Category: Uncategorized

I travelled this weekend, which meant I got to start and finish Robert Sawyer’s The Terminal Experiment. In a fun combination of two technology sectors, the story follows the impact of EEGs taken at a nanoscale level and software constructs of human brains/personalities. Call it a mashup, even…with an evil genius AI committing real-world murder along the way.

Sawyer, I’ve learned over a few novels, like Factoring Humanity, likes to linger on the spiritual implications inherent in technological advances. The method? The super EEG finds the physical expression of the soul (!), dubbed the “soulwave.” Huh.

These books aren’t quite redundant, but the style and story feels consistent with the few Sawyer books I’ve read. Fortunately, that’s a good thing.

As a mental break, I enjoyed Mission Impossible III last week. The action keeps jumping, as does the location (Vatican City, Berlin, Shanghai, Virginia, etc.). The only suspension of disbelief which was hard to swallow? When the MI team, in the middle of Shanghai, has a hard time getting a cellphone signal. Maybe in one of the dead spots on 101 in Silicon Valley, but to not get a signal in Shanghai? Come on!

Still, despite the leaps, I found this a worthwhile action movie. Metacritic score of 66 is lower than I would have given.

“Why Don’t Ad Agencies Advertise?” is a simple question I’ve never considered. And it’s a remarkable to consider, even if it’s a deliberate overstatement. The author of the article is Simon Sinek, CEO of Sinek Partners (terrible, Flash-heavy website), which clearly is in the marketing field, but I can’t immediately discern why it is or is not different from the agencies he derides, though clearly it must be. (Right?)

Anyway, the article was written for the April 17, 2006 issue of BrandWeek, with the title “Advertising Execs Are Hypocrites,” and starts with this:

If advertising is so effective, why don’t ad agencies advertise? PR firms tout themselves in releases. Event planners throw their own parties. E-marketers use the Internet. These folks all believe in the effectiveness of their disciplines. Do ad agencies disagree?

and later continues

In truth, it’s what’s in the advertising that is not working. Ad agencies are doing a poor job creating messages that affect long-term value for their clients. Along with the media in which it exists, advertising has been commoditized.

As someone who is leaving a media company (more on that soon) which depends on advertisers and their agencies, I have lots of conflicting opinions on this topic. But I’m certainly glad I read the article.

Via 43 Folders, I read David Sedaris’s essay Memento Mori in the New Yorker.

Essentially, a wide-ranging riff, which includes a few paragraphs on the challenge of finding the perfect gift. Sedaris on the challenge:

Hugh thinks that lists are the easy way out, and says that if I really knew him I wouldn’t have to ask what he wanted.

I envision demonstrating my perception and acute empathy when gift-giving, offering the right item at the right time, exceeding even the unspoken expectations of the recipient. Let’s just say that is aiming a bit too high…so I will more often err on just giving what was hinted, requested, or leaves the decision in the hands of the giftee. Feels like a copout, but the stress of perfection sure takes the fun out of gift-giving.

The Sedaris essay, in case you didn’t already go read it, gently explores much more in a better written package. What I selfishly took away from it is only a nibble.

Yes, it took me this long to see Deliverance (1972).

I thought the story originally appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, as this 1994 history of the magazine explains:

It was to The Atlantic Monthly that a little-known writer named James Dickey came when he had something called Deliverance that he wanted to publish.

But it’s not clear from what I can find on the web whether the magazine published the story. Perhaps the (at that time) affiliated publisher of the same name published the novel.

Wikipedia has a plot summary, including spoiler, although I wonder who hasn’t seen the movie besides me.

It’s solid, beyond the iconic scenes. Menace, with energy, and makes you wonder (if not think).

The Columbia Business School students mashup Sting and the Federal Reserve in “Every Breath You Take.” Didn’t know it could be done, but it’s funny. Watch the YouTube-hosted version (how does YouTube pay for its bandwidth again? anyone?). Via Bubble Generation.

Scott Karp asked a few days ago “What If Media 2.0 Is Less Profitable Than Media 1.0?”

As consumers spend more and more of their media time online, ad dollars have been pouring into online media — the assumption has been that the billions of dollars that large companies spend on mass media advertising and marketing (i.e. TV ads) will ultimately follow the small company dollars online. [snip].

But what if there’s a fatal flaw in this assumption? What if the transfer of marketing and advertising dollars online is not 1-to-1? What if the Internet has fundamentally lowered the marketing and advertising costs for big companies as it has for small companies? What if large companies can achieve the same sales objectives for a fraction of the cost of traditional mass media advertising?

I think Scott’s hypothesis is interesting, and worth considering, though I’d add a different view on the challenges of the media business.

The atomization of the audience across an increasing number of channels means that audience aggregation gets more difficult every day. If you can’t aggregate an audience, then you can’t build more media revenue. Google’s strength in aggregating an audience in an ever more diverse world is in large part because Google isn’t about anything in particular. Instead, it’s treated as a source for anything.

If you want to connect the dots, read Vin Crosbie’s data-driven reminder that you can already smell the curdled milk in the newspaper business. And focus on this point:

…as print edition circulation declines, the average newspaper will need between 20 to 100 website users to replace the revenues lost from each former print edition user.

Unless ways can be found to increase the per user revenues generated from newspaper websites, newspapers need to gain fantastic numbers of Web site users just to replace the declines in print edition revenues. A 50,000 circulation daily would need to gain a million to 50 million Web site users to postpone the time when it’s no longer economically feasible to produce its printed edition!

It’s not just newspapers.

(Evidence point #324 that I’m a dinosaur beyond my years… I subscribe to, and (partially) read, two print newspapers, in addition to my online consumption. That cannot last.)

In reading Mark Hurst’s interview with Katy Börner of Indiana University, I learned for the first time about Places & Spaces. This exhibit is about maps, and visualization, and it’s going to be at the New York Public Library for much of the summer. On my list to visit if I get the chance.

When we moved CNET News.com to CSS in September, 2003, an obvious inspiration was CSS Zen Garden. Later on, as the style sheets were improved and refactored as part of the October, 2005, redesign, we discussed just how far we had come. And we even discussed holding a contest to let our readers see what they could do to change/design the site with their own style sheets.

So, when I see the Slashdot CSS Redesign Contest today, I can only (a) applaud the effort and (b) kick myself about following through. Or not doing so, in this instance.

I’ll also be curious to see the end result.

After playing a stalling game all night, Arsenal pulls out a 0-0 draw and moves on to the Champions League final. Tense, yet boring, for an Arsenal fan…with a penalty kick save by Lehmann in the final three minutes. Phew!

I can’t imagine the Gunners would get by Barcelona (the favorite to get past Inter Milan tomorrow night, in the other semi-final), but maybe the magic missing from the Premier League will follow Arsenal to Paris in mid-May.

Once again, happy American disinterest let me avoid the score until watching the game this evening. I hope ESPN2 also runs the final.