Turns out, yesterday, on May 16, 2010, YouTube turned 5 years old, according to their Official Blog. Now pack a lunch for this kid and send them off to Kindergarten!
Oh wait, they are claiming they get 2,000,000,000 views/day. Whatever they were packed for lunch, it has worked! I guess nap times help too. They must excel at painting paper fishes too.
Why you should you care?
Too put this into perspective, 2 billion views/day is like 20 Superbowls worth of viewership potential, each and every day of the year. That’s actually 7,300 Superbowls worth of potential a year. Think your business could benefit from that potential exposure? (if done properly)
If I told you that a yet to be built social network, with no Venture funding, has raised over $100,000 from “the internet”, would you believe me?
What if I told you that their goal was to raise $10,000 in individual donations, a number that was surpassed in just 12 days. As I write this post, they’ve raised $123,000 or 1230% of their target (it’s undoubtedly higher than that now).
Did I mention that the service doesn’t even exist yet? Get Out, I know!
What gives?
The internets are up in a huff (hell they have to be to part with $123,000 of their hard earned money). In many people’s view, Facebook, the worlds biggest social network, has taken too many liberties covertly changing privacy settings, holding our data hostage and generally making life on the network less fun for users and less profitable for businesses.
People are looking for another option to the omniscient Face_Over_Lord, and group of just graduated NYU students think they have the answer.
Say hello to Diaspora
Diaspora; an open source personal web server that will put individuals in control of their data.
From the Diaspora Blog
We believe that privacy and connectedness do not have to be mutually exclusive. With Diaspora, we are reclaiming our data, securing our social connections, and making it easy to share on your own terms. We think we can replace today’s centralized social web with a more secure and convenient decentralized network. Diaspora will be easy to use, and it will be centered on you instead of a faceless hub.
Oh wait, we can’t. That’s because it’s not built yet, a fact that makes this whole project 1 million times cooler. If these four dudes manage to pull off everything they say they will, this will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the coolest business founding’s the Social Web has ever seen.
So until you and I can connect on our “Privacy Aware distributed Social Network” you should click through to see the Diaspora Project Page or follow the team on Twitter. I guarantee that you’ll be hearing more about this project.
The Diaspora team is obviously tickled pink with all of our attention, just check out this quote from their blog,
Thanks to all for being so awesome, we can’t wait till our finals are over so we can get crackin’ on Diaspora!
Freaking awesome.
PS. Here’s another group that is doing something similar. Apprently they’re further ahead (and possibly jealous of the huge popularity Diaspora has achieved already) Check them out too! Visit One Social Web for more.
Hewlett-Packard, Palm, and someone's watch for no reason (photo: nateOne)
Don’t call it a comeback … because it isn’t
Remember all that stuff you heard about the Palm Pre? … Yeah, neither do I, and that is why this has happened, “Hewlett-Packard buys Palm“.
And, now I am just imagining a whole new smartphone that somehow uses ink cartridges, that run out when you least expect them to, possibly monthly, and can only be replaced by spending enormous amounts of money at Costco.
An Architect friend of mine forwarded me this video/blog post yesterday for my thoughts. I found it quite intriguing. What are your thoughts? To put it into context, please read the excerpt below.
“Keiichi Matsuda, a student at the Bartlett School of Architecture, produced this fantastic short video in the final year of his M.Arch. It was, he writes, “part of a larger project about the social and architectural consequences of new media and augmented reality.”
“The latter half of the 20th century saw the built environment merged with media space, and architecture taking on new roles related to branding, image and consumerism. Augmented reality may recontextualise the functions of consumerism and architecture, and change in the way in which we operate within it.”(Keiichi Matsuda)
Have you ever wanted to start searching outer space for aliens, but just didn’t know where to start? I think I have a good answer for you.
Popsci.com is reporting that SETI, Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, in a new initiative called Setiquest, is “opening up SETI’s servers to the public calling for a worldwide, open source contribution to the search … SETI’s data, compiled from 25 years of scanning the skies with advanced astronomical telescopes, will be made available on a special SETI website this summer, at which point users can take whatever data sets they wish and comb through … The site is currently configured for those with some kind of background in signal processing and the like, but SETI is working to make it more accessible to users of all backgrounds and ages.”(*1)
Free research, and they want your help.
So, up to 50 years of extraterrestrial research at your fingertips, for free. This is a big risk for them in one sense, but open-source collaboration may be the best way to make some headway on an area of research that has overwhelmingly odds … or too much tinfoil getting the way.
Jill Tarter, SETI’s Director, says “In the future, we hope that a global army of open-source code developers, students and other experts in digital signal processing, as well as citizen scientists willing to lend their intelligence to our exploration, will have access to the same technology and join our quest.”(*1)
Are they just at their wits end, or more simply trying to tap into our universe of brainpower to help progress the research? Either way, a good solution to a big area of research.
If you’re interested in pursuing your inner, outer space, alien, go here (although they aren’t releasing the research until the Summer).
The largest library in the world, with millions of books, recordings, photographs, maps and manuscripts in our collections.
What did they say?
“Library to acquire ENTIRE Twitter archive — ALL public tweets, ever, since March 2006! Details to follow.” (Apr.14, 8:36am)
“Library acquires ENTIRE Twitter archive. ALL tweets.” (Apr.14, 9:33am)
Congratulations, you’ve been published!
Wow, they move fast in their acquisitions!
So, all your public tweets are stored in a library in Washington. How do you feel about that? Is it weird, or did you expect to be published someday anyways, and this is just easier than writing a book?
So, yesterday, Apple delivers the message that iPad deliveries to everywhere other than the US will be delayed at least a month. Who doesn’t love a good scarcity pump up?
But …
iPads BANNED IN ISRAEL!
In an interesting twist today, Israel announced that iPads are banned there indefinitely. Sign my chest iPad, rock star status achieved!
“Israel has banned imports of Apple Inc.’s AAPL-Q hottest new product, the iPad, citing concerns the powerful gadget consumes too much capacity on wireless networks and could disrupt other devices.
Customs officials said Thursday they have already confiscated about 10 of the lightweight tablet computers since Israel announced the new regulations this week. The ban prevents anyone — even tourists — from bringing iPads into Israel until officials certify that they comply with local transmitter standards.”(*1)
Status : Single … for now.
“Israeli officials said the ban has nothing to do with trade and is simply a precaution to assure that the iPad doesn’t affect wireless devices already in use in Israel.”
Nonetheless, “Mr. Schubert said he expects the problem to be resolved as Apple moves closer to the international release.”(*1)
Take that Apple! (but, you’re still sending us ours right?)
One of our readers was kind enough to send us this amazing video to add to our post (thanks Seb!). This project was clearly no small undertaking, so it’s pretty amazing to see it taking shape from multiple angles and to really get a sense of how much work was involved in creating such an intricately detailed piece of art.
PREVIOUSLY
We love time lapse shots. They turn long, drawn-out processes into easily digestible little bits of magic. Chances are you’ve seen enough shots of busy intersections, blooming flowers and golden sunsets to last you a lifetime, but don’t be too quick write off the time lapse – there are still plenty of people out there putting them to good use.
Here are a few Vancouver artists who have made great use of time lapse photography to document the evolution of a piece of art from start to finish.
For some this is a reason to drink light beer. For others, not so much. Funny!
What is the Big Rock Eddies event?
“It’s an annual event held to preview amateur beer commercials. Organized as a parody on the Oscars, the evening provides much entertainment, great food, and beer – of course. Plus, we raise fund for some very deserving local charities.”(*2)
The Big Rock Brewery Eddie’s Campaign started in 1993, long before Facebook, YouTube, etc. It started with a simple premise, “Who better to make Big Rock beer commercials than those who know and love our beer?”(*1). Marketing genius? Yeah, I think so.
It’s a Win Win Win
There advantages for participants, Big Rock, and all of us.
Advantages for All of Us
With such an established event, and with all the effort that goes into it, we get to sit back and watch the fruits of participants labour, laughing often. I like that. Win.
Advantages to the Participants
Big Rock provides a healthy amount of prize money, and large scale event to promote the finalist’s work. “Eddies is a great way to generate exposure for the design industry and as an opportunity to work with … friends to make a beer commercial”(*1). As one winner said, the Eddies “super charged my design career”(*1). So, it’s fun, and it has some potential, profound, professional benefit. Yeah, that’s a win.
Advantages for Big Rock
Customers, beer lovers, designers, amateur, but creative people, all battling it out to create quality advertising for your brand. Crowd sourced marketing on steroids, where it is to all of their advantage to promote their work through various means. They started the Eddies 17 years ago, and now with the age of YouTube, etc, this campaign has really become an amazing example of how utilizing your customer’s passion, while rewarding them for it, can be of exponential benefit to your brand. The winner!
The deadline for submissions was March 31, 2010; but keep it in mind for next year if you’re interested. And, in the meantime check out some of your competition via YouTube, etc. More laughs are only a click away.
