I'm just sayin'. It feels a little late for Google to be entering this game. I hope they prove me wrong.
Like I said, every so often my mom sends me stuff that is pretty darn interesting/cool and this is one of them. No idea where she heard it from, but I was captivated for Pranav Mistry's entire 13 minute video demonstration of his cool new product that looks like it's going to revolutionize our very lives.
It's a "wearable gestural interface" that involves "a pocket projector, a mirror and a camera" and allow a user to interact with physical objects and data associated with them in ways never seen before. Like recognizing your boarding pass and letting you know your flight will be 20 minutes delayed. Looking at a map of the US in your newspaper and seeing weather forecasts superimposed on every part of the country. Snapping a picture just by making the "I'm going to Disneyland!" gesture.
I'm pretty intrigued, though it'd be even better if Mistry found a way for people to use the product without looking like big dorks with tiny projectors hanging from their necks. Check out the full demo below:
http://www.ted.com/talks/pranav_mistry_the_thrilling_potential_of_sixthsense_...
Got this Youtube link from like 5 different people, but just thought I'd post in case there are people who haven't seen it yet:
Sell. CDs. From. Indie. And. Commercial. Artists.
Sell. DVDs. Next to. Movie Trailers.
Take a small percentage of the sales revenue. There's got to be a huge population of people who watch movie trailers, music videos, covers of popular songs, and original work by indie artists trying to get exposure. Relatively, the sample players on Amazon and Barnes and Noble suck so bad. This is the perfect way to test drive media before buying - if Google just brought it all onto one platform and standardized the checkout/distribution process.... just think. Omg. They'd be even richer than they already are.
I guess they already sell mp3s, but I think it's about getting all these people who make new music and don't have a good way to distribute it, make it buyable.
Just random brainstorming on a Wednesday evening.
...oh, who am I kidding. Of course I'm competitive, especially when it comes to building traffic for my fashion blog, Wearability. I was curious so I graphed out the yearly traffic charts for four leading fashion blogs (also my favorites):
- garancedore.fr
- fashiontoast.com
- lovemaegan.com (kind of a mash of style and flabber-gasting DIY projects)
- seaofshoes.com (compete wouldn't let me graph more than 3, but its chart looks similar to lovemaegan's.
I'm pretty fascinated by the growth curves and want to go back and analyze what was happening on those sites to drive the growth, or if it was external factors like press mentions and kanye west's recommendation. I think I have spent a little too long in the internet marketing world, where it is all metrics and levers and optimization.
At any rate, this quick study gives me a bit of hope - looking at it, it's obvious that all sites, great and small, have to start somewhere. I think it's important what you do to build momentum, how you sustain it, and whether you're publishing things that really speak to people.
You know something's up when my favorite burrito place is on Twitter, Facebook and MySpace O_o.
I know that ignorance is actually great for online business (especially in my specialty, internet marketing...because it means more people will click on ads thinking they are search results).
But for some reason this video depresses me to no end. Maybe because at the end of the day, an ignorant public is actually terrible for everyone. For me it really hits home just how uninformed the general public is and how much harder it is to get people to respond to your products in the way you intended.
I guess I was pretty bad about keeping up with different websites before, but lately there have been more and more blogs and sites that I find myself wanting to keep up with. Even the usual five - garancedore.fr, fashion toast, sea of shoes, newmoonmovie.org, apartmenttherapy.com, have been really hard to check on regular rotation. And then there are the plethora of other fantastic sites that just go ignored and unread.
I am so late to the Google Reader party - I don't know why I avoided using it for so long. It is seriously one of the best products that Google puts out (and they put out a lot of neat stuff don't they?). I guess I didn't realize just how much it could streamline my blog-reading and online content-reading experience.I'm sure most of you are using it already, being early-adopter types, but in case you aren't, I highly recommend it!
Interact with the map here. I <3 Google Maps.
I don't know why he talks about the death of Web 2.0 and the rise of individualism like it's something new. It's the way it's always been - people who have the talent will dominate and people without talent will follow. What is so groundbreaking about his observation and why are people so offended by the prospect of the Internet NOT being democratized?
It's funny, the first time I watched the video I thought he was saying "digital fascism and digital futilism" rather than feudalism. That would be a lot more interesting. Check out the full story here.