Product

Proxy marketing: It's the (other) product!

In this new age of " radical transparency," British firm Garlik has unveiled a new way to gauge popularity on the internet. The "QDOS" digital status rating system factors in how many times a person's name appears in a search, as well as a person's popularity, impact, and activity, among other criteria. Garlik's system plays on the phenomenon of "vanity searches:" googling" and comparing oneself to others. I couldn't resist the temptation: My QDOS score is Q3176 -- that's less than Nelson Mandela (Q6624) and Woody Allen (Q7764) but … Read more

Fuji camera kickin' it old school at PMA

Check out this beauty from Fujifilm, a 6x7 medium format camera with a tres old school bellows collapsing lens and, wait for it, film! (6x7, by the way, refers to the size in centimeters of the negative, so a 6cm by 7cm is over four times as large as old 35mm negatives.)

I used to own a smaller version (645, or 6cm by 4.5cm) of one of their rangefinders and it was a beautiful machine (unfortunately stolen by someone who didn't realize what they had I'm quite sure). Fuji rangefinders have always been known for their second-to-none … Read more

On the eve of OnMedia NYC: media and advertising industries still optimistic about 2008

I'm off to New York for the OnMedia conference from January 28-30. The two-and-a-half day event features technology CEOs from Silicon Valley leading presentations and debates with their counterparts in global advertising and media. It will be a dynamic crowd that's coming together to discuss emerging user trends and new opportunities in the marketing, branding, advertising, and public relations industries.

The list of speakers includes web 2.0 entrepreneurs such as Steve Rosenbaum (CEO, Magnify.net), Ami Kassar (Chief Innovation Officer, ideablob), and Matt Colebourne, (CEO, coComment); established content players such as Jim Spanfeller (President, Forbes.com) and … Read more

Apple and the rest of us

Is Apple's PR wearing thin?

Sure, there was the MacBook Air and the buzz around "thinnovation." But wasn't that--pun intended--too "thin" for a big media splash, especially compared with past years? Now that MacWorld is over, pundits are reviewing Apple's PR efforts, and when the expectations are so high (and a company is so good at it), it is not too surprising that some are disappointed with what they've seen this year. Frank Shaw, a PR professional at Waggener Edstrom, Microsoft's lead PR agency, is one of them, and you have … Read more

The Designers Accord: An industrywide coalition to promote sustainability

The topic of sustainable or green design is of increasing urgency to companies involved in product development. Last year, it reached a tipping point in public interest and concern over global climate change, fueled by massive media interest.

Companies that fail to address it risk legislative punishment, as well as negative brand and sales consequences. But green also provides a huge market opportunity: recent surveys have indicated that key customer segments are willing to pay more for greener products.

Lots of companies at this year's Consumer Electronics Show were touting green design and environmental thinking, though as my colleague … Read more

Designer Macworld Part 2: Belkin

Here's something blasphemous: My favorite booth at Macworld was not Apple's, but Belkin's. It knocked my socks off.

Think back a few years: Belkin was a ho-hum manufacturer of unsexy cables and nondescript PC accessories. Then came the iPod, and the company recognized a good thing when it saw one. Belkin jumped on the iPod shooting star and produced a nice line of interesting, well-conceived accessories. But essentially, the company outsourced its aesthetic to the iPod, piggybacking visually as well as functionally on that core device.

Now, Belkin is turning into a design and innovation powerhouse in … Read more

Designer Macworld Part 1: Apple

A brief run through Macworld gave two major impressions:

1. It was packed. Even more crowded than CES (though much smaller of course). 2. The signal-to-noise ratio of interesting products was way better than CES.

Let's take a look at some of the things that caught my interest from a design point of view, starting with Apple.

The MacBook Air really is quite breathtaking. It feels great in the hand, and the break from pure rectangular geometry makes it more interesting to tumble in your hands. It's sort of a giant iPod, taking on the pillowed look. The … Read more

Design (thinker) hubris?

In an article for In These Times magazine, Alix Rule injects some fresh thinking into the realm of "design thinking," which has traditionally been mainly affiliated with parties like Bruce Nussbaum, associate editor of BusinessWeek, and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design at Stanford (also known as the d-school). Rule is skeptical about design thinkers' self-acclaimed world-changing mandate: "As we look beyond housing solutions to urban poverty, good design is enjoying a second coming as the cure for what ails us." She feels that designers overburden themselves with these universal goals, and she asks for realism … Read more

Tata Nano: The Indian Model-T

99 years after the Ford Model T, the Tata Nano has been announced in India for 100,000 rupees, or about $2500. And you know what? It looks amazingly good. I was completely expecting a Yugo ugly box, but you could drop this 10 foot long car into an urban street in Europe (the most competitive subcompact market on the planet) and it would fit right in. It looks amazingly refined and interesting - heck, it looks better than budget models selling for many times the price from most mainstream manufacturers.

And they have a website that is fairly Web … Read more