Serendipity Book

Donating Blogging Ad Revenues

Just thinking out loud here but wouldn't it be a good idea if someone could create a mechanism whereby bloggers could donate their ad revenues to good causes in the spirit of the Tesco Computers for Schools idea? Most bloggers make a negligible amount of money from Google AdWords -- even A-listers like Guy Kawasaki can hardly be said to be making much from ad revenue despite their millions of page views so there will never be any hope for most bloggers to make any real money doing this. So can't we get organised and donate our revenues instead? If this is already being done then can someone please let me know.

On the parallels between making porn and making ads

Two porn industry creatives in search of a new idea. This is an ad industry parody that rewards multiple views. Thanks Jason. Everyone loves this one.

Pingu Disco

This one's for young Ella who started crawling yesterday. Here's Eskimo Disco's fantastic "7-11" Pingu video. which has now picked up nearly half a million views online.

CEO Research Rap

My old boss Adrian Chedore (pictured above), Global CEO of  the research firm Synovate, has either got very poor judgement, has been given some very bad advice or has a truly great sense of humour. Here he stars in his first corporate rap. You decide ...

To be filed alongside the Bank of America / MBNA employees singing U2's One:

Via Ray Poynter

Non-obvious ideas

There was an interesting article about intellectual property rights and patents in The Economist last week which included the following criteria for ideas and inventions that are worthy of patents:

To obtain a patent's 20-year exclusivity, an invention is expected to be novel, useful and non-obvious.

Those evaluating creative ideas are, of course, always quick to dismiss ideas that they could have come up with themselves as being trite but I didn't realise that "non-obviousness" was written into patent law!

How non-obvious an idea needs to be to qualify for a patent has long vexed America's legal minds. The invention had to be “something more than the work of a skilled mechanic,” the Supreme Court opined in 1850. In 1941 it set the bar higher, requiring a “flash of genius”. In 1952 Congress loosened the standard, stating that the idea simply needed not to be obvious “to a person having ordinary skills”.

Valencia Ciutat de les Arts i les Ciències (City of Arts and Sciences)

Wanted to share some photographs of Santiago Calatrava's astonishing City of Arts and Sciences in Valencia that I found whilst browing for 'cities' & 'architecture' on Flickr.

People may sneer about cities employing starchitects (that nice portmanteau of the phrase 'star architects') but seeing these photos has just put the city of Valencia on my short break shortlist for sure.

Photo credits:
1) Tony Blay
2 & 3) Victor Puig Vilarrubis (aka 45street)
4) Raimon (aka Marathoniano)

Hans Rosling: Visualizing Change

You must watch Hans Rosling's talk from TED. This guy really knows how to bring data to life. Hans campaigns for access to publicly funded data sources and has established the Gapminder Foundation to make it easier for people to visualise and explore numbers.

"You’ve never seen data presented like this. With the drama and urgency of a sportscaster, Hans Rosling debunks myths about the so-called “developing world” using extraordinary animation software developed by his Gapminder Foundation. The Trendalyzer software (recently acquired by Google) turns complex global trends into lively animations, making decades of data pop. Asian countries, as colorful bubbles, float across the grid -- toward better national health and wealth. Animated bell curves representing national income distribution squish and flatten. In Rosling’s hands, global trends — life expectancy, child mortality, poverty rates — become clear, intuitive and even playful."

Critical Metrics - great new music discovery site

Critical Metrics is a great new song discovery system which uses recommendations and reviews from around the web ("heavy meta", geddit?) to rank new music and then gathers the MP3 and videos together in one place.

Currently sitting at the top of the metrics is this infectious tune from quirky Canadian songstress Feist called 'My Moon, My Man' which has been recommended by Pitchfork, Blender, Rolling Stone, Washington Post, Idolator, Stereogum, Stylus and The Guardian: 

Here's the video ...

Samsung - Millimetres Matter

This fantastic Samsung film should be on TV not just YouTube (we didn't make it by the way).

Tate Modern Extension

I really can't find anything good to say about this. Apparently it's a ziggurat. Hmmm.