Exclamation blog: Stories, Ideas and loud noises
Taking TV Fanaticism One Step Further
This is really no secret — I’m obsessed with The Wire. Anyone who cites, stands or otherwise has to occupy space within earshot of me has heard me prattle on about Omar, Michael, Marlo, Chris and Snoop, Lester, Bunk, McNulty, the sublime brilliance of the HBO drama, or how I think its going to end.
Rarely does a television show grab me in such a way that I end up having to watch every week. I can think of maybe four shows like that: The Wire, LOST, Chappelle’s Show and The X-Files. But when I see a show like this, I kind of go all-out.
One of the great things about great television is talking about it — coming to work and discussing gripping scenes, pointing out minutiae the people have missed, speculating on what’s coming next. And, like a lot of stuff nowadays, some of the best discussion is happening in the blogosphere. Best of all, TV blogs really give you the chance to geek out in a big way. Seriously.
Want to read a nearly 1,800-word deconstruction of Episode 8 of The Wire? Tim Goodman, the superlative TV critic at the San Francisco Chronicle has you covered. (Goodman’s “The Bastard Machine” on Sfgate.com is also must-read.) Need to get a complete breakdown of how Lost exists in a metaphysical landscape or maybe try and figure out just how the heck a polar bear got on that island? Lostpedia has your back.
Despite its often anti-social effect on people, television is an inherently social medium. Good TV causes us to get together to watch, talk about it and blog about it so we can talk waaaaay too much about it. It’s only bad TV, the kind we watch when we’re bored and by ourselves that turns TV into a brain-sucking waste of time … or as Homer Simpson says, “Television! Teacher, mother … secret lover.”
Unfortunately, I only have one more week to nerd out to The Wire – the show’s final episode airs on March 9 – but I still have Lost. And hopefully, mercifully, there is some inspired writer pounding out the next brilliant television show that will, in turn, inspire less brilliant people to write about it, and, in turn, inspire nerds like me to lap up every word.
FreeRice.com: The Ethics of Equating Hunger with Entertainment
To begin, let me say that FreeRice.com is monumentally addicting.
A charity website launched in October 2007 by John Breen, a computer programmer and creater of TheHungerSite.com and Poverty.com, among others, FreeRice.com is a free and innovative vocabulary game that raises money to fight hunger.
Visitors to the site are immediately presented with a word and four possible definitions– if they select the correct one, then they move onto another word and another level. Simple, fun, addicting…but not all that unusual.
To throw a charitable twist into the system, however, for each correct definition, FreeRice.com donates 20 grains of rice through the United Nations. While 20 grains may seem like a measly amount, to date, 18,329,818,750 grains have been donated — enough to feed 916,491 people for one day and certainly enough to quiet the most discerning skeptic.
Considering myself something of a writer and amateur vocabulary expert, I found myself strangely drawn to the site, its elegant UI and its claim that by playing and exercising my brain I can “feed hungry people.” What more, after only managing to reach level 42 after a furious ten minutes of play, my competitive fire was lit and I became determined to reach the mythical level 55, reserved only for the most talented wordsmiths.
Yet despite the charitable claims of FreeRice.com and overwhelmingly positive press (see here, here, here, and here), I can’t help but feel somewhat uneasy about the equating of simple entertainment with world hunger. Doesn’t it seem somewhat wrong and disturbing that one teenager’s SAT practice game can control another’s daily caloric intake?
While the idea behind the site is certainly original if not brilliant, to my mind it seems to be trivializing hunger and even further disconnecting westerners from the real problem at hand.
Does playing a vocabulary game make users more aware of the world hunger crisis? Does it inspire them to care? Does it even matter?
Thus while I continue to visit the site in moments of tedium, my mind frequently returns to the problematic idea of connecting gaming and the Web with the alleviation of poverty.
While the wide appeal of FreeRice.com is certainly better than nothing, I can’t help but feel that the power of the Web could — and should — be leveraged for so much more.
To do something right now to help world hunger, click here to donate to World Hunger Year, the innovative and reputable hunger charity founded by singer Harry Chapin.
Or, if you can’t afford to make a donation, you know where to go…
Facebook woes? Not so fast…
Robert Scoble is angry because his Facebook account was shut down due to a debatable terms of use violation. Charlene Li felt a little violated when Facebook’s Beacon put information about her purchases in her mini-feed without asking her. People are predicting the end of Facebook and using some pretty harsh words when talking about it.
So I decided to step out of the Silicon Valley (and Alley!) world and ask a small sample of Facebook users that do not work in tech or read tech blogs on a regular basis if they were aware of or have heard any of the news about Beacon or the controversy surrounding their favorite and indispensable social network. First, I asked my little cousin at Berkeley who had no idea what I was talking about and said his roommates didn’t either. Next were two other Bay Area college students who also had no idea, yet seemed intrigued that Beacon could be a cool new feature they weren’t aware of. It’s a small sample size, but three college students in Silicon Valley had no clue and really didn’t care either.
Next, I moved to my demographic — young professionals, as we are called. First, a lawyer, hadn’t heard anything. Next, a law student: “I don’t know about that stuff.” Finally, a finance guy — still no.
A couple of the college students conveyed to me how indispensable Facebook is to their social lives — it’s how they invite people to parties, show pictures to their friends, see when their crush has broken up with a significant other, and then “spit game” once that’s happened. It’s not a nice-to-have, it’s a necessity. Much like Gmail and iTunes, which people know track their every move, Facebook has reached a point where people are so dependent on their useful services that it will take a whole lot more than a PR crisis or blogstorm for people to even consider going elsewhere.
When controversies like those mentioned above come about, the question becomes: will people care? In Facebook’s case, it’s not about whether people will care, instead it’s whether they even know. These may seem like big bumps in the road for people in the tech industry, but they are tiny blips on the radar for everyone else. In case anyone was worried about Facebook’s well-being, they’ll be just fine, and you’ll be able to go about your everyday Superpoking for a long time.
For the Love of Whoppers
There is no shortage of ad campaigns that focus on the relationship people have with certain products. Whether it’s a mom and her paper towels or Tiger Woods and his razor, we usually see an image of how happy people are WITH these products.
Burger King recently launched a campaign, call Whopper Freakout, that takes the opposite approach — taking people’s favorite things away from them to see how unhappy they are without them. In this case, it’s the Whopper, and boy do they freak out. It’s an interesting twist on the traditional bite-and-huge-smile-of-satisfaction we see in many food ads and other food programming (see, Giada De Laurentiis).
It’s like breaking up with a girlfriend or losing you favorite jacket — you just don’t know how much you like it and need it until it’s gone. In this case, it’s clear, people NEED their Whoppers (maybe it’s because they are as addictive as heroin?).
Word-of-mouth and customer influence are a couple of the most powerful forms of marketing, and Burger King has taken an interesting approach to packaging their customer testimonials, in the form of freakouts, to spread the word about how great people think Whoppers are.
They say absence makes the heart grow fonder — so if watching other people’s hearts grow fonder has the same affect, then Burger King may be onto something. Of course, if we’re talking hearts here, the absence of Whoppers could probably do wonders for the cardiovascular health of our country…
Holiday Cards Go Green (And I Couldn’t Be Happier)
As a child, my least favorite day of the year was always the day after Thanksgiving. Before the lingering scent of turkey grease and mulled wine had fully dissipated from the far corners of the house, before the winter snow even had a chance to settle on the ground, my brother and I were stuffed into our most offensive, uncomfortable outfits and led to various picturesque locations throughout the state of Rhode Island for the most dreaded few hours of the year: the holiday card photo shoot.
My parents, faithful servants to longstanding family traditions, insist on sending family photo holiday cards each and every year to hundreds of their closest friends and family, even though my brother and I have been out of the house for nearly a decade. Sweater chafe, curling iron burns, turtleneck strangulation, and smile strain are only a few of the many injuries sustained over the years of torment that led holiday cards to be one of my least favorite parts of the winter months. But don’t worry, children of the 21st century. Relief is in sight.
The first ever print run of Christmas cards was a mere 1,000, commissioned by Englishman Henry Cole who simply didn’t have the time to make enough personalized cards. Things have certainly changed since those days of Queen Victoria, but recent stats are showing that card production is back on the decline. This means your local drug stores are selling fewer boxes of prepackaged Ruldolph prints, while less and less children are being shoehorned into last year’s loafers as they say ‘cheese’ beneath the glare of flashbulbs and bubble lights. The reason? Green technology.
One of this season’s usurpers of the traditional Christmas card is clean, green, and begging users to walk all over them. ReProduct has created greeting cards and envelopes made from earth-friendly, people-friendly materials. They come to recipients in a 2-way envelope, much like Netflix, along with a pre-paid return postage provided by Shaw Industries. Once the recipient is done with the card, they put it in the prepaid envelope, mail it back to Shaw, who then uses both card and envelope to create carpet backing for carpet tiles. These cards are just starting to gain tread in the industry, and what better way to hold onto the memories of loved ones at the holidays than to turn them into a nice berber?
Vidigreet is another company taking the holidays by storm this year with the introduction of a video greeting card service. Vidigreet combines professionally created content with your own personalized greeting, allowing users to send quick videos for all those special occasions. In addition to eliminating paper waste, creator Jeff Gorman combines actors, fancy camera work, and sharp creativity to achieve the ultimate purpose of the greeting card to begin with: social connectivity. He just does it on a much higher level than my poor mother, who has spent the better half of her adult life addressing Christmas cards by hand in her tidy, elementary school teacher script. So if you’re looking to avoid the carpal tunnel, Vidigreet is one of several video card services available this holiday season.
Though not everyone is quick to embrace the greener side of the Christmas spectrum, us tree lovers won’t be seeing red this year. Technology isn’t killing the Christmas card, but offering countless ways to personalize and send them inexpensively and with ease, without the overwhelming paper waste. There’s also the matter of ink toxins, card production pollutions, added mail weight which adds to annual fuel-consumption, and un-earth-friendly card disposal. Certainly these factors weight in with nearly every manufactured product, but relief is in sight as video-cards, E-cards, and re-cards are making a splash this season. While at least a hundred of my parents nearest and dearest will be receiving a neatly signed photo card featuring the Savageau family in all of their holiday splendor this Christmas, overall holiday card production has dropped substantially. Knowing my family, however, even if we convert to an e-card by 2008, there will still be itchy sweaters and Christmas lights waiting right around the corner.
No Plans Friday Night? Brave SF Singles Turn to CrazyBlindDate.com
In the interest of full disclosure, I will begin by saying I am not a big blind dater.
Maybe I’m not adventurous enough but I find the idea of forced mingling with a complete stranger seriously anxiety-inducing. Nonetheless, I have to admit that I’m intrigued by the recent birth of various blind dating websites– and when I heard that a friend had given CrazyBlindDate.com a try I immediately tracked her down to get the details.
“Ok, I admit, it’s a little scary,” she prefaced her account of the evening’s events. “But I was feeling gutsy so I thought ‘why not?’”
Gutsy indeed.
CrazyBlindDate.com coordinates dates for users on “extremely short notice” in San Francisco, New York, Boston and Austin. Users log into the site, create a profile and are given a description of their “match”– that description being a blurry picture and summary of their interests. Users are then given a place and time for their meeting and in the case that they can’t find each other amongst the anxious throngs CrazyBlindDate provides an anonymous number through which to text message.
The site makes it very clear that a “Yes” response to a date is absolutely binding, going so far as to say that “being late is mean.” CrazyBlindDate also instructs users to “stick around for at least 20 minutes (less is rude) and be nice.” The site even allows the most skittish customers to go on double dates with a friend and assures safety by only allowing dates to take place in public settings ie. a local coffee shop or bar.
Clearly the site is generating interest among lonely/bored/excitement-craving urban dwellers and coverage of the site’s launch in November has appeared in publications and blogs including TechCrunch, WebWare, the Stanford Daily, Cnet News and KillerStartups.com.
My guinea pig friend ended up enjoying the experience– a quick after-work drink at a bar in Cow Hollow– although she was disappointed that her date wasn’t quite as magical as she might have hoped. She even admitted she might use the site again the next time her social calendar was looking glaringly open– certainly a positive review and one that led me to create a profile on the site though I have yet to schedule an actual “meeting.”
One week later I haven’t yet felt the need to “go out immediately, with reckless abandon”, but hey, you never know.
FacedIn?
Over the last few days, I’ve had conversations with a few different people about whether Facebook will overtake LinkedIn as the business social network du jour. There’s actually quite a bit of discussion about it out there and Bernard Lunn at ReadWriteWeb wrote a post about it a couple days ago. What’s really interesting though, is the accompanying poll that asks, “In 6 months time, will you have more business contacts in Facebook than LinkedIn?” Sixty-seven percent of respondents said LinkedIn, versus 27 percent for Facebook.
Why is that interesting? Well, for me, it’s because LinkedIn is virtually useless. My LinkedIn experience – and that of many others I know – consists of getting invitations from people, accepting them and then wondering for a couple seconds why I actually do this. This is part my own ignorance – many people fully utilize LinkedIn’s capabilities – but mainly because LinkedIn just isn’t that useful or user friendly.
It’s tough to imagine LinkedIn ever outpacing Facebook as the predominant business social networking application. Sure, Facebook has ridiculous aspects like zombies and throwing sheep, LOL, OMG and a huge audience of high schoolers and college kids simply looking for the next party. But, it’s also got real business value – a powerful conversation platform and meeting place, an application platform, and, well, it’s just fun. LinkedIn is just a glorified bulletin board.
While Facebook may seem a bit childish and immature to use as a business platform, the company also fully knows this and is working to change it. My guess? In six months, I’ll have more business contacts on Facebook than LinkedIn. In a year, I’ll actually be doing a whole lot business on Facebook. And so will you.
Lifan: The Guys Who Are Freaking Out The Auto Industry
I’m not a big motorcycle guy. In fact, I was a little freaked out when my kid sister, a grown-up AP reporter, bought a Yamaha scooter. But I’ve got to say, I’ve been fascinated with the brand Lifan Motorcycles, ever since I read about them in Don Tapscott’s
Wikinomics.
They’re decently large company ($900M annually), but they’re only about 1/50th the size of, say, BMW. They’re based out of Chongquing, a growing metropolis near the Yangtze River. It’s no little city-state, either - Chongquing is the most populous of China’s provincial-level municipalities. Lifan burst onto the scene fairly recently (around 1992), initially beginning as a motorcycle repair shop. Today, they’re cranking out over 700,000 cycles a year, shipping to over 100 countries.
It’s no surprise that Lifan and its Chinese compatriot brands are really taking over the motorcycle industry; they currently account for nearly 50% of the global motorcycle output now, according to Tapscott’s book. It’s what they’re doing with cars that’s beginning to really freak out the global automotive industry. They make a car called the Lifan 520, which I’d position against a Kia Optima or a souped-up Honda Civic. This car has leather seats, dual airbags, a DVD system and a huge trunk. It retails for $9700, which is about $6000-8000 less than the other two cars.
The reason Lifan made it into a book that was largely about knowledge management and peer collaboration was because they used these methods to create tangible goods, rather than information-based services, which is usually how this type of technology is leveraged. Lifan’s physical assembly model is totally modular.
Remember, this company sprang out a repair shop not too long ago, so the idea of using interchangeable parts to accomplish larger tasks is in their blood. In the car and motorcycle industries, traditional production networks resemble a pyramidal structure, with one leader commanding network segments to crank out whole products. Lifan has trumped the supply chain challenges that the hierarchical model encountered by working in clumps, or clusters. These small entities collaborate on development, design and manufacturing.
By the way, don’t bother looking for a Lifan 520 on Craigslist. I already checked. They’re not in the States yet. To learn more about how Lifan is using peer collaboration, pick up a copy of Wikinomics
GPS Technology: Protecting Kids & Teens In Interesting Ways
I think GPS or Global Positioning Systems are one of the coolest technologies out there today. I recently read about this GPS jacket of out of the UK called Bladerunner, which created a unique jacket designed to keep kids warm and safe. The jacket will help parents keep track of their children should they ever go missing.
What really stuck out at me about this story is this unique application of GPS technology. This jacket is a little pricey, but it may be worth it if your child ever goes missing. A children’s jacket will cost about $500.
Let’s look at the facts: 800,000 children go missing each year in the US. That’s around 2,200 a day. The Department of Justice estimates another 500,000 go missing each year without being reported. That’s crazy! After hearing those numbers, some parents will decide that it may well be worth the $500.
GPS technology and cell phones are helping authorities locate people all the time. Recently, a woman was found after she was missing for eight days. Police suspected her husband in her disappearance. Then, they located her by tracking her cell phone signal. Her husband was cleared. She was barely alive. She had crashed off the road, and they located her thanks to GPStechnology.
Recently, a US engineer also created a similar GPS product that uses GPS technology in sneakers. So sneakers can now help keep track of your children should they ever go missing, or if they’re abducted.
GPS is also keeping teen drivers safe. SafeCo has a new program for teen drivers called Teensurance. The program puts a GPS device on a teen’s vehicle, and it monitors the speed and location of the vehicle. Parents can then keep track of their teen and their driving habits. Parents can also set up driving zones, and curfews through the program as well.
Children and teens may not exactly like the idea of being constantly monitored. However, parents will be able to rest easier; thanks to GPS technology now, and in the future.
I don’t have children, but if I did I would definitely look into buying one of these products for them. I wouldn’t do it to know their every move. I would do it because I would want to keep them safe. And if something all the way in space can help do that, then the world will be a much better place.
Obama Girl Joins Next New Networks
Big news in LaunchSquad land this morning: we announced that our client BarelyPolitical.com was acquired by Next New Networks and Obama Girl now has a new online channel. The story is getting a good amount of press today, here, here and here, among others.
It’s interesting news, and not just because we like to see one of our clients make good, but also for what this says about the speed of image building today. Obama Girl was born less than six months ago, somewhat on a whim, with the idea that there was a huge appetite for a new combo of online video, catchy tunes, scantily clad girls and national political figures. Today, Obama Girl has become something of a national phenomenon and the phrase alone will likely stay in our political lingo for a long time.
The other piece that’s interesting here is the mix of fiction and reality in a way that can really only happen online. Obama Girl is played by model Amber Lee Ettinger, and she plays the part well, both online and offline. It’s a tough part to play, as she needs to stay in character beyond just her roles in the videos. And while some people think that the Obama Girl videos are simply viral eye candy, I think there’s a lot more there behind the success. It comes down to character and story, and the series of videos that the BarelyPolitical team has produced so far, and will do in a bigger way as part of Next New Networks, is pushing the Obama Girl character forward in interesting ways. This, to me, is the real attraction. Much like the success of LonelyGirl15 or even serial TV shows like Heroes, I think people want to follow the lives of characters.
The intriguing piece though is that the line between what’s fiction and what’s real is blurring. Unlike LonelyGirl15, BarelyPolitical never really “pretended” that Obama Girl was anything but an actress, but still, the real Obama quickly began getting questions about what he thought of her, as if she was the real deal. And Obama eventually even acknowledged her (a PR person’s dream come true) helping to move the Obama Girl story forward.
At Next New Networks, Obama Girl and BarelyPolitical can continue to create these new characters and new stories, and I’m looking forward to what they have in store. Congrats to Ben, Amber and the whole BarelyPolitical team.
