Moo Cards + Flickr

Check out Moo Cards. If you're smart and you've got your photos on flickr, for just $20 you can get a box of a 100 of your favorite shots and custom messages.

I hear they're quite nice. I 'll have more feedback when I get mine.

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HMK

Chinglish

There's a nice collection of Chinglish signs and products over at flickr.

Happy time please to check them out!

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HMK

Ponder This

"For decades, we've worked under the assumption that mass culture follows a steadily declining path toward lowest-common-denominator standards, presumably because the 'masses' want dumb, simple pleasures and big media companies want to give the masses what they want. But in fact, the exact opposite is happening: the culture is getting more intellectually demanding, not less."

Read the whole article at The New Yorker.

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HMK

Flirting in Traffic

Congrats to my friend Jennifer! She's getting some cool props (and making money!) with her Flirting in Traffic site.

Here's the drill according to the site - "You’re stuck in traffic. The driver next to you is pretty cute. And then the one time you almost don’t want the gridlock to end, their car has sped off."

This new website is now facilitating Craigslist Missed Connection-like matchmaking for the auto set. Go to the site to get a Flirting ID Number, build a profile, then post your assigned number on your car with the hopes that your future lover will look you up online.

Jennifer wrote the nice article for my spread in the October issue of Scene In SA Monthly.

And just in case - if you missed that article you can get it right here: HMK Scene In SA article.

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HMK

BK Big Bite

Nice...

Agency: Crispin Porter + Bogusky.

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HMK

YouTube's Competition Misses The Point

It’s not the technology, it’s the experience. It’s simple sharing. It’s easy embedding. It’s reliable viewing. It’s “when I share a YouTube video with someone I know they’re going to be able to see it no matter which browser, computer, or OS they have.” That’s what makes YouTube YouTube.

But you won’t hear that from AOL or Microsoft — two companies that were considered YouTube suitors before Google swept in and closed the deal.

What you’ll hear from them are lines like this:

“The AOL guys would’ve loved to have got YouTube. We looked but decided AOL has not only better technology but it’s also in-house,” said Dick Parsons, CEO of Time Warner, which owns AOL.” (source)

“Microsoft evaluated acquiring this type of technology several months ago, and decided to build our own offering, focused on driving better customer and advertiser experiences through integration with Microsoft assets and services that reach an estimated global audience of 465 million consumers,” said spokeswoman Whitney Burk in a statement. “We are excited about the potential we are seeing in the beta of Soapbox on MSN and believe building our own solution is a more cost-effective way to compete in this new space.” (source)

Both AOL and Microsoft take the “we have better tech in-house” stand. That’s why YouTube wasn’t attractive.

It wasn’t that YouTube was overvalued or YouTube has significant legal battles ahead that AOL and Microsoft didn’t want to absorb. It was that YouTube’s technology wasn’t up to snuff.

Never mind that YouTube was streaming millions of videos a day and never seemed to be down. Never mind that YouTube is the leading video viewing/sharing site by a wide margin. Never mind that the public likes YouTube. Never mind that YouTube movies are embedded with Flash which everyone already has. Never mind that nearly every email I’ve gotten from anyone in the past year saying “hey, check out this video” lead to a YouTube video. Never mind that my parents actually know what YouTube is but have never heard of AOLs “technology” or Microsoft’s Soapbox. Never mind any of that. Just mind the technology.

Can AOL and Microsoft beat YouTube down the road? Anything is possible, but they’re making it awful hard on themselves if they think technology is what’s going to win this race. Technology rarely wins the race — experience and execution does. YouTube nailed that. Time will tell if they nailed a few coffins at the same time.

Thanks to Jason at 37 Signals

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HMK

Now That's An iPod Screen!

ViewDock LCD “Made for iPod” displays incorporate an iPod docking station and allow users to dock an iPod to watch videos or listen to music without cables or a separate device.

It also feature four USB 2.0 ports, an 8-in-1 card reader, a microphone, stereo speakers and a subwoofer. They offer DVI connectivity, 5ms response times, 700:1 contrast ratio, and a 16:10 aspect ratio with the VX2245wm featuring a 1680x1050 resolution and a 1440x900 resolution on the VX1945wm.

Pretty sweet.

Click here for more info

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HMK

5 Steps To Freedom

Before you make that big entreprenurial leap consider these five pieces of advice.

Step 1: Do Something You Love and Do It With Someone You Trust

Step 2: Do Something You Understand

Step 3: Start With The End In Mind

Step 4: Protect Your Ideas, Invest In An Expert

Step 5: Be Ready For The Unexpected

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HMK

Album Covers Battle!

This is for anyone who spends time organizing their album art in iTunes, a must-must-see!

Go check out Man vS MAgnets's Album Covers Battle!

Genius!

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HMK

BBC

Nice outdoor work from BBDO New York for the BBC. Eric Silver (Executive Creative Director), Jamie Overkamp (Art Director), Jerome Marucci (Art Director) & Ari Weiss (Copywriter).

Clip Art Movie

Wanna see 787 Clip art figures in one minute.? Click Here!

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HMK

Specktone Speaker Deal!

Hey y'all - check out this deal - go to the Specktone. website, choose your color (I got green!) and when you get to the checkout enter 'specktone' in the coupon field and get 50% off!

That's Right, 50%! As if that ain't sweet enough, you also bag 2 Free Matching Skins (video & nano) and they ship it free!

The SpeckTone Retro features a built-in iPod dock, a 4” subwoofer and two 3” drivers, and a vintage-style all-wood speaker cabinet. The system comes in three lacquered finishes—green, black, and white. The half-off discount is valid through October 6th. (Mine ships on my birthday, Rocktober 2, perfect!)

What are you waiting for? Get it at Specktone Retro! just in time to check out my new I.F.09.06 Podcast!

And as usual, your comments, complaints and requests are totally welcome.

Make It Louder,

Migwell

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HMK

You're Fired!

Meet Your Replacement.

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HMK

The Long Tail

I just started reading The Long Tail last night (thanks to an early birthday gift from my friend and former business partner Scott Ensley).

I remember reading portions from Wired magazine and thinking that what's really happening (other than the fact that this Chris Anderson dude is finally articulating what I've been thinking since 1999) is that finally, all the excuses I've had for not launching my own products or ideas are slowly being eliminated by today's technology enabling anyone with a little ambition and a few good ideas, to capitalize on them.

The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of "hits" (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-target goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.

One example of this is the theory's prediction that demand for products not available in traditional bricks and mortar stores is potentially as big as for those that are. But the same is true for video not available on broadcast TV on any given day, and songs not played on radio. In other words, the potential aggregate size of the many small markets in goods that don't individually sell well enough for traditional retail and broadcast distribution may someday rival that of the existing large market in goods that do cross that economic bar.

The term refers specifically to the orange part of the sales chart above, which shows a standard demand curve that could apply to any industry, from entertainment to hard goods. The vertical axis is sales; the horizontal is products. The red part of the curve is the hits, which have dominated our markets and culture for most of the last century. The orange part is the non-hits, or niches, which is where the new growth is coming from now and in the future.

CONTINUE READINGE >> The Long Tail.

Thanks again for the book Scott!

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HMK

Death 'N' Stuff

It is early winter, 1894, and a young woman, a servant to a prosperous New York family, finds herself in need of immediate medical attention. Poor and illiterate, she takes it upon herself to seek a remedy for her discomfort by scanning the shelves of her employers’ pantry, where she spies a bottle whose label features a skull and crossbones. Unknowingly, she downs a swig or two, whereupon she collapses in agony and is rushed to the hospital. Miraculously, she survives, later telling the police that she selected this particular bottle because of the picture on the label — a picture of bones. “I thought it would heal my aching limbs,” she confesses. “I had no idea it was poison.”

A true story. And blessedly, we've come a long way since then. But the notion of truth-telling on a label remains a tricky enterprise. In the United States, regulatory commissions like the Food and Drug Administration require warnings and printed counterindications to alert consumers not only to potential sources of poison, but to other possible dangers related to food, medicine and cosmetics, among other things. There's a no-nonsense specificity to such literature, leaving no wiggle room, no space for interpretation.

In this context, the role for design — and by this I mean the introduction of what might well be more persuasive visual and verbal solutions for critical warning information — remains fundamentally restricted by what is, in the end, legally permissable.

CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE >>
Thanks to Jessica Helfand at The Design Observer.

Reading Jessica Helfand's article reminded me of a little blurb I read in Readers Digest back in the 80's. It was about an Asian family that had just moved to the US and were grocery shopping for the first time.

They were suprised to find that the big can of Crisco they purchased did not contain the 10+ peices of fried chicken that were pictured on the lable.

Hardly.

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HMK

Ballet With Class

Nice.

HMK

Ultimate Halloween Candy Guide 2006

I-Mockery's got this cool little blog to keep us all up to date on what'll be landing in the kids bags this Halloween.

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HMK

Simplicity at it's best!

Loctite. Simplicity at it's best!

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HMK

Wicked Trippy!

Want to start off your weekend by getting away from it all?

Go here to experiecnce: Trippy Zoom!.

Have a nice trip!

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HMK

Super Freaky!

Ok, Halloween is right around the bend.

Check out this amazing little guessing game.

How the hell does it know?



If you can't see it try another browser... Sorry.

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HMK

Truth Beats Bulls#@*!

Rube Goldberg, Device to Keep You From Forgetting To Mail Your Wife's Letter.

Beacuse honsestly, the sooner we get past the bullshit the sooner we can get back to doing the real, important work.

"As you walk past cobbler shop, hook (A) strikes suspended boot (B), causing it to kick football (C) through goal posts (D). Football drops into basket (E) and string (F) tilts sprinkling can, (G) causing water to soak coat tails (H). As coat shrinks, cord (I) opens door (J) of cage, allowing bird (K) to walk out on perch (L) and grab worm (M) which is attached to string (N). This pulls down window shade (O) on which is written, 'YOU SAP, MAIL THAT LETTER.'"


This is My Process by Michael Bierut

For over twenty years, I've been writing proposals for projects. And almost every one of them has a passage somewhere that begins something like this: "This project will be divided in four phases: Orientation and Analysis, Conceptual Design, Design Development, and Implementation." All clients want this. Sometimes there are five phases, sometimes six. Sometimes they have different names. But it's always an attempt to answer a potential client's unavoidable question: can you describe the process you use to create a design solution that’s right for us?

The other day I was looking at a proposal for a project I finished a few months ago. The result, by my measure and by the client's, was successful. But guess what? The process I so reassuringly put forward at the outset had almost nothing to do with the way the project actually went. What would happen, I wonder, if I actually told the truth about what happens in a design process?

CONTINUE READING THIS ARTICLE >> Design Observer.

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HMK

Good Morning Sweetheart Pillow

As you rest your head on the pillow for those valuable last few moments before you wake the words Good Morning Sweetheart are gently pressed onto your cheek.

Even though you may feel tired and drowsy your loved one can see how you feel.

Material: 100% cotton sheeting with embroidered text.
Concept: 100% Genius.

Thanks to James McAdam.

Remainds me of that funny old line - Making more headlines than a corduroy pillow!


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HMK

For Prompt Control!

More vintage ads over here at Eat Liver.

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HMK

Havana Go Go...

Not sure of the agency responsible for this finely crafted brilliance...



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HMK

A-Z Retail Tricks

A-Z Retail Tricks To Make You Shop

"If we went into shops only when we needed to buy something, and if once in there we bought only what we needed, the economy would collapse, boom." Paco Underhill, CEO Envirosell

Ever wandered into a shop looking to buy a few things on your list, only to find yourself coming out with twice as much? You may not be aware, but the reason for this is not sheer chance, or that you were just feeling frivolous. The retail industry spends hard time and money into creating all sorts of devious little means to make you shop that bit extra. Every penny you spend in their shop is not being spent at their rivals, and in the high stakes of today’s competitive market, every penny counts.

Below is an A-Z of retail tricks that we have compiled to empower you before you go out shopping, so that you can buy what you need and collapse our economy! More will be added as we root them out.

A

Aisle Order – Some customers, particularly men, tend to simply shop for what they want, walking down an aisle grabbing what they want, turning back and walking the way they came, this is called the 'Boomerang Effect'. In order to maximise shopper and produce contact time, shops therefore place major items and brands in the middle of aisles ensuring that from any direction the customer has to walk the furthest to reach them.

B

Baby Powder – Some UK baby shops now add Baby Powder to the air conditioning to remind people of new-born’s and relax them.

Baskets – Shops will actively hand out baskets and trolleys to customers, as people then feel embarrassed taking a basket with one item to the counter, and it increases the chances of multiple purchases. You will often find baskets to the right just after the Transition Zone.

C

Canned Smell – Most Supermarkets bake their bread early in the morning, however to entice more custom some have resorted to pumping out the smell of fresh baking bread to add to the illusion that it is constantly baked through the day. Go into Niketown on Oxford Street and smell the deodorant like pong they pump into the air!

Curved Aisle Ends – A lot of supermarkets now curve the ends of their aisles, this is to ensure your eye never strays from the goods on display.


Check out the rest at Space Hijackers.

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HMK