Zeb

In this brilliant TED talk, Nicholas Christakis uses data visualization to reveal a super-organism created by human social networks. He expertly lays clear something many of us inherently knew but could not articulate.

We form social networks because the benefits of a connected life outweigh the costs.
… The spread of good and valuable things is required to sustain and nourish social networks. Similarly, social networks are required for the spread of good and valuable things - like love, and kindness, and happiness, and altruism, and ideas.
… If we realized how valuable social networks are, we’d spend a lot more time nourishing them and sustaining them.
Because social networks are fundamentally related to goodness, and what the world needs now is more connections.

I think it’s really a wonderful one to think on. The collective good of our social network - the people we love and care for - rises as we invest ourselves in caring for our social network. Yes, I’m for more of that.

Waste Land is the kind of work that stops me dead in my tracks. I take a deep breath and marvel at the stories we are capable of telling. I LOVE this artful, soulful story of restoring humanity to garbage pickers in Brazil. I think this film will be spectacular. And even if it isn’t, I back this effort 100%. So inspiring… I hope to catch a screening soon.

Wasteland is a beautiful and touching documentary as Vik Muniz journeys to his native country Brazil, to Jardim Gramacho, the world’s largest garbage dump. As we get to know the “catadores” or self-designated pickers of recyclable materials, we uncover their dignity and despair. It is a story of how the human spirit can transform garbage into beauty and the power of art to catalyze social change and impact lives. Please go see it! - Judy Ko

The video is in German, but the idea and execution come through fine for us who don't speak German.

Effortless and pervasive status updates are approaching quickly. We're going to figure out some pretty amazing uses for them.

We'll also create and refine the art of turning status updates off, lowering their volume, and living in real life.

It'll all come together. You'll see.

via @swissmiss

I came across an especially smart acquisition campaign by Gilt Groupe on their FB page recently (thanks Kevin). Gilt lets users who ‘Like’ their page preview the sales 1 hour early within a Gilt Facebook app.

• They leverage their leading platform that’s built on the sense of urgency around sales and countdown timers everywhere <- these stress me out!
• They are offering something that’s useful to all of their active users, who will ‘Like’ Gilt and seed the Gilt Page into their News Feeds for their
  friends to notice
• New users are essentially sampling the service and what Gilt sales are made of, and they are driving interest to sign up new Gilt users without
  leaving Facebook

See a screenshot walk-through

Visit Gilt on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/GiltGroupe

via GigaOM

Diplo is an artist who is pushing it: Paper Airplanes, Major Lazer, Maluca Mala, The Cartoon Network, hacked or free music programs enhancing creativity, how hipsters didn't spoil Kuduro, small scenes blowing up with the help of tech, and more.

Every so often I'm totally arrested by a great TED talk. This is one of those.

Update 8/1
This is a timely and related panel (read: slower and more boring than above) from TechCrunch's Social Currency CrunchUp that occurred Fri 7/30

And while I'm updating, I may as well include this watershed talk by Jesse Schell: "The Most Disturbing Presentation Ever: Our Tech Nightmare." While it was delivered a bit tongue in cheek, a lot of people took it at face value. Either way, a pivotal talk on applying game mechanics to our real lives.

Saw my 1st iAd today. I want an app that does nothing but give organized, searchable access to all iAds. Good idea?

Flipboard is a sleek and buzzworthy new interface for media on the iPad - creating your "personalized social magazine."

I really like what @bhargreaves has achieved lately by combining his New York Gaming Meetup with other smart NY meetups. First there was the crossover Art + Gaming in June, and then last night was Gaming + 30.

This panel happened at the 92Y Tribeca, and they really were a thought provoking bunch:
Ben Feder CEO, Take Two Interactive
Stephen Totilo Editor, Kotaku
Eric Zimmerman CEO, GameLab

Here's the livestream of the talk. Check it out if you missed it.

Thanks to @lessin and @bhargreaves for putting this one on!

via http://www.onlinemba.com/blog/apps/

We'd really love to hear what you * have to say about it. *Go to http://brandinfiltration.com/wtf and tell us ~

The Hacks Hackers Meetup last night was a good one. There were demos, and an @meetup preso.

Vox Civitas

A minute-by-minute Twitter text analysis of Obama's State of The Union. You can drill down to see who is tweeting about what when, and even check sentiment during the timeline. You can search keywords and apply filters. And it's all set in sync with the SOTU video.

Make this a tool agencies can buy, please. What metrics provider has built something close to this?


Salubrious Nation

This one presents US Health with demographic data from every county - wow. Beautifully presented. I was lukewarm to the game aspect of it, but it does it's job at jump starting users' exploration into health data. Give it a few clicks.

Daylife

A straight up platform for businesses to obtain and serve content, mostly news stories and photos form what I understood. They were touting their API, and calling for users. Clients already include ABC, Forbes, NPR, USA Today.

Meetup

@heif gave a lively and entertaining preso on Hacks (journalists), Hackers (developers), and the Meetup platform's role in facilitating the two coming together. The new Meetup Everywhere product the first big leap in some time by a company that's been great at iterating and evolving steadily with user feedback.

"The movement of ppl using the Internet to get off the Internet is just beginning to be realized."

The captive audience image from the preso is a winner:

NowSpots was my favorite demo. Real Time ads leverage social media for ad unit content.

There's not much to show yet online, so here's some previous coverage by @mashable:

The Pitch: “To create software that allows news sites to generate revenue from a new kind of ad.”

The project is being led by Brad Flora, the founder of the WindyCitizen, who has tested the concept of real-time ads on his site by creating a widget that features a business’s social updates (i.e. Twitter and Facebook updates). The project would scale this idea to other news organizations that want to integrate it into their sites.

“Display ads suck,” Flora said in his acceptance of the News Challenge Award. “It’s hard to make money with online banner ads.” Flora explained that although small business have not really taken advantage of banner ads or online ads in general, they have jumped to create a social presence with Facebook Pages, Twitter accounts and more. Real-time ads meet them halfway, he said.

What is clever about this idea is that the ads function as a paid social widget that refreshes each time a business updates its status. It’s also interactive, so that users can click to follow the business or retweet or reshare that update, which makes the ads feel different from the traditional banner ads we are used to. Because social updates are not all about promotion, the ads have the potential to add more value.

The notion of eclipsing the banner with social media content in intriguing.

For more on the event and Hacks Hackers, see http://hackshackers.com/.

Love it.

via TypCut and @swissmiss

A great deck from @SteveRubel and @Armano.

/via Visual Economics

Nike's original spot

Some coverage with a POV on copyright