Something Changed

Francis and the Lights, “I’ll never forget...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:06:58 +1000

Francis and the Lights, “I’ll never forget you.”

"… my suspicion is that convenience, anonymity, freedom from other people’s assumptions about..."

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:24:47 +1000

“… my suspicion is that convenience, anonymity, freedom from other people’s assumptions about our lifestyle, the automatic assumption that we are pursuing a lifestyle inauthentically, the desire to face as little human contact as possible while we are in consumer mode—all these things are intertwined ideologically, and make up the field of consumer capitalism as its experienced by ordinary people—or at least people like me.”

- Rob Horning - who will buy his helmet from Target instead of the bike shop close to his house - on his fear of specialty stores. Via my favourite consumerism blog, Marginal Utility

Juliette Hogan’s gingerbread loaf recipe via So Much To...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 14:06:47 +1000

Juliette Hogan’s gingerbread loaf recipe via So Much To Tell You.

Anna Sophie Loewenberg is the star and producer of “Sexy...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 13:14:15 +1000

Anna Sophie Loewenberg is the star and producer of “Sexy Beijing,” an online series of sly, knowing videos about a hapless, curious foreigner which has proved popular among expats, language students, and mainland Chinese. (The début episode, “Looking for Double Happiness,” has been viewed more than one and a half million times on YouTube.) The videos, which run from five to ten minutes, are loose parodies of “Sex and the City,” with Loewenberg playing a hammy version of herself, careering around town to interview construction workers, dog-walkers, cranky old men, and, on occasion, Lubavitchers about their love lives. The latest episode goes online this week. From the New Yorker via laundromat.

Good morning Saturday!

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:50:32 +1000

Good morning Saturday!

Capital Children’s Choir’s beautiful arrangement of...

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 08:48:22 +1000

Capital Children’s Choir’s beautiful arrangement of “Chinese,” by Lily Allen (via capitalchoir)

Ode

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:58:54 +1000

We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers,
Upon whom the pale moon gleams;
Yet we are the movers and shakers,
Of the world forever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.

We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself with our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

- Arthur O’Shaughnessy

"website users are powerfully influenced by aesthetics, and that positive perceptions of order,..."

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 07:04:13 +1000

“website users are powerfully influenced by aesthetics, and that positive perceptions of order, beauty, novelty, and creativity increase the user’s confidence in a site’s trustworthiness and usability.”

- By Patrick Lynch, Visual Decision Making

THINGS MARKETING PEOPLE LOVE

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 06:56:48 +1000

THINGS MARKETING PEOPLE LOVE

"If you don’t trust your employees to tweet freely, it’s an employee or leadership issue,..."

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 19:14:11 +1000

“If you don’t trust your employees to tweet freely, it’s an employee or leadership issue, not an employee Twitter policy issue.”

- Twitter / Zappos.com CEO

"She would not say of anyone in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young;..."

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:08:48 +1000

“She would not say of anyone in the world now that they were this or were that. She felt very young; at the same time unspeakably aged. She sliced like a knife through everything; at the same time was outside, looking on. She had a perpetual sense, as she watched the taxi cabs, of being out, out, far out to sea and alone; she always felt it was very, very dangerous to live even one day. …She knew nothing; no language; no history; she scarcely read a book now, except memoirs in bed; and yet to her it was absolutely absorbing; all this; the cabs passing; and she would not say of Peter, she would not say of herself, I am this, I am that.”

- Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway (via meaghano)

"When a system becomes popular the greedy will game it and social media is no different."

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 19:22:13 +1000

“When a system becomes popular the greedy will game it and social media is no different.”

- Scott Berkun, “Calling bullshit on social media”

"On a side note I am making heavy use of mindmapping these days. It’s not mainstream yet and..."

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 17:21:51 +1000

“On a side note I am making heavy use of mindmapping these days. It’s not mainstream yet and people dig it because, well, it’s different”

- I hope Steve Rubel is being ironic.

"Twitter users tend to “follow back” all their followers up until about 150 connections...."

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 09:36:10 +1000

“Twitter users tend to “follow back” all their followers up until about 150 connections. Then the reciprocation rate falls off dramatically, which seems to indicate that this number may be the crossover point where people shift from using Twitter for more personal use to using it more for “lifecasting” their thoughts and actions to a community of people who they feel varying levels of connection to.”

- Stats about Twitter

Full moon!

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 18:42:29 +1000

Full moon!

Photo

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:18:13 +1000

Photo

Wed, 08 Jul 2009 14:17:38 +1000

bicycles prefer to get around on foot (via Marc Johns)

Tue, 07 Jul 2009 06:45:58 +1000

bicycles prefer to get around on foot (via Marc Johns)

Bollywood movie Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke via meghanelizabeth:...

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 16:50:00 +1000

Bollywood movie Dhaai Akshar Prem Ke via meghanelizabeth: unsolvedmysteries

End of snacking: longer web videos gaining popularity

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 14:40:01 +1000

“New York Times media writer Brian Stelter just published a great piece: Rise of Web Video, Beyond 2-Minute Clips.

In it, he chronicles something our head of content, Eric Mortensen, began noticing last fall: that shows with longer episodes, such as Nostalgic Critic and Momversation, were starting to really take off.

The trend has continued, showing something pretty significant happening in the market - people are watching Web shows like they’d watch TV shows, and no longer just snacking, but staying to watch entire episodes, even if they’re ten, fifteen or twenty minutes long.”

By bliptv via blakeley