PSFK Author:
John Keehler

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 bills. The survey cites an average increase of 24% annually.

Rubicon Consulting: The Apple iPhone: Successes and Challenges for the Mobile Industry.

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 hidden for centuries, even millennia - a set of events dating back to ancient Greece that were erased and long forgotten. And today, six amnesiatic strangers woke up in various places (forms of Labyrinths, no less) around the world wearing athletic garments, and tattooed with the phrase “Trovu la ringon perditan” - “Find the lost ring”. Now they’re seeking our help to find out who they are, where they’re from, what their purpose is, and just what the heck is going on around here.”

It appears that all the stops have been pulled out for this ARG, with a wealth of content and a number of notable creators with previous ARG experience. There doesn’t appear to be a real connection to McDonald’s, but that only makes the game better!

It’s imperative that you begin your exploration into this ARG by watching the YouTube trailer that’s the entry into the game. Then delve even deeper by visiting: TheLostRing.com, and find your bearings by using this great Lost Ring wiki, which tracks clues and the progress of the game.

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 supplement the lack of original programming with user-generated content.

ReadWriteWeb
San Jose Mercury News

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 channels, which will allow non-profits to take advantage of the popular video sharing site to spread their message. Some of the first organizations to sign up include the American Cancer Society, The ONE Campaign and The March of Dimes. The program includes the ability to customize their channel page for free, increased limits on the amount of video that can be updated, promotion of the videos throughout YouTube and of course, the ability to accept donations through Google Checkout.

Follow these links to learn more about Google Checkout for non-profits, as well as the YouTube non-profit channels. Thanks to Mashable for the heads up.

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, like wearing laceless Chuck Taylors or ironic facial hair—a self-satisfied pose that stands for nothing and doesn’t require you to take creative responsibility.”

So what’s the other side of the story? Wired, for one, thinks it’s ironic that Michael Hirschorn is a VH1 executive who brought us “The Flavor of Love” and “I Love New York.” As the blog Lindsayism points out:

“Sometimes those things are the only things that make us believe pop culture has anything to offer us. What you call “quirk”, we call “originality”, and while there will probably never be a huge market for it, we need more of it, not less.”

You can find more reactions to Hirschorn’s post on Buzzfeed. Original link via Fimoculous.

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, sales of CDs peaked in 2001 and have declined nearly 22% to date.

Perhaps the fate of the cassette tape can offer some insight into where CD sales will stand in 10 years. According to the LATimes, sales of cassette tapes dwindled from 442 million in 1990 to 700,000 last year. I know what you’re thinking… who in the heck bought those 700,000 cassette tapes this year?

Why not embrace the death of the CD? Certainly all those compact discs being thrown away can’t be good for the environment. With the growth of hard drive capacity and online storage, we don’t need them anyways. The automotive industry seems to share this opinion. According to a Detroit News article from June 17th of this year, CDs may be gone from the dashboard as early as 2012. In fact, DaimlerChrysler already introduced MyGiG in 2006, a system that allows you to save your music on a 20GB hard drive. Countless other auto manufacturers are allowing portable music players to integrate with stereo systems.

Soon enough, we will file away the memory of the compact disc with the likes of the LP and the cassette tape. Until then, we’ll just have to let them take up space.

CNN: CD Celebrates 25th Anniversary