"I recently taught my parents not to include signatures with every text message"... TeachParentsTech.org

"I recently taught my parents not to include signatures with every text message".

This makes you smile because you've done the same thing, in some form or another.

 

Whether our parents have embraced technology since we were chatting on ICQ, or just last week discovered Skype (and now refuse to settle for a mere 'audio' conversation) they all ask for help from time to time.

 

Well, Merry Christmas children of the interwebs, because (once again) those (smart as a) cookie folks at Google are saving you valuable eggnog drinking time this season with TeachParentsTech.org.

The site comprises five categories (the basics, world wide web, communication, media and finding information) and over 50 short (under 2 minutes) how-to videos that review basic tech FAQs, such as 'crop photos' and 'create a mailing list'.  The videos are a mix of Google plugs and general info.  

Great insight (@jasontoff) into an extremely common interaction between us and our parents - the request for tech support - which is naturally amplified during around the holidays. And despite the extensive Google product push, I love the execution.

Check it out here

"Cortex fast"

Check out this smart new extension for Chrome, developed by former Google intern, Joey Primiani.

Great example of picking up on our massive propensity to share anything and everything on the web and creating a product to make it more efficient.

In case you don't have the full 12-25 seconds to email/post/tweet a link... now you can do it in 2 ;)

Get Cortex here.

via @Mashable

Google Earth 6

I heart maps (just bought a sweet new world map in Toronto and brought it back to NY). Don't be mad that you're not as cool as I am.  Sooo naturally I need to tell you that Google just launched v6 of Google Earth.

The update includes integrated street view, which lets users navigate seamlessly from one location to another and 3D trees (because who wants to look at leaves in just 2D)?

My fav is historical imagery feature update, which allows users to see what certain / supported areas looked like in the past.  (This feature was available in version 5 but has been made more prominent in v6). I'd love this in mobile (especially when travelling) because I always wonder what places looked like 20, 200 and 2,000 years ago.

Read more on the Google blog

via mashable

Path: The Personal Network, aka 50 or bust

Sick of broadcasting to your 500+ friends on Facebook and 1,000+ followers on Twitter? 

Check out Path, a new mobile social network where your number of friends is capped at 50.  Gasp. 'But what about the rest of my social network' you ask? That's the point.

Dave Morin, Path's founder (and one of the guys who helped build the Facebook Platform) is banking on the idea that people want a smaller, more controlled network of friends. Within this network people will be able to share and tag photos and videos, both mobile behaviors that are taking off.

Morin chose the number 50 based on anthropologist Robin Dunbar's work, which found that the number of people an individual knows and trusts is between 40 and 60- nytimes.

What do you think? Is 50 a good number and would you use this service?

Click here for more info

via @joshspear

Ad Man Turned Boxer Sells His Body To Raise Cash...

Brawling Billboard Case Study from Hirsute Gentleman on Vimeo.

Last month my boi Matt Stafford at LBi London sold space on his body to raise money for Help for Heroes.

They sold over 50 ad spots and raised over £1600 for the charity (an average of £32 per ad).

As evidence of ROI, LBi tagged the sponsors on Matt's body on the Brawling Billboard Facebook Page.

This was a great way to generate awareness, fun and extra cash for the event! Loves it. Keep doing those pilates, Staffs!

5 marketers put on their Goggles...

A year ago Google launched Google Goggles, which is basically a mobile search application for photos (take a picture and Google delivers search results based on the image).  That was the peak of my iPhone / Andriod envy. Come onnnn Verizon + Apple...

Anyways, a day ago Google announced a marketing experiment with Buick, Disney, Diageo, T-Mobile and Delta Airlines.   Each of those five marketers has "Goggle-ized" some of their marketing materials so that when users take pics of a print ad, poster, etc, they're directed to a mobile page.

It's like a QR code, but way cooler, since it allows for a much more seamless transition between an offline and online experience (ie looking at an image of something rather than a code). Props for experimenting and we're excited to see more with Goggles! They just might stick to you face. 

Via the Google Blog

Applying for "the worst job in the world"...

Check out this video for Guide Dogs Australia

"Love. Just love".

via Adverblog

MoMA PS1 MOVE!

Last Saturday I went to MOVE! at PS1, a two-day event merging the worlds of fashion and art through the collaboration of designers and artists, organized by Cecilia Dean of V Magazine and style journalist David Colman (excuse the delay in posting on this, it's been a busy week)!

The fashion + art extravaganza included "performances and temporary installations presented throughout the building from each of the collaborating designers and artists. Artists and designers include[d]: Kalup Linzy and Diane Von Furstenberg; Rob Pruitt and Marc Jacobs; Terence Koh and Italo Zucchelli (Calvin Klein Collection); Tauba Auerbach and Ohne Titel; Olaf Breuning and Cynthia Rowley; Brody Condon and Rodarte; Rashaad Newsome and Alexander Wang; Dan Colen and Proenza Schouler; David Blaine and Adam Kimmel; Jonah Bokaer and Narciso Rodriguez; CHERYL and American Apparel; and Ryan McNamara and Robert Geller; and TELFAR + Lizzie Fitch, Rhett LaRue, Fatima Al Qadiri, Ryan Trecartin, and Leilah Weinraub" - MoMA PS1

My favorite collaboration was "Looks", an three-room interactive instillation by Marc Jacobs and Rob Pruitt. Guests were greeted at the catwalk by two fashionistas in head sets behind a runway curtain, yelling "come on, come on, are you ready?!" and "you better not waste my time"!  It was a fun performance piece, especially since they actually made me nervous.  Now I know what those poor girls on Project Runway must feel like...

Participants strutted their stuff down a green-screened catwalk and were led to another room, where their walk was mixed into - OMG - a Marc Jacobs fashion show.  

Out of all the rooms at PS1, this was the most interactive - a great use of technology to involve your audience into the work.  Watching Madonna (slash Madonna's projection) watching you walk down the Marc Jacobs runway is pretty fierce.  Hiiiii Madonnaaaaaa!!!  As my friend Brian Maci says, YOU BETTER WERK!

Missing my Dutchess... Barclays Cycle Hire + myLondonCycle

About a year ago when I was living in London I bought a bike.  She was AMAZING. Dark purple, dark brown leather seat and handle bars. Black basket.  Her name was The Dutchess.  And once the guys at the store told me what side of the road to drive on, The Dutchess and I rode off into the sunset on our first (and slightly terrifying) journey together.  28 days later, I took The Dutchess back.  

The roads were crazy, scary pigeons wouldn't move out of the way for me, and I almost ran into car doors and posts a few too many times.  Soooo, while I'm not in London anymore, I'm really excited about Barclays Cycle Hire, which launched this past July 30, 2010 as part of a £25 million sponsorship of 5,000 specially built bicycles and hundreds of docking stations in central London.

Transport For London recently announced another £111 million spend in initiatives, much of which will go toward building Barclays Cycle Superhighways which is part of London's effort to start a "cycling revolution" with the aim to increase cycling in London by 400 per cent by 2025 (compared to 2000 levels) (TFL).

The Superhighways, like the bikes themselves, are heavily branded in Barclays blue. They recently launched the first two Superhighway routes into the city from Barking and Merton.  

What's interesting are other services and communities that are popping up around this platform, such as myLondonCycle (mlc).  mlc is an independent community created around the Barclays Cycle Hire program, where participants can form connections and compete with other members by tweeting the #mlc hash tag followed by their bike's id.  

Whoever tweets the same bike id the most wins bike "rulership" - that is, until someone else beats you to it. Not sure how appealing this actually is, though, since the bikes are virtually all identical... But this is about more than just bikes; it's about people connecting with each around this shared activity.  I'm sure we'll be seeing lots more of these popping up.  Looking forward!

via @Springwise

Your Facebook Profile Pic: self portrait > self shot > using mirror > bathroom > sexy face

There are countless articles and some books written on how to portray yourself on your social networking profiles. Smile, be hansolo, use a head shot, go professional, don't be drunk, be drunk, wear red, DON'T WEAR RED!

This illustration, created by Doogie Horner for Fast Company, pretty much sums it up... Which one are you?

via @adverblog

Dan Gilbert's TED talk and sosticky ramblings

Really interesting talk on our ability to simulate happiness - and how not getting what we want can leave us feeling just as happy. 

"Our longings and our worries are both to some degree overblown some we have within us the capacity to manufacture the very commodity we are constantly chasing when we choose experience" - Dan Gilbert.

My fav part of this lecture is about 3/4 through when Gilbert describes a study he conducted at Harvard which illustrates how having too many options can make us unhappy.  Basically, students signed up to a photography course where they took 12 photos of some of their fav things at Harvard.  They were then asked to select two of them to blow up (working in the darkroom and developing them by themselves).   At the end of the project, the students were told to choose one photo that they wanted to keep; the other photo would be kept by the professor as proof of course completion.  NOW - the students were split into two groups. The first group was told they'd have four days to change their minds if they decided they wanted the other picture.  The second group was told that their decision would be irreversible - that the photo they didn't keep would be on a plane to "headquarters" in London and they wouldn't be able to change their minds.

Gilbert asked the students days later if they were happy with their decisions.  The students who had the four days to deliberate which photo they wanted were miserable. They went back and forth, back and forth, and even after the four days were over, they still thought they'd made the wrong decision.  The students in the "irreversible" group, however, were happy with their photos. 

The kicker is that, when given the option of having four days to decide versus having to make a final decision, 66% of students choose the four days, aka unhappiness.

I've actually been thinking about this a lot recently and how it applies to the plethora of choices and options we're given every day.  

I spent 20 minutes at K-Mart today buying a toaster. I hate being in K-Mart, but I couldn't decide, do I want the one that does bagels, the one with four slots, the one that will match the clock in my kitchen...? Which of these 20 toasters do I want? Really, I just wanted "the one" to fall off the shelf and land in my basket so that I could get the eff out of there.  I hardly toast things anyways.

As Gilbert says, "freedom to choose is the enemy of synthetic happiness". 

I realized it would have been much easier to just buy the thing online because I could have clicked on "most popular toaster," read two reviews and been done with it. The internet amplifies our choices by providing us with incredible amounts of information, entertainment, products, services, and people in an instant.  While this can be incredibly overwhelming, where it shines at is adding context.  My friend Matt Gierhart recently said to me, "I, like most people, will trust an honest stranger".  

Digital adds layers of information to help us make decisions, but I wonder if that made things better or worse for me in real life today as  I was standing in K-Mart, sans "honest strangers". 

Thoughts???

I can see a rainbow...

Check out this graphic by COLOURlovers documenting the most popular colors used by the top 100 web brands.

When in doubt, RAINBOW.

See it bigger here