I really learned a lot. I still remember the time selecting the one homepage image in a pile of hundreds of photos from the client, days tweaking the fonts and a series of 6 hour brainstorm meetings on site interactions. It is probably the most professional and sophisticated team I have even worked with.
Thanks again Hillary and Jenna, if you happen to see this post.
IDEO’s new site is a little tricky to navigate, but the magazine-style layout really shines here with powerful shots of the wonderfully designed products. Hands down one of the most visually intelligent web designs I have seen in a long time.
Muxtape.com (an online service that allows users to upload mp3s and create digital mix tapes) was shut down yesterday citing problems with the RIAA, and I just found out why Pandora.com (a popular personalized internet radio service) has also decided to pull the plug:
Last year, an obscure federal panel ordered a doubling of the per-song performance royalty that Web radio stations pay to performers and record companies.
Traditional radio, by contrast, pays no such fee. Satellite radio pays a fee but at a less onerous rate, at least by some measures.
As for Pandora, its royalty fees this year will amount to 70 percent of its projected revenue of $25 million, Westergren said, a level that could doom it and other Web radio outfits.
Having listened to the lecture podcast Music Artists Go Entrepreneurial (mentioned in my earlier post) , I think I got a good picture of what’s happening between the music industry and the online content distributors, and how the artists, the real content owners, are trying to bypass them both using various social media tools. It seems ironic to me that the fight is more about the ownership of the Internet than the content itself.
Since his international debut album New Awakening in 2003, Japanese beat maker DJ Mitsu the Beats has been collaborating with big name artists such as Little Brother, Kev Brown, Dwele, Lyrics Born, Rich Madina in the HipHop scene and received worldwide recognition and supports from producers like DJ Spinna, Pete Rock and BBC Radio1’s Gilles Peterson. Selected by URB Magazine in 2004 as the only Japanese in “NEXT100″ DJ list.
Here are some of his early remixes, still sound refreshing today.
Image from DJ Mitsu the Beats MySapce Page
==Playlist 2008.08.18: DJ Mitsu the Beats Remix Serie==
01 Intro/Get Money (DJ Day/Slum Village) - Summer Of Serato: Special Live Mix
02 Do Right (feat Rich Medina) - New Awakening Remixes Part 4
03 Ain’t Right (Iverse/RJD2 & Lyrics Born) - Explosive
04 So Ma Theme - Sound Manuevers
05 I Don’t Know (Steppah Huntah) - Things About Us EP
06 Marinheiro So (Frankie valentine) - Marinheiro So
07 After Midnight - After Midnight (7″)
08 Take Notice - Take Notice (7″)
09 Make It Better (Lone Catalysts) - Square Binizz
10 Negative Ion (Sa Ra remix) - New Awakening Remixes Part 4
A series of weekly lecture podcast provided by Stanford Technology Ventures Program. Speakers include Larry Page (Google), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook), Sue Decker (Yahoo) and leaders from various industries such as web2.0, biotech, venture capital, academic and entertainment.
Starting with the summer classic “Everybody Loves The Sunshine” from Roy Ayers and followed by tracks from the “First Lady of the Flute” Bobbi Humphrey, Mizells & Freddie Perren, this is just a small teaser of the incredibly rich genre of 60’s & 70’s Soul / Jazz / Funk music that I have been collecting in the past few years. Check it out.
Image from Amazon.com - Destination Motherland, Roy Ayers
==Playlist 2008.08.14: Roy Ayers, Bobbi Humphrey and the Mizells==
01 Everybody Loves The Sunshine - Roy Ayers 02 Is This All? - Bobbi Humphrey 03 Lil’s Paradise - Roy Ayers 04 Coffy Sauna - Roy Ayers 05 Funk In The Hole - Roy Ayers 06 Everybody - Roy Ayers 07 Where Are We Going? - Mizells & Freddie Perren 08 Harlem River Drive - Bobbi Humphrey 09 Keep On Walking - Roy Ayers 10 We Live In Brooklyn, Baby - Roy Ayers
The technology blog TechCrunch has a recent post on Startup Presentation Tips quoting the email from Jason Calacani’s mailing list (the founder of Silicon Alley Reporter, Weblogs and Mahalo). It caught my attention as the topic is relevant to my work and it’s also very useful in many real-life situations.
Other than tips such as “Show your product within the first 60 seconds”, or “Talk about what you’ve done, not what you’re going to do”, I find this particular one amusing:
9. How to handle questions you don’t know the answer to
a) take a moment to think about the question. You can even say “Hmmm… that’s a good question. Let me think about that for a second.” Folks appreciate a little consideration when someone takes a question.
b) if you don’t have an answer be honest and say you don’t. There are many ways to say this including: “I’m not really sure, I’m going to have to think about that for a bit and get back to you,” or “I’m not sure to be honest. What do you think?”
c) feel free to think out loud and brainstorm with the person. You can do this by saying “I’ve never really considered that. Perhaps you can expand the question a little and we can explore it right now.”
d) if you’re not sure of the answer you can always say you’ll cross that bridge when you come to it. “I’m not sure how we would deal with a sudden spike in the cost of bandwidth, we would have to collect more information and answer that question down the road. It is a manageable risk factor I suppose. ”
The worst thing to do when you don’t have an answer is b.s. the person. No one has an answer for everything, except a b.s. artists. So, feel free to say you don’t know–folks find it refreshingly humbleand honest.
This is not completely new. Many years ago I heard the hype from friends about this mind-blowing installation (some call it motion sculpture) piece showing at SIGGRAPH 2001, made from a material called Ferrofluid, a type of magnetic liquid that can morph from fluid to solid via magnetic fields.
I have never seen it in action until catching the interview with the artist Sachiko Kodama a few days ago. “Morpho Towers” is one of her latest projects. It is simply beautiful.
It’s been almost 10 years since my last visit to Kyoto and the impression was so strong that I can recall almost every single corner I have been, the home-like atmosphere and the warm conversations I had with the grandma who prepares breakfast every morning during our stay, in her own, family-run Ryokan.
On the day we were leaving, she sent us to the front door and half-jokingly asked me and my girlfriend to bring a kid the next time we visit. Years have passed, now living in the opposite side of the world as a father and husband, this place is always the first thing that comes to my mind thinking of Kyoto, even when I am playing around with Google Maps Japan that just went live earlier this week.
No, this is not a cliché story. It looks just like this picture when we said goodbye.
8.22 Audio Player
8.16 WP SEO Pack
8.16 Google Sitemap
8.02 Addthis
8.01 Feed Burner
8.01 Sitemeter
7.10 Google Analytics
7.05 Juno Player
7.02 Font Size Control
7.01 Nexgen Gallery
6.30 My Anobii Bookshelf
