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I'm diverting my energy elsewhere at the moment, watch this "space"...

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Daily Show on Google vs Viacom

Description on YouTube:

"Dailyshow's Demetri martin talks about the current battle between Viacom and Google"

Search, Search & Research

I've not been blogging much of late, but I have been actively researching online, as always. Recent projects include a short article entitled 'Enterprise 2.0 - The Business Mashup' which has recently been published on the Spannerworks website.

I've also prepared a small blog exploring the IKEA brand in terms of social networks, communities and multimedia content. I recently presented this to Antony Mayfield, Spannerworks' head of Content & Media.

The Blog 'Ikea Content' can be found here - any comments, observations or feedback would be much appreciated. I don't envisage much/any content being added, I just found blogging a quicker, easier and more useful way of representing these sorts of findings than evil MS Powerpoint, "a program written by Bill Gates, based on a concept developed in a paper written by the devil"!

Stop the Big Brother State

I started reading a book yesterday called 'Unspeak', then this morning I saw this infographical movie about surveillance:


Via the ever-interesting Infosthetics

Shameless (Self) Promotion

Do you want to work with me?

My office is next to...

Brighton Royal Pavilion!

Mr Suarez is Juggle-tastic

He showed me how to blog from my phone

Pythagoras Switch: Pitagora Suichi

A series of clips showing Rude Goldberg machines (things that perform a simple task in an unnecessarily complicated way) from an award-winning Japanese educational TV show for kids. Broadcast on NHK since 2002 the video below is a montage of intro seuences from the program. What!? "Pitagora Suichi" - watch the video, you'll be singing it in your head all week.

Magnets, watch the magnets...



{Thanks to Alex Chew via George Jackson}

Laser Graffiti

Laser graffiti - 'nuff said - incredible idea - nowhere is safe from impromptu messaging - but what more could it be used for? Hook it up in the Middle East perhaps and let Israeli & Palestinian civilians fight a war of lazer-words to reveal their true feelings? Paint some amsuing pictures of a Tony-Jug on the Houses of Parliament in London? Festivals and concerts could use the same technology for something I'm sure? Help locate lost kids in huge crowds by writing a name on the nearest skyscraper? I don't know... please post any better ideas - I'm tired but inspired:

YouTube Gangsters?

Today's edition of Metro carried on its front page a story about 'YouTube Gangsters' - trailing recent news stories about tragic gang shootings in south London it talks about gangsters recruiting, bragging and brandishing weapons on videos uploaded to social networking sites like YouTube and MySpace.

Presumably you've assumed that the image to the left is a screen grab from such a video. Challenge your prejudices as YOU COULD NOT BE MORE WRONG.

It is a grab taken from a video on a Metro train in France
with a group of young, black men. It's from a social networking site, found via Digg. It's a brilliant video of Naturally 7, an "award-winning gospel, r&b, jazz and soul septet from New York City".

Now this to me is a sign of the musical times ahead. Forget copyright fights between major record labels and social networking sites, they'll never be able to permenantly remove their content. Not only are these guys extremely talented but they've just unwittingly pioneered the C. 21st bastard-child of the resurgently popular 'flash-mob' - Gigs 2.0. There's music, talent, an appreciative (if somewhat suprised) audience - it's being spread through social networks and finding a huge audience (eg. 870 diggs at time of writing).

So let's take this model for music - if you've got talent, a videophone and internet access you can share your music with the world for free! Roll on the musical revolution, goodbye DRM, record labels, chart-fixing and the brain-washing of young people with Hip-pop & glossy bling culture. Generations to come will vote for their artists online and in networks where media is socially promoted.

Anyway, enough from me - listen and watch these guys spread joy and rhythm on one of modern society's most miserable and inhuman environments - the big-city metro:

Concert sauvage dans le métro !
Uploaded by lapapsprod

Young Folks

Here's a secret - I can't whistle! So, whilst I think this tune is floaty sonic beautifulness, it also makes me a tiny bit angry...
Peter, Bjorn & John - Young Folks ft. Victoria Bergsman of The Concretes (currently No. 1 on the Japanese J-Wave chart.

Jack & Jill is the Hill...

Tim + Rich + Snow = South Downs sledding madness of note. Loving the goggles Timbo - that big dip brings back memories of icy bruised arses!

2007 trends - online and on life

I came across some fascinating maps today - they graphically represent trends in a style similar to that of London's tube map. The picture shown is of web trends.



Find the full article at Information Infosthetics (a great blog and source of much inspiration) and a map of more general social trends here (in pdf format).

My Web (Packet) Garden

I live in a small flat in a busy city - I have no green space, garden or yard - my skylight is my leaky window to the outside world - i miss daylight, animals flora & fauna.

So, from the home of innovative visualisations here is an organically growing garden that grows out of your web browsing habits - for Linux & Windows check it out & download it here.

What the Google?

I recently blogged about the scary amounts of data Google must have - I use quite a few of their services, and have enjoyed the likes of Blogger and YouTube for a while now - both Google entities these days. But I've hesitated from using their online word processor, spreasheet, Desktop & Picasa services - I've decided to spread my digital self amongst corporate entities for peace of mind - and seem justified having just read a post about a method recently exposed that meant all Google account information could be vulnerable.

It exploited the feature in Blogger that enables external hosting of a blog - and someone managed to host their blog from a Google domain - it's scary, in-depth techie stuff & the loophole seemed to have been closed in hours - but if you worry about your information in this connected age - read this!

Hang On

What with all the killing, shooting, hanging and what-not going on in the world - it's always nice to see that different people express their views - but this, found on the street just near Churchill Square shopping centre in central Brighton made me pause and wonder if the content swapping and knowledge sharing that israpidly enveloping global societies is serving to make this the most desensitised generation in human history - will our connectivity lead only to mutual barbarism, a renewed excitement in violence and ultimate self-destruction? Porbably - it's Monday morning so anything could happen...

iPhone, YouPhone, WiiPhone

A wireless network that's free, a finger and some friends. A wireless network that's free, a finger and some friends...Are you tired of Steve Jobs' KeyNote smugness too? Can you see what it is yet? Apple's HUGE announcement recently was about their all-singing, all-dancing breakthrough internet device - that's also a telephone and widescreen iPod.

Whilst it's great in terms of both design, features and groundbreaking useabiliy - I've been discussing with friends what's most interesting about this recent announcement.

WiFi & OSX - hmm - why do I need a mobile operator/GSM networks. I spend mostof my time within range of a wireless network - I use VOIP, Skype & GTalk to keep in touch with friends already - and I'm craving a mobile browsing device that supports full web pages, plugins & convenient zoom features - so with the iPhone, WiFi & bluetooth connectivity and some similarly minded friends I can ditch my 3 mobile simCard - get Apple to launch their own PAYG virtual mobile network in the UK (a la Virgin mobile), get an Apple PAYG sim-card and use it only when the absence of wireless coverage necessitates. Come on Steve - think BIG APPLE! - no Cingular-esque network deals - sell the iPhone as the decades tastiest piece of SIM-unlocked hardware and you'll make not only a killing but embrace the open-source, sharing-is-caring networked generation - do the right thing, eh?

Denmark's Smallest Island

Blog need pictures - more pretty Denmark@Christmas.

Brazil Bans YouTube?

I heard that Brazil's ordering Youtube offline because some pretty celebrity got videoed having sex with somebody who's not somebody else, it's the most viewed video ever in Brazil etc etc etc

So I thought I'd see if you could find it on YouTube - I did, here, but a search for the lady in question's name Daniela Cicarelli, yields several pages of tame modelling shot montages - is this youtube/google trying to avoid legal action? Creative PR management? Cover-Up? or just people spamming a term likely to have high search volume right now? Could be all or none of those - who really cares - I just found it funny that people kept reposting it after youtube delisted the clip. You can't stop it guys, you can advertise the shit out of the content, but you can't stop it now.

Communications Sans Frontiere

Excuse my French if incorrectly spelled, but I was listening to some foreign radio stations the other day, and I tuned in to DR P3 (Danmark's Radio - radio 3 being their closest equivalent to BBC Radio 1 or BBC 6 Music) when they announced between an afternoon of ambient indie Scandinavian cool, that they had a technology expert coming in to chat.

What did they talk about? Youtube, Google - the top searches of the year etc etc and then The Venice Project, Jimmy Wales' Wiki-esque search project and all things 2.0

I'm starting to see how pervasive this free-data/social media movement is becoming and how fast shared ideas and concepts are able to spread wordlwide, transcending language and cultural barriers infinitely quicker than the written word ever could just a relatively few years ago.

Data everywhere, so...much...data...

Lessig 23C3

Antony Mayfield's post linked to an interesting video by Mr Lessig who's some sort of law/internet/academic guru by the looks of this Wikipedia post. I've not watched the whole video yet, but he begins by showing some video mash-ups, and talking of a generation growing with a new literacy, the literacy of being able to manipulate, edit create and reorganise a staggering range of multimedia-content with great ease.

Most of what he shows in the first 10 mins is entertaining, but really just a glimpse of the creative outputs that remain barely harnessed globally and what these media editing/sharing tools can and will produce. I'm thinking here of a blog post I read (I'll link it in when I remember) that predicted medical search would drive the progress of search, at least the current algorithmic behemoths and their quality scores. This subject gained front-page press in the UK freesheets and tabloids late in 2006 - and the need for impartial and accurate SERPs will surely be driven forward when accuracy depends on the diagnosis of disease and preservation of human life, presuming that is that all results providers truly seek to "do no evil" - let's hope that is indeed so.

Google is a data fiend, a veritable whore of our data-linked lives. If you've used a selection of their services regularly at any point the usage patterns, behavioural, intellectual insights and propensity for creative interpretation and manipulation of data from Blogger, Google Search, YouTube, Maps, News, Analytics etc. is mind-boggling.

Anyhow, I'll comment further on Lessig's hour-long speech when I've got around to watching it all.

Prehistoric Tree - Glaarup, Fynen, Denmark

I once again had the pleasure of spending my yuletide in Scandinavia.

This photo is of an unusually shaped tree found in the grounds of Glaarup castle on the island of Fyn in Denmark. It's said to be where Hans Christian Andersen wrote the fairytale 'The Ugly Duckling'. His former residence in Odense is about a 35 minute drive up the road from here.

Denmark's great. Go there. Enjoy.

I've 'ad me 'ead in them Clouds today

This site is brilliant (snapshirts.com). Choose any URL - they'll generate a search cloud in about 30 seconds, display it on the webpage, give you some basic font/colour customisation options, then you can order a T-shirt with the word cloud printed onto it!

I thought it'd be entertaining to try and cut through political spin in this way, a cloud from the Labour party's official website, followed by a cloud from the Conservative party's homepage.

Now decide for yourselves where their concerns lie, or are the sites so SEO optimised that this is marketing, hype and spin?

Quite possibly, check Antony Mayfield's post on US political MEMEMEtubing.here.

Catch me in my Cloud...

Not last year, but the year before last year, some people were discussing the possible usefulnessesses and merituses of word/search clouds. I applaud them and the little information adventure they've sent me on. Thanks neural.it

Whistling through the snippets of the Porter Stemming Algorithm, reading of mysteriously named people like Chirag Metha and the awesome Tag Generator, redigesting the potential impact of examining presidential speech clouds...can you see the possibility? the potential impact?

Let's revolutionise understanding and education, let's generate clouds of philosophers, prophets, sceptics, scientists - Shakespeare, Sarthe, Nostradamus and Einstein - see what they said, what they meant to say, what they never knew they were saying - in seconds, in clouds - a visual input, an organising of informational chaos in the literal blink of the digestive human eye.

Open source this cloud generation software - free it from the php boundaries that are between clouds and the common Man - let's cloud our texts for children's classes, cloud our media channels output to reveal their biases, cloud a company to reveal it's true focus...

cloud.lic.io.us

Want a Mac os 10 dashboard widget that displays a live and updating search cloud based on all of your del.ici.ous tags? Et voila - here it is - great, clever fun.

Cloud.lic.io.us