http://www.fifthandmain.com Pete Wright's place. He tells stories. Sun, 08 Nov 2009 21:54:00 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en The first photowalk of the holiday season. We ended up on Mississippi Avenue at The Rebuilding Center, one of the coolest, most eclectic home remodeling stores I've ever seen. I'd called Chris at the Rebuilding Center the day before -- I know they're sensitive about class-type things going on in the ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/11/petes-photowalk-the-rebuilding-center/ From diveintomark.org this morning:And you can trace that all the way back, 17 years, through the Great Browser Wars, all the way back to February 25, 1993, when Marc Andreessen offhandedly remarked, “MIME, someday, maybe,” and then shipped his code anyway. The ones that win are the ones that ship.It's ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/11/diveintomark-org-why-do-we-have-an-img-element/ Here are a few horrifying stats from bookstatistics.com:58% of the US adult population never reads another book after high school.42% of college graduates never read another book.80% of US families did not buy or read a book last year.70% of US adults have not been in a bookstore in the ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/10/anybody-reading-anything-lately/ I've been in sunny California the last week and missed some good stories. Trying to catch up with a hat trick to my man Dane at strike10media.com who notes this piece on the Intuit acquisition of web 2.0 darling Mint.com. I've already lamented the acquisition, since I think Intuit is ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/10/mint-com-gets-a-nice-write-up-on-slate/ I absolutely love this video. It's crazy in every way that Steve Balmer isn't. http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/09/larry-ellison-channels-the-crazy-to-talk-smart-about-cloud-computing/ This day for me is like an Oreo cookie -- if you aren't really crazy about the creamy center, but you are a hooligan for crisp chocolate cookiness. Best presentation of the day for me goes to the day's closer, Tyler Sticka. Presentation slides below: WordPress-Powered PortfoliosView more documents from Tyler ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/09/wordcamp-pdx-2009/ This from Aaron Patzer today:As outlined in today’s press release and my blog post, after the acquisition closes, the Mint.com team will contribute to improving the financial lives of tens of millions of consumers and small businesses. I’ll personally be taking on the role of GM of Intuit’s Personal Finance ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/09/mint-com-to-be-purchased-by-intuit-aaron-patzer-to-move-over-as-gm-personal-finance/ Just to follow up the Pre article from earlier this morning, if I were walking in to a Sprint store for a phone, which is unlikely for me, but if I were going to do it, I'd be waiting for the HTC Hero. Widely praised by reviewers as well as users ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/09/sprint-to-sell-android-phone-in-october/ I've now actually touched a Palm Pre. I was walking through Best Buy and, for the first time, they had a functioning model on the floor -- not the plastic brick placeholder they usually have around. I stood there poking around at it for about 20 minutes and walked away ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/09/palm-pre-selling-below-estimates/ From NPD this morning: According to NPD MusicWatch, when it comes to the unit-sales volume of music sold at retail – including paid digital music downloads and CDs – Apple iTunes leads in the U.S. with 25 percent of music units sold, which is up from 21 percent in 2008 and ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/08/digital-music-increases-share-of-overall-music-sales-volume-in-the-u-s/ I haven't seen the Hero, and likely won't get my hands on it for some time now. But judging by the videos in Joshua Topolsky's review that hit today, I'm not in a hurry. And neither, as it would appear, is Flash:So Flash is kind of a big deal on ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/07/engadget-on-the-htc-hero/ The Official Palm Blog: Palm webOS 1.1 enhances support for enterprise -- and beyondAnd for my next theory, Palm is making a very simple play for Apple to shut them up by buying the company outright. And they're doing it the only way they know how anymore: engineering hooliganry. Audacious ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/07/webos-1-1-out-for-the-pre-breaks-apples-break-of-webos-1-0-break-of-itunes-device-authentication-lock-got-it/ Apple Blocks Palm Pre iTunes Syncing | PreCentral.netNo surprise that the latest iTunes breaks the Palm Pre USB hack which allowed the device to sync with iTunes. This is a promise Palm should never have made, and users who bought the Pre thinking this was a viable option to get ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/07/itunes-8-2-1-breaks-palm-pre-sync/ The whole piece is, as usual, smart. But this is a sideline quotable moment from Gruber's piece on Chrome this morning:So I think Gnome and KDE are stuck with a problem similar to the uncanny valley. By establishing a conceptual framework that mimicks Windows, they can never really be that ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/07/gruber-on-the-uncanny-valley-vis-chrome-os/ There is a lot of gloom out there right now. Easy to let it get you down. Good thing there are people like Perry Gruber spreading a message of hope and strength. He has several talks up on his Vimeo page -- this one is almost an hour long, a ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/07/perry-gruber-taking-time-to-smile/ This, right here, is why the iPhone has succeeded as a platform in the ridiculously crowded handset space. From MacRumors:Apple yesterday seeded iPhone OS 3.1 and iPhone SDK 3.1 betas to developers for testing, and users have been digging through the new releases to document new features. Among the changes ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/07/why-the-iphone-succeeds-as-a-platform/ Personally, I haven't had trouble with AT&T's handling of the 3GS launch. Days prior to the device hitting the market, the company announced that I would be eligible for the fully subsidized rate for the iPhone, saving me $200 to break my old contract as my plan had outlined when ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/06/from-gadgetlab-how-att-stumbled-through-the-iphone-3gs-launch/ http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/06/2009-slp-service-eoy-video-terror-island/ It's sad to read posts like this. But it's important to take note when prolific bloggers close their sites. In an era when the vast majority of blogs now drop the intent of becoming a passionate user's publishing platform, and are now focused on this ethereal drive for monetization and ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/04/goodbye-speakup-celebrates-seven-years-of-great-design-dialog/ This is a great video of the presentation Polish designer Jacek Utko gave at TED this February. I disagree with his premise that readers are only leaving because they don't want to pay for yesterday's news and advertisers are following them. I think the technological shift in publishing is ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/03/from-ted-can-design-save-the-newspaper/ I started working for myself in August of 2007. Before that point -- say, July -- I had been working as a corporate wonk. The people I worked with, they really knew how to meet.Things changed for me almost immediately when I went freelance, though, and there were suddenly real ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/03/how-quickly-can-you-make-meetings-irrelevant/ I've been having this on-going conversation with my dad -- old news man that he is -- about the galactic reset going on in the print news media. This morning, mom forwarded me this link to an op-ed from Daniel Hannan in the Telegraph. It's an interesting read, illustrating in ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/03/daniel-hannan-on-the-political-net/ If you haven't seen it, head over to AcousticConversations.com and check it out. That is, if you like music. And if you have a pulse. This is the latest post from the blog on the show. -- I'm in San Jose right now. Did you see that coming? What with my clever ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/03/repost-acoustic-conversations-with-matt-vrba-live-now/ It's about time. http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/02/google-launches-cloud-sync-for-mobile/ I just finished recording a great discussion for the soon-to-be-launched, if not long-awaited, OutsourcedCMO show in which we not so much dissect, as gloss over, Amazon.com's retail reign in spite of economic turmoil. It's an interesting discussion that spans the history of online direct selling, including the online cambrian era ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/02/amazon-to-unleash-kindle-format-to-mobiles/ http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/01/tyler-stenson-acoustic-conversations-promo/ Last night, we hung out with Tyler Stenson. He's a musician, a guitarist and troubadour, and he joined Curt Siffert and myself for the innaugural episode of the 2009 season of Acoustic Conversations. The AC show itself hasn't been posted yet, but stay tuned... it'll be up online soon. Read on ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/01/tyler-stenson-on-acoustic-conversations-and-the-11-people/ I know, I must have been like this as a kid. I remember getting my first Yamaha B600 keyboard from Santa when I was a kid. I think I passed out. But take a look at what product scarcity has done to 50 kids on Christmas morning: http://www.fifthandmain.com/2009/01/the-future-of-greed-in-america/ First, let me acknowledge just how much of a rank amateur move it is to show up for an hour presentation with an hour and a half full of content. That's what you get for tooling around with a known quantity the day of the event without timing yourself. I apologize for ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/12/to-pmi-portland-attendees-thanks-and-a-note/ http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/12/fifthmain-interviews-howard-teibel/ Clients will note that I'm an unabashed fanboy of SlideShare, and wish I had even more time to allow myself to get sucked into presentation goodness each day. They recently held the world's best slideshow presentation and top marks went to this bit of brilliance; educational and beautiful and not ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/11/worlds-best-presentation-at-slideshare/ Terry Tate: Reading Is Fundamental I share all the Terry Tate vids in my PR courses, but I hadn't caught this new bit of Pain Train brilliance until just this morning. Hat trick to Dr. Island for the link! http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/10/275/ Some of these shots blow me away. This is about as close to "Speed Racer" as we can probably get. These are from the first night race in Grand Prix history. http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2008/09/the_singapore_grand_prix.html Of particular note, make sure to look at 11 and 23, both taken with a tilt-shift lens to great affect. http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/09/incredible-singapore-grand-prix-pix/ As strange as they are, I admit it, I smile during the new Microsoft Seinfeld ads. For that, apparently, Microsoft deserves some props. Thus the heart of the matter: The ads are not intended to sell Windows: They're ads to sell The Windows Brand. Think of it as The Soul of ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/09/robert-palmers-really-interesting-point-regarding-the-new-ms-ads/ Ad #2. I love the dinner conversation. The grandmother is oddly appealing. Oh, and it's wildly insulting to everyday people. Wonder what the strategy is there? http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/09/microsoft-and-seinfeld-new-family-ad-goes-live/ I bought a D3 when it first hit the streets and I'm stunned by it every single time I hold it in my hands. Then I take pictures with it. This thing belongs squarely in the middle of the secret lair of the League of Awesomeness. Looks like the D90 is ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/08/nikon-d90-test-run-with-chase-jarvis/ Via Gruber at DaringFireball, I found myself laughing aloud at this: Open source natural language processor that attempts to identify idiotic comments on the web — like a spam filter for stupidity. UPDATE: Their server seems to be struggling to handle the traffic, at the moment. http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/07/stupidfliter/ Jeri Cartwright posted this at the Media Relations blog (excerpted here) regarding a recent stretch of layoffs in Utah -- her home turf. Many interesting things to think about in a few short passages. Content is still king. Talk all you want about new media, but someone has to write the ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/07/the-market-for-real-journalism-will-continue-to-change-whats-coming-will-be-better/ Courtesy of ReadWriteWeb this afternoon, "Corporate Social Networks Are A Waste of Money, Study Finds", original post at the WSJ here. In summary, Ed Moran at Deloitte did a survey of 100 major brands that have online communities. They all suck. What does "suck" mean in this case? Thirty-five percent of the ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/07/deloitte-says-branded-social-networks-are-a-bomb/ http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/07/lorenzianocom/ Just as news continues to pour in about shrinking magazine subscriptions across the industry, MagCloud pops up to shake things up a bit. Still in beta, so publishers are by invite only, but definitely check out the service. It looks to fill a niche in industry publication that has long ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/06/magcloud-magazine-self-pulblishing-print-on-demand-press/ http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/06/burgerville-a-health-net-of-oregon-customer-story/ I've been talking with my man Brad Trnavsky for what seems like years about his need for Internet Greatness. But, Brad isn't a would-be pornographer, as far as I know, and he doesn't have any direct connection to the Revision3 Internet Mafia Clubhouse. He's a sales guy. And a geek. So about ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/06/local-boy-cleans-up-nice-salesmanagement20com-profiled-by-benevolent-ning-dictators/ Steve Jobs can do what he damn well pleases, thank you very much. If he -- and team Apple -- demonstrated anything in yesterday's WWDC Keynote address, it's that. Because frankly, they took their stage time yesterday to demonstrate a whole lot of old news, and they buried the hidden ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/06/apple-wwdc-keynote-iphone3g-and-snow-leopard/ As soon as this technology incorporates Multi-Touch a la the iPhone or Surface, it'll be something really worth looking at. Right now, it just blows me a way a little bit. From scientificblogging.com: The HoloVizio is a 3-D screen that will allow designers to visualize true 3-D models of cars, engines or ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/06/holovizio-3-d-holodeck-001/ SLP Service: Year in Review from SLP Service on Vimeo. http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/05/slp-service-year-in-review-2008/ I caught this article by Paul Farhi on washingtonpost.com this morning covering CNN's use of their fancy new "Magic Wall" in the on-going election coverage. The Magic Wall was developed by Perceptive Pixel, the company leading the large-format chage for the multi-touch operating system developed by founder, Jeff Han. Multi-touch ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/05/washington-post-clogging-links-in-articles/ It's all medical, all the time. Mark-o is back with a new baby story. Pete is going under the knife. Curt's working to get those voices out of his head, and Matt is just trying to keep the choppers out of the classroom. http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/05/ep-49-eastern-bloc-warmth/ When I was employed by big-corporate PR, I used Google News Alerts religiously. Still do. It's a fantastic service, constantly filtering the Google index for current news relevant to my search query and delivering it to my inbox every day. At Apollo, I was interested in news about our company, ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/04/how-to-use-google-news-and-blog-alerts-to-build-your-populist-media-empire/ Had a meeting at a new agency today -- 2Plural/evive. I don't know what their name is, actually. The letterhead says evive, and looks cool as a palindrome, but the website is 2plural, as is the moniker on their cards. A bit of identity crisis there, about which I'm sure ... http://www.fifthandmain.com/2008/04/meeting-at-2pluralevive-and-the-curse-of-flash-websites/