Serendipity Book

"Let's make a sawng" with Weezer

Geek band Weezer have really been putting the internet to good use lately to generate interest in their upcoming album.

First they gave us a video recreating the greatest hits of the net.

Then, while everyone else is asking why they didn't think of doing that, Weezer's lead singer Rivers Cuomo has been off harnessing the power of mass creativity to write a song with his fans on YouTube.

Rivers' version of the resulting song, '80s Radio', can be found here. Alternatively, you can hear the versions done by some of his collaborators.

Aside: I wonder who owns the copyright to this?

Offside: Can the moustache REALLY be making a come back? I thought the rule was that moustaches can only be worn ironically and even then they must only be grown to raise money for charity and must be cut off immediately after the fundraiser?

Give me an "H", "O", "N", "D", "A"

Honda Live Advert Sky Dive Difficult is worth doing
by unitedgoals

Portraits created from bar codes

Scott Blake makes portraits from bar codes. By hand.

Grab and play interactive video

A new way to manipulate video as you watch: you can "grab" on-screen objects and move them backwards and forwards, though actually you are only moving the video backwards and forwards. A "hint path" shows how the object can be moved.

The DimP direct manipulation player has been developed by the University of Toronto's Dynamic Graphics Project. There's an explanation in the video below.

Interesting to perhaps think of ways of matching this engine to a touch screen to give rise to some interactive outdoor / in-store activation ideas.

BBC Sound Index - buzz-based music chart

The BBC have created an innovative music chart called the Sound Index based on aggregating usage and purchasing data from popular internet music sites:

"The BBC Sound Index analyses what people are writing about, listening to, watching, downloading and logging on to. It then counts and analyses this data to make an instant list of the most popular 1000 artists and tracks on the web.iTunes, MySpace, Bebo, Google Groups, Last.FM and YouTube

The more blog mentions, comments, plays, downloads and profile views an artist or track has, the higher up the Sound Index they are. So, the Sound Index is a music buzz index controlled entirely by the public."

The chart is updated every six hours and broadcast on the BBC every Sunday. Yet more good stuff from Ashley Highfield and team:

"Under Ashley's leadership, the number of UK adults visiting bbc.co.uk has more than trebled from 4.6 million to 14 million every month and page impressions have increased tenfold to just over 3 billion a month."

Predicting the future of the internet

Edelman's Steve Rubel shares his predictions for the future of the internet in a presentation he gave last week to Next 08 in Hamburg:

| View | Upload your own

Thanks to Osgur Alaz

The end of futurists (and ugliness)

I love this (only partially) tongue in cheek visualisation of the extinction timeline of a number of things we take for granted.

Whether it is innocence (2001), retirement (2017) or ugliness (c.2060) Richard Watson can see it coming to an end some day. In fact he even predicts the end of futurists in c.2050 (at about the same time he thinks that we might finally wave good bye to Cher).

Full size version here

Found on Furl.com

Understanding what it means to be British

This lovely evocation of a wet British summer by Buxton water nearly brought a tear to my eye.

Lateral thinking

Go on, try to guess the category this ad is for before the reveal. Genius.

Thanks due to Abu Mallick

Crocs do a marmite