France Social problems. A car accident involving a police car and 2 kids on a motorcycle sparked riots in Villiers-le-Bel, reminding the 2005 riots (just a bit). I chose the Economist coverage coz, well, it’s in english and I prefer exterior coverage of a local news event, I think it’s always a bit more impartial.

Richard Rogers + Architects at Pompidou center. “presents a detailed survey of the work of Richard Rogers and his partners over the last 40 years.” Here’s a good presentation of the exhibit by Dezeen.

Small actions, big changes. “We’re looking for the simple, everyday actions that, when enough people do them, can bring about BIG CHANGE. So, we’re asking you “what would you ask one million people to do to change the world?” (by 2nd of jan 008)

Collection of links from this week:

Artists I liked
Guilherme Marconi
Kallegraphics
The image is found (for some strange reason, I like wedding photography..)

And a couple of great ads
Anoniem for freshcotton.com
Vorsthammer.com
Best of Guerrila Marketing, by bloguerilla.it (via freshcreation.nl)
Oh yeah, and Facebook change its opt-out “Beacon” advertising system to opt-in after a 50 000 signature petition. But I’m sure you already read about it…

Artist of the day is: Caribou

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Trendwatching.com just released their 8 trends to capitalize on in 2008. As always, it is insightful and a fun read. Plus it makes awesome conversation starters..

Need new inspiration for food combinaison? Check out this food pairing+interchangeable food page..

Two articles from IHT (via agenda inc. blog), both in relation of the IHT Luxury conference that was going on, hum, recently. The first one is about “ethical luxury” - the products that define their owners or wearers as people with human and ecological consciences.”. The second one begins with great insight in indian culture (India is a gift-giving country) and then follows on with your traditionnal article about India-fast-growing-infrastructure-lacking-high-duty-taxes-country. Still, an interesting read.

Artist of the day is: Four Tet

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Might have been a big wrong about virtual worlds yesterday… China is converting a 100 sq km site […] to house, among other things, virtual worlds able to support not millions or tens of millions but billions of avatars. By doing so, they will provide a virtual world to retailers, manufacturers and buyers in the aim to cut the middlemen.

The nine secrets to achieve hundreds of thousands of views for a viral video on youtube video. No much new stuff but still, it’s good to have most of tactics all on the same page..

Gulf countries are on buying mode, getting good deals out of a falling dollar. They just grab 5% of Citybank.

I know it’s all over the web, but Google launched yesterday RE<C, “a new strategic initiative to develop electricity from renewable energy sources that will be cheaper than electricity produced from coal.” Great.

Artist of the day: Lupe Fiasco

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The japanese singing roads in action.

NYT released their 100 notable books for 2007. Great christmas shopping list! Since I haven’t read most of them, my first pick would be how to talk about books you haven’t read, by, my god, a french author. God, France is pursuing me…

GOOD Magazine has a good article about Second Life. I’m glad coz I never really hop on the SL bandwagon, and ppl & businesses are now beginning to realize that it might have been more a fad than a trend. “there are almost 9 million accounts, but at even at peak times there are only 40,000 users logged on. If just a little under 1 million users have logged in during the last 30 days, that means there are 8 million others who tried Second Life and haven’t felt any need to come back.”

Universal Music CEO Doug Morris on digital strategy, napster and why the music industry is so deep in sh*t. Why didn’t they tried to build a stronger online presence back in, let’s say, late 90ies?

“(We) just didn’t know what to do. It’s like if you were suddenly asked to operate on your dog to remove his kidney. What would you do? “We didn’t know who to hire. I wouldn’t be able to recognize a good technology person — anyone with a good bullshit story would have gotten past me.”

Awesome.

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Bebo.com is a ‘a social media network where friends share their lives and explore great entertainment.’ And it might be the first community created content motor, where ‘the online community casts the series, and feedback will have an impact on the direction that future episodes take’ for a given serie (in that case, Kate Modern).
via Contagious

SF Gate had a great article this weekend, Forget MTV, Apple’s ads are the new music stars makers. The numbers are quite impressive.

The London International Awards grand prize, winners and finalists have some great ads/packaging/design and such.

I came across Cup of Java,  “caffeinated posts from a copywriter/adgrunt by ‘that other gal’ who helps run Adland” and it made me thought about this (old-but-) awesome essay written by Malcolm Gladwell, “The Java Man“, on how caffeine created the modern world.

Artist of the day is: Oneself 

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THE ODYSSEY YEARS

I’ve just finished this really interesting piece written by David Brooks of the New York times on the odyssey years, “the decade of wandering that frequently occurs between adolescence and adulthood“. (but hey! it’s wandering more in the sense of discovering and all, and not really like, laying around..)

Even if most of us knew that this was going on, it is the first time I actually see a direct reference to it. Those Odyssey years are highly prevalent in culture (the article is citing Friends and Knocked Up; more recently, I just watched Bee the movie and the main character is taking “one day off to wander around” and then is not really sure of what he wanna do in his life. I mean, there’s a great amount of entertainement pieces that reaches the twenty-something right now that are mostly based on those years of wandering.)

I guess it is more like a recognition of an actual shift than a discovery, but still, I think it can really help to understand how to market “wandering” activities/services to the twenties/thirties crowd, like why services like SWAP or AIESEC are working so well, why roomsharing website are booming and such.

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Today’s is the international (north america excluded, t’was yesterday) Buy Nothing Day, encouraging you, once a year, to “remind ourselves to really think about what we are buying‚ why we are buying it‚ and whether we really need it at all”.

If your in France and downloading, beware. Sarkozy unveiled a 3-strikes-out plan to cut down filesharing of illegal material. Laws have to be voted to amend “copyright, data protection, telecommunications and consumer protection laws”. So you got about 3-6 months to organise yourself, stand up and be heard.

A MINI-branded restaurant opened its doors in Paris! Well, I’m not really sure if it just opnened but I just learned about it, anyway..

You gotta love this street/experiental marketing operation by Tide in New Orleans. Free laundry for everyone. A Gigunda Group initiative.

Mister T, William Shatner (Star Trek) and Verne Troyer (Austin Powers) for WOW. I see a big Apple influence in those ads, don’t you? Mister T is simply hilarious..

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I love that innovative poster from Philips. A glow in the dark poster for energy saving.

50% of NYU students say that they would give up their vote permanently for 1 000 000$. I think it is a sad conclusion to democracy. Would you?

Japanese researchers have deleveloped singing roads. What’s next? Sighing doors?

Bodymetrics created a device that uses laser-scanning technology for custom-made clothings. At 400USD$ a pair, I still prefer 45rpm but hey! It’s hip, techno and trendy ;P
via pfsk

Artist of the day is: Donovan Frankenreiter

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i’m back! and damn it feels good!

Decided to build the new website on wordpress, so it would be easier to maintain/update and such. Daily links and occasional ramblings as usual!

i am still at updating the theme i picked ’cause it was awfully displayed by IE. The look is probably going to change a bit but this is the general idea. If you encounter any bugs or bad display, please drop a comment!

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