creative

The Book: Terms Of Service, by Matthew Battles:

I. Privacy What takes place in the exchange between your brain and the contents of The Book is your exclusive private concern. The Book will never download the contents of your brain, either whole or in part.

II. Intellectual Property A. The Book often contains ideas and information created by others. The continued appearance of such ideas and information depends on the recognition of a limited property right enjoyed by creators of said ideas and information. But recognizing that the terms of service also require access to ideas and information and the ability to repurpose them in the creation of new works, the creator’s monopoly right shall be understood to be limited and circumscribed.

Continue here.

I have a feeling David Shields would be particularly into this, no?

One more bit I have to quote, given the nature of this site:

V. Special Provisions A. The Book will not place ads in your brain, nor seek to control placement of such ads by others.

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I love this. If you’re into Tumblr at all, you basically just enter the Tumblr name into the box and voila, as they say. Here’s the Tumbler mosaic for Things That Look Like Other Things. And one for Counterfunctionality: A Gallery. And for MKTG.

Imagine what you’ll see when you enter the names of Tumblrs that are actually good??

Via: Suicedewatch, but before you click on the link, know that much of what’s posted there is NSFW.

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Canv-as.com is an innovative poster shopping site, where you can interactively create your own unique customized posters that express your expectations, decor and lifestyle.

As many of you already know, the Unconsumption Tumblr is a team effort involving several volunteer contributors. There’s me, of course, but also Steve Chaney, Tom Hosford, and Brian W. Jones. Two of the other participants, Amy Shaw and Andrew Whitelaw, had to drop out a few months back (which is totally understandable — everybody has a lot to do), and I’ve been meaning for a while to offer an invitation here:

If you know/like the Unconsumption Tumblr and want to join the team of contributors, drop me a line. Part of what makes the project fun for me isn’t just having yet another venue to put stuff out there, but also being surprised by what others find/encounter/post. I’d particularly love to hear from anybody who stays on top of the various eco blogs better than I do. (Side comment: For a visual taste of what we’ve been posting over the past year or so, check out using this Tumblr mosaic-viewer link. That’s a tool I just learned about this morning — very cool!)

On a related note, I’ve also been meaning to put out an open call for help on the related Unconsumption Wiki — that could definitely use some oversight and involvement by somebody with much better social-media-fu than I personally possess. We’ve had a bunch of people sign up (30 or 40 I think) but only a handful have contributed so far. So, yeah, some help there would be great if you have ideas.

–> If you’re interested in either please drop me a line at murketing [AT] robwalker [DOT] net. (It may take me a day or two to respond, but I will.)

In general the Tumblr links to and highlights stuff we find interesting, useful, admirable, or provocative, that’s somehow related to the unconsumption idea. Part of being a contributor is helping shape what that means, and where it goes. For those of you not familiar with this idea, here’s a quick recap of Unconsumption:

The term first appeared, on this site, on December 6, 2006.in a post headlined “Unconsumption.” ¹ PSFK picked up on that at the time. I used the term as a key part of a look at Freecycle in my NYT Consumed column, in January 2007.

Steve Portigal (who helped me with a great interview for that column) did a cool presentation about unconsumption in February 2007. I subsequently posted a lot about the notion here on Murketing.com, and eventually gave it its own page (which eventually became the basis for the aforementioned wiki). The Unconsumption Tumblr launched in early 2009. I was interviewed about that on New Hampshire Public Radio’s Word of Mouth, and by Celsius.com (and maybe others I’ve forgotten), and Amy Shaw talked about it in this interview with Design Evolution. More takes: Eyecube wrote about it, as did the the always-impressive Core77, and the amazingly great Everydaytrash blog, and various Googleable others. Also my Times Magazine colleague Virginia Heffernan later mentioned the project in the sidebar to her column, here.

Most recently, unconsumption was trend-spotted and discussed at SXSW.

And that’s about it! But any questions, let me know.

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Just as I'm posting about the end of business cards, @paulmcenany tweets about Recognizr, a new mobile app that uses facial recognition and augmented reality to connect the people that you meet with the social networks that you use.
Right now, the user has to opt in before they'll be recognized, but surely sometime in the future, we'll give up all privacy and go all in. And I'll snap a photo of you from across the street and immediately become your friend. Or you'll just wear a mask, and avoid contact, because you're anti-social like that.

Until now, you might have needed an agency or someone with some production expertise to create an overlay ad for your YouTube video. Until now.

Just like Google has made adwords a breeze, YouTube announces their ad overlay making kit.
Fire your agency, and get on with it. Or - call your agency, increase their budget and let them do this for you. You're busy. You have real work to do.

The other day we rush printed new business cards for some of us heading to SXSW. (Check out my new title!)

You can't go to a major conference like SXSW without cards, right? Wrong. I handed out about four cards. Maybe five, if you include the card that was required to get a free t-shirt at the Veer booth.

And for me, SXSW was all about meeting people. I met hundreds of new people. Some amazing people. Some really smart people. The thing is, they don't need my card. And I don't need theirs. If we made a mark on each other, we know how to find each other - and we've probably already connected on Twitter.

People like Steve Rubel are really proud of the fact that their Twitter ID is now on their card. (We've been doing this for years.) I ask: do we really need cards at all?

We are in desperate need for a universal contact exchange (that people are willing to adopt) that does not involve paper. Plenty of companies have invented this, but no one has created a product that's hit the hot button. Yet. This has to come soon. Maybe Google, Facebook or Twitter will make it happen. Or maybe we'll just keep printing rectangular squares with website addresses on them.
How many pieces of paper have you left behind, recently?

You've seen this jaw-dropping idea produced a few years ago.
Publishers Dorling Kindersley Books were so impressed that they produced their own version, for an international sales meeting at their firm. While it would have been cooler if they acknowledged the original, this is still a fantastic piece with some great copywriting. Thanks, Derek!

While much of the focus in this blog has been on the world of digital, the death of tv has been exaggerated (it is just metamorphosing) and a small piece of video content (ie an ad) can still be extremely powerful. To add a little bit of structure to the blog we are testing a new weekly feature called ad of the week. This will allow us to pick out some of the ‘tv ads’ which we would not have covered previously. The first that I have selected is the latest road safety campaign for Transport for London:

Having watched this at the cinema the payoff is really quite unexpected and very powerful (I admit I winced). The message to me is very clear (and greatly appreciated as a cyclist in London) and it builds nicely on the excellent WCRS Do the test campaign. What do you think?

The New Fox interior is so amazing that we decided to show it in a different way.We turned the New Fox inside out.

For those who recall this earlier post about my interest in color-bar test pattern riffs:

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James informs me of Rachel Ashe’s “altered book” works. The materials list for this one includes glue, rubber stamp and ink, and “book.”

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This is probably old to you, but I've been stuck in a cocoon of social media geeks in Austin, Texas for the last few days, so I've got some catching up to do.

If you haven't seen this, then here's an excellent answer to the question of "I don't get ChatRoulette." Or "How is ChatRoulette entertaining?"

If you have already seen this, and you're saying instead "dude, i expect only the freshest internet meat when I visit BFFB", not to worry. We've been a little crazy, busy, drunk, and blogging all about SXSW.
More fresh meat tomorrow.

Here's an ad for Italy's National Animal Protection Institute that illustrates how pets in the pound have a sad, sad, deadline.
Super depressing yet slightly humorous in a death-walking-around-with-a-Frisbee kind of way.

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The promotion site of Softbank Mobile,"Jelly Beans 840SH".Various colours of mobiles move around along with the music. Catching the mobile, you can get the details.

Bacon. The magical, mystical food that no human can resist. FreshBooks put bacon to work on the streets of Austin, TX at SXSW. To promote their online invoicing product, they got right to the point: Freshbooks can make you bacon.
Forget social media. Or search. Bacon is the new, must-have marketing tool that can sell your product to anyone with a tummy. Yummy. This, and more SXSW fun on the official Brand Flakes for Breakfast SXSW Edition.

Siri is a new search and "getting things done" tool for your magical iPhone. Whatever you need, just say it outloud, and Siri gets you on your way.
Like a personal assistant in your pocket. Not sure if "fill out my expense reports" will work, but if it involves search, Siri is there for you. From @mtlb & @thebeancast

The eternal hunt for crumbs continues in the online world of Erky Perky.