From :) to :\ in 30 seconds

This is going to be a quick one because I have approximately 30579 things on my plate, so sadly it's not as blown out as I would like it.

Anyway. I have my last.fm radio playing in the background when I work sometimes, and just now really liked what I was hearing (Miike Snow - Song for No One). I quickly flipped to the page to "♥" the track, and all of a sudden a little message appeared above the video.


Then I realized that it was the entire background that changed.


Twice!


I thought this was pretty cool, since I (and I'm assuming many others too) get really excited when I find a song I like, and even more excited to be able to mark it down so I can listen to it in the future. AT&T seemed to no only recognize this happiness, but also do it with explosive hearts to make me even more giddy. Plus, hearting something on last.fm is a neat little feature, and I liked that out of the entire site, AT&T chose that as the focus point of their communication with us on the site.

Then I noticed this:


Perfect! I clicked on the Twitter icon so I could share the track with my friends. But guess where it took me.


oh. slanty face. How quickly I was reminded of AT&T Wireless's bottom line, and yanked out of my song elation. Never mind that it took me to a completely different site, but are those phones even music phones? In short, they did a complete 180. This could have been so much more! Like, what if I had then been able to create a play list of my ♥'ed tracks from this current radio session within last.fm, and then share it with my friends? I would like that. And the :) would have remained.

A little video

Hopefully Kyle from the London office doesn't get mad, but I've kept this to myself for a while and just can't anymore. Remember when I wrote about Untitled, Anonymous a while ago (oh, great, broken images)? Well, it was organized again by the UK office this year, and was taken up a notch – video. The submissions were to be:

a) autobiographical
b) under 3 minutes
c) anonymous

So here's my little one...



One of the many things I learned: Not to use iMovie if you're a perfectionist who wants to sync stop-motion with music ;) Sorry for the reveal ahead of time, Kyle!

(The song is Gimme Sympathy by Metric)

Google Street View documenting humanity

I just read the most fascinating and beautiful post on Art Fag City about how Google Street View is an objective, impartial snapshot of humanity today. I had no idea such gems could be found there! It reminded me of this post about digital serendipity; you never know what you'll find as you're poking around the world from your desk.



Jon Rafman – the artist & guest blogger of the post – brings up about a million good points, but some of my favorites were about how Street View records the world: as it exists, at that very moment, in whatever state it is.

The world captured by Google appears to be more truthful and more transparent because of the weight accorded to external reality, the perception of a neutral, unbiased recording, and even the vastness of the project.

It definitely different from photographers who spend hours taking 500 shots, only to pick one that is perfect, no?


The last part of that quote – about the vastness of the project – is brought up again later: If Google chooses, their systematic storing of panoramic views serves photography’s historic role of cultural preservation. This could be a different version or perspective on things like the LIFE archives, maybe?

Rafman also brings up how technological phenomena like Street View are ongoing symbols of our world & how we interact with it evolves all the time. This very way of recording our world, this tension between an automated camera and a human who seeks meaning, reflects our modern experience. Beautiful, a little wistfully sad, and squeakily delightful all in one.

Delightful error pages

I know clever error pages aren't anything new, but I have seen 3 recently that I liked enough to take screen shots of.

This one was four or so months ago on Daytum:


Here's the swissmiss one I got a few nights ago:


And this morning: Firefox.


[click all for bigger if you can't read the text]

One would think error pages would = annoyed, I-just-want-to-use-the-site /find-what-I'm-looking-for thoughts, and they usually do... but these were disarmingly on-personality with each of the respective sites. Taking the time to put some effort into the little details and assuaging (hopefully infrequent) frustrations when things go wrong can go a long way, I guess*. I kind of want someone to do a psychological study on the effects of a disappointment framed in a charming way. Each of these times I smiled and forgot what I was even looking for or trying to do, and I was left with a positive feeling toward the site. An error page delighting someone? Pretty neat.

What are some of your favorites? Please share a screen shot or two if you can.

* One factor that matters though is obviously frequency: I have only seen each of these error pages only once. They can be as cute or clever as they want, but if they happen all the time (I'm looking at you, Fail Whale), they can somehow end up more maddening than a default error page. Over time, I began associating that whale with the Microsoft Office paper clip.

EDIT | The wonderful Amber just showed me this one she got at Sephora.com once:


Thanks Amber!

More Japanese phones and Galapagos Syndrome

Well, this came at an opportune time. Remember when I was gushing over those Japanese phones last week? Today someone tweeted a link to this NYTimes article, which explains why they haven't been able to expand to other markets.


One of the reasons is that the phones themselves are too advanced for anyone else's infrastructures and capabilities. I knew they were years ahead of the rest of the world, but didn't realize just how much:

[Japan's] cellphones set the pace in almost every industry innovation: e-mail capabilities in 1999, camera phones in 2000, third-generation networks in 2001, full music downloads in 2002, electronic payments in 2004 and digital TV in 2005.

E-mail in 1999? That is bonkers. Apparently this conundrum has a name – Galápagos syndrome. Japan’s cellphones are like the endemic species that Darwin encountered on the Galápagos Islands — fantastically evolved and divergent from their mainland cousins — explains Takeshi Natsuno, who teaches at Tokyo’s Keio University. The only Japanese handset manufacturer that's been able to significantly move into other markets is Sony, largely because of its partnership with Swedish manufacturer Ericsson.

Another big reason for this stunted global growth is that Japanese handset hardware is what seems to get the most resources and attention – bar code readers, credit card chips, electronic built-in car keys, facial recognition, etc. This seem to put the focus on the entire experience within the handset itself, rather than how it can be used as a tool to receive information from other places.


For instance, connecting a phone to a computer is a foreign concept to them, which is one of the reasons the iPhone did so poorly in its launch there. Coincidentally, this Wall Street Journal article from today talks about Apple's and RIM's successes over other brands because of services, software and data packages. "The two accounted for only 3% of all cellphones sold in the world last year but 35% of operating profits." Guess they were onto something all along.

I wonder if Japanese manufacturers could find a way to merge their innovations and vision in hardware with other company's software advancements. Can you imagine a Japanese phone with Apple's software/services, or something like that (one can dream)? It would be even more bonkers than mobile e-mail in 1999. The NYTimes quotes Natsuno's recommendation: "Japan’s handset makers must focus more on software and must be more aggressive in hiring foreign talent, and the country’s cellphone carriers must also set their sights overseas." What do you think?

Brutus Casa

This is kind of a part II about the package I recently got from my friend Fumio. Here's the first thing I saw when I opened it: an issue of Brutus Magazine.


I first heard about Brutus when they profiled Naked a little while ago. This issue seems to be a special one, centering around interior design. Maybe it's the Hiragana, but Japanese magazines seem to be laid out so much nicer than ours. This is one of my favorite pages:


Don't you just want to live there? I think it's a bakery. It reminds me of the bookstore in... I think it's Norwegian Wood... that the girl inherits from her family. The one where she cooks a big feast for the main character in the kitchen upstairs, and there is a fire somewhere in the distance. This page made me daydream for several minutes.

Speaking of Murakami (but a different one), here is the most endearing picture of Takashi Murakami I've ever seen, wearing a big ball of his own work, and a flower crown hat:


(are you in a good mood yet?)

This is the best part. The cover of this magazine was very big. It wasn't a page at all, actually: it was a page-sized, flat box attached to the front and serving as the cover. There was a little window cut out of the inside, revealing...



Sometimes the most delightful things come out of putting two completely different ideas together. In this case, a plate and a magazine. Would you ever have dreamed of opening a strangely-big magazine cover and having a little dish slide out?

DOCUMENT Magazine

My friend Kevin (from the One City Left project) just released his next exciting project: a magazine called DOCUMENT. In his words:


Kevin asked me if I might write something for the debut issue, and the phrase "cultural journal" made my ears perk all the way up. At the time I was thinking a lot about how the economy was manifesting itself in culture – especially here in New York – and I had just written a thing about it. I decided to adapt and tweak the thoughts for the magazine, including newer stuff that had surfaced since I had originally written it.

When Kevin pitched the idea to me, he mentioned that the written and artistic pieces would be packaged in a slightly nontraditional way: unbound and in a box, available at different locations around Toronto. I was very excited to finally receive a copy in the mail last week.




The whole project turned out pretty great! I loved Kevin's piece about an architect who takes her inspiration from animal behavior. There are some quotes and photography sprinkled throughout as well that are 100% inspiring.


My favorite quote (and something I think a lot about):


Give DOCUMENT a visit – you can even download a PDF version. Stay tuned for Issue 2 :]