End Noise

There are a multitude of articles written about the death of the brands, including this one in Wired. I've been thinking about it and I think that brands aren't dying and, in fact, will become more and more important. Brands function well as being the initial reason to purchase one of their products. If I want a new pair of jeans, my natural instinct is to go to AG jeans. I have worn them in the past and I like the way they look and feel. If I go to a jeans store, I will try those on initially and if they still look good and feel good, I will buy them. To me that is what brands are about. They satisfy the initial impulse when I am shopping and they are my first choice in a sea of options. Since with every passing day, there are more options (for example in the case of jeans, there are new designers that emerge daily), it could be argued that brands are more important. They reduce the confusion and allow me to narrow my focus. I think this is the power of the brand.

If, however, the brand's product fails, the brand is diminished and I will go somewhere else. Since there are so many choices, it means that brands have to focus more and more on quality, since if they disappoint me just once I may be gone forever.

If the Iraqi election leads to elections in Lebanon and Egypt, I'll be scared since the neo-cons will feel completely validated.

NetNewire is a spectacular app for the Mac and a great RSS reader.

Great radio program about the science of Emergence.

The example of how ants are able to find things through a positive feedback loop is fascinating. Essentially disorganized ant colonies are able to find food through such a simple mechanism. One ant that stumbles on food by accident will mark their trail with a scent. This scent will attract another ant who will also drop some scent. This will attract more ants which will in turn draw more ants.

I'm sure the growth of sites such as craigslist, Ebay and especially Friendster undoubtedly arose in popularity on the internet equivalent of this. Sending a site to a friend via IM or email is the internet's version of ant 'pee.'

We can expect rulings like the Think Secret one until the courts make a ruling as to who is and is not a journalist in the digital age. Will there be an official yardstick? Is it the size of the site's readership? Is it sponsorship? Is it the seriousness upon which it covers the news? I assume that at the end of he day, journalism will be the new pornography. It really was a lot simpler when you could identify the journalists because they had a little press pass in their fedora.

According to this CNET article, Friendster will be adding wait for it BLOGS.

Friendster is back! Start sending out the invites!

Oh wait, nevermind. I'm sure this will be as successful as when AOL introduced them. Apparently 'blog' is the 2005 business plan buzzword replacing previous entries like 'click and mortar' and 'B2B.' How long before we get a Pets.com sock-puppet equivalent telling us how cool it is for us to blog on x company's site.

The Amazing Greenspan wows Congressmen with his amazing 'Levitating Pen Trick.'

Small Planet is a software company whose app allows certain Bluetooth-enabled phones to talk to each other and share their owner's profiles with each other. The idea is that if I was walking down Houston, my phone would let me know that a fellow West Wing fan was in the area. Their profile would have their name, pic and a little blurb. While I think this is a cute idea and all, I don't really see it taking off. I am a pretty friendly guy, but the idea of chatting with a random person based on a shared profile element is not appealing to me. I guess, I could ask him 'What's your favorite season?', but I don't really see that happening.

The only way that I see it working is if they join up with someone like Meetup.com. This way if you are at an event (at say a bar or a conference) you can find all of the other people at that meeting. At the few Meetup.com events I have attended, it was annoying (and potentially embarrassing) to figure out who was and was not a part of the actual event versus normal bar patrons. As long as their is a pretext to actually find people, it might work. On the other hand, a sign saying 'Meetup.com Group' would be just as effective.

The internet has really increased the speed of irony. Glakware makes ironic T's with up to the minute statements including Paris Made Me Change My Number. The fact that we are able to go from news story to ironic T in a day or two is somehow awe-inspiring. I wonder if it would be a good business model to sit and watch E! all day and quip over at CafePress.com.