Trends

I am a semi-recent college graduate: I have been out of school for almost 2 years now. After I left school, all of my friends got into this social networking site called the Facebook. The facebook has been featured in several technical and business publications, and that kid Mark Zuckerburg is worth millions of dollars now. It's a nice tool, but I noticed something very interesting about it today: any student can post a bulletin, but here's the kicker - you have to PAY for them.

This post is a bit old now, as I wrote it up as a draft, and never finished writing it. Here it is, some weeks later.
I was listening to Marketing Online Podcast from September 30th entitled "What Harry Potter Taught Us About Podcasting and Directories" when I heard this, and I think it is a good bit of rumor. If you download this file and listen from 27:03 to 27:49 in the timeline, you hear Alex Mandossian sharing his opinion about the iPod Shuffle in relation to the new iPod Nano.

If you haven't yet visited Carlton Draught's Big Ad Website, you should check it out. You will be asked to trust a Java Applet that helps play the ad in full screen. Then you see thousands of people in colored robes running across an Australian valley a la Lord of the Rings. People in primarily yellow robes led by a man on horseback running toward another group of people mostly in red robes. At least hundreds of people are really there in the camera shot. I don't doubt that computer graphics was used at some point to fill in the rest.

Doing some random browsing, I came across a concept device showcase from NEC, makers of random devices we see everywhere. Here are the two I thought had merit:

Soft-shell mobile phone, AKA tag:

Posted from Yahoo! News (October 2, 2005):

This topic was broight to my mind by Paul Colligan and Alex Mandossian of Marketing Online Live, two guys that have a Podcast related to their Marketing Online magazine.

iPods aside, ask anyone in the business or marketing world, 'What business is McDonald's in?', and they will reply, 'Real Estate'. Most people will say, 'I thought they sold hamburgers and plastic toys and... fruit.' Oh no, my unknowing friend, think about it:

Digg.com, for those of you who don’t know, is a social technology news website where users digg (vote) stories to promote them to the homepage. I believe 75 diggs will earn you coveted homepage status. Just for fun, go there and read 3 or 4 stories. Some are really geeky or funny, others are real news.

I read this news just a few days ago, and it seems like old news, but it is a viable topic for discussion. Google is obviously big daddy here, but other companies have been putting ads in feeds for quite some time now. Should feeds contain advertising? Is it profitable? Viable? Who benfits?

Posted from eWeek.com (May 17, 2005):

John Furrier of PodTech.net is a computer science guy from back in the 80's, and while he doesn't think of himself as special, he really is. His incredibly popular batch of InfoTalk Podcasts consists of short 15-minute segments, each one covering a different topic somehow related to current and future trends in the internet, or Web 2.0 as John calls it. Guests have included Adam Curry, one of the people known as 'Podfather', employees of Microsoft, WordPress developers, lawyers, marketers, computer scientists, you name it, he's got it.