:::renaissance chambara:::

Movin' on

2006-12-13T22:39:00.002Z

After 1,148 postings and almost three years worth of writing I am moving to blog on Wordpress. This means a shiny new domain called renaissancechambara (we put a focus group working on that one for a while) where you can find the same poor standard of posts on similar topics to what you've got used to. I will be leaving my archive of postings here, until I work out how or if I can move my postings over.

Update: my blog has now moved on to renaissancechambara.jp. You can subscribe to the RSS feed here.

The Host

2006-12-09T18:10:00.000Z

I finally got around to writing a review of The Host (Guimul). A product of the Korean film industry, which seems to be on creative fire at the moment. The Host has been compared to The Royal Tanenbaums and Godzilla or Tremors.

The film also has a subversive tone questioning the relationship that South Korea has with the US and the suppression of citizen interests for the betterment of big business.

The performance walks a tightrope between humour and tragedy without the heavy-handed humour in many Hong Kong films.

Get out and see it if you haven't had a chance already.

Links for 2006-12-08 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-09T12:25:00.000Z

Holloways of Ludlow - anglepoise reseller

Rumour has it... Guide to gossip sites and blogs

Developing world demands high-tech handsets - Mobile & Wireless - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com

instructables : Homemade instant oatmeal

WidSets Beta

Main Page - Fab @ Home

A special edition of Jargon Watch brought to you in association with Research In Motion: makers of the BlackBerry

2006-12-09T01:18:00.000Z

BlackBerry Orphan - children who suffer from mental neglect because their parents are continually occupied with their mobile email device

Adult pacifier - mobile email device

Is Jim the most evil man on this planet? One of BlackBerry's biggest defenders, Jim Balsillie, the chairman of Research In Motion, says children should ask themselves, "Would you rather have your parents 20% not there or 100% not there?"

I can't believe that he went on record with that quote.

Thanks to Wall Street Journal: BlackBerry Orphans by Katherine Rosman (December 8, 2006).

Game Theory

2006-12-08T12:39:00.000Z

There's been some interesting things being said about Sony and its inability to get things right with the PS3.

Pros

Its an impressive, if flawed piece of engineering. It has been said that the PS3 platform is designed to last up to ten years. However, Sony's hand may be forced to refresh much faster by the deeper pockets of rival Microsoft

It is a great platform to seed Blu Ray into the marketplace

Disaffected customers have been purchasing PS2s and PSP devices - which demonstrates strong brand loyalty, rather than a total rout by rival console makers

Sony's ability to run Linux and powerful silicon may open new markets and partners beyond its existing eco-system

Sony can't afford to fail, as Bill Gates said during the 1997 turnaround of Apple; a near-death experience can be a great motivator

Cons

The PS3 has underperformed in the marketplace, Nintendo and Microsoft are hitting target numbers

Sony's engineers have built the most expensive games console ever and the company stands to lose between 200 - 300+ USD on each box

Sony has been outinnovated by Nintendo with the Nunchuk, providing consumers with a new way of interacting with games. In a war of polygons versus playability - playability wins

Sony game development is too expensive: the graphics elements of a PS3 game costs 8.6 million USD to develop, and 500,000 units are need to be sold in order to be profitable. This is roughly twice the price as a Nintendo game

Sony has ventured into Uncanny Valley with its latest graphics engine. (The dip in postive consumer attitude as the character better mimics human life is the Uncanny Valley.) There is a paradox of realism - after a certain point, the closer to reality that the gaming experience gets in terms of graphics and player experience; the harder it is for the game to seem real. This inability to believe makes it harder for the players to fully engage in the game.

Impact

Sony is going to live or die by its software, out of all the consoles Sony's is the most expensive to develop for and has the smallest user base. This is likely to be the case for the next 12 months at least. From a games developers point of view the chance of break even let alone success is least with the PS3 and probably greatest with the Nintendo Wii.

Couple these business factors with Sony's distain for its developer community and you may see an exodus of developers to Nintendo.

Sony's failure will be a breach of trust with large developers and will adversely affect an entire games industry eco-system. Electronic Arts is already taking corrective action; developers run a risk in the rush to get on the Nintendo train that quality slips as they try to get into the Wii market faster with mediocre products that will sit on the shelves.

The less games that sell on the PS3, the greater the loss that Sony suffers on each box. The more fanciful have speculated that massive hardware sales and low games sales could bury Sony. Its sophisticated engineering could be the biggest waste of smarts since the Maginot Line.

Links for 2006-12-07 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-08T12:08:00.000Z

Hong Kong Expats | Shanghai Expats | Shenzhen Expats - Forums, Resources and Networking

Main Page - JigsawUK

Goombah: Music Search and Discovery

Wired News: Fine-Tune Your Music Discoveries

LatestD9.com: The Latest Releases, On Time, Every Time

Holmes Report Blog

Social Bookmarking - Automatic submission service

Can Yahoo Deliver On Social Search? - SeekingAlpha

On heavy rotation

2006-12-07T12:50:00.000Z

I picked some recordings that were at the popular end of dance music at HMV last Friday:

Klaxons - Magick (SMD mix) - A one-sided single by the leaders of the new rave movement that consists of erm the Klaxons. The single is pretty jackin', though I don't know if this single is indicative of their general material
Mync Project & Danny Rampling - Strobelight - Better quality material than would expect from Positiva, a good solid house tune in both normal and dub versions
Freestylers - In love with you remix - For house heads the one to go with is the DJ Bomba and Senor mix

Links for 2006-12-06 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-07T11:59:00.000Z

I was thinking about writing something about the Yahoo! reorganisation the yesterday, but there was so much being written and those that I spoke to on the inside were still looking for information on how it pan out (this will probably take months) that linking to a selection of the pundit comment out there seemed the best approach.

Yahoo's CEO makes big changes at the top - Los Angeles Times

Rules for Using MySpace in Politics | Personal Democracy Forum

Charlene Li's Blog: Dissecting Yahoo's reorg

Japan’s Bloggers Focused on Companies & Brands : Social Media Implications

A Gonzo Journal » Blog Archive » Blogging And Regulation

A New PB&J Sandwich at Yahoo!? [Fool.com: Motley Fool Take] December 6, 2006

TWiki - Enterprise Collaboration Platform & Wiki

INTERNAL MEMO: Terry Semel: 'friendship will survive forever' - Valleywag

Hooked on Work: the Allure of Extreme Jobs

Alsoft, Inc. Makers of DiskWarrior and MasterJuggler

Jargon Watch

2006-12-06T13:11:00.000Z

GAMEY - Google, Apple, Microsoft, eBay, Yahoo!. VC-speak for the group of companies expected to buy up the creme of Silicon Valley start-ups. Thanks to CNN Money.

Generation Cash - Generation Content getting paid through sites like citizen journalist photo agency Scoopt, and video sites like Revver, eefoof and Flixya splitting ad revenue. This content for cash game has gone mobile; mobile operator 3 pays video creators per download through its SeeMeTV initative and MyNumo rewards the creators of ringtones, videos and wallpapers through a revenue share approach.

The concept also extends to the black economy trading on eBay and those people operating as part of the Fon wi-fi network and the big cash prizes offered by the likes of Intel and Netflix for customer-generated innovation. It's Alvin Toffler's prosumer concept made good. Thanks to Trendwatching.

Links for 2006-12-05 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-06T13:08:00.000Z

eightysevenfour - Easily open .docx on a Mac

Yahoo!'s Talent Keeps Bailing

Links for 2006-12-04 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-05T23:15:00.000Z

Jackie Chan's blog

WordPress › Free Blog Tool and Weblog Platform

METRONOME ONLINE - free!

WELCOME TO CRED JEWELLERY - fair trade jewellery

TOPMAN - Home

Urban Outfitters - UK site

Spanish Hustle

2006-12-05T00:35:00.000Z

El Lobo (The Wolf) is a film based on the true story of Mikel Lejarza.

Lejarza was a Spanish Intelligence Service agent who penetrated the Basque separatist movement ETA at the end of the Franco regime in the early 1970s.

A kind of Spanish Harry's Game, despite its documentary content the film is a beautifully shot, taunt, well-paced thriller; rich with period detail.

The film deals obliquely with the societal and political changes that were happening in Spain as a whole, this is probably as important a factor on the film as the struggle for Basque independence. The film shows how the state security apparatus moves to get a prime position in preparation for the move towards democracy and repositioning itself away from being an instrument of repression to being antiterrorism specialists.

The acting is first-rate conveying the complex emotions and decisions that the informer and his handlers undergo in fulfilling their duties. It is one of the best films that I've seen this year.

Links for 2006-12-03 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-04T12:23:00.000Z

NewPR Wiki - Main.HomePage

NewPR Wiki - Resources.BloggingPolicy

x0xb0x: Transistorize the World

Stellarium

PortableApps Suite | PortableApps.com - Portable software for USB drives

SurveyGizmo: Online Survey Tool - Home

Britain leads the way in online advertising - Print Version - International Herald Tribune

Media Convert - free and on line - convert and split sound, ringtones, images, docs - MP3 WMV 3GP AMR FLV SWF AMV MOV WMA AVI MP

Apple - Contacting Apple - Phone Contacts

The Wheel of Fortune

2006-12-04T01:17:00.000Z

Good fortune and happiness but sometimes a species of intoxication with success

The Wheel of Fortune is all about big things, luck, change, fortune. Almost always good fortune. You are lucky in all things that you do and happy with the things that come to you. Be careful that success does not go to your head however. Sometimes luck can change.

What Tarot Card are You? Take the Test to Find Out.

Thanks to Cowboy Caleb for the recommendation

Homebrew Media

2006-12-04T00:41:00.000Z

I was watching a video interview that Guy Kawasaki did with Steve 'Woz' Wozniak. Whilst Steve talked about the early days of the computer industry it reminded me of the way that people are talking about social media.

There are the Altairs and Apples of this world with a plethora of start-ups, a raft of visionaries like Richard Stallman who saw an unbridled future for the PC, its genius engineers like Steve Wozniak and its mercurial Steve Jobs wannabes.

This time the Hewlett-Packard's of today (Google, Microsoft, News International and Yahoo!) are paying attention, taking sides and hunting talent.

It reminded me that much of the BS that is talked like about the death of newspapers is over-hyped and will take much longer to come to pass than the pundits thinks.

Also many of the changes that will make a difference will creep up on my awareness and Bam! I wake up one morning and realise how much my digital life has changed, when I look back at how its happened I won't be able to point to a defining moment.

I think that we are in for intersting and exciting times, I haven't felt this excited about technology since Steve Jobs returned to Apple.

Links for 2006-12-02 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-03T18:37:00.000Z

Where 2.0 Conference 2007 • May 29-30, 2007 • San Jose, California

Lefsetz Letter » Zune DOA

UK named Europes music downloads leader - Computer Business Review

Learn Maths with Haskell

Sunday Miscellany

2006-12-03T01:09:00.000Z

You know when you're part of the the technorati when: you've had your comments login for Valleywag BEFORE they threw the door open to the proletariat.

Whilst everyone at Fortune magazine gets excited that a candid interview with Bill Watkins of Seagate Technology has an admission that consumers use their ever larger hard drive to hold more porn; they manage to gloss over the real telling comments.

The M&A boom: The Valley is no longer "about building a company and a culture. It's about making money for the top guys. If you look back to Intel (Charts) and Fairchild, they set out to build a company that would become massively large. Google (Charts) was another good example. They waited a long time. They wanted to build a big company. People don't think like that now." That includes, Watkins continues, YouTube. "YouTube is like eBay. The founders didn't know what they were doing. The consumers just took hold of it."

The private equity boom: Seagate went private in 2000 - in a $2 billion buyout led by Silver Lake Partners - only to go public again in 2002, giving Watkins insight into the current privatization wave. "It's all about investors getting short-sighted. They've lost their patience. There's nothing these private equity firms do that Fidelity couldn't do. If you're Fidelity, and you own $40 million of my business, and you want a meeting to discuss how my business could be run more efficiently, I'll take the meeting. I'll listen. But that's not the way things work. When you go private, the only thing you think about is going public again."

Silicon Valley is running a risk in losing the key thing that separates it from Bangalore, Cambridge Mass. and Epsoo Finland. The culture. This is what makes engineers work days and nights to code great products and attracts some of the brightest people from around the world.

The short-termism that Watkins goes on about shows how the Valley is no longer seen as separate to mainstream corporate America; but you can't run a technology company in the same way as a biscuit company.

On the way back from Liverpool I managed to read Irresistible! Markets, Models and Meta-Value in Consumer Electronics by Bailey and Wenzek. Given that the book was published by IBM and the authors are business consultants for IBM it was no accident that the future of consumer electronics is powered by cell processors and embedded Linux.

What is interesting is the way Bailey and Wenzek see a blurring of the line between a product and the adjunct services like the iPod and iTunes. They also predict an electronics industry with only 25 per cent of the players that are currently in the marketplace and highlight the needs for localised products for local consumers.

Exodus

2006-12-02T13:24:00.000Z

Exodus : Alright. Movement of Jah people! Oh-oh-oh, yea-eah!....

When Nokia launched their latest version of the Internet browser it looked very promising, having used it extensively on my E61 I have found that that demonstration put lipstick on a usability pig.

My friend Ian Wood has been a long time advocate of the Opera browser. I had previously tried to use it on a Nokia 6111 with no success but gave it a second chance whilst at home in Liverpool since my web withdrawl symptoms were that acute.

Unlike the first time with the 6111, both application packages installed with no hassle at all. The application was easy to configure to get on the web.

So far I have found that pages get rendered much faster and more faithfully than the Nokia browser. The picture above shows how Opera rendered the top of this blog on my E61.

More information here on Opera Mini.

Links for 2006-12-01 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-02T12:57:00.000Z

Online Classifieds Marketplace

PSFK: Looking For Contributors

Internet survey tool - Surveyshack online surveys management

Official Google Blog: Google Base turns 1

TeamSpeak

IAC/Interactive Wins Fans

Links for 2006-11-30 [My Web 2.0]

2006-12-01T19:32:00.000Z

Performance problems on your Mobile Internet connection? Try this! « Tech Evolution In A Wirefree World

Interview with the producers of BBC Backstage Internet Marketing News and Blog E-consultancy.com

Google Answers decides to close up shop

Oprah Time: The Strength of the Wolf

2006-11-30T22:24:00.000Z

I needed a good paperback to read as I travelled back to Liverpool. It seemed strangely appropriate that I read a book about narcotics travelling back to my home city, given that Liverpool's recent history and cultural renaissance has been intertwined with its association as the UK's narcotic equivalent of the Square Mile. Characters like Curtis Warren as it's big swinging dicks as Liars Poker author Michael Lewis would have called them.

The premise of The Strength of the Wolf by Douglas Valentine is that the US and other foreign governments have had their fingers in the drug trafficking pie for hundreds of years.

Indeed Great Britain fought two wars over the opium trade. However, this is thought to be history.

The US as the 20th century empire 'ruler' is alleged to have carried on the practice supporting Chinese nationalists running heroin through the golden triangle, right-wing military figures in South America, friendly factions in the Middle East to smuggle opium to the French Connection and allowing the mafia a degree of freedom in return for using their supply.

Valentine also describes how drugs were used as a way of controlling minorities and how politically motivated drugs laws fanned demand in the US rather than choking it off.

These allegations are made as Valentine tells the story of the FBN (the federal bureau of narcotics), its successes, it's failures and its politics. How officers trod the line between doing their job, whilst not upsetting the establishment players who most benefited from the drug trade that they combated.

The book covers the inner real politik that tore the FBN apart and the global narcotics market as it evolved from the early 20th century.

Valentine eventually decides to pursue so many leads from Jack Ruby's involvement with drugs, the CIA and narcotics business associates link with the Kennedy assassination (which sounds only slightly more credible than the Warren Commission finding that Oswald did it on his own with an Italian carbine), DeGaulle's link with Corsican criminals to fund French intelligence work and Mossad's alleged involvement with money launderers and Lebanese narco power-brokers.

At times these allegations and avenues come out like a stream of consciousness and the thread of the plot leaps around like an epileptic break dancer. Whilst Valentine has obviously done a very thorough and comprehensive job in researching the book, it seems that he had too much material to work with in too little time.

The book becomes hard to follow because of the huge amount of information and cross-linkages that it tries to convey and not exactly ideal reading material for travelling.

I stuck with the book, not because of the drugs and intelligence drama, but the more human tale of how the agents careers were created and trashed like failed drafts being thrown in the paper basket. The book on balance, deserves the plaudits that have been heaped upon it, but who will recognise the achievements of the reader who pushes through to the end?

Big in Japan

2006-11-30T13:53:00.000Z

Why do the Japanese get all the coolest stuff?

As part of a collaboration with Italian designer Neroli, Stussy have released a Stussy-branded messenger bag made by Porter. Porter are the luggage manufacturer of choice for Tyler Brule so its damn cool whichever way that you come at it.

More in Japanese here.

Links for 2006-11-26 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-30T13:50:00.000Z

Family Music - interesting new service

SEO for SMEs

Feels like Siberia

2006-11-26T15:40:00.000Z

hotspot" height="337" width="500">

I have come home to Birkenhead just across the Mersey from Liverpool. I have found it hard to find a decent cup of coffee and a wi-fi hotspot. In fact I have had to go down the M53 to find a Starbucks at a large retail park in Ellesmere Port.

Connectivity is 5GBP for 60 minutes, which reminds me of the old cyber cafe near James Street station that I used to check my emails in nine years ago before moving to London.

Understandably, I won't be posting again until I get back home, I am still getting email on my phone via a patchy GPRS connection and I am sure that my newsreader will be overflowing by the time I get back online again.

I had a look at 3G data cards, but at the moment they don't support the ExpressCard socket on the MacBook Pro.

Feels like Siberia.

Links for 2006-11-24 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-26T15:34:00.000Z

Kevin Rose Admitting Digg Has Moderators - how very web 1.0 of them, but hopefully it will keep out the spammers and the marketers who don't pay much attention to the communities that they seek to influence.

Newsnight goes UGC

cuisineazine

Links for 2006-11-23 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-24T18:42:00.000Z

GigaOM » YouSendIt Bigger Than We Thought

Monday Morning: First lessons from our Second Life

PodCastConUK 2006: Podcasting and the Citizen Journalist. Strange Attractor: Picking out patterns in the chaos

Twitter: A Whole World in Your Hands

Lifehacker book

7 tips to save your cell phone battery life

Ajaxian » Open-jACOB Draw2D

Boing Boing: Record industry association declares DRM dead

I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Declassified | PBS

STUSSY Sample sale

2006-11-23T20:50:00.000Z

I am gutted as I am off back to Liverpool and will miss this stellar opportunity. Peepz grab ya' snapz and head to the Truman Brewery. Which reminds me, posts will be thin on the ground for the next week or so. Peace out, rc :-)

Links for 2006-11-22 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-23T20:40:00.000Z

Daily Cup of Tech » Recovering Your Lost Passwords

Chevy Tahoe remix marketing case study

The interview: Robert Pirsig | Review | The Observer

Daily Cup of Tech » FreeNAS

Blackberry is Bond-approved

2006-11-22T23:03:00.000Z

Sony Ericsson must be steaming, after going to the trouble of doing their product placements for the new Bond film, BlackBerry ended up stealing the ultimate endorsement from Daniel Craig according to The Metro (November 21, 2006) - The Green Room column by Neil Sean.

Daniel Craig may earn his millions but he still enjoys freebies. The blond Bond caused a fuss at the Casino Royale premiere because only his goodie bag was missing a Blackberry phone.

Why didn't Sony Ericsson have its products in the goodie bag instead?

Links for 2006-11-21 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-22T22:48:00.000Z

Yahoo Search Growing Faster than Google - SearchEngineJournal

11 Euphemisms for Cloaking

I Love Second Life - crackunit.com: Iain Tait puts some good advice over about SL and sings its praises without drinking the kool-aid

online lectures - Internet TV Search Engine swicki - powered by eurekster

Sweeney marketing

2006-11-21T22:39:00.000Z

Gym Box recently did a tube station give-away, providing fitness fanatic masks, ideal for doing a payroll truck (now get your 'ead down you slaaaag and 'and over the money) .

Blogger Beta's flakiness on FireFox. I have managed to cure it by going to Camino instead. Weird city.

The wisdom of crowds

2006-11-21T22:31:00.000Z

Thanks to BoingBoing to the link for the Flickr camera guide which provides statistics on what cameras are used on the website. It also links into Yahoo! Shopping reviews.

Whilst I am happy with my trusty Konica Minolta Dimage X31, the site would make interesting reading for anybody in the market for a new camera.

The mix of consumer patterns, 'speeds and feeds' coupled with customer-created reviews is a winning formula.

Links for 2006-11-20 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-21T21:23:00.000Z

CNET Online Courses: Search Engine Marketing 101 » Lesson 2: SEO Best Practices.

CNET Online Courses: Search Engine Marketing 101 » Lesson 3: Site Links.

Information Arbitrage: The Value of Eyeballs and Its Impact on Journalistic Motivation

Wordpress Takes On SixApart With Enterprise Edition and Wordpress.com

Schools ban wi-fi networks after safety fears

Will Blogs Replace White Papers

paidcontent: Pearson and major business schools pair up for WikiText experiment

Downloading TV Shows leads to more TV watching at Torrentfreak

Stussy World Tour trailer - freakin' awesome

2006-11-21T00:43:00.000Z

Some of the biggest names real art including Futura himself in a documentary. The world series refers to Stussy's guest range of world series t-shirts, but the film is more than an advert; it captures the thoughts of dozens of artists and designers who've led the cutting edge in graphic and visual design for the past two decades.

Weekend away

2006-11-20T00:02:00.000Z

Blogger has been flaky all weekend. The problem seems to be only with Firefox, however it gets tiresome when you have to clear the cache, cookies and browser history several times in one session just to log in.

I managed to get the time to do some reading and can recommend Breaking Vegas by Ben Mezrich, it treads on similar territory to his previous books but is written in a more mature style without losing some of the tension.

I noticed an interesting point-of-purchase at a Starbucks, the company is rolling out a global loyalty and payment infrastructure. The potential of the card and the scale of ambition on this is impressive.

Basically Starbucks have their own payment infrastructure like PayPal which could be used to sell more than a granola bar and venti half-decaf-soya-latte with a shot of caramel on the side. It would be handy for road-warriors, exchange students and travellers.

A second element is the Tesco Clubcard-like loyalty card data wrapped into it, feeding back into a database that feeds into a global database.

Links for 2006-11-18 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-19T22:41:00.000Z

アップル - Macをはじめよう - TV CM - Apple Japan's get a Mac adverts - I don't know what they are saying but it is very amusing

Links for 2006-11-17 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-19T22:31:00.000Z

Keeping the Peace PBS I, Cringely - cool flash based media server project using a low-heat VIA processor

Peanut Buttergate

2006-11-19T18:08:00.000Z

Brad Garlinghouse is a natural and compelling presenter. I had seen him speak in internal presentations about Yahoo!'s communications and messenger products.

Garlinghouse has written a four-page memorandum looking for internal change at Yahoo! which maps out a possible future direction for the firm.

Brad Garlinghouse makes some very pertinent points in his now famous peanut butter memo about Yahoo!, but ultimately shows a more selfish agenda than 'saving' the company he loves.

You can read the full memo here, but I have just pulled some of the key items out to provide a European perspective on some of the points that he made:

Garlinghouse was frustrated with what he saw as competing products and approaches:

• Flickr vs. Photos: To say that Photos competes with Flickr is ridiculous Yahoo! Photos was tired, boring and a pretty shoddy product

• YMG video vs. Search video

• Deli.cio.us vs. My Web

• Messenger and plug-ins vs. sidebar and widgets

• Social media vs. 360 and Groups

• Front page vs. YMG

• Global strategy from BU'vs. Global strategy from Int'l

Part of the reason for this was a complex silo'ed matrix structure and an the result of an organisation struggling to fight a talent and ideas war against very strong adveraries like Google and Microsoft.

Some of the Yahoo! products should have been killed off, whilst other duplications occurred because internal products like 360, Messenger and MyWeb sucked at crucial iterations in their product life.

In addition, Yahoo!, particularly Music and the Comms & Community BU which Garlinghouse runs has a poor record of building products fit for early adopters like Music properties that are Mac-compatiable, the new Yahoo! Mail which doesn't work on Safari and a Messenger client which was much poorer than open source equivalents like Adium X making it hard to build a buzz that will trickle down to mainstream users.

Develop a focus on the vision
Absolutely, and drive this down into reinvigorating the brand for the 21st century. In the US, Yahoo! has a brand that resonates with consumers, but in Europe it doesn't stand for anything. Whilst my former boss Georga could recite the values of the brand and we all had purple folders highlighting what they were this hadn't changed in consumer perceptions. Focus on the vision is the first part of making that work.

Restore accountability and clarity of ownership
Two things are needed here - measurements that ensure long-term thinking rather than stort-term performance peaks and selling the future. The right people in the right roles to fulfil this. In Europe, this means going from from the top down.

Long-term thinking means building a brand to make Yahoo! a must-go online destination, rather than just using arbitrage calculations to buy clicks on Google. It means giving European users a higher quality user experience and prioritising the products users want rather than executive whims

Redesign performance and incentive schemes: This is only any good if it is tied into the right measurements and I don't think that Garlinghouse has got these measures right.

This paragraph I found particularly interesting, yet has got the least publicity is 'Align a set of new BU's so that they are not competing against each other. Search focuses on search. Social media aligns with community and communications. No competing owners for Video, Photos, etc. And Front Page becomes Switzerland. This will be a delicate exercise -- decentralization can create inefficiencies, but I believe we can find the right balance.'

Garlinghouse is basically going for a power play here.

Social media has been alligned to search because that's where a lot of the smart people who get it are: community and communications from a product and technology perspective don't get it.

Search has embraced social media because the algorithimic war is one of attrition whereas social media offers a breakout situation. A more radical and business savvy play would be to adopt Google search again and augment it with social media.

Garlinghouse blew it at that paragraph, its not about doing the best for the company, its about building his empire in the face of worthy opponents like Jeff Weiner who heads-up Search.

It would make more sense to put Communications mail product and all the communities products into Search alongside desktop search.

Finally being a marketing person I was horrified to see such a high profile marketing gaff 'I love Yahoo! I'm proud to admit that I bleed purple and yellow.' Yellow has not been an official corporate colour for over a year, somebody please give him a brand guide folder.

There's one born every minute

2006-11-17T23:11:00.000Z

Someone bid 9,000 USD for a Sony PlayStation 3.

Links for 2006-11-16 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-17T21:24:00.000Z

NSS Group - Self-described 'world's foremost independent security testing organisation'

Bubblegeneration Strategy Lab

EETimes.com - Study: Spend more, get more in R&D? Not always

Links for 2006-11-15 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-16T06:10:00.000Z

Graded Browser Support: Q4 Update - Yahoo! User Interface Blog

Netimperative - Top US sites more popular abroad than at home-study

John Battelle's Searchblog: Internet Revenue Breaks $4 Billion

Web Gaffs volume one

2006-11-16T00:19:00.000Z

Some US companies have a unique way of making executives look foolish. This video is an unfortunate example, U2 fans go away the butchery of One will be too much to bare.Kudos to Holy Moly.

Thanks to Jeremiah for showing how Wal-Mart's critics poured even more salt on the wound of the recent Edelman astroturfing blog scandal. I am sure Wal-Mart will go to court and win the domain back, thus giving Walmart Watch even more publicity. Click here while you can.

Moral of the story: go hogwild and register any related domain names that you can and don't let the registration slide.

Social Media Club London - the second coming

2006-11-15T20:40:00.000Z

First of all thanks to Jackie Danicki for chairing Social Media Group London this time around at Fleishman Hillard's offices on Longacre. It was interesting to catch up with some people that I knew like Stephen and meet some people that I kind of knew but hadn't met before like Stuart Bruce.

There were a number of themes that came out of the discussion that I found of interest:

In terms of online media consumption patterns, about two thirds to three quarters of the attendees had reached a post-RSS stage in their online media consumption. Typically they had went through subscribing to hundreds of feeds, reached information overload and pared them right back

Often they used a friends blog as as a meta filter for content, a kind of very tailored BoingBoing. Given that the attendees are likely to be high media consumers and early adopters this is an interesting trend to watch out for

There was a corresponding decline in the 'trust' that these users assigned to both mainstream and narrowcast media. Film reviews were cited as a classic example, some of the participants were no longer willing to accept pundits viewpoints and instead wanted to only trust very close friends

This concept of shrinking the community was discussed around Facebook, in line with the real-world analogy of a village how should marketers handle the parochial monoculture perpetuated on such closed communities?

The challenge of surfacing quality free content was mentioned: how do you find the content that you want if it hasn't been recommended by a close friend? Flickr's interestingness seemed to be making in the right direction. There was a suggestion of a market-based engine of sorts. However, what happens if everyone wants to benefit and no one wants to participate (like the post-RSS culture)?

What is participation? - What would be considered to be consumption patterns in old media (like reading a newspaper or watching television) was considered to be participation in new media. Many of the participants didn't see the contradiction, which I found to be an curious viewpoint

Links for 2006-11-14 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-15T12:58:00.000Z

Health Disparities Persist for Men, and Doctors Ask Why - New York Times

SharpeTangent

Universal Music Group CEO: iPod Owners Are Theives Josh Smith Online

Yahoo's Semel Internet ad potential underestimated/2100-1024_3-6135250.html?tag=nefd.top - News.com

The Engadget Interview: Peter Dille, Sony Computer Entertainment's SVP of Marketing - Engadget

Links for 2006-11-13 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-15T06:41:00.000Z

Sold Out Tickets - UK Concert Tickets, London Theatre Tickets, Premiership Tickets, Sports Tickets, Corporate Hospitality

Smug Nation

brandchannel.com - Louis Vuitton Brand - Luxury Goods Brands Combating Counterfeiting

Extremely Useful Macbook Freeware

Breaking into my Mac

24h contre la censure d'Internet / RSF

EETimes.com - Designers give CAD research gurus an earful

Chemistry: WebElements Periodic Table

International Country Calling Codes and World Time Zones

One Bag - leisure and business travel packing list - travel light!

Things to look out for and tip of the day

2006-11-13T21:45:00.000Z

Two sites to look out for:

Element 30 - a Silicon Valley-based enterprise start-up. The head of marketing is ex-Yahoo Rich Pearson. They are currently looking for .net and c# coders with skills. If you are interested drop them a line. For the more curious zinc is element 30 in the periodic table, it is a transition metal, it is used as the 'healing layer' on galvanised steel and can protect against sun burn in its oxide form

Smug Nation - is a soon-to-be launched project by a couple of friends of my colleague Cherie. Look out for their guerrilla marketing stickers defacing street furniture and public toilets with some of the usual banal phrases you would hear round an office like "I'm more of an ideas person" and "Sent from my Blackberry". Kind of like fridge magnet poetry for Martin Lukes

Finally, thanks to Stephen for the tip. Crack password-protected PDF files with ease. Open the files in ColorSync which comes as part of the Mac operating system and re-save the file with a different name. The newly-named file as been freed of its DRM badness. Be responsible, piracy is isn't cool (except for Captain Jack Sparrow).

Links for 2006-11-12 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-13T20:51:00.000Z

Entrepreneurs See a Web Guided by Common Sense - New York Times

onedotzero - adventures in moving image

Links for 2006-11-11 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-12T13:22:00.000Z

PScrewed - New York Times analysis of the PS3, my tag line :-)

Silicon Valley Sleuth: 10 web2.0 lies

GP2X official site - Buy the GP2X Linux console

Freeview - Welcome to free TV land

Jargon Watch

2006-11-12T02:30:00.000Z

Income inequality - As cited by Paul Donovan of UBS global economics team in the podcast episode Unequal Economics.

There has been a well-observed difference in disposable income between the rich and poor, however UBS also found that the inflation rate for those less well off in society has been higher than other members of society.

Like thermoclines in cold water stratifying out into different layers so different inflation rates have affected income groups.

For the past ten years, the worst off in society have undergone a recession whilst the well off have done well. Donovan claimed that this had a number of knock-on effects:

Companies whose product offering is aimed at the lower-end of the market will be adversely affected by higher inflation rates
The pension returns required by different levels of society are very different due to the different cost of living profiles
Income inequality is likely to bring more progressive taxes, political resistance to globalisation and a subsequent disruption of the economic cycle

Greenpeace reputation sails into dangerous waters

2006-11-12T00:01:00.000Z

Image from Wikipedia (click link for copyright statement)

Greenpeace has been hauled over the coals with allegations that the large multinational pressure group used classic spin tactics of lies, disinformation and sensationalism.

Roughly Drafted has gone toe-to-toe with the well financed pressure group to press for the truth around their greener electonics campaign:

The PR problem for Greenpeace is pretty simple, once they start being discovered using such underhand tactics they will appear less credible and start to lose the funding and goodwill they need to make some of their more valid campaigns and devalue what dedicated supporters have already achieved.

Roughly Drafted also cites well known mistakes by the large multinational pressure group including damaging a healthy coral reef in the Phillipines because they had the wrong maps and a series of lies told during the Shell Brent Spar debacle.

As media becomes more transparent with the blogosphere, both corporates and not-for-profits cannot afford to step out of line.

This time Greenpeace did not ignite the kind of media furore that Edelman and Wal-Mart caused, but if they keep on going they may be on the receiving end of protestors both online and in 'meat space'.

Greenpeace relies on the fact that it is doing the right thing to protect them and most corporate won't go toe-to-toe. However that doesn't mean that individuals and activist organisations won't.

Think about it this way:

Greenpeace is a large multinational organisation with 360 million USD revenues recorded for 2005, it has a network of international offices and a fleet of ships
The organisation has a well-known high profile brand that runs against the grain (like many large fashion brands from Nike to Stussy would like to position themselves)
You could even consider a lot of their protests as an extreme sports marketing campaign (abseiling, scuba diving, sailing, running around in RIBs and thumbing their nose at authority like skateboarders or graffiti artists)

Sounds like a large corporate in structure and behaviour?

Links for 2006-11-10 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-11T10:37:00.000Z

Scoop! Yahoo VPs to get canned in the next 7 days - Valleywag

Merrill Lynch Still Hates Sony, Estimates Huge PS3 Losses - SeekingAlpha

Coffee classics - Cool Hunting

MI5 - The International Terrorist Threat to the UK

International Herald Tribune - AudioNews

Entrepreneurship

Bloomsbury 10 pin Bowling Lanes and Bar London

Porter's Five Forces

Startup Review Blog - Analyzing Web Success

Photography exhibition

2006-11-11T10:22:00.000Z

Steve and I were unwitting models for a high-brow photo shoot back in April by Berlin and London-based photographer Bernhard Deckert. Bernhard is having an exhibition in Elephant and Castle.

Amazon arbitrage

2006-11-10T21:52:00.000Z

Whist Amazon is a global e-tailer, but it is worth shopping around across their sites, which is the reason why I signed up to Amazon Germany for marketing emails. The German market is much more value-orientated which is why Amazon can be cheaper with many items. Anyway they have Four DVDs for 20 Euros.

Time to park up on the couch.

Links for 2006-11-08 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-09T19:59:00.000Z

lx TV

apophenia: what i mean when i say "email is dead" in reference to teens

Targeted Social Networks Find Audiences - Advertising Age

Wi-Fi 101

News-Record.com - How the newsroom really works

Branded Utility: Isaac Tigrett's Philosophy

Los Angeles Times, Britney Spears Offer Case Studies In Media Management!

twentytwentyone

EuroBlog Survey for 2007 - webpronews

Whois Lookup (The Whois Search Server)

Disintegrated marketing

2006-11-08T20:50:00.001Z

Last Friday I sung the praises of Starbucks joined-up thinking for their big Christmas push, however looking more closely the wheels look as if they have come off the Starbucks marketing wagon:

Sort out a visual theme for Christmas marketing push. Nice

Order in merchandise from the Far East. Looking good.

Integrate domain name into artwork for maximum customer engagement. Sweet, most of this web 2.0 thing was started in coffee shops like ours with wi-fi connections, we might even sell some overpriced hotspot time. ;-)

Launch Christmas campaign into shops with supporting web presence....

Why?

Poor project management?
A web site that didn't meet the client brief?
Scared of a possible clash with Product Red?

I don't know. Priceless...

On the bright side I guess the marketers at least know that people pay attention to their packaging. Anybody else got any good marketing campaign disconnects? Put the details in the comments section.

If there was a site there, it hasn't been up for the past two days, up to early this evening the page said Plesk instead.

Links for 2006-11-07 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-08T20:21:00.000Z

SonyEricsson buys UIQ

Eurogamer

Puma Q3 profits run 5 per cent lower

The internet, regulation, the private sector and public safety - Kenn Cukier

http://www.web-strategist.com/blog/

Gartner Watch - Powered By Bloglines

Cyberspies Invade Silicon Valley
Furoshiki laptop bag

Requirements For Social Media Press Release

Locksport International

Links for 2006-11-06 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-07T20:32:00.000Z

CBS stages open call for tech entrepreneurs - Reuters Blogs

Picture books help toddlers learn, study finds - Yahoo! News

TVL - Welcome to TV Licensing
ShoZu
Asda weighs in to online shopping war - silicon.com

Infinite Loop: The new generation of 3rd party Mac software: hypeware

Next-gen DVD war pre-empted? - EETimes.com

How Al Jazeera can go up a gear - International Herald Tribune

Technorati: State of the Blogosphere, October, 2006

Cumulate Draw

Getting plugged back in

2006-11-07T00:25:00.000Z

I took the plunge and got a TV licence for the first time in six and a half years.

As a PR person without access to television I was initially viewed as an eccentric or subversive element by my superiors, but with the rise of broadband my lack of televisual life seemed less strange.

What prompted this reconnection?

A mix of factors:

Compelling content with a re-run of This Life, Into the West and series five of Spooks
Bit Torrent being about as useful as a one-legged man in a shit-kicking contest
A free set up - I got the TV, DVD player and freeview box from a friend who was upgrading and spent 50 GBP on a high-gain aerial. I adapted the mounting bracket from a gauche looking satellite dish that was in-situ when I arrived in my house

Some initial observations from my reconnection:

User interfaces on consumer electronics are appalling. Consumer electronics definitely need the iPod factor to bring them into the 21st century
The technology doesn't work, half of the freeview channels don't work, though I only regret the loss of Turner Classic Movies (TCM) and Bloomberg TV. This isn't the box, its the Swiss cheese digital TV network. Ireland learned from the UK digital roll-out and have cranked up the power on their transmitters to compensate
The shockingly poor quality of shopping channels still amaze me; I remember watching QVC in disbelief in my final year of college a decade ago. It hasn't changed for the better. Traditional channels still have the upper hand in quality content
The market doesn't work; the increase in customer choice through increased channel and competition for the ad mans dollar hasn't brought a corresponding improvement in the quality of content available

I feel ambivalent to the TV an know that I will not be trapped in its grip like many people I know.

Oprah Time: American Pastoral

2006-11-07T00:01:00.000Z

When I was young I was told the tale of an old Chinese farmer who had a son and some fine horses. The neighbours thought that he was lucky.

One day the son was out riding one of his family's horses, he was thrown and broke his leg. The villagers thought that it was bad luck, further bad luck was considered to fall on him when the kingdom went to war and the farmer had his horses taken by the army.

The war went badly and the army rounded up the sons of the villagers, but the farmers son with a broken leg was left behind.

The villagers thought that the farmer was unlucky because their sons were sure to bring home booty from the battle.

When their sons didn't return, they thought that the farmer was lucky.

This juxtaposition of luck or fate is captured in American Pastoral by US author Philip Roth. Roth tells the story of an All-American success story, initially through the eyes of a high school reunion and then lifts the lid on all the elements that were tearing him apart from the inside. A domestic drama unstable spouse and counter-culture terrorist daughter plays out against a backdrop of globalisation shaping the US manufacturing sector, civil rights and social unrest during the latter days of the Vietnam war.

The main protagonists life comes apart at the seams whilst seemingly been fine.

Roth has written a melancholy story which is strangely compelling in a similar way to Requiem for a Dream. It is an easy read that I would recommend.

Links for 2006-11-05 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-06T22:37:00.000Z

Printable planning forms - Lifehacker

IAC Goes Google Route - The Street.com

Wikipedia critic finds copied passages - Yahoo! News

TV listings for BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Satellite TV channels Yahoo! TV UK
easyCinema.com: low cost movie entertainment from Stelios, the founder of easyJet

Free as in love

2006-11-06T00:01:00.000Z

Thank you to Philips for sponsoring the select section of the New York Times and providing free access to skin flints like me. The Select section is a subscription wall around some of the more interesting op-ed and analysis pieces done by the paper.

The Economist and Salon provides access through a similar arrangement with different sponsors. It makes you value the content but still have access via sponsored day pass system and subscribers still feel they have value-for-money as they have a hassle and ad-free experience. The sponsorship runs from today through to November 12.

The New York Times claims that this is a way of increasing their subscriber base. My thoughts are that it allows the New York Times to increase its visibitility and relevance to the zeitgest and allows the company to experiment with a more progressive business model. Kudos to Reuters - Philips sponsors free New York Times Web access

Links for 2006-11-04 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-05T12:31:00.000Z

paidContent - OhmyNews Succeeds With P2P News; Struggles With Business Model

Record fab spending in '06, analyst says - EETimes.com

Malcolm X - Wikiquote

New WLAN Wizard - Nokia S60 3rd Edition

SUEDY'S KOO-KI SUSHI® - Gourmet, handmade chocolatecookie/confections that look just like real sushi!

Sir Snipes - eBay Help Page

pzizz™ is a personal life coaching system, energy and stress, health and fitness, hypnosis, NLP, uk

Infrant Technologies

Opera Opera Opticians Limited

Torrentfreak

Jargon Watch

2006-11-05T00:06:00.000Z

Creation Nets - Where hundreds and even thousands of participants from diverse institutional settings collaborate to create new knowledge, to learn from one another, and to appropriate and build on one another's work—all under the guidance of a network organiser. From the McKinsey Quarterly article Creation nets: Getting the most from open innovation by Hagel and Seely-Brown.

Remix as a political tool

2006-11-04T16:09:00.000Z

Slate.com have been remixing some of the more distasteful political ads to come out of Washington. I could imagine this tactic being used on both a commercial and political stage in the future. Of course for commercial purposes, marketers would need plausiable deniability to keep them out of court for infringing a competitors intellectual property. Here's one about US politician Mark Foley as an example.

Foley had allegations made against him about suggestive emails and sexually explicit instant messages to boys who had formerly served as Congressional pages, and had intercourse with two of them.

As a result of the disclosures, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement opened investigations of the messages to find possible criminal charges.

Links for 2006-11-03 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-04T10:43:00.000Z

Microsoft takes the Linux patent pledge (video) - Silicon Valley Sleuth

FT Alphaville - self-described as instant market insight

Trusted Computing for Mac OS X - Amit Singh

MercuryNews.com | 11/03/2006 | Some patient VCs still waiting for Visto to pay off

John Seely Brown - management author and self-described Chief of Confusion

Are Company Blogs Dead - WebProNews

Yahoo! Food - don't forget however that US and UK measures are different, use Google to convert them over ;-)

Miami Beach exec says controversy sells 42 Below vodka - Miami Herald

Nice idea, shame about the execution

2006-11-04T00:41:00.000Z

We have a Benjy's around the corner from the office and they serve a humungous cup of joe for a measily 99p. I have two cups a day to keep me running. I noticed an advertising campaign for chip giant Intel by tabletalkmedia.

The idea of advertising on coffee holders in central London was really clever, unfortunately the execution didn't match the idea. This was an advert aimed at consumers so where does it go wrong?

The image on the left that Intel went to the both of printing in full colour is a blown up silicon die and no Joe Public probably doesn't know what it is or the significance of it
The strapline is ambiguous 'It's all about energy'. What does it mean?
Why should you the consumer care?
What about the usual association of energy and beverages (Lucazade, Red Bull etc)?

This may work at a trade show, but it shows no awareness of how to market to consumers and business users. Some people just have more budget than sense.

Starbucks Holiday Season

2006-11-03T23:34:00.000Z

Starbucks do a different mug every year for Christmas. This year's design echoes the red paper cups that the coffee shop is selling to take out customers even down to the faux rolled lip at the top of the mug. I liked the way the theme had been carried through faithfully from paper to porcelain.

Links for 2006-11-02 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-03T22:33:00.000Z

Data Portability A VC

Geojoey

Online Reputation Management The New PR - WebProNews

Scan, copy and fax with your camera phone or digital camera

NOKIA's VISION IS CLEAR - the cool hunter

UK report: knowledge should be public good first, private right second - ars technica

10 Tips For Google Image Search - Google Operating System

Kettle Chips Passport to Flavor Party Pack - Uncrate

Always Get New Links “AGNL” 7 Tips for Success

How to get covered by TechCrunch: Learn a party trick - Valleywag

Jargon Watch

2006-11-03T00:05:00.000Z

Bushenfreude - Like the tax cuts of the Bush administration, but dislike the rest of the presidents policies. From Slate.

Starbucking - Telecommuting from a coffee shop, courtesy of Valleywag.

Links for 2006-11-01 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-02T13:38:00.000Z

Telefonplan Tower

Spock offers an ambitious people search engine - VentureBeat

PR 2.0 Essentials Guide

To Participate Or Not? Reactive response to blog posts - A VC

Smartphone review

Profits don't always woo investors - MercuryNews.com

How to Talk to a Human when Calling a Business - WikiHow

Learn from the old ways

2006-11-02T00:18:00.000Z

I started off in PR working in community relations for an oil and gas exploration company during my college vacation. The general thinking then was that you could not do community relations unless you became part of the community.

Unfortunately this lesson has been lost on many of the companies who are dashing off to exploit the metaverse of Second Life.

The Second Life Herald (SLH) written by long-time Second-Lifers delivers a smack down to Rohit Bhargava of Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide. Bhargava is the lightning rod for a string of complaints from the community regarding the conduct of PR agencies false claiming firsts and polluting the community.

The SLH also lays into the way corporates are developing virtual properties out of keeping with the Second Life experience. As Bill Hicks would have said "marketers know the price of everything and the value of nothing".

Thanks to Iain Tait at Crackunit.

Links for 2006-10-31 [My Web 2.0]

2006-11-01T22:13:00.000Z

10 things you should know about connecting Macintosh OS X systems to Windows networks

Sony releases 'James Bond' laptop - The Inquirer. Cue jokes about exploding batteries, licence to kill etc.

Greenpeace busted for sleazy PR tactics - If I pulled the kind of amoral behaviour for my clients, I'd get crucified.

Scary Stories on Google Books - Halloween themed page, rather than publishers breaking out in a cold sweat.

Just-Eat.co.uk - order food online

Google Acquires Wiki Company JotSpot

A fair for oligarchs with money to burn - Business - International Herald Tribune

Google Drives Shoppers, While Yahoo! Drives Buyers - Christine.net

Wired Acquires Social News Site Reddit - paidcontent

Seidai Software - Fair Game - rip and back up your online media purchases

Toblerone packaging

2006-11-01T00:01:00.000Z

Toblerone have got some really cool packaging design with a sense of humour.

This is what the more usual design looks like.

Roadwarrior design classics

2006-10-31T21:29:00.000Z

A little while back I wrote about my multi-adapter that some clients have coveted in the past. Another item in my laptop travelling kit is this natty retractable ethernet cable by Targus.

Wi-Fi despite what the techno-pundits would have you believe is rather unpredictable and reception areas can be like Swiss cheese. If I have the chance I prefer an ethernet socket to hook up my MacBook Pro.

Rather than having a coiled cable that ends up looking like a plate of spaghetti and damaged connectors I have a small plastic block about the size of a fat audio cassette. It makes it a lot easier to pack.

It recoils back into its plastic shell automatically like the power cord on my vacuum cleaner.

The red brand of China

2006-10-30T20:52:00.000Z

Brandchannel have an interesting article about the challenges that Chinese brands face to make it successfully in the West. The article doesn't cover the recent BenQ Siemens disaster. More details here (PDF document Preview.app or Adobe Acrobat reader required).

Links for 2006-10-29 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-30T20:27:00.000Z

What Do Women Want? Just Ask - New York Times

Energy Fiend - Obsessed With Caffeine

Some inconvenient questions?

2006-10-30T00:01:00.000Z

I went to see An Inconvenient Truth. This is a film made by Al Gore which intersperses his presentation which he routinely gives on climate change and the story of Gore's own journey to environmentalism. I had some observations which I have noted below in a number points in no particular order.

The Good
Gore has managed to make his lecture a worthwhile experience to watch, which is a rare achievement.

Where the lecture touches on the way humans continually fail to understand non-linear or dynamic systems really struck a chord with me.

It's the reason why Yahoo! Research and O'Reilly Media run the Research Buzz Index and why DARPA tried to introduce the market-based regime dead pool as a predictor of terrorist activity and intent.

The end of the speech highlighting why people shouldn't shrug global warming off as something they can't change I found particularly influential.

The Bad
The film missed an opportunity to discuss how long-term carbon emissions can be reduced through increased reliance on nuclear and alternative energies. There is also a compelling economic argument for reducing carbon emissions. By reducing resource consumption for fuel we are sparing these resources so that they can be used as chemical feedstock over time for medicines, plastics and other advanced materials that can improve our life, minimise our impact on the environment and still spur economic growth.

Gore points out how a sample was taken of academic papers and none of them disputed global climate change. However in doing so he did leave him open to criticism: peer review is notorious for enforcing orthodox thinking. By going against orthodox thinking scientists risk losing their funding and or tenure. In brutal terms, they risk losing the ability to provide for themselves and their families. I think that on balance Gore is right, but he left himself open.

The blog to support the film is a model example of how not to do a corporate blog. It is more like a bulletin board and has no personal feel. All the posts seem to be done anonymously. This was a bit surprising since in other ways the film seems to have been very savvy in its online presence to facilitate word-of-mouth marketing.

The Cynical
The film looks in part like a campaign video for some future Gore White House ticket, especially when the film reaches back to personal tragedy in Gore's life. Maybe its a cultural thing, me watching a film very much aimed at an American audience through my European cultural looking-glass.

Product placement: Gore is on the board of Apple Computer Inc. The company makes fantastic products, hell I use them, have done for the past nigh on two decades; but the first five minutes of the film had footage that was a product placement persons wet dream. Was this the catalyst for the current hate campaign against Apple by environmental ambulance-chasers Greenpeace?

I didn't see Gore once use a light transit system or any form of public transport (apart from taxis) in the film.

The Unfortunate
Ultimately the audience for this film will be self-selecting, it won't reach into the less progressive heartland of America that it needs to impact in order to facilitate change. How do you turn the media's answer to J Edgar Hoover: Rush Limbaugh green?

Pulp Fiction

2006-10-29T15:34:00.000Z

My Dad used to read a lot of pulp fiction from Westerns by the likes Louis L'Amour to thrillers from Hammond Innes and Alistair MacLean and they were always kept around the house.

Periodically my Dad would trade some in and get newer ones from a second-hand book seller in Birkenhead market. As a kid they made an easy way to wile away a few hours on a wet Sunday afternoon.

I picked up a copy of Louis Louis L'Amour's Silver Canyon by chance.

It was easy to read and although the plot and characterisation did nothing for me, you could see from his writing how the discipline of cranking out book after book on a typewriter had given him a lean writing style similar to Hemmingway.

It makes you wonder how many books we have to suffer from Dan Brown before he gets to a similar standard, or how many blog posts I have crank out?

Links for 2006-10-28 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-29T15:07:00.000Z

Not As Random As It Looks? - Business Week on new stock scandal in the making

whitney music box var. 0 - chromatic - 48 tines

Snap Cam - 35mm Camera Model Kit - SUPERfantastico!

Nintendo: Playing a different game - Economist.com

Charles & Marie: The Quintessential Lifestyle Navigator

O'Kane Irish Foods

Forrester's Consumer Forum 2006 - attendees takes on the different presentations given by the likes of Charlene Li

RTE - Radio Gems

Irish business newseircom net

Television, drug of the nation

2006-10-29T00:52:00.000+01:00

One nation under god has turned into
one nation under the influence of one drug

Television, the drug of the nation
Breeding ignorance and feeding radiation

The Disposable Heroes of Hiphoprisy (Michael Franti, 1991)

Wallpaper for the the mind, an escape, an opiate of the people: television has been accused of many things.

I found that my life was richer and I read more when I didn't have a TV set.

However, I was surprised by this article in Slate TV Really Might Cause Autism: findings from a new Cornell study by Gregg Easterbrook that pulls together academic research which points out TV may be related to incidences of ADD and autism in young children.

The Dipstick

2006-10-29T00:12:00.000+01:00

I am not a great kitchen and cooking person but this really appealed to me. The Teastick.

For years my parents and my Granny claimed that teabags contained the worst sweepings of the tea and insisted on drinking Barry's Tea in leaf form only.

You can only hold so many years making a quick mug of tea and drinking carefully to allow the leaves to settle at the bottom of the cup if the tea strainer had been mislaid. Which is where the Teastick is a stroke of well not exactly genius more like something that has been staring you in the face, its so obvious. But I guess that's where great product design comes in.

A curious mix of influser and teaspoon, the Teastick is old school tea for a post-modern time poor world. What's more paper-making manufacturing for the cases of tea bags consumes a huge amount of energy, pollutes a lot of water, so the Teastick should be appreciated by Guardian-reading types.

Chromatic progression

2006-10-28T13:12:00.000+01:00

John Whitney was an animator and composer who did a lot of work around music and mathematics. This work has been taken up by a Flash animator. The animations are the kind of simple yet entertaining simple pleasures that I would have appreciated as a child and have begun to appreciate again.

Theyt are strangely compelling, enjoy!

Links for 2006-10-27 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-28T12:57:00.000+01:00

Free Online Translator and dictionary - English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese (Brazilian) and Russian languages

Attack of the Sprouts

Top 100 Facts for Chuck Norris - 4Q.cc

Ferris Bueller's day is history for today's kids - USATODAY.com

EMI Music CEO says the CD is 'dead' - MarketWatch

contactmusic

Play corrupts and game play corrupts totally

2006-10-27T21:42:00.000+01:00

Earlier this week, the legal actions of Sony Computer Entertainment Europe (SCEE) apparently forced Lik-Sang.com to shut down. There has been soul searching in some quarters about Sony's conduct, particularly with regards the number of senior executives how had bought grey-market devices for 'investigative purposes' allegedly.

Rather than have people rattling around online, I thought that I would suggest some practical ways to respond in a responsible manner and explain to SCEE that they didn't appreciate the company's conduct.

I started by revisting a post I had written over two years ago for the AlwaysOn Network following articles I had read about Wal-Mart. It has some good rules of engagement in italics:

- Stop bellyaching saying how terrible they are. If you have money you have a choice; use it. If you have a fair bit of money you also have a voice; use it.

- Don't be abusive to company staff. These are people who are trying to get by; the last thing they need is some stuck-up righteous person going off at them. Be polite and courteous at all times - even to senior management.

- Consumers - don't buy the company's products and services. If you don't buy, they will go away or change to behave in a 'more acceptable' manner. Its the laws of supply and demand, you cut off their supply of money, they'll be more ameniable to respond to your suggestions for improvement.

- Do talk to your friends and peers about the benefits of rival ways of shopping. For a listed retail company, there is nothing more terrifying than a decreasing amount of money going through the tills.

There is nothing more powerful according to some of the world's leading marketers like Richard Edelman than word-of-mouth marketing. That's the reason why even mobile phones have blogs nowadays.

If you have bought a Wii and or your XBox360 tell everyone how good it is. If you are in Currys or Comet and someone is looking at the PS3 or a PSP, tell them how rocking your Wii, DS or video iPod is. If a Wii or XBox360 demo kiosk has fallen over , get a member of staff to reset it. Mac users have been doing this for years, its known in the industry as evangelisation.

- Focus on one message, there seems to be a myriad of issues that people have with Wal-Mart, however like advertising if you repeat just one message enough times it is more likely to get through to the public psyche and the board of the company. When they have listened to that focus on the next one.

In this case, I'd recommend expressing displeasure at the company's 'regional apartheid' against European gamers. It's a phrase that is loaded with imagery and emotion and makes a great media soundbite.

- Think about your message, phrase it in terms of the benefit to the audience. For instance, a politician who voices an opposition to the company may benefit from more votes and individual campaign contributions. Basic Dale Carnegie stuff but very true.

- Hound special interest groups like 'Greenpeace' and 'Friends of the Earth' telling them to readjust their priorities, you'll need to be polite and very persistent because they usually have pretty thick skins since they give it out so much.

Greenpeace is very interested in electronic waste at the moment., here is a link to their report on Sony. I found it particularly interesting that I couldn't find any information from SCEE on their website about their environmental record or what they are doing to limit e-waste. Why not send an email to Greenpeace and ask them to take action?

- Learn from the way political campaigns have co-opted the web and get active using meet-up.com, web blogs etc

- Write, email, call the company's share register, their auditors, their PR agency and their bank of record. Be polite, courteous, persistent and humourous (if you can be) to deliver your message and do it often.

SCEE Email addresses are usually of the form: firstname_lastname@scee.net
There is a feedback page here.
The company press office email address

- Don't deviate from non-violent action. It's not cool and its not clever, it is counter-productive to your argument. Over here in the UK, the anti-vivisectionist movement have lost a lot of public goodwill by using violence and intimidation

- Vitriol is not clever, stick to the facts. To an outside audience your vitriol will lack credibility. That is why some of the empassioned anti-Bush protests have little effect (ya' feelin me Howard Dean?).

- Do not violate the company's intellectual property including trade marks. That funny piece of satire that you put up as a website, wont be seen by too many people because your web host provider or ISP will take it down if they get a letter from the company's lawyers.

There is nothing more frustrating to a company than not being able to do anything about its reputation, SCEE is especially vulnerable at the present time as it is in the midst of changing UK PR agencies. The company will struggle to respond to sustained criticism where it cannot bring legal pressure to bear.

- Suppliers - if the company knocks on your door wanting you to supply them. Send them on instead to the competitor you most want to see ran out of business.

- If you want to put your money where you're mouth is, make sure the company's stock isn't in your 401K

- Write to your mutual fund manager, write to your politicians

- Write to your local newspaper.

Post on the forums that you read, put a link to this posting for any people that are interested.

- Don't give up, its only by repetition and determination that campaigns suceed

Links for 2006-10-26 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-27T13:21:00.000+01:00

AMD, Intel are come-back kids with X86 vectorisation

Fandalism

Microsoft To Miss XBox 360 Sales Targets By As Much As 25% - SeekingAlpha

Lik-Sang.com Out of Business due to Multiple Sony Lawsuits

Size? - Buy rare & exclusive trainers, deadstock, buy UK-exclusive colour ways, adidas, Nike, Puma, New Balance

Thursday Miscellany

2006-10-26T21:16:00.000+01:00

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The folks at San Francisco bag maker Timbuk2 have extended their custom build range with a market tote for all you yoga loving gym bunnies and a laptop messenger for all us wage slaves.

For what their worth (and Internet tracking is less advance than the industry would have you believe) netimperative have a chart of the world's 15 most trafficked web properties courtesy of comScore World Metrix.

PRMoves are having a networking event at Ping Pong, 48 Eastcastle Street, W1 on Tuesday 7th November. In their own words: It will be a chance to catch up with us plus indulge in free drinks and nibbles. Also we will be giving you the chance to grill Emma Smith, Assistant Editor of InGear/Sunday Times on the ‘mysteries of journalism’. Let us know if you can come!

I would have hoped that many of the PR people there would already have a good understanding of the mysteries of journalism - but hey ho the market must be tough so any kind of candidate will do ;-).

Defected Records have teamed up with Mark Finkelstein to resuscitate Strictly Rhythm records according to Earplug. Once one of the most cutting edge New York record labels Strictly disintegrated in creative bankruptcy around the time that Warner Music bought into the label. Where they had once broke artists like Josh Wink, George Morel and Masters at Work and Aly-Us; post Michael Moog - That Sound they ended up churning out bland me-to tracks.

Good luck to them, I met Strictly's famous A&R supremo Gladys Pizarro in a house party in Hampstead a number of years ago and she seemed suprisingly well-adjusted compared to the usual music industry casualties that I've met.

Its the new style

2006-10-26T20:53:00.000+01:00

I originally wanted to post this yesterday but Blogger was on the blink.

One of the key products I was involved in whilst at Yahoo! was the company's entrance into the social search space with a product called MyWeb. In the last year or so the company has updated the product to version 2.5, which is immensely usable and purchased del.icio.us.

MyWeb was useful as a 'memory' with its repository of saved web pages, however in versions one and two was a pig to set up. Many users didn't appreciate its utility because it was so hard to initially use.

Last night the company rolled out Yahoo! Bookmarks. Bookmarks is a mix of old and new. The brand name does what is says on the tin and takes the bookmarks function that was on the old My Yahoo! page since 1999 and brings it right up to date. It gets consumers over a major barrier about what the hell the product is.

The interface on the product is slicker than a silk codpiece, with proper drag and drop functionality like the Oddpost-powered Yahoo! Mail. The site thumbnails is one of those so simple its obvious ideas. Big props to Tom Chi - the developer who did much of the super-sharp work.

So that Bookmarks must live, MyWeb must die, there will be a migration path to either del.icio.us or Bookmarks. Migration will be easy because Bookmarks sits on the MyWeb platform and del.icio.us will move over (whilst still retaining a user experience that makes a Benedictine monks cell look decadent).

To be honest with you I want both, part of the value of MyWeb is the discovery of great links from other people who are known to you, AND the ability to take a copy of a page that you've seen.

The reason that I want to copy a page is that many links, particularly on dynamic content sites like newspapers die, having a cache of the page at the time I originally saw it is a really handy reference.

Anyway, give it a try here. A Yahoo! ID is required.

Links for 2006-10-25 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-26T20:49:00.000+01:00

Better Bookmarks, Better Toolbar - Yahoo! Search blog

The Black Hole of Los Alamos - a photoset on Flickr

68 LED torch - YesLed.com

Links for 2006-10-24 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-25T12:14:00.000+01:00

Japan consumer electronics shipments up 9.6 percent in Sept. - MSN-Mainichi Daily News

Sony explains controversial Li-inon secondary battery malfunction - Nikkei Electronics
Nikkei TechOn news

pmeme - tracking people making news - following people in the blogosphere

Europeans Surf On Mobiles - PSFK

SGI files suit against ATI - EETimes.com

Retailer Euroset sees 87% mobile penetration in Russia by year-end

Whither Web 2.0? - Orange Country Register

VoodooPad - Flying Meat

Trampoline Enron Explorer »

Congratulations

2006-10-24T22:45:00.000+01:00

There was once a director who was told that although he knew pretty much everything that you need to know about technology PR, he was not considered to be ready to run the London office of an up and coming US agency. He then went on to set up a successful London office for another US company.

Of course, this has nothing to do with Stephen Waddington's successful sale of Rainer PR to brand communications consultancy Loewy. I only hope being part of a larger firm doesn't ruin Wadd's irreverent sense of humour.

Nice one Wadds.

Links for 2006-10-23 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-24T13:23:00.000+01:00

Silicon Valley Moms Blog

Google Adjusts Hiring Process As Needs Grow - WSJ.com

Memories of Q

2006-10-23T23:08:00.000+01:00

I was looking an advert (pictured) for the new Motorola Q smartphone whilst on the New York Times website. What struck me was not the original Speak n Spell-type buttons or the styling but the letter Q in the name. A red Q in fact and my immediate reaction was Compaq.

For those of you too young to remember: Compaq was a company who reverse engineered the IBM PC and then build a luggable version called the Compaq Portable. The company did very well selling portable and desktop computers and even had a popular line in servers. At one time the Compaq supplied more computers than anyone else in the world.

The company acquired two other computing greats Tandem Computers famous for their fault-tolerant NonStop server line and Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) the mini-computer pioneers.

Compaq 'merged' with HP in 2002 and the Compaq brand has been progressively been erased from the product lines.

The letter Q was a key part of the company's brand identity, indeed IT news website The Register used to call the company The Big Q (as opposed to Big Blue, IBM's nick name). In the space of four years Motorola and Verizon now feel sufficiently confident to use a Red Q without incurring an association with the Compaq brand.

Indeed this may been a deliberate move as the Motorola Q device may want tap into the karma of Compaq's original iPAQ Windows PDA device, which were all the rage with management consultants (many of whom were given them for free) some six years ago.

Links for 2006-10-22 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-23T21:12:00.000+01:00

British adults 'fear youngsters' - BBC NEWS | UK

The unusual flakiness of the MacBook Pro... (plasticbag.org)

EuropeanIrish.com News Stories

OpenID: an actually distributed identity system

Discover and share applications that use Yahoo! technologies - Yahoo! Gallery

Reverberations

2006-10-22T13:20:00.000+01:00

At the time of writing the Edelman Wal-Mart flog furore has about 1,125 blog posts according to Technorati and over 49 news stories on Google News. Enough has been said about the incident here and elsewhere, but I wanted to use it as an example to illustrate another point.

News flow on blogs is very different to news flow in the mainstream media (MSM). We had been used to the news agenda constantly churning over to meet the need for new content required for the following days newspaper or the next major news broadcast. Instead with blogs the news moves much more slowly, or more accurately reverberates around.

It reminds me of when I moved into PR and I first worked in a female-dominated environment. I got particularly frustrated by the way meetings were conducted where an idea was passed around the table, each person acknowledged the idea and wrapped their own spin and a bit of empathy around the idea parcel.

Since blogs cannot only break news like MSM, but also act as an echo chamber to make that news last longer for the audience, is giving bloggers special access or embargoed material worthwhile?

Would it not be better to keep some of the news back and feed it into the bloggers a bit later to give the story a different slant or more legs (rather like game developers have done with the media by providing cheats a while after a game has launched). Thoughts?

You don't know where you are, until you know where you're from. If you don't know where you are, how you do know where you gonna be?

2006-10-22T13:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Iain Tait for this fantastic history of the 'Amen' break which is up there with Think by Lyn Collins and 'The Funky Drummer' as the foundation of modern electronic music beats at the close of the 20th century.

Links for 2006-10-21 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-22T11:59:00.000+01:00

A Closer Look at Ask's Smart Answers

Komikwerks - Lifelike

FT.com / World / US & Canada - Playboy and pastors enlisted for attack adverts

Eating habits

2006-10-22T11:32:00.000+01:00

I have started to notice on my feed statistics a change in user behaviour segmented by reader. Feedburner users tend to be there every day, whereas MyYahoo! and Netvibes-sourced traffic drops off dramatically at weekends.

I suspect that the reasion for this is to do with the format that the data is presented in by these services and how directly this is related to user audiences. Feedburner uses an Outlook or Mail.app-type layout which isn't pretty but does lend itself towards productivity.

If you have a whole pile of feeds to read, sense and you consume information the way builders consume the sports pages this approach makes the most sense.

If however your information consumption is lower, it makes sense that you would have a few feeds on a metaportal like netvibes and are likely to have other things to do on your weekend.

Oprah Time: No Country for Old Men

2006-10-21T15:34:00.000+01:00

I picked up a copy of No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy. The book is an old time western set against the backdrop of modern Texas, with drug running and paid killings that usually happen in the background brought to the fore.

The book is a well-written thriller with a lean prose that Hemmingway would have been proud of. Because of this it was very easy to read and very easy to pick back up and read some more. It is also more than a thriller, providing a view of modern society through the eyes of its protagonists.

The book also has a bleak morality more akin to Sergio Leon's spaghetti westerns were good doesn't always win out and the good have more than their own fair share of faults and demons.

If you need a book for an airport, pick this one up and run with it.

Links for 2006-10-20 [My Web 2.0]

2006-10-21T14:21:00.000+01:00

New Scientist - 20 October 2006 Kids hang on to dad's every word - being-human

Rands In Repose

Video biz kicks Sony when its down

activeCollab - open source project management and collaboration tool.

Making Javascript DOM a Piece of Cake with the graft() Function

The Top Pickers vs. the Pack - washingtonpost.com

IDG.com - Press Room - Worldwide

A Tradition of Empty Boxes - PBS | I, Cringely

17 apps that make it worthwhile switching to OS X

Media Usage::Finding Balance in Teen Use of Social Media - PBS Mediashift

No-style wars

2006-10-21T02:08:00.000+01:00

Imagine if you are an up and coming rap artist who has crossed over to act in a film about an up and coming rap artist. What better way to promote your film and your 'mad' skills than to offer an open mike challenge to anybody in a club?

Not quite, especially if like wack emcee Asher D, your mike skills can't cash the cheques that your ego spent. A camera was there to see MC Stig level the diminutive actor.

This ain't 8 Mile, but it is a good salutary warning for any music PRs out there who have some urban talent on their books. Lord knows what would have happened to Asher D if he'd have gone up against Roxanne Shanté or Supernatural. Kudos to HolyMoly for this nine-minute video clip of pain.