transparency

It was just a matter of time: "With brands turning into curators of conversations about them and brand value increasingly determined by the value of aggregated content, third parties might be inspired to hijack these very brands by offering curated conversations on their behalf," I wrote in early July.

And now Seth Godin and BzzAgent have done exactly this. The marketing guru and the marketing agency have launched a portal that aggregates conversations about brands and presents them in a unified public-facing dashboard that gives brands the chance to lead the discussion. Brands in Public translates the Get Satisfaction … Read more

Actual Transparent Window is an intriguing desktop enhancement that renders open windows transparent at the click of a button, making it easier to keep track of multiple windows at once. It can help you monitor downloads while working on another screen, or organize spreadsheets, stock charts, text files, and Web pages. You can use it as a drawing tool to trace images, create overlays, and even make your own new images.

The program is simplicity itself to use. It adds two small buttons to the Windows title bar, one for settings; the other for toggling the transparency on and off. … Read more

Heard, but hardly seen speakers aren't new.

There's a number of glass and clear plastic speakers on the market, but these fetching British models are something else again. People seem to want speakers and audio gear that "disappears" and still sound great. Ferguson Hill makes a full line of see-through designs, and from the looks of it the FH001 just might be a real contender.

It's a "horn" speaker made of clear acrylic, and its ultrahigh efficiency design allows it to play nice and loud with as little as 3 to 50 watts. So there's no need to use the FH001 with power hungry amplifiers! Horn speakers are easily the "greenest" of speaker types, and work well with even the smallest, most power-efficient amplifiers. I first heard about Ferguson Hill on the Ultimate AV Web site.

I'm still processing the many great insights from the next09 conference in Hamburg, Germany, one of Europe's leading digital-creative-marketing forums. This year's theme was "Share Economy," and the 1,300 attendees consisted of European VCs and angel investors, Web 2.0 entrepreneurs, media, creative agencies, and executives from German corporations (from BMW and Deutsche Bank to Deutsche Telekom).

Jeff Jarvis: "The Great Restructuring"

The first day, the keynote day, was a little disappointing, maybe because expectations were so high. Jeff Jarvis warmed up the crowd with his trademark "What Would Google … Read more

This was originally posted on CBSNews.com.

A White House "virtual town hall" that Barack Obama hosted last month was intended to be an exercise in open-microphone democracy that would allow the president to interact with average Americans.

Aides billed it as permitting members of the public to "pose a question or vote for a particular question" using the Google Moderator utility. A new area of the WhiteHouse.gov Web site was titled Open For Questions, and nearly 1.8 million votes were cast.

That was the plan. After voting began, though, a committed group of … Read more

Like any clock, Clockmate will tell you what time it is, but it will also let you choose from dozens of clock faces, styles, and colors. If you work with folks in a different time zone, you can even set up multiple clocks to know at a glance what time it is in numerous places.

In fact, this program offers so many options for telling time, users may never get a chance to try them all. Its interface is quite simple: a default clock instantly opens for users, but if it does not meet your needs, simply right click and … Read more

This unique browser lets you watch your favorite videos while you work. With such a superb performance and intuitive user interface, it's hard to believe that it's free.

When you first install Double Vision, it requires that you read a very brief tutorial. There, you'll learn how to navigate the browser, and use the available shortcuts to hide and adjust the video display's transparency. Basically, all you have to do is use the program's search engine to find your favorite video site. Once you've found a video, click the Go button on the user … Read more

Social media strategist Shannon Paul, who works with the NHL Detroit Red Wings, said many good things on a SXSW panel this Sunday, but the one thing that stuck with me most was her assertion that brands need to become more “human” in order to connect with their audiences. She wasn’t referring to personifying a brand through a human face (be it an average employee or a charismatic leader), but rather to exhibiting ‘branded’ behavior that is truly human. What does that mean? What is the most human trait of all human traits? Shannon Paul posits it’s vulnerability.… Read more

President Obama has repeatedly called for more transparency in government, and Web archivist Carl Malamud thinks he can help the president actually achieve that.

With the support of some prominent Internet activists, Malamud has launched a campaign at YesWeScan.org to convince the president to charge him with the task of running the Government Printing Office, the department responsible for providing public access to a variety of federal work products.

Malamud has plenty of experience facilitating public access to government documents, much to the chagrin of public officials. He has butted heads with government entities in his quest to get … Read more