NO POSTINGS FOR THE NEXT WEEK OR SO

Search Zeitgeist 2009

Google's Zeitgeist is a summary of top U.S. top search trends for 2009. The fastest rising and falling trends is particularly interesting. A lot of dead people in both categories and a pack of republican politicians in the fastest falling category:

Google.com - Fastest Rising

1. Twitter
2. michael jackson
3. facebook
4. hulu
5. hi5
6. glee
7. paranormal activity
8. natasha richardson
9. farrah fawcett
10. lady gaga

Google.com - Fastest Falling

1. john mccain
2. olympics
3. heath ledger
4. barack obama
5. sarah palin
6. circuit city
7. ron paul
8. iron man
9. spore
10. wii fit

Emilie Loizeau: Bird Music

Sister, is a perfectly dreamy tune from Emilie Loiseau's new record called Pays Sauvage. The video can't be embedded from YouTube, but it's available here. It's kind of weird with a little red riding hood thing going on.

Fortune

France is producing more good bands than you can shake a stick at. Latest in date is Fortune, with their single Highway and a retro 80s video clip to boot.

It's Friday! Time for some monkey business...

  

www.totallylookslike.com is exactly what it sounds like. Uncanny similarities from all walks of life. Like Borat and Robert Downey Jr.

Or George Washington and Bernie Madoff:

Thierry Henry Single-handedly Starts World War III

All hell has broken loose following France's beyond-controversial qualification for the World Cup at the expense of Ireland.

For anyone not following the footy, with both teams tied way deep in extra time, Thierry Henry, living-god-of-football, ex-Arsenal and current Barca striker, deliberately controlled the ball with his hand, passed it to his mate Gallas who went on to score -- thereby qualifying France and cheating Ireland out of their ticket to South Africa.

The Irish prime misnister has asked for a rematch, France's prime minister has told him not to mix politics and football. The Internet is going crazy with this, as are headline writers in both countries. The Sun's Hand Gaul is an instant classic if you ask me.

A couple of good ones out of France also:

La France était à 5 doigts d'être éliminée

 

«Une main en France... demain en Afrique du sud» #thierryhenry.»

MosDef + Black Keys + Blakroc = Dynamite

Mos Def and The Black Keys are working together as part of Blakroc's latest project. The album is out at the end of the month. A preview song can be heard here.

NYC Flooded

Studio Lindfors have an amazing series of images on BLDGBLOG titled ‘Aqualta,” showing New York City and Tokyo after a flood. Someone in the comments below accurately describes them as something out of a William Gibson dream. 

It makes me think that rising oceans due to global warming could be quite poetic. On the positive side...

Agency Presentation Spoof

Both clients and agencies can relate to this one: A stupid idea that just won't die and that soon takes on a life of its own. Only to come back and bite you in the ass...

Steamed Bun Channels Bruce Lee

Sun Haipeng is a CGI animator from China. This short called Super Baozi (steamed bun) vs Sushi man is pretty amazing.

More details, including an interview on PSFK.

Leeds Hip Hop: Brett Domino kicking it Old School on the Stylophone beatbox

Monkey Business

 

Some monkey business for a friday afternoon... 

Record-rama: The Record Archive

The largest record archive ever. This guy's collection is insane...

On the topic of brands and bands

Cadillac is using Phoenix in its latest ad. Will Phoenix help GM raise from its ashes?

The Weezer Snuggie

The Weezer snuggie? WTF??

This is just too weird not to be true... Plus we're talking about Rivers Cuomo.

Kinda giving snuggies a bad rep if you ask me...

Wonderwall

Wonderwall, a Japanese interior design firm has a great navigation device to move through projects on their web site. It's pretty slick once you click on a project and go back to the index. It works and it looks cool without being too gimmicky.

The shops they design don't look too bad either...

[via PSFK]

Micachu and The Shapes

Off to Mexico: No posting for a week

Avatar: Special Effects Bonanza

Fox Studios and/or James Cameron aren't letting the trailer be embedded, but it's on YouTube in HD. Countdown to December 18th!

Matias Aguayo

This is all acapella.

Mac and PC

A picture is worth a thousand words and all that sort of thing...

Múm

I'm owed a gold medal for braving Saturday night's torrential rain to go and see Múm at Poisson Rouge. They were playing as part of the CMJ 2009 festival. Soggy feet aside, it was a good gig. While they don't sound just like Bjork or Sigur Ross, they do share that uniquely Icelandic otherwordliness. My favorite track was marmalade fires (it's on their MySpace) page.

In a double whammy Icelandic post, I was kinda shocked to hear McDonald's is completely pulling out of Iceland.

Facebook Accounts for 15% of UK Traffic

Facebook accounts for 15 per cent of the UK's web traffic, according to new Hitwise statistics. One in seven British clicks go to the social-networker, making Facebook the UK's most popular website.

These big number puts Facebook at twice Google's amount of traffic– which is in at number two with 5.8% market share. The length of time people stay on Facebook has also increased, with the average user spending 26 minutes 14 seconds a session, adding a full five minutes from September last year.

To be fair to Google, its services do dominate the top 10 of the UK's most trafficked sites, with YouTube, Gmail, Google, Google UK and Google UK Image Search making up half of the 10 places.

Bombay Bicycle Club

Add up the band members' ages, and you might get to 21. These lads are young. And good.

Dripping Design

Just a cool table. Details here.

Chinese Create Artificial Black Hole in Lab

Now that's a headline that sells. And the article in MIT's Technology Review is actually quite readable for those of us who don't understand astrophysics. The applications include invisibility cloaks, absorbing light and other sci-fi classics.

Ukraine Got Talent

Kseniya Simonova is best-described as a sand animator. Maybe more surprising is that she'd appear on Ukraine's Got Talent, the local version of American Idol.She tells a mesmerizing story with nothing but dark sand, background music, and her fingers: the Nazi invasion of the Ukraine, civilians fleeing, a tomb for an unknown soldier...

Brakesbrakesbrakes

Rock music at its best: 2 or 3 chords, basic lyrics and plenty of attitude.

SpeechBreaker

Speechbreaker lets you create your own version of what a political speech from Gordon Brown, David Cameron or Clegg (the Liberal Democrat guy) should be. Click on the words to splice together sound bites. Add applauses. Post it to YouTube. Et voila! A user-generated political speech to be shared with the world.

I created my own classic speech of Brown ripping into Blair and posted it to Youtube, only to find I was not the only person to name my video Gordon Brown speaks the truth. In fact most of them are some variation on the theme...

We Own GM

With the U.S. government plunking down $30 billion dollars to save GM, we all own it now. We Own GM is a great crowdsourcing Web site where, as owners, everyone can submit their own ideas for the future of America's carmaker. Quite literally.

Reactable

Me and my legos are starting a band...

A Landscape of Airwaves

A Noospheric Atlas of the United States to be more precise. This current project from artist Brett Ian Balogh maps what people watch on TV, with each color representing a different media (TV, FM, AM). They're really beautiful representations of the ethereal.

More pictures here.

(via PSFK)

The Slew

The Slew's heavy sound is made up of Kid Koala + the rythmic section of Australian band Wolfmother.

The Global Internet

This graph from The New Scientist (click to enlarge) is sobering:

• China has 253 million Internet users against the US' 220 million. So far, so good. The shocker is that only 19% of China has access to the Internet compared to 72% for the US. And the data are from 2008.
  
• India? 60 million users with just 4% of the country online.

That's a lot of growth potential... The Internet of 2025 will be in Mandarin.

The Drums

Obama Nobel Prize: Media coverage

I think everyone (except the Nobel Prize Committee) was left scratching their heads with this morning's announcement of Obama getting the Nobel Peace prize. However one might feel about the new president, we can probably all agree that it seems a little premature...

I wondered how Fox News would handle this compared to say, CNN. While the story's headline is "fair and balanced", there's some hefty editorializing in their choice and juxtaposition of headlines. There's a point of view in design and layout choices...

FOX NEWS (around 11 am ET):


FOX NEWS (around 11:15 am ET):
It starts getting worse... In-office-president-gets-Nobel-Peace-Prize not that much of a big story after all and gets relegated. Fox News to world: Our business is war not peace...

Obama Gets Nobel Peace Prize >>> Doomsday



And just for comparison:

CNN (around 11 ET):


MSNBC (around 11 ET):

Italy Vs. Brazil - Never Friendly

The Virgins: Rich Girls

Dead Beat Summer: Neon Indian

80s pop gets the filtered treatment.

Rio Smackdowns Chicago

Everyone seemed a little in shock when Chicago didn't win the 2016 Olympics despite the Obama's strong push for it. But watching the two videos backing each city's bid, it's pretty clear Chicago screwed up their marketing. The Chicago fire? Didn't that happen two centuries ago, in the 1870s? I'm wondering if there's been any news coming out of Chicago since. Aside from Michael Jordan, that is.

Obviously, the decision isn't made solely on the back of a video, but watching how they package themselves, I know which one gets me excited...

Alice in Wonderland

Talk about falling down the rabbit hole... This video is part of a presentation by Google at this year's Advertising Week.

It’s part of an 80+ page presentation of the best digital campaigns from the last 12 months with a focus on Google's applications, but with very cool creative and technical chops.

More here (launches Google Docs Presentation)

Yo La Tengo

Wave Machines: Keep The Lights On

No, not Rain Machine. Not Secret Machines either... It's Wave Machines from Liverpool.

I know that somewhere there must be a secret committee that decides on which words are to be included in a band's name for the upcoming year. Last year was all about Ponys and this year it's Machines.

My suggestions for next year are:

• Scratchy: The Scratchy Heads. Or Scratchoramic Sounds
• Socks: The Smelly Socks or The Black, Black Socks or Naughty Sockeses.
  
• Sour: Obviously... The Sour Faces or SourSourSour
  

2010 should definitely be an 's' year...

Advertising Week - part 2

Microsoft is getting into the tactile interface big time. They were showing this interactive screen, called Microsoft Surface, during Adweek. The most impressive was the third picture, which is a demo of the screen's scanning ability. Apparently, certain types of data can be manipulated once they're scanned in, although this machine did not have that ability for some reason...

An interesting fact is that most (all? this was hard to clarify...) of the applications are from Vectoform. Looks like Microsoft is trying to catch up for their own Minority report interface.

I Hate Young People

I Hate Young People is a Web site that allows people to upload videos about what they hate the most about young people. And vice versa... From Britney to smelly old folks, it's the generational gap in all its glory/horror.

Miike Snow

Advertising Week - Part 1

Last week was Advertising Week and I was able to attend a few sessions. I must say that all the events I went to were running late compared to previous years. Logistical hiccups aside, I really enjoyed the Digital Creative panel with Ben Palmer from The Barbarian Group; Tor Myrhen, CCO at Grey; Conor Brady, CCO at Organic; Marc Lucas, CD at Razorfish and Sophie Kelly from Strawberry Frog. The conversation really got started discussing what to do with the sea of available data/metrics and digital's unique flexibility in terms of adjusting work based on the response the data shows. Directly linked to the above is the need to set up objectives upfront and decide what needs to be measured.

While it might seem like an obvious step, clients are all too often doing something in reaction to their competition rather than questioning why they need to "be" on Twitter and how they're measuring the success of that initiative. The other central point of discussion was the "growing up" of digital agencies as the Internet has become a "permanent medium":

• Clients are now putting digital at the center of their marketing strategies. OK, duh... but this means that the growth opportunities for interactive agencies might not be necessarily be in interactive. In other words, the Big Idea is not dead as clients are looking for the best way to activate ideas in the market. No matter which partner they came from...
  

• The corollary for digital agencies: they need to be more comfortable "sitting at the table" and developing relationships with clients so they can move away from a project-based approach. Just like traditional agencies...

• Conor from Organic also suggested a move toward what he described (with a great Irish accent) as an open source agency model with the ability to bring in partners where they don't have the in-house expertise to deliver on projects outside of their regular field.

The panel ran out of time talking about what I was the most interested in: the shift in allocating budgets from paid media (the traditional advertising model) to content creation (ie: engaging Web sites, iPhone apps etc...). And how to measure the effectiveness of content creation.

Big City, Big Dreams

Seen on the streets of NYC... 99 cents doesn't strike me as being that great a dream... I like my dreams to be worth at least $3.99. Before tax...

Edward Sharpe and The Magnetic Zeros

This is going to be top of my playlist for the week. Closely followed by Home.

Phoenix: Live!

Phoenix played an absolutely amazing gig at Central Park's Summerstage on Friday night. Pretty much the perfect set up: outside, cool weather, and Phoenix playing the best songs from their 3 albums. They've got to be one of the best bands right now. Passion Pit did a great job opening. They're the American Hot Chip if you ask me.

Hey Marseilles

thisthis

Apocalyptico. In Sydney....

Sidney has been hit by a massive sand storm (who knew?), and the pictures look like a newly-discovered city on Mars... or the end of the world. Depending on your sci-fi preferences. More absolutely amazing pictures Here.

Erykah Badu Remix

Great remix of Erykah Badu's soldier by Co. listen on his MySpace page. Or download the track for free here. I think I prefer the remix to the original song.

Maps of New York

Nerd alert! "Mapping New York's Shoreline, 1609-2009" opens on friday at the New York Public Library. The exhibit features 200 maps, prints and atlases mostly from the library's amazing collection (above a map showing New Amsterdam's original land plots). The show focused on Manhattan's is one of many cultural events this year marking the 400th anniversary of Dutch explorer Henry Hudson's arrival in what is now Manhattan.

More pics at Gothamist

Did You Know 4.0

Cassettes Won't Listen

Message a Caractere Informatif

I'mma let you finish

Judging by the amount of entries at the I'mma Let You Finish blog, Kanye West must have made US productivity drop by double digits. Still, some of the best submissions below:

The Science of Sleep

Very funny (and true) series of illustrations about sleeping. Or lack of... by Christoph Niemann on the NYT's Abstract City.

Greyboy

Great bassline on this one.

Republicans Can't Speil to Seive There Lifes

At least it seems to me that most of the signs in this "Best Of Misspelled Political Signs" are being waved by angry Republicans. OK, I'll be generous... let's say that Republicans are disproportionately dyslexic. Or maybe they're just not good at fitting big words on small signs.

See, it wouldn't happen if they were Democrats, as they'd have a long history of demonstrating, exercising their political voice, and writing big words on small signs. Instead, they only develop that skill when someone tries to impose socialist monstrosities such as affordable healthcare upon them.

Oops... looks like I slipped out of my generous disposition...

Via Yes But No But Yes

PS: I did have to spell-check "disproportionately"...

Interruptions Part II

You Lie

It looks like Joe Wilson's now infamous "You Lie!" is going to stay in popular culture... As witnessed by this real promo for a fake reality TV show.

Mayer Hawthorne

After Amy, Adele, Sharon and Nicole, the soul revival continues with Mayer Hawthorne. His particular reinterpretation of soul comes infused with super-retro doowop vocals as much as hip-hop beats. His other single, Maybe so, maybe no. is also well worth a listen.

Say Hi

Geeks Diagram

How many colors do you overlap?

Via Rubbishcorp.

Upstate trip: Barns Galore

As part of our upstate swing we drove over the Hudson river to the foot of the Catskill mountains into Delaware county. It's basically barn land: new, old, working, decrepit, converted, rotting... Click on the picture for more. The highlights:

• The bibliobarn in South Kortright
• Dinner at the Stone and Thistle, with the couple running the Stony Creek farm and their organic chicken in our plates.
  

Not as successful were the two nights in the yurt with the remnants of hurricane Danny battering the Eastern seaboard. 14 hours of solid rain thank you very much...

Upstate trip: Dinner in Pine Plains

A few days off in Pine Plains in late August (R&S, thanks for lending us your great place!). Click on the picture for Filly's artistic interpretation of Jenny Holzer.

How Advertising Sells (Powder) Chicken Stock

Go Post-modern:Advertising Making fun of advertising


Go Absurdist: What's up with the ghost?


Go with the Kids: that always works.


All ads are from Madre in Buenos Aires and pretty much the best ads for selling instant soups and chicken stock that I've seen. I also love how 'advertising' is called 'propaganda' in Argentina in the first ad...

More of the Hip-hop music

Neurosonics Audiomedical Labs Inc.

This is how they make the hip-hop music sounds... I get it.

Digital Overload

I don't like my inbox(es) as much as I used to...

Esser: Sounds like England...

... with the perfect summer song.

Thanks MC Bonito for tuning me in.

It's a small (but beautiful) world

The New Scientist published an article with a series of visually compelling maps that show the most interconnected and remote places on earth.

The model used for the maps calculated how long it would take to travel to the nearest city of 50,000 or more people by land or water. The model combines information on terrain and access to road, rail and river networks. It also considers how factors such as altitude, steepness of terrain and hold-ups like border crossings slow travel.

A few interesting points:

• Less than 10% of the world's land is more than 48 hours of ground-based travel from the nearest city. In the Amazon, for example, extensive river networks and an increasing number of roads mean that only 20 per cent of the land is more than two days from a city - around the same proportion as Canada's Quebec province.

• The winner of the world's most remote place is... the Tibetan plateau. From there, it's a three-week trip to the cities of Lhasa or Korla - one day by car and the remaining 20 on foot.
  

More amazing maps and visuals here.