Google buys SketchUp 3D

http://www.sketchup.com/?sid=368

The thing that interests me here is that you can export your 3D drawings to Google Earth.
Cray-zee!

All World Cup matches for your calendar

Awesome. Get all the World Cup matches directly into your diary. Just Download this VCS file and import it.

With calendar.google.com...
* Select 'Settings' from the top-right menu
* Select 'Import Calendar' from the content menu
* Browse to the file on your compta & select 'Import'

With Outlook...
* Go to 'File / Import and Export'
* On sub-Menu 'Import an iCalendar or vCalendar file'
* Locate the file (you may need to change "type of file" to "all files" to find it) and upload

Mashups exemplify the creativity afforded by Web2.0.

A mashup is a hybrid web application that combines data from external sources with bespoke logic to create a synergistic outcome. Most big name sites like Yahoo, Amazon and Google (as well as smaller players like Flickr) are offering access to their data streams through the use of APIs (Application Program Interfaces). Developers can use an API to gather data and incorporate it into their own applications.


The results:
http://www.liveplasma.com/
Uses info from Amazon to visually represent the connections between artists and films etc.

http://www.housingmaps.com
Mashup of Craig's list apartment search and Google Maps

http://grant.robinson.name/projects/montage-a-google/
A simple idea using Google's image library

http://www.dynamite.co.uk/local/
8-way UK specific mashup


Flickr mashups
http://metaatem.net/words/
Simple, easy, brilliant

http://labs.systemone.at/retrievr/
Lets you express yourself in a basic paint application in then trawls the web for images that are indicative of the colours you have drawn in

http://krazydad.com/colrpickr/
A similar one to the above, but nicer in other ways

http://www.quasimondo.com/tagnautica.php
Enter a word and it will display the most commonly related words from Flickr tags

http://randomchaos.com/games/fastr/
A simple game using the Flickr API


Further reading
http://googlemapsmania.blogspot.com/
A list of google map mashups.
HBO recently did one to promote its new series of the Sopranos by showing where key events in the plot took place on the streets of New Jersey. It also streamed relevant trailers into the speech bubbles within google maps.

http://www.webmonkey.com/webmonkey/06/08/index4a_page2.html?tw=commentary
Try this for a few more Flickr mashups.

http://flickrnation.com/
This guy's unofficial, but popular, blog

http://del.icio.us
A different approach to 'search'. Rather than Google which uses algorithms to find stuff it thinks you might like, delicious and similar sites (digg and squidoo) use humans to tag up online content so what it shows you is totally relevant information.

http://diggdot.us/
Delicious is also being mashed up

Cnet article linkage visualisation tool = Rad

Check out this article about game design on Cnet. It's interesting enough, but more importantly, check out the cool article linkage visualisation tool on the right hand side. Genius!

I guess it's not a new thing... nevertheless, I'm impressed.

Richard Too: PHP & XML framework

At last Richard from Republic has documented his PHP/XML framework - Richard Too. I've got to say, it's pretty darn handy for getting a development project going and having access to a bunch of commonly needed classes.

The Wisdom of Crowds

Loads of interesting Podcasts (that's just the new name for MP3, incase you were wondering) from the SxSW festival.

In particular the one by James Surowiecki following his most excellent book 'The Wisdom of Crowds'. 3 things to make a crowd wise:
* Mechanism to collect their knowledge
* Intellectual Diversity
* Intellectual Independence

Anyway, take a listen. It's the lazy man's way to read the book. And some of the questions at the end are kinda interesting.

http://www.cssplay.co.uk

This guy has some interesting experiments with CSS.

This post was submitted by email. Cool huh?!

Brat sister hits the bigtime

High-flying filmmaker has big plans

Award-winning documentary film-maker and Griffith Film School graduate Jay Court has returned to Queensland after attending a prestigious international filmmaking residency in Belgium.

Read more...

Finally a sport that's more lame than rollerblading

Check it out!

Championship Manager: Never choose Sunderland

My music profile

Once you setup your profile this neat application (Last.fm bought Audioscrobbler i think) interfaces with iTunes (or whatever) to find other users with similar tastes in music. Ace!

Information aesthetics

The best use of MS Excel I've ever seen.
http://infosthetics.com/

Life with Googe

(Googe is the one asleep)

Google vs The World

Whilst this article isn't brilliantly written, it does make a good point: Google's got a fight for market share on it's hands.

• EBay & EBay Express - Improved product searching
• Amazon - Discounted products using A9
• Newspapers - Local search engines like Miva will help the papers retain money from classified
• Publishers - Copyright protection against Google Books
• Telcos - The whole Net Neutrality debate
• Porn - Copyright infringments with resizing & caching images
• Startups - New niche search providers
• Government - eg. The recent Child Protection Act case where Google had to hand over URLs & a list of queries
• Human Rights - eg. China & censorship

orange kills their Animals

Read: Marketing's article about orange axeing their animals campaign

IMHO:

• They have a great global campaign that hasn't had enough airtime over here.
• Forcing customers to learn an animal to describe their phone usage just adds a barrier to understanding. You have to learn something extra, rather than the network understanding you.

Why don't they spend time & energy tracing each consumer's usage and tailoring packages to suit? The technology is there to do it, but I guess it's easier for them to make up some bullshit campaign than to gear their business around the consumer.

BBC.co.uk 2.0

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,,1760999,00.html

They want to "share". Isn't that cute?!
But only if you're in the U.K.
Everyone else will have to look for a unbiased online content elsewhere.

See with your tongue!

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/wireStory?id=1881775

I wonder if this could find an application in making websites more accessible?

One angry Kiwi

Next time they lose your bags at an airport, try to get as angry as this fella:
http://www.agencyrepublic.net/temp/angry-kiwi.mp3

Dude... Keep off the crack.

I like to watch (people get hurt)

From one mum to another:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teehvwGvyWg

Pavement hard. Knee soft:
http://www.youtube.com...

You jump, I'll film... Sounds fair:
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=17007

"There's gunna be casualties", um, der:
http://www.metacafe.com/watch/81297/plane_crash_hong_kong/

Time for a fatwa in Australia?

http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/australia.asp

Happy ANZAC Day y'all!
Leadership with guts?
Or just setting Australia up for a fatwa?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatwa

Complicated... Huh?

Why do we make our existence more difficult that it needs to be? Perhaps it's just the human condition: to run before we can walk; to seek advice, only to ignore it.

I'm an Information Architect. My job is to make sense out of the clutter—to balance client goals with creative communication and human requirements.

To me the Internet is a cloud that loosely represents a collective consciousness. This blog aims to be a collection of things that remind me of the mysteries of human thought.