December 2011 // Issue 3

STATE OF AMERICA

Making History, One Tweet At A Time – The Library Of Congress Has Forged An Agreement With Twitter To Access Every Public Tweet In An Effort To Document Our Life And Times Via Today’s Emerging Mass Medium

Via The Next Web

 

BRAVE NEW CONSUMER

Pro-Social Gets Playful – WeTopia, A Free-To-Play Facebook Game, Allows Players To Purchase In-Game Virtual Goods That Result In A Direct Donation To A Real World Cause. Buying An In-Game Fountain, For Instance, Leads To A Donation For Clean Water

Via Venture Beat

 

SMART BRANDS

LivingSocial Drives People To Delightful New Experiences – A Promotion In London Gives Passengers Who Hailed The LivingSocial Cab The Choice To Be Taken To Their Intended Destination Or To “Roll The Die” And Win A LivingSocial Experience. Those Who Agreed Found Themselves Suddenly Taking A Pole-Dancing Class Or Getting A Pedicure, Among Other Activities

 

Via Digital Buzz Blog

 

BRIGHT IDEAS

Top 20 Startups of 2011 – From The Smallest Panoramic Camera In The World To A New Mobile Bank With Access To 40,000 Fee-Free ATMs, These Startups Have Introduced An Exciting Array Of New Ideas To The Marketplace

 

Via Business Insider

 

ON THE RADAR

Follow Me: @freakonomics The Authors Of Freakonomics Offer An Unconventional Take On The Economics Of Human Behavior Today

Watch This: Montblanc Celebrates The Invention Of The Chronograph By Challenging People To Capture The Beauty Of One Second 

Read This: Both Visionary And Practical, Nick Bilton Captures The Zeitgeist Of An Emerging Age, Providing The Understanding Of How A Radically Changed Media World Is Influencing Human Behavior

December 2011 // Issue 2

STATE OF AMERICA

An Emerging Workforce: Micro-Laborers – New Sites And Apps Allow People To Outsource Odd Jobs To A Growing Army Of Temporary Assistants. Thousands Have Parlayed One-Off Job Requests Into Part- Or Full-Time Work.

Via The Wall Street Journal

BRAVE NEW CONSUMER

To Know Me Is To Pay Me – Is Personal Data The Currency Of The 21st Century? Some Startups Are Banking On It.

Via AdAge

SMART BRANDS

Rewarding The “First To Buy” Influential Consumer, Gazelle Goes To The Front Of The Line And Sponsors The First Two People Waiting For The Release Of The iPhone 4S.

Via Mashable

BRIGHT IDEAS

Pardon The Disruption – 10 Bold Thinkers Explain How Push Back Helped Pull Off Their Creative Vision.

Via Fast Company

ON THE RADAR

Follow Me: @medialab News From The MIT Media Lab That Has Been Inventing The Future For The Past 25 Years.

Try Me: Banjo Is An App Which Enables Users To Access Updates In Real Time, Across Multiple Social Networks, From The People Nearest To Them (Sourced Via Geo-Tagged Social Media Updates); Shown Either As A List Or Map View.

Read This: Mark Earls Uses A Diverse Range Of Sources, Anecdotes, And Evidence In Herd To Show That We Are At Heart A ‘We-Species,’ But One Suffering From The ‘Illusion Of I.’