It turns out that happiness really is contagious. Need proof? Nicholas Christakis and James Folwer recently published a paper in the British Medical Journal, suggesting that offline social networks have “happy” and “unhappy” clusters. In that study, they found that a person’s happiness is related to the happiness of their friends, their friends’ friends, and their friends’ friends’ friends… in other words, up to 3 degrees of separation. In addition, they also found that happy people were more likely to be at the center of their offline social networks, and that each additional happy friend increases your chance of being [...]

Yahoo and Intel have teamed up to change the future of television by creating a software platform called the “Widget Channel.” The software allows consumers to use “TV Widgets”, which Yahoo describes as the following:
“TV Widgets are small Web applications that make it easy to surf your favorites sites with your remote control. Watch Web videos, track your favorite teams or stocks, interact with friends and family, and stay current on news and information by clicking on the compact, interactive apps that sit on top of your normal TV picture.”
We already know that consumers are watching TV while surfing the [...]

Rubicon Consulting has released a survey of iPhone users, detailing the impact the device has had on their usage and the market in general. Included in the survey are some unexpected patterns that could change your perceptions of this revolutionary mobile device.
Here’s the good news:

Users report high satisfaction with the device
iPhone users report increased mobile web browsing
One quarter report it displacing notebook computer usage

Here’s the unexpected news:

Email is the #1 function… for reading emails, not writing them.
One third of iPhone users carry a second phone? Why? According to the study, for making voice calls and composing emails.

It increases phone [...]

The Lost Ring is an alternate reality game sponsored by McDonald’s and the International Olympic Committee. You may be familiar with Alternate Reality Games used recently for marketing purposes, such as Audi’s Art of the Heist, or more recently, to promote the ABC hit series LOST.
While the purpose of The Lost Ring isn’t revealed just yet, it’s basic purpose is to ask the question: What are the Olympics? However, it leaves us wondering if we really know. There’s a great beginner’s guide to The Lost Ring ARG that sums it up fairly well:
“There’s a history to the Olympics that’s been [...]

Current TV has filed for a $100 million IPO, hoping to raise money for new programming and to pay down $35.5 million in debt. According to the SEC filings, Current TV currently has 51 million subscribers, which isn’t shabby. In fact, most of us probably didn’t know that number of people were actually watching. The debt numbers are certainly scary, and in the SEC filing they refer to the business model as “innovative but unproven.” Despite the debt, and taking into consideration the woes of the writer’s strike, Current TV would make a nice acquisition for a network looking to [...]

William Hundley is an artist based in Austin, TX who takes photographs of people jumping underneath fabrics, then removes the subject from the pictures. The results are stunning.
William Hundley

Link via Boing Boing

Amazon and the Penguin Group have teamed up to launch the “Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.” Aspiring authors can submit an unpublished novel for consideration. According to the site, “top Amazon customer reviewers” will be involved in the judging of what books make it to the semi-final round, and Penguin will select novels for final judging based on customer comments and Publisher’s Weekly reviews.
But you don’t have to win the contest to get published. All entrants will be able to self-publish and sell their entries on Amazon through CreateSpace, a personal publishing service, at no charge. Original link via Fimoculous.

Google is showing some love to non-profits. While they’ve always had a great Google Grants program that allowed non-profits to take advantage of unsold inventory in AdSense, Google made two important announcements this week.
First, they announced that Google Checkout will be free for non-profits in the US. This means that non-profits can accept online donations through Google Checkout without being charged transaction fees. It does, however, seem that Google is testing the waters, as they also announced that this is a limited-time offer that will only last through the end of 2008.
In addition, they announced the launch of YouTube non-profit [...]

Michael Hirschorn believes we’re drowning in “quirk.” At least, that’s what he says in a recent post on The Atlantic website, and it’s causing quite a backlash online.
“Quirk” is defined by Hirschorn as something that defines today’s indie culture, and he cites examples such as Wes Anderson, This American Life, the books of Augusten Burroughs, Flight of the Conchords and more.
So what’s his problem with “quirk?” According to Hirschorn, he thinks it can “quickly become exhausting”, and says:
“Quirk is everywhere because quirkiness is so easy to achieve: Just be odd … but endearing. It becomes a kind of psychographic marker, [...]

Last Friday was the 25th anniversary of the Compact Disc. Rather than a celebration, however, I think a Eulogy is in order. In only 25 short years, the format is on the verge of extinction. You know the culprit.
The first commercial CD rolled off the production line on August 17, 1982 in a Phillips factory near Hanover, Germany. It took almost 6 years for CDs to begin outselling vinyl records, but the format would only shine for around a decade more, with the launch of Napster in 1999 signaling a change in the future of music consumption. According to CNN, [...]