Archive for December 2007

As you can probably see, PSFK had a wonderful 2007. Thanks to you all for returning to the sites, coming to our events and conferences and even hiring us for a little bit of information and advice.

And, of course, big thanks to our writers, speakers, staff, sponsors and contributors : you are PSFK.

Wishing you a very inspiring 2008. Make change.

UK teen mag Sugar has launched a new social boomarking tool for teenage girls called Sugarscape. Sitting alongside its already existing sugarmagazine.co.uk, the new site, currently in beta, is aiming to be an aggregator of cool gossip, music, quizzes and ‘stuff’ linked to by the sugar team and the readers themselves.

Users can register and download the sugarscape toolbar, then customise their personal page or ‘scape’, and add anything they find on the web by ‘sugaring’ things with comments and opinions. Involving more of a networking aspect than other bookmarking tools, ‘scapers’ can enhance their status by earning points for their actions – where they can either ‘sugar’ things they like, ‘shove’ things they hate, or ‘share’ things with their friends, and in a kinder version of the facebook poke can ‘squeeze’ their friends- sending a virtual hug that comes with the added bonus of 10 extra points. The site also encourages users to import all existing Bebo, MySpace and YouTube profiles to sugarscape, aiming to create a one-stop social networking experience.

In the dwindling sales of teen mags, Sugar is still standing strong as market leader (average circulation during the January-June 2007 period of 187,059 copies, which is down 6.6% on 2006, versus the 43.5% sales drop of the nearest competitor, Panini’s Bliss which fell to 120,506 copies) and with this site clearly hopes to enhance its identity as a brand that understands teenage girls.

via Brand Republic

And here’s how we did with these?

WILIFE (Wireless Life)

We said:

2007 should see WiFi drive social and leisure change too. Many neighborhoods in the US are now speckled with WiFi hotspots from people8217s own homes. Residents are opting for a wireless router that frees them from a PC tower and home-office desk so that they can use their computer from room to room, house to garden.But WiLife is not just about the freedom to play on the web wherever you want. Wireless internet and Bluetooth drives web-telephony as people can make calls from where they want when they want - and the laptop on the sofa offers an alternative to the TV or music center. WiLife means streaming your entertainment however you want.

What happened:

iPhone & iTouch, Chumby, WiLife, Bedouin Worker

PRIVACY EPIPHANY

What we said:

The general public will have a privacy epiphany as they become aware of their lack of privacy and flow of personal data. Awareness will grow through media discussion but it will also grow as we watch how systems and brands react to us and our behavior.

What happened:

Facebook Privacy Debacle 1, Facebook Privacy Debacle 2 (Beacon).

What’s the future of cloud computing? It depends on whom you ask - namely, Google or Microsoft. A recent article in the NY Times relates the growing “rumble” between the two tech giants over their differing views on the trajectory of computing. While Google’s looking up to the sky, envisioning (and banking on) cloud computing as the future of almost all business and personal computing, Microsoft is much less optimistic about the functionality and appeal of web-based software, their business almost entirely built upon desktop applications.

One bit that jumped out at us was Google’s fearless optimism about the idea of computing almost entirely “in the cloud.” The rise of Google Apps, now used by over 1.6 million users, with 2000 new companies signing up daily, reflects (at the very least) a considerable warming up to the idea. But how much will the cloud cover? According to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, nearly everything:

Mr. Schmidt steps up to a white board. He draws a rectangle and rattles off a list of things that can be done in the Web-based cloud, and he notes that this list is expanding as Internet connection speeds become faster and Internet software improves. In a sliver of the rectangle, about 10 percent, he marks off what can’t be done in the cloud, like high-end graphics processing. So, in Google’s thinking, will 90 percent of computing eventualy reside in the cloud?

“In our view, yes,” Mr. Schmidt says. “It’s a 90-1o thing.” Inside the cloud resides “almost everything you do in a company, almost everything a knowledge worker does.”

NY Times: Google Gets Ready to Rumble with Microsoft

100 Young Americans is a nice cross-media project taking a closer look at the state of American youth today. Photographer Michael Franzini traveled through the US to portray American teenagers. If you happen to be in New York, Peter Hay Halpert Fine Art Gallery is hosting an exhibition of selected images until January 8, 2008.

The site says:

It’s not unusual for teenagers to have hundreds—or thousands—of online friends. They regularly chat with 20 friends simultaneously, while listening to music, watching TV, and talking on a cell phone. Fashion trends last months—or weeks—instead of years. Tiny obscure cliques take root and flourish in cities and small towns across America. My crew and I traveled to every state in the union—a total of 30,000 miles in 5 months— sometimes covering 3 states in a single day, to find a group of 100 individuals who best capture the full spectrum of teen life in America.

100 Young Americans

PSFK veröffentlicht ab 2008 die beliebtesten Artikel der letzten Woche in deutscher Sprache. Hier schonmal ein Vorgeschmack:

Read the rest of this entry »

Time once again for PSFK’s annual survey of the NYC Holiday store windows. This is our third year, and as in the past, we’ve brought together the most stylish, over-the-top, and inspirational displays from around the city. Highlights include the all black and gold Polo flagship windows featuring full size matte black horses. We noticed art and architecture references in Louis Vuitton’s Gehry-esq stainless steel windows as well as a nod to the late Dan Flavin from the Gap. We’ve covered ABC Carpet’s windows here several times before and this year they’ve gone a bit bizarre and beautiful.

We’ve organized our photos together in a Flickr gallery you can view here.

It’s the end of the year and probably now is the best time to provide a critical eye on the 2007 Trends predictions we made last January:

BRAND ABSTINENCE

We said:

In response to this inertia by larger brands, some consumers will react by engaging in brand abstinence. When no healthy products are available, these consumers will ask questions like, “Why should I replace my phone so often? What will happen to my old one? Why upgrade my PC? Do I really need a faster machine made of plastic and metal just to surf the web?” They will wonder what their product purchase decisions will mean to the world around them.

What happened?

Craft boom, Pledge Handmade, Etsy, consumer concern, Carbon-Offsetting confusion, anti-fashion-consumption

WIDGETS & BRAND UTILITY

We said:

What’s happening is that the internet, and the content is contains, is beginning going to go to the people… Gradual widget adoption combined with RSS technology means that 2007 will see a boom in the use of widgets. It’s taken media and brands quite a while to get round to thinking of using these things - but now every brand, ad agency and media site is going to try to work out how to broadcast content, entertainment, information and even coupons via widgets… [and] we hope, we’ll actually see brands providing something useful for people: who knows, the widget might make it the year of Branded Utility?

What happened?

Facebook apps, Twitter, RCRD LBL, WIdgety Goodness and Brand Utility as a buzz word.

THE HEARMESEEME WEB

We said:

As 2006 saw the maturing of the read-write web (or Web 2.0), 2007 will see the rise of the third stage of the internet’s evolution: the HearMeSeeMe web. The rise of video and audio on the web has been phenomenal and we will see the average user’s behavior change over the next year as he/she moves from reading and writing text to consuming and generating moving image and sound.

What happened?

Personal-casting through Justin.TV, Kaltura, 5min, Sumo.TV, Blip.TV, YouTube Quickcapture.

Radiohead caused a big ruckus earlier this year when they released their latest album, In Rainbows, without a price tag. Music industry execs and indie-rockers alike were upset (albeit curious) about having to deal with big-time bands giving records away, with seemingly no concern about profits or losses.

Wired Magazine listens in on a discussion between Thom Yorke of Radiohead and David Byrne about making money:

Byrne: Are you making money on the download of In Rainbows?

Yorke: In terms of digital income, we’ve made more money out of this record than out of all the other Radiohead albums put together, forever — in terms of anything on the Net. And that’s nuts. It’s partly due to the fact that EMI wasn’t giving us any money for digital sales. All the contracts signed in a certain era have none of that stuff.

and about distributing music:

Byrne: I’ve been thinking about how distribution and CDs and record shops and all that stuff are changing. But we’re talking about music. What is music, what does music do for people? What do people get from it? What’s it for? That’s the thing that’s being exchanged. Not all the other stuff. The other stuff is the shopping cart that holds some of it.

Yorke: It’s a delivery service.

Byrne: But people will still pay to have that experience. You create a community with music, not just at concerts but by talking about it with your friends. By making a copy and handing it to your friends, you’ve established a relationship. The implication is that they’re now obligated to give you something back.

Yorke: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was just thinking while you were saying that: How does a record company get their hands on that? It makes me think of the No Logo book where Naomi Klein describes how the Nike people would pay guys to get down with the kids on the street. I know for a fact that major record labels do the same thing. But no one has ever explained to me exactly how. I mean, do they lurk around in the discussion boards and post “Have you heard the…”? Maybe they do. And then I was thinking about that Johnny Cash film, when Cash walks in and says, “I want to do a live record in a prison,” and his label thinks he’s bonkers. Yet at the same time, it was able to somehow understand what kids wanted and give it to him. Whereas now, I think there’s a lack of understanding. It’s not about who’s ripping off whom, and it’s not about legal injunctions, and it’s not about DRM and all that sort of stuff. It’s about whether the music affects you or not. And why would you worry about an artist or a company going after people copying their music if the music itself is not valued?

Byrne: You’re valuing the delivery system as opposed to the relationship and the emotional thing…

Yorke: You’re valuing the company or the interest of the artists rather than the music itself. I don’t know. We’ve always been quite naive. We don’t have any alternative to doing this. It’s the only obvious thing to do.