Business (s)tuff & ideas, objects, tunes & random thoughts
eMarketer predicts that spending on online rich media and video ads will account for nearly one-fifth of all online ad spending by 2012, up from 9.7% of all online ad spending in 2007.
Check out the IABs draft video ad format guidelines and best practices, released April 2008. More coming out on May 5th.
British artist and sculptor Henry Moore (1898 - 1986) introduced a particular form of modernism to art in the United Kingdom. He is particularly well known for his reclining female figures. Moore was born in Castleford, Yorkshire, the son of a mine engineer. He became notoriously acclaimed in the international scene as a sculptor for his large scale abstract bronze and marble figures which can be seen in significant public enclaves worldwide. Moore’s figures are normally characteristic for piercing and hollow spaces which are reminiscent of the hilly landscape of Yorkshire. Most of the wealth he made from these large scale commissions in his later years was endowed to his Foundation.
There is a quote of Moore’s which I particularly enjoy and I find condensates how I understand his work:
There are universal shapes to which everyone is subconsciously conditioned and to which they can respond if their conscious control does not shut them off
More about Henry Moore’s work and style here and in this tribute page to the artist.
Portrait of the artist in his studio in the mid 1960s via britannica. Reclining figure from sculpture.net. The Three Piece Reclining Figure: Draped in Kew Gardens via rwapplewannabe
We already know it. Internet takes young adults away from newspaper titles and newspaper titles do not recover them in their online resources. “Among young adults, 27% said they read national newspapers less since they started using the Internet compared to a 14% drop by the general population“
Oopps… where did they go?
Probability indicates that the large media groups will still own the information space, but it’s the brands, the means of access to information and the sources of credibility (traditionally the national dailies) that change.
Some days ago I read that Google and New York Times have built a layer on Google Earth (get a last upgrade; enable ‘geographic web’), so you can see what’s being written about in the New York Times via the earth map. This access still relies on the brand equity and credibility of the Times as a medium, but it provides yet another step towards non-conventional access channels to credible information.
My questions are: Are a the same few monster media corporations still going to dominate the information space? Will they engulf all the new and upcoming diverse forms of creating and distributing media and consolidate it? What does credible mean to the current young adults? How do you create credibility in the new media space (not just UG ratings)?
In the image Orson Welles as Citizen Kane (William Randolph Hearst) via snd
If you are in as dreamy a situation as Apple, with wads of cash, a great looking balance sheet and no debt, you might as well follow Steve Jobs’ wise counsel. This is what Michael Roberto of Conversation Starter quoted him as telling in Fortune magazine (is this meta quoting…?):
“In fact we were going to up our R&D budget so that we would be ahead of our competitors when the downturn was over. And that’s exactly what we did. And it worked. And that’s exactly what we’ll do this time”
Jobs was referring to previous recessionist environments and of course, to the current one. As Roberto reflects in his post on the matter, in a recession there are a number of good actions to take, namely:
Invest in research and development for the next shinny times
Analyze and know your competitors’ Aquilles heels and act upon them in a clever way (think on the fringes; be a parallel thinker?)
Identify critical suppliers and distributors and identify the risk associated to them in the economic environment and how it could affect you
Think carefully about your talent needs and be very careful so you don’t send the most talented people to you competitor’s den
Erica Abi Wright, also known as Erikah Badu, was born in Dallas in February 1971. She’s an R&B and hip-hop singer and writer. She is often compared to Billie Holiday for her “musical sensibilities”, Wikipedia dixit.
I like her. I would normally think this is too commercial, but there is something in her neo soul stream, this so-called alternative or underground hip-hop, that resounds. Her father had left the home when she was growing up, but when she chose the artistic name Badu, he wrote her: “Badu in Arabic means truth and light, good choice kid”.
Not sure if this video reminds me of Carmen Miranda, Billie Holiday or Chaka Kahn meets Grace Jones. I like Erykah Badu anyway, I discovered it last week.
Images of the unforgettable Carmen Miranda; Grace Jones in the cover of Nighclubbing album courtesy of this Canadian site; Chaka Khan way back when. In the video the song Bag Lady. Cool colours and instrumentation.
Cool. I was there when they made this video (I mean I saw the filmaker with his tripod and his Sony HC7 camera on the tram to Kabatas). It starts on the Starbucks near Kabatas and gives nice views of Istanbul from there to Galata, including a ride on the funicular. I think they had a great time making it and I keep remembering Jim Jarmush ;-)
Paradise Lost is an epic poem writen by John Milton in blank verse in the XVIIC and originally published in 1667 in 10 books. It’s about the Judeo-Christian story of the fall of man, the temptation of Adam and Eve and the expulsion from the Garden of Eden.
Couple of other videos by the same author here and here. The Pink Panther vs Skeleton Man trailer is very surreal and quite funny. I love the Brazil soundtrack and the way Pink Panther manages to keep standing in the corridor with so much dignity ;-)
eMarketer predicts that this year online advertising will grow to nearly $25.9 billion and account for 8.8% of total US ad spending. I know some media players in much more underdeveloped markets who are making this proportion too. Awesome.
