have some secret techniques to getting an invite, I am open to just about anything. Otherwise, i will continue trying to create an idea to change the world…

Here are the details…

TED2009 Logistics
DatesFebruary 3 - 7, 2009
TimeTED University begins 10 am, Wed Feb 4First TED Session begins 1:30 pm, Wed Feb 4Final TED Session ends 1 pm, Sat Feb 7, with an optional beach party to follow
LocationLong Beach Convention and Entertainment Center 300 East Ocean BoulevardLong Beach, CA 90802

TED2009 Logistics Page

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Primetime TV Viewing Habits of College Students

My youngest sister is attending UCLA as a freshman this year, she is enrolled in a media arts class and passed along an interesting anecdote.

The Writers of ABC’s October Road stopped by to do a Q&A with the class and entered into a discussion about ratings and how shows get picked up and grow. The show is targeted to the youth, probably with a high school/college target demographic. My smarty pants sister asked a question if viewers of the show online through ABC’s Streaming Video Viewer are counted in the ratings. Short answer no, but that is not the interesting part. They surveyed the class about where the students where watching prime time TV episodes.

My sister estimates 10% actually watch shows on a TV, with the remaining 90% viewing them online. When i though about it, makes perfect sense. Underclass college students in the dorms, have no room for a TV and no budget for a DVR. They all have laptops which has been converted into a hybrid computer/TV for them.

I am sure as the students grow, they will get aTV and DVR like the rest of us, but what long term effect will this immersion in watching episodic content online have? At the least the psychological barrier of the set top box is broken, and this age group will have a different paradigm to operate in.

Secondly, the fact that viewing this content is now 100% legal and sponsored by the networks seems like a big deal to me. In the past, getting tv shows online was a exercise in geeky piracy, but with the advent of these network sponsored full episode viewers, it is just so easy that the barriers are gone.

Here is a review of the network TV offerings as of late 2007.

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RSS Readers = Personalized/Targerted Search?

I have been tasked with doing some trend analysis of our industry recently. JLOOP operates in the boutique web development space, where our services cover a broad spectrum of digitally related topics. From online strategy, design and development to seo, and everything in between. Trying to do some googling to for information on industry trends, it became quickly apparent that search terms like “small business + web development trends” were not cutting it, returning tons of garbage.

It dawned on me, that my google reader is filled with rss feeds from industry blogs that i have added over the last few years, and doing simple search for terms like “trends” returned very valuable and relevant information from a wide variety of sources. Have a created a custom search tool for my self that i have been feeding resources that i value over the years, seems so.

Example, a quick search on the term “trends” via google reader, quickly lead me to the 2008 Digital Outlook Report, a 167 page report from Avenue A Razorfish. Thanks to Guy Kawasaki’s excellent blog.

Finding this via a google web search would have been down right impossible, and via a blog search on technorati or google blog search would have been difficult. So far, my experience searching my rss feeds has been an excellent tool.

Is Free the future of business?

Wired magazines cover story from their March, 2008 proclaims “Free is the future of business“. Catchy for sure, who does not like free? Everyday I interact with customers who are looking to enter, expand or refine their business online. Chris Anderson does a good job of outlining the 6 so called free business models. Here they are with some commentary.

  1. Freemium
    When businesses look to enter the marketplace entirely on the web, this inevitably is the model they hits home first. Lets provide some of the service for free and create a premium service for advanced features or convert the initiated customers after they drink the cool aid. To me, this is one of the biggest side effects of the freeconomy. Customers of web services looks for free or move on. Why, because the web is so vast, that if they happen to find your offering, and can not sample it out in a meaningful way, they tend to move on. This can be costly in a landscape where business are spending marketing dollars in a real way to drive traffic to their offering. So having the hook of a real value proposition that users can try in a real way at times is the only way to get customers to take the leap.
  2. Advertising
    I really like Anderson’s description of this. Bring two parties together and charge a third to tag along. Everyones dream is to provide content so inspiring and magnetic, that the road to revenue is a simple advertising revenue model away. Agreed, internet advertising is growing and will continue to displace traditional advertising channels, but I think the web is a different beast. Relevance to the user and they are experience can create added value to the user, where poorly related ads are quickly ignored.
  3. Cross Subsidies
    Take a loss of a product to see the money maker later. A bit different than the Freemium, where it really is getting to consumer into your marketplace with a offer to good to pass up, or offering free cell phones knowing the revenue is tied to locking the customer into a 2 year contract with nice margins on the service. Seems the challenge to this approach is as the consumer becomes more aware of the tactics employed, they will begin to adjust. Airlines are beginning to get serious about charging for additional luggage to attempt to offset fuels costs and create new profit centers. No doubt will travels begin to rethink their luggage plans as checking luggage was painful, but paying $30 per bag will generate creative packing solutions.
  4. Zero Marginal Cost
    When the cost of producing the next copy of the product is zero, there is a choice to be made. Some business choose to hold the rights to their product with an iron fist, using copyright, patent, drm and everything possible to make their product scarce. Forcing an artificial limit on supply to try keep prices up. It will be interesting to see how this plays out. Will the widening net of content producers simply dilute the industries of music and entertainment. The direction of music industry revenues, the most “touched” by digital networks may be a big hint
  5. Labor Exchange
    Jump through some hoops, and a product or service can be provided at reduced or no cost. Harnessing the power of large masses of minds and consumers has very interesting possibilities for value conversion. It may be relatively valueless to have a single individual vote on a movie or favorite restaurant, but when large groups participate, unprecedented resources can be created.
  6. Gift Economy
    This may not be the most flattering way of describing peer production and the open source movement, but this seems to be a important trend. As the cost of very valuable goods and services heads south, the ability to find value in things that do not generate a direct monetary reward or wage seems to be in the rise. Some describe the status and sense of accomplishment created by interacting in a open source project or participating in community to be extremely powerful.

I think one of the key phenomenon to watch is the move towards these free product and services able to escape the confines of the web and become pervasive in our economy as a whole? Seems like a long shot in the short view, but in the long view, major changes are bound to take place.

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Reborn in 2008

After a long period of neglect, I am renewing my focus on this blog. The past focus of educational resources on the web, will make less frequent appearances, and more focus on opinion and analysis of trends in technology politics and culture. Less linking and more thinking is my mantra.

 

Finally, i now this is setting myself up for failure, but i pledge a post a day for 2008. By my calculations that leaves my with 311 post this year. Lets see what happens.