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Snagged this from The Economist. I like the description for Yottabyte “Too big to imagine”.
Read the full report here . Also intrigued by the idea of The data scientist= software programmer + statiscian + storyteller/artist. You can see my collections of infoporn/visualization sites and resources on my delicious account here

Recently spent a couple of  days in Portland – a chilled out small city with a buzzing tech scene. According to my ‘guide’ Portland is famous for micro breweries (and I can now vouch for that), trekking, underground music scene, the Vodoo Doughnut store and strip clubs – which I suppose is characteristic of most cities with Ports. Whilst there, I noticed the sign below which made me chuckle. Not sure if Roy was the proprietor or a loyal patron.

Checking of the Guardian’s Mega Awards for digital stuff, and noticed the ACDC album promo via Excel.
It’s really rather smart. One of the challenges in the old viral world is how do you get round firewalls which routinely strip out any non-work attachments. Not only does embedding the music within Excel get round this but given most finance departments in London media companies seem to be full of Aussie Rockers, it’s well targeted too. I note that it’s not produced by a creative agency, so wonder if it was someone in accounts payable at the record company that had the idea?

The unique and charming Fika Swedish cafe/bar/restaurant on Brick Lane has organised giant Easter Egg hunt.
Apparently there are over one thousand prizes. What a brilliant idea. And it seems that it’s a Scandi tradition to dress up as witches at Easter and knock on doors hunting for candy. Much like our Haloween celebrations.

When they finally get these to work I think they are are going to be very popular.
You can just imagine  the ‘Uth’  watching their favourite Rap videos on the back of the bus shelter

Not quite working to their full potential, but that’s probably only a cost issue currently.
Check out little demo at CES here

Just read an excellent piece by John Borthwick which starts by talking about disruption innovation and then introduces  the idea of the ‘Notificator’ as a potential ‘Google slayer’. I buy much of what Borthwick has to say, but more than this – I actually believe we’re observing the seeds of a structural shift  and I’m going to try and explain why.  Before I launch in to this, I would add that these thoughts are only partially formed, so this is work in progress….

One of my favourite biz books is The Clue Train Manifesto. It was from here,  nearly 10years ago that I first came across the idea that markets were conversations – and this thought  changed my thinking towards everything digital.
The Internet is brilliant for many things but it’s single most important aspect is it’s connectivity.
Email was (and still is to a degree) the killer app,  as websites began to pop up it was the connectivity between these that gave rise to Google and the ability for us to read/browsing all the amazing content which was being made available (at the time mainly  by ‘professionals’). As standards began to establish and network speeds increased we began to witness the rise of  self-publishing and expression through blogs and UGC sites and then more recently social-networking sites. Stripping away what a social networking site is and you’ll find that they are little more than self published web content with integrated social connection relationships i.e. you can see what your friends have written/uploaded/shared etc..
Fast forward a little further and one of the newest behaviours is the ‘Social/ Status Update’ – the what are you up to right now and self publishing this event to a network. This represents another step closer in terms of connectivity – you can now,  in near real time know my thoughts and  conversations I’m engaged in yet you are thousands of miles away or someone I met once 5 years ago. Add to this the fact that you are able to easily and cheaply aggregate the collective thoughts of millions and millions of people then you are getting very close to the market as conversations. Couple with this that at long last accessing the Internet on a mobile device is actually becoming a reality then you have the making of a seismic shift in behaviour- the web feels like it’s moving from this massive digital library of stuff we all used to live on via our PCs to being alive – this has significant ramifications. New social collisions can occur and time/social connection become the new context.

To be continued…

If ever there was an ad targeted at 30 something males then this is perhaps it. Or was it just me that spent far too much time making home made martial art weapons?
Released in China in October 2008, arguments in the blogosphere if it’s a body double or telly trickery…but who cares. I love the authenticity stamp with the guy walking in front of the camera at the start

(Joking).
So many photos and ideas for things to post following my recent trip to NYC – including this photo from a media  exhibition at MOMA, NYC. No hate mail please, when I get a mo I’ll write up the artists’ rationale behind this piece and then you can take it up with him.

Quick Refresher course on where LBS services are as of Oct 2008

Rummble

http://www.rummble.com

‘Mobile Local Discovery’  (Andrew Scott, Co-Founder, ex Playtext)
Award winning Mobile 2.0, MEX
User selected location – Feeds, photos, Google maps, basic listings, UGC reviews.
Friend invite via 50 Free texts or email.
Early stage development

Moximity
‘It’s all around you’ Austin based new start up (launched Sept 28, 2008)
Looks like a GPS Social Net – claiming to integrate your other social nets which beats having to find new friends or invite old ones. Find friends nearby, location based offers. Seems to be rolling out city by city and I love their use of Google maps for on their sign up page. Sounds pretty cool, and think it’s smart move rolling out city by city.

Plazes (now owned by Nokia)

http://plazes.com

‘Right place, right time’ (Felix Petersen, Co-Founder now head of social activities at Nokia)
Web based and appears to have SMS (but didn’t try this out)

Share your location (neat suggestions provided), updates, see who else is in the area. RSS, update to Facebook, WP, Blogger, good mapping and more – feature rich.

Tech crunch describes it ‘as Twitter with geotagging, points of interest, and social networking
features’ which is pretty fair IMO.

Buzz’d

http://buzzd.com/

‘What’s going on around me right now’
US Based new start-up, with local event UGC reviews, mapping and social nets.
MOMO award winner, just closed series A.

BrightKite
http://brightkite.com/ Currently invite only
Geo Social net with feed for status updates, photos etc..

The other major players have recently been extensively reviewed by Techcrunch. Covered in this review

• Loopt.com – mobile social mapping
• Whrrl (Pelago, funded by Jeff Bezos and T-Mobile))  – social net, google maps, mash up on the mobile
• Where/ Buddy Finder (uLocate) find locatin specific friends, shops, cafes, Zipcars, places listed on Yelp, petrol station and of course Starbucks (yawn)
• Limbo.com categorise users in to frieds, contacts (pulled in from native address phone book), members. Desk site is very weird with a games section. Hmmm?
• Zintin – Standford grads start-up, iPhone only. Seems to have started with the infamous scribble and shake app, which can then be shared on a FB like Wall but now morphing in to something else? Looks quite interesting.

Further reading:

LBS Primer by Tech Crunch is excellent http://tinyurl.com/4rsorr

Anatomy of a failure : lessons learned from failed start-up Meetro, excellent too. http://tinyurl.com/59ouwk

Andrew Finkle http://www.afpr.com/ – Social media blogger also has some great posts on this subject. http://www.afpr.com/