Category: Our Web, Ourselves.

Once in a great while, the internets smile and offer up a resource that seems designed just for you. I’m sure it happened all the time when the web was new and largely undiscovered but now that it’s been up and running nearly 15 years, I figure I’ve found everything I’m gonna need.

Until this week. This week, not one but two blogs swam into my field of view that have a fresh take on a subject I love but had never quite identified as such.

• The Magazineer is a blog project by my friend Derek Powazek "for people who make and love magazines." That would be me with my crazy-ass subscriptions to 8 different periodicals that I never have time to read. I may be contributing to this one too.

• Kinetic World, a blog about kinetic (i.e. parts that move) sculpture and art which I found via a link at Laughing Squid. I’ve loved this stuff ever since I read an article about Arthur Ganson maybe 10 years ago and if I owned 25 acres of land, I would purchase the Life-Sized Mouse Trap, hold monthly "Run-Through-It" parties then commission that group of artist to build me a Life Sized Candyland and Rock’Em Sock’Em Robots.

I’m subscribed to both.

An interesting take on "Crowdsourcing", a word I’ve probably used too many times, from my friend Tara Hunt.

‘Crowdsourcing’ is usually about benefiting one source…the
company or individual asking for the advice/ideas. Unless the ’sourcer’
can build something into the process that makes certain it rewards
individuals contributing in those ‘crowds’. Open Source communities are
actually awesome examples of valuable contributors finding rewards
organically – access to better jobs, ability to turn their expertise
into consulting gigs, wide influence in the community itself, which
will lead to speaking gigs, teaching gigs, writing books, etc.

I’ve been a long opponent to the term ‘Crowdsourcing’
as it invokes the image of an unpaid group of volunteers giving ideas
for free while a corporation rakes in endless profits from them. It
speaks to the further exploitation and general suckage of customer
goodwill. I don’t think it is related to it’s positive cousin, Open
Source. Open source is the term used to describe the state of the
source code: can you see it? Is it hidden? Outsourcing is a closer
relation, describing the act of saving money by hiring employees from
low cost labor markets…only ‘Crowdsourcing’ goes one step further and
doesn’t pay the labor at all. Sounds like a sweet deal, right?

Crowdsourcing is another short-term way of thinking about how one
can benefit from the relationships one has in communities. Over the
longterm, any Social Capital one had will be whittled away from
exhausting this free-labor force. Beware of catchy buzzwords, because
they are usually all razzle dazzle and no substance.

It seems measuring the "readability" of this blog results in a "something went wrong" error. What gives ya’ll? (via Social Media.biz)

You may have heard that, beginning next year, several airlines, including United, Jet Blue and Virgin America, will begin rolling out internet access in the air. Which is a neat development for the most part, even though it will inevitably lead to more "why didn’t answer my email over Dubuque?" always-at-work expectations and a run on laptop batteries since, I can almost promise you, airlines will not be including more power ports with this service (more power = more electricity = more fuel which is butt expensive right now.)

Will it cost money? Probably. But before too long, a second armrest will cost you money so may as well man up about it now. You’ve probably also heard that we now fly in about as much luxury as our luggage.

I am not unreasonable in this respect. I do not demand a foot massage as a standard perk on a $200 ticket. But we are way way overdue in establishing certain basic standards of comfort for coach class travelers. Up until very recently, airline passenger advocacy has focused almost exclusively on prices and scheduling. The 11 points on the proposed Passenger’s Bill of Rights includes almost no mention of inflight comfort except regarding delays and travelers with disabilities.

It is time for Point #12, which I’m calling the Provide what you Promise Provision. Simple, basic and I believe, irrefutable.

12. Every airline flight guarantees that the passengers seat, service unit and onboard facilities including lavatories and inflight entertainment are in proper working order.

Which only means that the price of a airline ticket includes a seat that reclines, a seat cushion that doesn’t stab you in the butt, headset jack that functions, a toilet that flushes and inflight entertainment with picture and sound.

It is a travesty that this needs to be spelled out, as I needed to clarify that I am entitled to a fork and napkin when dining out. But that seems to be what it has come to. Hooray to JetBlue and Virgin America for making humane treatment of passengers part of their brand and corporate initiative. For the rest of you, if can’t live up to a few basic expectations of your business, then I suggest you find a new one.   

So which of the 56 Geeks are you? And please don’t say "I’m not a geek", because if you’re reading my this here blo, you probably didn’t sit on the homecoming court.

I didn’t have the patience to click through all of them but I’m labeling myself Book Geek.

Unless you have a better suggestion. You can buy the whole thing in poster form also (via Laughing Squid).

So it seems now women who work in technology/silicon valley/web 2.0 can now be rated by hotness and Digg-style voting.

I’m so proud to work in this industry that can pass good ole-fashion ogling off as innovative fun. And since the whole word is going micro these days, I propose next a digg-style rating site where you can submit your own body parts. Because man, I’ve got earlobes that could stop a clock.

UPDATE: There’s a version where you rate guys also but, surprise, surprise, it’s mostly wealth and much smaller than its female equivalent. (via BuzzFeed).

In what looks like a shift of cultural influence from southern to northern California, Marc Andreessen, founder of Netscape has published an essay titled "Rebuilding Hollywood in Silicon Valley’s Image." Andreessen makes three large predictions.

First, ongoing alienation of a new generation of TV viewers.

Second, driving consumers even faster to the new range of activities they can engage in.

Third, and most significantly: catalyzing faster development of new business models for entertainment media.

The third point I find the most interesting. The author breaks it down as follows…

What would a new entertainment media company, producing original content, look like in the age of the Internet?

• Starting from the end of the process: you know distribution
  is now nearly free. Put it up on the Internet and let people stream or
  download it.

• Marketing is also free, due to virality. Let people email
  your content to their friends; let people embed your content in their
  blogs and on their social networking pages; let your content be
  searchable via Google; let your content be easily surfaced using social
  crawlers like Digg. All free.

• Production is very cheap. Handheld high-definition video
  cameras cost nearly nothing. You can do almost every aspect of
  production and post-production on any Mac. Hell, you can even score an
  entire movie for free — there are hundreds of thousands of bands on
  the Internet who would love to have their music embedded in a new
  entertainment property as promotion for the bands’ concerts and
  merchandise.

• The creators of the content are the owners of the company.
  The writers, actors, directors — they are the owners. They have a
  direct, equity-based economic stake in the company’s success. They get
  paid like owners, and they act like owners.

• Financing is straightforward: venture capital, just like a
  high-tech startup. We live in a world in which financing a high-quality
  startup is simply not difficult — not for a high-quality technology
  startup, and increasingly not for a high-quality media startup. Modern
  financiers love being co-owners of a new company with the talent that
  will make the company successful — and that’s how it will happen here.

I need to read a little closer but this is a take on recent events down south I hadn’t heard yet.

This just in: Al Gore has become a partner in the silicon valley investment firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield and Byers, which funded Netscape and Google. Gore will head up their climate change solutions group–investing in green business and technology–and donate his salary to the Alliance for Climate Protection.

Gore says he’ll be spending 5-6 a month in San Francisco where he and his wife have an apartment in the SOMA district.

If I run into him, I’m buying him a New Orleans-Style Iced Coffee from Blue Bottle, the best in town. It’ll be my way of saying welcome to town and thanks, because it’s the least I could do.

Doesn’t feel like I have any time to blog these days (I’m writing this on Saturday morning) which stinks. I’l get the hang of working full time soon I’m sure but in the meantime little updates will have to do.

On that, a radio commentary I did recently on changes in book reviewing aired a few weeks back. Listen to it if you like.

(x-posted from BookTour blog)

So this morning, BookTour joined the esteemed company of NASCAR, real estate agents and junky chinese imports.

How, you ask? We’ve been mentioned on the Freakonomics Blog. Freakonomics is a book that came out in 2005 reevaluating the field of data gathering and economics and has sold about 5 kabillion copies. The blog is a much read for those interested in radical reconsiderations of the everyday.

We’re honored to be included.