Media /// Forward

The Hurt Locker Is Going to Win The Oscar for Best Picture

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 10:59:30 -0500

Regarding this post from last week, my classmates and I built a regression model that correctly predicted the Best Picture winner 82% of the time, beginning in 1970. According to our model, Hurt Locker is far and away the favorite, blowing Avatar out of the Pandoran sky.

Along the lines of New York’s “Seducing Oscar” cover story a few weeks ago, I also give Hurt Locker the political relevance and indie upstart edge, in addition to the plus that Cameron has won before, so it’s someone else’s turn.

Place your bets.

"Somehow you need to organize yourself so that, if someone steals your stuff, it’s good for..."

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 00:59:10 -0500

“Somehow you need to organize yourself so that, if someone steals your stuff, it’s good for you.”

- Jay Rosen, at the MBA Media & Entertainment Conference panel on “The New Business Model for News: A Look at New Emerging Revenue Models in Journalism”

Jay sat on this panel with Dick Tofel, former Asst. Publisher at the Wall Street Journal, now at ProPublica, and Nick Bilton from the NYTimes, among others.

It was really interesting overall, but I’ve been particularly preoccupied with trying to figure out how to make this phenomenon work. I keep coming back to network effects. Definitely not helping as I try to study bond yields and forward rate swaps.

Believe it.

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 19:21:32 -0500

Believe it.

"As money becomes completely digitized, infinitely transferable, and friction-free, it will again..."

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:03:09 -0500

“As money becomes completely digitized, infinitely transferable, and friction-free, it will again revolutionize how we think about our economy.”

- This month’s Wired cover story.

The Future of Money: It’s Flexible, Frictionless and (Almost) Free

I’ve got … about 70? Counting the native iPhone...

Wed, 17 Feb 2010 16:31:02 -0500

I’ve got … about 70? Counting the native iPhone apps? Hmm …

whatsthebeef:

Reblogged: vizualize

2010 is the year of the app

via images.fastcompany.com

"To hear Jon Corzine tell it, Meg Whitman is either deceiving us or deceiving herself. Like Whitman,..."

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:49:41 -0500

“To hear Jon Corzine tell it, Meg Whitman is either deceiving us or deceiving herself. Like Whitman, the former eBay CEO who’s vying for California’s Republican gubernatorial nomination, Corzine is one of the few people in America who has tried to make the leap from running a business (in his case, Goldman Sachs) to running a government (the state of New Jersey). He can only scoff when he hears Whitman arguing that deficit-ridden California desperately needs her corporate skills. Corzine also thought “the managerial skill set would be helpful,” he tells NEWSWEEK. But after four grueling years as a Democratic governor—ending in a humiliating defeat by an uninspiring Republican opponent—Corzine no longer believes that being a CEO prepares anyone for the day-to-day grind of governing. “The idea that you’re accountable to a bottom line and to a payroll in managing a business—it gives voters the confidence that you have the right skills [to govern]. But it’s 20,000 people versus 9 million. I don’t think candidates get the scale and scope of what governing is. You don’t have the flexibility you imagined. There’s no exact translation.””

- Romano/Hirsh on the rise of the CEO politician (via newsweek)

The MBA President (W) was a disaster. Clearly the CEO politician is as well. (via evangotlib)

Hey now, even though George W. had an MBA I don’t think it had much to do with his governing style or priorities.

I think Corzine is referring to the government’s ability to effect change with precision — the levers are different in the private vs. public sphere, as are the concerns of the stakeholders. I can only imagine how government would be befuddling to someone who previously could quickly shift budgets around, make personnel changes, etc.

Nothing Steve Jobs ever creates could fully replace you in my...

Sun, 14 Feb 2010 16:09:09 -0500

Nothing Steve Jobs ever creates could fully replace you in my life | someecards.com

Fast-moving lava on Mt. Pacaya, outside Antigua,...

Mon, 08 Feb 2010 07:32:30 -0500

Fast-moving lava on Mt. Pacaya, outside Antigua, Guatemala.

Quite handy for roasting marshmallows and melting, well, everything in its path.

Good morning from Lake Atilan, Guatemala.

Fri, 05 Feb 2010 10:02:12 -0500

Good morning from Lake Atilan, Guatemala.

"God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God … Man creates..."

Thu, 04 Feb 2010 01:50:00 -0500

“God creates dinosaurs. God destroys dinosaurs. God creates man. Man destroys God … Man creates dinosaurs.”

- Malcolm

Captain Picard is dramatically in love with his iPhone and the...

Wed, 03 Feb 2010 16:08:58 -0500

Captain Picard is dramatically in love with his iPhone and the Internet. Also, he is the man.

Surfing With Seniors of the Day: Sir Patrick Stewart talks Twitter, googling Shakespeare, and getting his gaming addiction under control.

[thedailywhat:switchedblog.]

Interesting: the IAB is going direct to consumers to educate...

Mon, 01 Feb 2010 00:51:19 -0500

Interesting: the IAB is going direct to consumers to educate them on behavioral targeting and privacy. This taken from the main Wall Street Journal homepage.

Makes sense, as WSJ’s audience is extremely desirable to advertisers, yet probably also more broadly sensitive about privacy.

I love this — it’s a great fit for Bravo’s...

Sun, 31 Jan 2010 21:58:32 -0500

I love this — it’s a great fit for Bravo’s properties, particularly Top Chef, and will surely bring Foursquare lots of new users and big brand awareness.

Foursquare Coming To Bravo TV

(via soupsoup)

Nice. Does Delmarva really count as Northeast though? I’d...

Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:10:00 -0500

Nice. Does Delmarva really count as Northeast though? I’d spring for a New England version too.

caro: I think I’m going to get this shirt.

Sam Adams 25th Anniversary Label

Fri, 22 Jan 2010 17:23:08 -0500

Sam Adams 25th Anniversary Label

Putting Foursquare, Blippy and Square Together

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 14:43:16 -0500

Yelp’s new check-in capabilities a la Foursquare have gotten me thinking about what’s next for location-based/social/financial transaction communications.

I’ve recently been reading a bunch about Blippy, which lets you share your purchases Twitter-style. This is in and of itself is interesting but scattershot, at least for now. Pair it with Foursquare, however, and one could see what the average meal or bar tab at a given spot is — and, ideally, which entrees are most popular and how much they are.

As it stands, you can get this information in a general way from Yelp/Zagat/MenuPages by scanning the reviews and looking at the number of $ signs, but Blippy data combined with Foursquare would be a lot more specific. Eventually you might even see that fried artichokes are a trending topic at Celeste (seriously, they’re amazing).

With Square on the way and, with it, more and more credit transactions taking place, it makes even more sense for purchase information to be tied to a location-based service.

Yelp’s new app is well-positioned to move in this direction too, and has the advantage of a large user base. However, my (admittedly biased) view is that Foursquare has the advantage of more curated — and valuable — social networks, as I argued yesterday.

Finally, I’d think that people would be more comfortable sharing their purchases at restaurants/bars since dining out is a public act, as opposed to the details of, say, a drugstore purchase.

Yelp’s Monocle feature on the iPhone is pretty cool...

Sun, 17 Jan 2010 13:43:31 -0500

Yelp’s Monocle feature on the iPhone is pretty cool — and reasonably accurate. Most of the good stuff within two blocks is on here (as seen from my apartment):

Fred’s is on the corner right in front
Sushi Hana is two doors down from Fred’s
Peacefood (the major outlier placement) is one block down Amsterdam on the same side of the street as Fred’s
Land is 1.5 blocks down Amsterdam on the same side of the street
Haru is, appropriately, one or two blocks down and across Amsterdam

Look forward to using this in unfamiliar hoods.

"When you think of the idea of “checking-in” at a venture in a mobile app, you likely think of..."

Sat, 16 Jan 2010 12:13:00 -0500

“When you think of the idea of “checking-in” at a venture in a mobile app, you likely think of Foursquare or Gowalla right now. The two gained significant momentum, funding, and users in the location space in 2009. But even with the growth, both services are still relatively small, neither much bigger than 200,000 users. That’s why much larger social networks like Facebook are perceived to be a potential risk to them. And one of those bigger networks has just entered the fray: Yelp.”

-
Yelp Enables Check-Ins On Its iPhone App; Foursquare, Gowalla Ousted As Mayors

sawickipedia: As anyone who has worked in the casual gaming space already knows - game mechanics can’t be copyrighted and are quickly imitated. Just ask Popcap about the gazillion Bejeweled/Match-3 knock offs it’s faced.
And as casual game developers have learned, resting on the laurel of your mechanic will quickly lose you market share to competitors. It’s important to create a rich full-game experience around the mechanic. It will be interesting to see which of the LBS apps wins as they compete more and more like game developers instead of as “app” developers.
(via caterpillarcowboy)

True on the game mechanics front, but we also have something else going on here: for better and/or worse, the game is what you’re doing in real life.

I think that the winner here will not be the company that comes up with the best game, but the one that adds the most enjoyment to players’ day-to-day lives. As suggested yesterday, I believe (and hope) that the game elements are one facet of what Foursquare is doing, but very much not the end goal.

(via whitneymcn)

You guys are 100% right on this. The game mechanics are the “special sauce” that keep the checkins coming in, but the goal is the product is not to produce amazing game play. The goal is to build a killer social utility - something that encourages you to live beyond the daily routine and rewards you for doing so. -dens

(via dpstyles)

The social utility part is mainly what will hold Yelp back in location-based, I think. My experience with the Yelp community is that random people will add me as a friend and that’s standard practice — so my “network” on Yelp is not personalized at all. Probably the same reason I’ve never felt incentivized to write a lot of reviews, since I didn’t think I could earn Elite status.

Because Foursquare was location-based from inception, I’m sure users managed their networks more carefully. I sure did, and now it’s one of my Top 5 most-checked apps.

TechCrunch hits on this:

But the social connections on Yelp aren’t like more traditional social networks, so it will be interesting to see if with this feature, users start transferring their more traditional social graphs over to Yelp.

A Reasonable Breakfast

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 04:21:51 -0500

A Reasonable Breakfast

Finally Finished The Wire

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 03:07:37 -0500

To commemorate: 100 Greatest Quotes from The Wire.

As with all things Wire, contains graphic profanity and violence — and **spoilers**.