Internet Euphemisms Decoded
3. July 2008
Christine Huang
BoingBoing recently found itself in a public tiff with one of their former writers, Violet Blue, after the website’s editors decided to delete every one of her posts with no identifiable reason. BoingBoing insisted that they hadn’t censored their ex-blogger, but rather just ‘unpublished’ all of her work.
In response, Gawker has posted a funny if characteristically snarky post clarifying some of that obfuscating language (such as ‘unpublished’) being thrown around by all of us in the blogosphere when we’re trying to cover up what’s really going on (or what we really mean). Some highlights:
- Brand advertising = Bad clickthroughs. “We have a clickthrough rate of one in ten thousand, but we’re more of a brand destination.”
- Update: Fix. On a blog or in a program, an update means something was broken.
- Experimental: Failed. Everyone secretly hopes their projects take off, so they can say “Oh, it was just a fun little project!” More often, the project gets just the attention it deserved: none.
- Platform: Vague idea. Instead of a useful tool, a tool for other people to make useful tools. Possibly a cash cow, but boring. (For a geekier set, a platform is for those too lazy to code; an API is for those too lazy to write a platform.)
- Beta: Broken. For some web services, “beta” is as regular as PMS until Google buys the company.
- Viral: Cheap. Of course, sometimes that’s the kind of ad a brand deserves. Note which brand was faster to jump on viral videos: Not Coke, but Mentos.
- Contextual advertising: Bottom-of-the-barrel ads. What’s left over after “brand advertising” and served with “user-generated” content.
Gawker: The 15 Most Useless Internet Euphemisms
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Eco Complaints At ‘Good’ Stores
3. July 2008
Piers Fawkes
For some reason this morning I had my good citizen cap on my walk to work down Broadway between Union Square and SoHo I went into two stores to complain that they had their doors open and their air conditioning on. The reason I chose these two stores rather than the Best Buy or Urban Outfitters was that these brands (American Apparel and Body Shop) both trade on their conscious credentials.
There’s an element of ‘doing good’ in both retailers’ brand values. Body Shop has a ‘Protect Our Planet‘ mission. American Apparel doesn’t talk much these days about it’s eco credentials but it has major concerns for what it considers as the community.
Some of you might not know but there is a strong debate in New York about stores that leave their doors open while their air conditioning units were going - and some officials in New York have suggested a law against it. Saying that, maybe the debate is all in the media and none in the street: when I asked the assistants in both stores if anyone had complained before about their open doors and they said no. The Body Shop girl seemed fairly concerned about the idea, the American Apparel girl and her manager seemed to just see me as somebody ten years too old in the store and not minding his own business. Well, at least some brand values ring true.
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Times Square To Get First Solar & Wind Powered Billboard
3. July 2008
Dan Gould
Ricoh is building an nature powered billboard, scheduled to go up in Times Square this December. A first for New York, this solar and wind powered giant ad is only the third in the world. The other two are Pacific Gas & Electric’s in San Francisco and Ricoh’s original eco billboard in Tokyo. The ad’s lighting will be powered by 45 solar panels and 4 wind turbines. Strangely the system lacks any kind of back up power source. If there’s a cloudy day with no wind, the ad will not be illuminated.
[via Live Science]
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Popup Cultural Installation Takes Over London A Street
3. July 2008
Dave Pinter
Opening tomorrow (July 4th) on Montague Place behind the British Museum in London is a new temporary cultural space designed by Carmody Groarke Architects. Called the Sky Walk, the installation is the centerpiece of the Bloomsbury Hub of the London Festival of Architecture. Sky Walk is a series of elevated ramps that take visitors on a meandering journey exposing them to new views of the architectural details on the surrounding historic buildings. Over the next three days, Sky Walk will serve as a backdrop for performances, and exhibition, and a continuous picnic of locally produced food.
Sky Walk was constructed over the past three days out of reusable staging components. It’s covered in a translucent black mesh. The ramp reaches a height of over 13 feet at it’s tallest point.
The event is the first step in the total transformation of the street into a usable public space and a destination in its own right. The design firm of Burns+Nice have already developed proposals to redo the street and surrounding areas.
[via WAN]
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Volkswagen’s Future Mobility Vision
3. July 2008
Matthias Weber (PSFK Hamburg)
German car manufacturer Volkswagen have released a site called “Volkswagen 2028″ that sketches a scenario of future automotive mobility, 20 years from now. The site kicks off with a short introductory movie set in the future, where a father takes a walk with his son talking about the old times where you had to search for a parking-lot. Future times according to VW are about smart, on-demand car delivery services, skinnable car exteriors and the death of traffic jams as we know them.
A series of interviews with VW researchers and designers unveil their visions of electric-driven Single Occupant Vehicles, holographic projections, gesture controlled dashboards, and emission free automobiles.
While the entire site is in German, it’s still worth having a look at their future scenarios.
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Transformation from Watch to Cell Phone Now Truly Complete
2. July 2008
Orli Sharaby
When’s the last time you wore a watch? With the cell phone having become an indispensable accessory, the wristwatch has become all but obsolete, worn more often for fashion or status than for its actual time-telling capability. Bringing the transformation full circle (not sure if they recognize the irony), Tag Heuer is launching Meridiist, a luxury cell phone possibly created for those who aren’t buying Tag Heuers anymore.
From Trendhunter:
The Tag Heuer Meridiist mobile phone is made from watch-making stainless steel and has two unscratchable 60.5 carat sapphire crystal displays. It displays the time in a 96×76 monochromatic OLED screen in the upper part of the phone and comes with a 2.0 megapixel camera, MP3 player and bluetooth technology.
It looks pretty nice, and judging by the attention to detail with which watchmakers approach their craft, one would imagine that the Meridiist is built to exacting specifications. At the same time, as Gizmodo rightly points out, when you take a good look at the phone’s specs, there’s not much that you can’t get elsewhere. Which leaves us wondering what the $6100 price tag really gets you, besides a really fancy way to tell time.
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Why Is the Blog vs Website Writing Project Not Appealing to You? [a poll]
2. July 2008
Joe
I am really curious about something. I started a writing contest about the differences between a Blog vs Website for creating a Web Presence, whether for Business or Pleasure, or even for Charities.
I got No Response, Ok, I got one comment from Deb, but she doesn’t use her Blog for business so she thought it wouldn’t be accepted.
So, I figured I would just ask all of you…
Loading …If you would take the time to answer the poll, I will learn even more of Your Preferences for Future Contests.
Thanks,
Joe
For those of you reading in RSS, please use This Link to take the Poll.
J.
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Replate: Open Source Food Activism
2. July 2008
Dan Gould
Replating is the term coined by design studio Language In Common for the simple act of giving away leftover food by leaving it on top of garbage cans. Sort of a small scale version of City Harvest. The replate idea is being spread by their website and with downloadable posters and stickers that explain the process. They started this open source food activism campaign as an easy way of channeling this potentially wasted food to the homeless and others that may desperately need it. There are some potential problems in the widespread roll out of Replating such as the food drawing rodents, or the lack of flat surfaced garbage cans in New York City. Overall a good concept, and a step in the right direction.
[via Neatorama]
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14 Boomer Blogs To Follow
2. July 2008
Piers Fawkes
PSKF recently completed some trends and product ideation consultancy for a client around the subject of Baby Boomers. Here are some of the best blogs we monitored for inspiration (in no particular order):
* 20plus30
* Boomer
* Aging Fabulous
* Time Goes By
* Libido & Health
* Changing Aging
* The Boomer Blog
* The Boomer Chronicles
* Older But No Wiser
* Aging Maven
* Always Question
* Auxiliary Memory
* GenPlus
* Aging Hipster
PSKF recently completed some consultancy for a client on the subject of Baby Boomers. Here are some of the best blogs we monitored for inspiration…
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APC Selling Pre-Worn Jeans
2. July 2008
Dan Gould
French clothing company APC has come out with new jeans that are either innovative or ridiculous depending on your point of view. The “Butler Worn Out” series are weathered, not by the traditional sandpaper method but rather by humans wearing them. This unconventional and time consuming method produces the desirable marks and soft feel of old jeans. To anyone considering these buying these (probably really expensive) pants, I have a suggestion: try a used clothing shop, lots of human pre-worn jeans there.
[via Hypebeast]
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