Filed under: COOL SHT, Feature | Tags: Adam Yauch, Android, Apple, Art, Beastie Boys, Coldplay, comScore, Discovery, Draw Something, Facebook, Hollywood Bowl, MCA, Mike D, MOCA, Nielsen, Revision 3, Sothebys, Tagged, The Scream, Transmission LA, Turntable, Zynga
THIS WEEK: REMEMBERING MCA
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“as you can imagine, shit is just fkd up right now. but i wanna say thank you to all our
friends and family (which are kinda one in the same) for all the love and support.
i’m glad to know that all the love that Yauch has put out into the world is coming right back at him.
thank you.”- Mike D
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Coldplay Tribute 5/4 at the Hollywood Bowl “Fight for Your Right to Party”
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It is with great sadness that I dedicate this post to one of my heroes, Adam “MCA” Yauch from the Beastie Boys. He died last week at 47 years old from cancer in his salivary glands. Yauch co-founded the Beastie Boys with Mike “Mike D” Diamond and Adam “Ad-Rock” Horovitz in 1979, one year after I was born. The Beastie Boys started as a punk rock group and quickly merged over into hip hop. Paul’s Boutique defined my college experience and laid groundwork for a connection to music which has motivated and pushed me forward in the darkest of times. He was one of my heroes. He will be missed.
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For more videos to remind you of the Beastie Boys genius, click here.
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In other news, Nielsen reported another drop in TV viewers, the Apple OS vs. Android deathmatch continues, The Scream sells at Sotheby’s for a cool $120MM, Turntable tries to get its mojo back, Facebook sets its IPO at $28 – $35 a share, Discovery buys Revision 3, ComScore names Tagged as the most engaged social network, and Zynga sees massive decline from its recent acquisition Draw Something.
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Some more Cool Sh-t:
Transmission LA: Mike D Curated Art
Photo Credit: Daily Marauder
Filed under: COOL SHT, Feature | Tags: Android, Antwerp, Azealia Banks, Bon Iver, Coachella, Feist, H&M, Hotchella, iPad, Lil Kim, Milan, Olympics, Paris, Radiohead, Tumblr
THIS WEEK: HOTCHELLA & THE ANDROID SLUMP
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Photo Credit: Daily Marauder
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This past weekend, I experienced my first Coachella, which prompted me to immediately rename it HOTchella with temperatures peaking at 105 degrees on site, only a few degrees shy of the record set at 107 on April 21, 1958. With my beginnings in radio, I’ve been to many music festivals over the years, most of them from the years of ’96 to ’01. This one, however, was bigger than anything I’d ever seen. Two outdoor stages and three tents devoted to five bands at any given time. Young and old gathered in a field under intense narcotics use. It felt like the music festival version of Dazed and Confused.
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The size and scale of the venue made the experience simultaneously a bit intimidating and awe-inspiring. My favorites? Azealia Banks hands down. Nothing like watching an entire crowd scream out the c-word while Banks rapped ‘212’, bobbing back and forth on stage with her L’il Kim-inspired pasties. Cue to 1:28 and enjoy. She’s only 20 and hypnotic.
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I loved Bon Iver as always even though his energy level was a bit disappointing. Feist had incredible moments but her attempt to rock out seemed a bit off-brand.
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Photo Credit: Stereogum
The disappointment? Radiohead. For the record, I left while they were playing. I’ve seen Radiohead three times, once in D.C. while holding onto the front barricade mere inches from Thom Yorke. I’ve seen them command thousands of people from a first note. This, was not that experience. They seemed to be playing for themselves, a narcissism that was felt throughout the field.
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I was on site looking at sponsorship opportunities. To this end, I really enjoyed the H&M tent. They are the exclusive sponsor to provide free water at the festival. They came up with this brilliant idea years ago and wrote it into their contract. Their tent was covered in fan photos from top to bottom and included a freshen-up station, which in the astounding heat, was an absolute oasis. Through Instagram, fans could upload a photo with the hashtag #kissforacause to donate $1 to HIV/AIDS prevention. Smart.
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Photo Credit: Daily Marauder
H&M Tent – Photo Wall
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Photo Credit: Daily Marauder
H&M Tent – Instagram Photo Upload for a Cause
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Photo Credit: Daily Marauder
H&M Tent – Freshen-Up Station
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In other news, Android has hit a rough patch, rumors surround an iPad Mini launch, this Olympic ad from P&G draws tears and views and Tumblr will launch ads on site May 2nd.
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Some more Cool Sh-t:
The Color Forecast: Fashion Trends Based on Real Time Data
Filed under: COOL SHT, Feature | Tags: Android, Angry Birds, Bird, Carrie Bradshaw, Flight, Frans Johansson, George Zimmerman, Harry Potter, Hunger Games, Instagram, Katniss Everdeen, Lionsgate, Man, President Obama, Social Discovery, SXSW, The Dark Knight, The Medici Effect, Trayvon Martin, Twitter
THIS WEEK: HUNGER GAMES & THE MEMORY OF TRAYVON
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Katniss Everdeen and her Hunger Games blazed through theaters this weekend bringing in $155 MM in the box office, the third highest box office opening weekend in history, behind sequels including Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2 at $169.1MM and just shy of The Dark Knight at $151.6 MM. Of all the five films in the top 5 for largest opening weekend, it should come as no surprise that each film is based on a book. A film does best when it has an established audience already interested in the story. A book series accomplishes the initial stages of marketing for a film. I hate to use the buzz marketing word transmedia, but the novel-to-film strategy is the original in transmedia and still one of the most successful use cases.
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I was a bit closer to this particular film, being that I worked previously at the ad agency which placed its media. The incredible thing about the Lionsgate team is their nimbleness in the digital space. While others are belaboring whether or not to try one initiative or the other, Lionsgate seemingly tries it all. As Frans Johansson pointed out in the book, The Medici Effect, the sign of success is a direct correlation to how many times you have tried and failed. In other words, it takes a lot of attempted failures to arrive at the top. In my experience with Lionsgate, this is what I admire about them. They are small and volatile at times, but they attempt to do it all and find their footing somewhere along the way. So to that entire team, I say congrats. Keep moving at the speed of light.
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(AP Photo/The Seattle Times, Greg Gilbert)
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In other more serious news, crowds have turned out across the US calling for the arrest of George Zimmerman, the man who shot and killed the unarmed Trayvon Martin (President Obama weighs in), Instagram is finally coming to the Android platform, Twitter turns 6 and begins to drop promoted tweets in your mobile feed (which as a user, I despise), Carrie Bradshaw gets a new face, and Angry Birds’ latest game Space has racked up 10MM downloads since its Thursday release. One last thing…after SXSW and writing about the top trends from the week, I did an in-depth review of the social discovery trend as well. This is one to watch.
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Some more Cool Sh-t:
Filed under: Feature | Tags: Android, CES, Facebook, GAMING, Golden Globes, Harvey Weinstein, iPhone 4S, Mashable, MG Seigler, Soul!, Spotify, TechCrunch, TED, The Artist, Turntable, Ultrabook
THIS WEEK: THE ARTIST DIGESTED & CES ROUND-UP
Happy Martin Luther King Day!
Last night, the Golden Globes descended upon Hollywood. The critics’ acclaim and 3 Golden Globes for the silent film, The Artist, got me thinking about a general trend in our culture at large, something I spoke about last week as well. If you’ve seen The Artist, then I’m sure you were also struck by the sheer simplicity of the film. Make no mistake about it, I’m not saying I liked it, just that it filters to a true simplicity not seen with most other films. Love, greed, empathy, pain, these were the simple messages evoked in the movie. While watching the film, my friend commented that perhaps she was not intellectual enough to understand the acclaim driving reviews. I don’t think that’s it at all. I think the passion around this film is simply that we are overwhelmed with entertainment and messaging.
Recently, I watched a variety show from the 70’s called Soul! and was struck by the sheer number of lengthy pauses in which the silence was deafening to my modern ears. In my former 5 years as a radio DJ, I would periodically have nightmares in which I was sitting in front of a blinking sound board paralyzed with dead air blaring from the studio speakers. In the modern era, sometimes watching Gossip Girl can literally make me feel like I’m in a dance club with a strobe light. The transition between scenes is on warp speed as our collective attention span has constricted. In some ways, we’ve acclimated to become faster human engines of efficiency. In other ways, we’ve become unaccustomed to the phrase, “stopping to smell the roses.” Back to The Artist. I think the insight into this film is not that it is good or well-acted in fact. I think Harvey Weinstein, the man who purchased the first silent film in over 70 years, is simply an innovator, one who sees what we all want before we want it. We all have been yearning for the simpler life, but without someone to bring this to us in entertainment form, we did not realize it. So Harvey Weinstein, I say well done. I didn’t like The Artist, but I understand it’s inherent value and for that the Golden Globe wins seem warranted. I can’t say the same for George Clooney I’m afraid.
On to the digitalverse. This week, the largest consumer electronics show wrapped up in Vegas. As I said last week, I am not a fan as usually the show produces a compendium of crap rather than one true innovation. This assumption was proved correct. Can’t say I told sold…oh wait, I can. That said, here’s a bit of a round-up from Mashable and a note on how the word ‘ultra-book’ is nothing more than a marketing campaign from Intel. The one highlight for me is really the focus on creating ecosystems rather than attempting to force consumers to purchase new gadgets that they don’t need. In other news, the iPhone 4S helped close Apple’s gap on the Android, especially interesting to note given the number of devices running Android. On the heels of that data, a very interesting post from MG Seigler (formerly of Techcrunch) emerged on why the writer despises Android. You’ll take note of the fact that it has less to due with Apple’s user interface and more on Google’s broken promise to make the consumers’ needs most important.
In other news, Facebook launched a “Listen With” feature which the community at large immediately compared to Turntable. To contradict that theory, I think Facebook discovered a more interesting insight which is that the mass audience does not want to do the work of playing DJ all day on Turntable. They simply just want to know what their friends are listening to. Hey Facebook, I’m still not turning on my listening data in Spotify. A girl has her secrets and you’re not getting all of mine. Nice try though… In bigger Facebook news, Facebook’s IPO is rumored to be hitting late May. And finally, TED returns to Long Beach, CA at the end of February.
Some more Cool Sh-t:
From Gaming to Escape our Real Lives to Gamifying Reality
Filed under: Feature, ONLINE SERVICES/INTERACTIVE MEDIA | Tags: Android, App Store, Apps, Apps Store, Blackberry, Gartner, Handhelds, iPhone, Kettle, Mobile, Olivier Peyre, Palm Pre, Smartphone, They Make Apps
GOT MOBILE APP DEVELOPERS?: THEYMAKEAPPS DOES
As someone who prides herself on being a digital nerdstress, I often field questions from folks looking for mobile app developers. It’s very analogous to that moment where someone texts you looking for a good restaurant or bar in their neighborhood. Inevitably, your mind goes blank and the vestiges of cool locations are lost rendering you helpless in directing your friends to that cool bar you always want to refer people to. Eventually, perhaps you muster up the mental energy to pull a few developers out of thin air, developers who most likely have no additional bandwidth to take on new projects. FAIL.
Enter TheyMakeApps, an online directory of iPhone application developers categorized by location and price. iPhone users have so far downloaded over 3 billion applications from the iTunes store. A recent study from Gartner found that users will download, on average, 20.1 apps per smartphone this year. With that much consumption, it’s easy to see why everyone is looking for a good developer. With over 100K registered iPhone developers, it’s easy to see the need for something which weeds though that much choice. The challenge in finding the right person is in finding someone who can execute the vision at the right price. They Make Apps helps it all come together in a slick user interface that makes the process a bit more fun.
How to
Currently, users can browse through apps filtering by price (up to $20K) and by location. The site was developed by Kettle, a NYC-based digital consultancy. Olivier Peyre, Creative Director of Kettle, tells me that search will be available soon. Clearly, search is a critical feature allowing users to drill down on exactly what they’re looking for, be it a mobile app developer specifically or a developer who has worked with a brand of interest. I like that the site allows for users to save mobile developers of interest for a comparative look later in the process. Any developer can easily sign up on the site to be included in the directory.
Currently, the limiting features for me are the lack of search (which is already on its way), the lack of budget options above $20K, and the lack of Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre developers. Some nice-to-have features would be a way to vote up and down certain developers creating a hot list of preferred vendors and a way to email developers of interest to friends.
TheyMakeApps isn’t exclusively for agencies and developers. SPIN magazine used the directory to find the developer for their latest project. Nick Pandolfi, Digital Edition Manager of SPIN describes his experience:
“TheyMakeApps was a huge help with SPIN’s latest development project. Rather then reach out to all our contacts for developer references, it was a quick way to find locally based developers and see exactly what they specialize in. I’m sure we’ll be using it again soon!”
TheyMakeApps is simply the glue connecting need to the solution. And frankly, I love glue.
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- Staggering iPhone App Development Statistics to be Unveiled at Inaugural App Exhibit at Macworld 2010 (prweb.com)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Android, Apple, Business, HTC Magic, LG Electronics, Mobile phone, Research In Motion, Smartphone
While other carriers might finally be dipping their toes in the Android water this month, T-Mobile has been in this game for a long time. They got their first Android phone (the G1) out last October, and managed to launch two more (the myTouch and the CLIQ) within the year. It makes sense, then, that they’re the first to pipe up with some usage details. (Mobilecrunch11/4)
If you’re determined to shake down some deals during the mother of all U.S. shopping days, then forgive the cliche when we tell you there’s an app for that. Powered by dealnews, the just-released version 2 of their Black Friday app (iTunes link) adds a number of new features for bargain hunters. (Mashable11/4)
LG Electronics, the world’s third-largest cell phone maker, is eyeing sales gains of 20% this year and in 2010, Skott Ahn, the CEO of its mobile-device business, said. At a separate event Tuesday, LG Electronics CEO Yong Nam said the company was “investing heavily” in smartphones, adding that, “We’re not yet there but we’ll get there.” Nam said LG saw companies such as Apple and Research in Motion, rather than fellow handset makers, as its chief competition. Reuters (11/3) , The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (11/4)
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Filed under: WIRELESS | Tags: Android, BlackBerry Storm, HTC Corporation, HTC Hero, PC World, Research In Motion, Smartphone, Verizon Wireless
Verizon Wireless will introduce an HTC Android-powered smartphone Friday alongside the Motorola Droid, the carrier said. The $99 handset, which Verizon Wireless has dubbed the Droid Eris, has similar features to the HTC Hero, industry observers reported. Verizon Wireless also said last week that it was “very pleased” with the initial sales of Research in Motion‘s BlackBerry Storm 2, which launched Wednesday. Yahoo!/PC World(11/1) , The Wall Street Journal/Dow Jones Newswires (10/30)
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