There’s a great writeup about Siri over on ReadWriteWeb.
Siri, a virtual personal assistant, will recognize your voice query and either give you the answer to your question or connect you to the right web service.
As far as digital convergence goes, this is a doozy. It communicates with communication mediums for you. According to RWW, ‘Siri’s CEO Dag Kittlaus described Siri as “the mother of all mashups.”‘
Frederic Lardinois provides a very thorough article, so I encourage you to read about Siri there, if you’d like to learn more about the juicy bits, but you can watch the video here.
Of course, I took Siri for a test drive. I asked it a very difficult question, ‘Who has the best snowboarding in Tahoe today?’ It wasn’t able to answer this question and returned search results, but in all fairness, this question warrants a completely subjective response, so I didn’t feel it failed. I was more curious just to see what would happen.
When I asked it for the best coffee shop in Marin to have a meeting at, it quickly returned several Sausalito results, which you can map, call, share, save, and read reviews about. All in all, pretty badass.
You might notice The DeeJayDog Blog has a slightly new look.
What happened? The old theme exploded. Ok. I broke it. So I reinstalled the latest version of thematic. I like the minimalism. Nevertheless, I’m likely going to move to Thesis.
I’ve only had a few moments to play with this app, but I can already tell it’s absolutely tremendous. It has a beautiful UI and gives an entirely new, more comprehensive experience to tweets. It is the first time I’ve actually seen an intuitive information architecture, the type commonly applied to great websites, translated to apply to real-time media in a way that just makes sense.
Cascaad calls it an awareness engine. This interview is a completely fascinating conversation when they speak of accessing perspectives of those in your social graph. That truly is an engine to awareness, no? This is cool stuff.
Some screenshots:
This thing just functions so super smoothly. It makes it so fun to tweet from the iPhone. Much simpler and faster than Tweetdeck. Give it a try, you won’t regret it. As you can see in the images above, you can like and dislike tweets, so it learns what is relevant to you by that, your social graph, and your retweets.
You can also link the app to your Facebook profile so that it can gleen data from it that can be used for prompting suggestions.
It’s sharing features to Twitter, Facebook, and email are so smooth. It’s the DoodleJump of Twitter iPhone apps.
Great stories aren’t great because of their telling. They’re great because of what they don’t tell. Or wait to tell later.
Such stories have a focal point based on principles. The principles are displayed in the values and message of a story. When you stick to your principles, there’s no need to go into a lot of nonsense. It’s not the telling. It’s the manner of the telling.
HEMINGWAY. LOST. PULP FICTION. The art is in the timing, the revealing, the enticement of what is around the next bend. Great stories don’t try to tell you everything all at once. They lead you in.
While involved with some book/film projects, I’m fortunate enough to pay my bills with branding and web work. It’s really interesting, because I’m lucky to see constant reminders of this lesson.
Most brands, most companies — they don’t get it.
If you went to a dinner party and some dude got all in your face trying to get you to sign up, do, or buy something — when you have never seen them before in your life — you probably would not be like, ‘Yes, fantastic, when can I call you?’ Rather, you’re going to slyly whisper ‘Who is this douchebag?’ to your wife, along with ‘When can we get out of here?’
Why? Because you don’t know them. You don’t trust them.
If they then hung on your coat sleeve, trying to drag you into staying, you’d likely become angry, annoyed, or freaked out. If nothing else, you’d be sure to avoid that person’s company whenever possible.
Despite this simple truth, which anyone with the slightest bit of emotional intelligence should be able to understand, there are huge mountain ranges of bad marketing that exist out there that employ these exact tactics. Such marketing offers no story to believe in, they only want you to buy buy buy now now now, without giving a good reason why why why. As such, they all come across like multi-level marketers. Pathetic, desperate. Too on the nose.
Without principles. With principles, it’s possible to create a story and characters that express mythological archetypes that most people will relate to in a very personal and immediate way. In the business world, those characters might have other names: products, features, and services.
Without principles, there’s nothing cogent to their expression. The result is the reactionary, spam-like, corny garbage that most marketing becomes.
Then you actually come across ads like this one. It’s a thing of beauty. A perfect story. A compelling, emotional introduction that works to win hearts — not minds. After an expected challenge, there’s a twist — one reminiscent of the mythic hero. It’s even divided, almost exactly, into 3 acts. This is the journey a story must take. And then, at the end, this emotional plea is perfectly wrapped up in the brand message.
By making the communication — The Story, The Big Idea — front and center, the reveal at the end makes the message more impactful, memorable, and lasting.
Those just happen to be three key characteristics a great story.
I love this kind of stuff. It shows the power of human ingenuity, but also, just how close we are to merging what used to be thought of as the physical world with that of the mental world, or imagination. Essentially, we are now beginning to blur what previous generations would have considered to be ‘reality’.
What was missing? A PG version of these videos by Whirled Interactive. They feature a the Wave animal-beast roaming free in the wild and a goofy transcription of some epic movie scenes.
These videos are NOT SAFE FOR WORK if you have outward facing monitors or a work situation that requires sensitivity, or if you have a humorless douchebag of a boss who’s installed spyware on your tubes. But a tamer version of something active and entertaining like this is what Wave needed to get the ball rolling. Hrm … were these ‘unofficial’ videos actually paid for by Google? Or simply, and more likely, a way for Whirled to capture some attention? I’m too cynical to judge.
While attending Snowcial (a relatively new conference that fuses social media and snow sports), I had a chance to interview the superb kickoff speaker, none other than MC Hammer. A social media maven since 2004 (long before most of us), he talked about the role of authenticity, relationship building, and the promise and potential of the social media space.
Friday night marked the first time I’ve attended the TechCrunch Crunchies. I’ve attended two of TechCrunch’s Real-Time CrunchUps, but as an award ceremony, this event was somewhat different.
Oh. Don’t worry. There was plenty of schmoozing and boozing. But instead of discussing the future of what’s to come, it was about honoring what’s been done.
The tight seating of San Francisco’s Herbst Theater and the low-key and irony-laden nature of the event inspired Linkin Park’s lead singer, Mike Shinoda, to razz TechCrunch for its production values by saying ‘any one of the nominees here tonight could probably buy the VMAs 1ox over, so it’s nice to see you guys are keeping it modest.’ It was a good line and funny moment. But the laid-back nature of the TechCrunch events are what make them fun and congenial, despite what can be an insider-heavy, tech-clique group.
All in all, it was another good TechCrunch event and I hope the somewhat glitzy after-party across the street at SF City Hall was enough to garner Shinoda’s rock star stamp of approval.
The 2009 Crunchies is our third annual competition and award ceremony to recognize and celebrate the most compelling startups, internet and technology innovations of the year.
But lets get down to it. Here’s my thoughts on the awards.
I can’t really find fault with these winners. Chrome is slick and I use it very frequently. Actually, for working in Gmail, Google Docs, and Wave, it’s become my go to browser.
Wave? Well, I’ve knocked Wave for the way it was released. But, as a piece of technology, it truly is groundbreaking and I will surely use it more than I already am for project collaboration. I just wish it’s full impact had been better realized this year. Perhaps winning this Crunchie will assist in that going forward, so I’m glad it won Runner Up.
I use Dropbox all the time. I think it’s fantastic. No argument here on that one. Yelp? Is it really an Internet Application? Eh … perhaps Animoto is more deserving, yet the masses have spoken.
This is pure garbage. I have no beef with DailyBooth. It’s a cool concept and a great design, even if I have little personal interest in it. Farmville as winner? This is about BEST social app. Not most popular. Aardvark is one of the most innovative and useful social approaches we’ve seen for accessing and filtering the knowledge trapped in the minds of your friends’ friends. In my humble opinion, they deserved not only this award but also Best New Startup Or Product of 2009. But I’ll get to that later.
Ok, these are both cool apps and all, but really, aren’t they kinda the same deal? Seems that with the gazillions of apps out there there should be more diversity in the nominees and winner of this category.
Really? I mean, really? I must be living in an alternate reality. How could Tweetdeck not possibly win this — let alone more? (Best Mobile, anyone?) I demand a recount.
Just the fact that this category exists here gives me a peaceful, easy feeling and a delusional feeling all is right with the world. I think Sun Run deserves to win.
Until someone invests in one of the web or film projects I’m involved with, I have no comment on this. (However, I invite the entire field to contact me if interested in earning my vote.)
I’m pretty sure John Borthwick got shortsheeted on this one. And no one from Twitter was nominated? I guess it would be hard to nominate three and unfair to nominate one? But, still.
CEO of the Year:
Winner: Mark Pincus (Zynga) Runner Up: Josh Silverman (Skype)
Something is fishy. No one from Twitter has this exact title, so maybe we’ll let that slide. But Mark Pincus? Over Marc Benioff? Over Tony Hsieh? Hrmmm. There is a disturbance in the force.
Excuse me, but this, as well as the entire structure of the category, is total bullshit. Sorry guys, but this is really a failure by TechCrunch.
Obviously I’m an Aardvark fan. But this should be 2 categories: Best New Startup and Best New Product. How do you combine these? It’s not logical. No MS backed product should be competing against bootstrapped startups. One award for the startups, one for products. If Bing wins over Aardvark as the better product, great. All’s fair in love and war and in the intertubes. But come on. It’s too easy for MS to recruit votes on this.
Further, Dr. Harry Shum’s arrogant acceptance speech was clearly conceived ahead of time and spent a pathetic amount of time taking swipes at Google, which was not a direct competitor in this category. Dr. Harry, just say thanks and get off the stage. Otherwise, it just looks like desperation wrapped in a cloak of conceit. (And no, I don’t think your votes came from Mountain View.)
Best Overall Startup Or Product of 2009:
Winner: Facebook Runner Up: Twitter
I’m not sure where to start here.
With the impact Twitter had on web culture, platforms, media, and advertising in 2009, I’m not entirely sure that it deserves to lose as either Best Overall Startup or Best Overall Product of 2009.
I am sure that this should be two distinct categories. Best Overall Startup and Best Overall Product. This strikes me as a another serious design flaw in the structure of these awards, and I hope TechCrunch makes changes in this regard for next year.
And the Award Goes to …
TechCrunch, who really did put on a great event and clearly was both the biggest benefactor and winner of the evening, despite what I consider to be an insane competition structure for what are arguably the two most important awards.
PS: I’ll have more to say on the blowback to the Mark Zuckerberg comments on privacy tomorrow.
Performing in any job is like playing an instrument.
Someone can teach you the chords, and you might pick up their influence, but your attitude and idiosyncrasies will come through in the sound.
Working on web project, or any creative project, is like playing in a band. It takes teamwork. And watching the NFL playoffs, or going to work tomorrow, you’ll notice that good teamwork is hard to find. You have to have the right people around you. Like playing in a band, people need to know their roles, give space to the rhythms of their bandmates, respond to cues, understand harmonies and voicings, and be there to support the sound in the way that’s best for the song, its melody, and its story.
Frequently, too many people want to be out in front, but lack the juice to really perform.
Some won’t make the cut. Some are destined to be soloists.
But the bigger the show, the more important it becomes to listen and play together with your bandmates.
Creatives working in arts, communications, and media know that freedom powers success. The best way to bring that Big Idea to life is by getting yourself completely out of the way. Let it live its own life. Then do the hard work it takes to get the idea out there and seen by the world.Without messing up the life of the idea.
Finding the right balance is trick.
Yet all too often, projects get caged-in before they’re fully conceived. Death By Committee is the servant of the Exalted Lord of Project Doom. Egos committed to stamping their thumb prints tarnish, misfired marketing strategies strangle, and personality conflicts poison. The most traditional obstacles include concessions made to limited resources, poor timing, power struggles, fads, and sophomoric attitudes. At each step, the The Big Idea is in endangered by further dilution.
Our Friends the Scientists
In my experience, ’scientists’ are often some of the most creative people. One of the reasons might be because are trained to look at things from different angles in order to find solutions, dissect, discover, and diagnose.
Now our friends, the scientists and economists, have done us a big favor. They’ve proven that allowing people the freedom to focus more on big ideas and less on near-term results leads to more innovative and influential outcomes.
Scientists are much more likely to produce innovative research when using long-term grants that allow them exceptional freedom in the lab, according to a new study co-written by MIT economists.
The work shows that biologists whose funding encourages them to take risks and tolerates initial research failures wind up producing about twice as many highly influential papers as some peers whose funding is dependent upon meeting closely defined, short-term research targets.
Is there any good reason that this wouldn’t hold true for creative work? Take the following as further example:
The work shows that biologists whose funding encourages them to take risks and tolerates initial research failures wind up producing about twice as many highly influential papers as some peers whose funding is dependent upon meeting closely defined, short-term research targets.
“If you want people to branch out in new directions, then it’s important to provide for their long-term horizons, to give them time to experiment and potentially fail,” says PierreAzoulay , an associate professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management, and an author of the study. “The researcher has to believe that short-term failure will not be punished.”
How does this differ from creative work in entertainment, business, or marketing environments? The more freedom that is provided to the artistic visionaries who are experts at their craft, the greater the likelihood that something truly engaging and attractive to an audience will result.
#FAIL [is good]
Failure means that exploration is taking place, risks are being taken, and conventions are being challenged. This is good. This leads to innovation.
In both science and creative work, there are those who resign to bunkering down in the status quo. The fear of failure, and the possibility of losing a job, or worse, one’s clout, hold both the lab researcher and the creative talent back from veering off the safe path. The known path.
This is effective as a survival mechanism to retain a title or an agency reputation. It’s not a great way to develop Big Ideas. It’s the unknown path that leads to discovery.
Clear Vision
Clear vision of The Big Idea — and adherence to that pure vision — is what keeps a project on-track. Developing great creative with a timely, relevant message is what makes it a success.
The irony to this is, in today’s world, developing great creative becomes the most truncated part of the process. It takes time to fail, then find the right solution. If it’s not the right solution, then it’s not The Big Idea. You can still go to market with a tiny idea, just know how to market it.
Getting Heard
In today’s ecosystem, there are 3 ways for The Big Idea to get heard by the masses — 1) Have a truly Big Idea worth talking about 2) leverage an established brand equity platform, or 3) collaborate efficiently to consistently message your audience. It’s more effective to combine all three.
You can create #1 on your own. You can build your brand and leverage brand partnerships on your own, too. You can’t collaborate by yourself. Collaboration is the collective enhancement of an idea. But great collaboration is a rare gem, and there is no shortage of ways to sabotage the world-changing execution of The Big Idea. This is why so many Big Ideas rarely hit the Big Time.
Going Big
A Big Idea needs the time to breathe and brew and peculate and bounce around. All ideas are on their own timeline for full ripening.
Projects need timelines to get completed. But it takes freedom and trust to build a Big Idea.
*Note: This post was inspired by some comments I originally sketched out on my ReachBy Stream.
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Seriously, For Assistance, Get Siri
There’s a great writeup about Siri over on ReadWriteWeb.
As far as digital convergence goes, this is a doozy. It communicates with communication mediums for you. According to RWW, ‘Siri’s CEO Dag Kittlaus described Siri as “the mother of all mashups.”‘
Frederic Lardinois provides a very thorough article, so I encourage you to read about Siri there, if you’d like to learn more about the juicy bits, but you can watch the video here.
Of course, I took Siri for a test drive. I asked it a very difficult question, ‘Who has the best snowboarding in Tahoe today?’ It wasn’t able to answer this question and returned search results, but in all fairness, this question warrants a completely subjective response, so I didn’t feel it failed. I was more curious just to see what would happen.
When I asked it for the best coffee shop in Marin to have a meeting at, it quickly returned several Sausalito results, which you can map, call, share, save, and read reviews about. All in all, pretty badass.