9th November 2006 - World Wide Whatareyouonabout?
Last week Google hit the headlines with an announcement that its UK revenues are expected to reach £920m by the end of 2006.
This is up a staggering 90% year on year and accounts for 46% of all UK online ad spend.
In a 2006 report of the world's richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin was ranked number 26 with a net worth of $12.9 billion, and Larry Page was at number 27 with a net worth of $12.8 billion.
The company is only about 8 years old.
What did you achieve by the age of 33? (and if you’re younger, you better come up with your idea quick – Google reckon their big competition won’t come from an existing player but from a startup)
Now that you’re feeling suitably depressed its time to piss about on the internet and see if anyone else has come up with something worth this kind of cold hard cash.
Well, the good news is you’re still in with a chance, I’ve had a quick look, and certainly none of these will make a billion pounds in the UK anytime soon…
So you’re the marketing manager for Blendtec professional blenders. Boring. Or maybe not.
Will It Blend?
This one is my personal favourite this week. Apparently its done by a random Italian circus company but like all the best things its simple and very very clever
Circoripopolo
Next, this is definitely the cheesiest thing you’ve EVER seen. But (and it’s a big but) imagine using this technology to embed personal details into video for a programme campaign. Steve – get on the case!
Westlife Wedding
And now the obligatory utterly pointless game designed by people who need to get out more (but if you’re going to click on it, put your headphones first for a delightful little song at the start)
Brussel Sprouts
Ok, perhaps its time to stop looking at novelty sites, and move things up a notch.
Ten by Ten is a site that automatically observes what leading international news sources (currently the BBC, Reuters and The New York Times) are saying and showing on their websites, and pulls together one hundred images an hour that represents the world at that moment. The important bit is that it runs with no human intervention, it makes no comment and has no agenda, it simply shows what it finds.
Ten by Ten
If there’s one UK site that really has a seat at the global table, it’s the BBC. So much of what they are doing is deeply impressive. This is my latest favourite. When watching video on their site, you can choose to send a link to a clip of content rather than the whole thing. With incredibly simple “stop/start” editing tools you can select a particular scene and then forward the link to a friend. Give it a go. I’m green with envy.
Seen It
Here’s a germ of an idea that’s not fully executed yet, but you get an idea of what it might become at some stage. Retreivr (hateful web 2.0 name!) allows you to sketch or upload a picture, and Retrievr’s search engine will find all the images in Flickr that match it by colour and shape. At the moment the results are limited. It doesn’t yet have face or object recognition so if you’re drawing a cat you almost certainly won’t get pictures of cats but it does return matches by shape and slabs of colour. Imagine a time sometime soon where a picture editor can search for exactly what they’re looking for with a quick drawing. Or imagine searching for all pictures of yourself on your computer by uploading an image of your face and asking it to find more of the same (this was rumoured to be in the new Windows Operating System out next year). Anyway, try this with simple pictures and low expectations.
Retrievr
Still on the subject of picture recognition, remember a while ago I sent you a site to find your celebrity lookalike via this kind of software? Well, why search for people when you can search for stuff! This site takes that idea, mixes it up with a site like “As Seen On Screen” and voila – find those shiny black shoes that Ray wore on last week’s X Factor. Or not.
Like
As I have made clear before, travel remains one of my enduring new media obsessions (not travel on my computer in virtual reality worlds I hasten to add – but ways the web is making exploration in the real world a whole lot more fun.) Virgin Atlantic do some excellent podcasts which offer city guides to their key destinations, not rocket science but just plain good. You can find out more from the site, or simply search in iTunes. They are free, easy and surprisingly good.
Virgin Podcasts
One step on from this is something I mentioned a while back. Imagine walking tours, or museum or city guides done by people you trust, available on your ipod on demand. At the moment, the one live example available based on walking tours is fairly atrocious. Its American (pronunciations like Shonghai instead of SHANGhai), fairly pricey for each guide, and rather irritating, but it’s STILL a great idea and they cover a lot of destinations.
Tourcaster
Remember all those community sites I sent a while back? Here’s a new one for the list. Friends Abroad puts you in touch with people who speak the language you want to learn and who in turn want to lean English. So if you are desperate (post Borat) for a Kazakhstani penpal to help you get to grips with the nuances of their rich language, this could be the place to start.
Friends Abroad
Finally, why break the habit of a lifetime. I’d better end with something that dumbs the tone down again. This video is mildly amusing, but hover over the bottom of the screen whilst or after enjoying the video, and look at this simple and fairly neat navigation. Quite nice for a video rich site.
Neave
Ok, until next time, by which stage Sergey and Larry will be several trillion pounds richer and lots of time will have been spent in dark rooms trying to come up with something better than the big G. If you figure it out, do make sure you let me know.
This is up a staggering 90% year on year and accounts for 46% of all UK online ad spend.
In a 2006 report of the world's richest people, Forbes reported that Sergey Brin was ranked number 26 with a net worth of $12.9 billion, and Larry Page was at number 27 with a net worth of $12.8 billion.
The company is only about 8 years old.
What did you achieve by the age of 33? (and if you’re younger, you better come up with your idea quick – Google reckon their big competition won’t come from an existing player but from a startup)
Now that you’re feeling suitably depressed its time to piss about on the internet and see if anyone else has come up with something worth this kind of cold hard cash.
Well, the good news is you’re still in with a chance, I’ve had a quick look, and certainly none of these will make a billion pounds in the UK anytime soon…
So you’re the marketing manager for Blendtec professional blenders. Boring. Or maybe not.
Will It Blend?
This one is my personal favourite this week. Apparently its done by a random Italian circus company but like all the best things its simple and very very clever
Circoripopolo
Next, this is definitely the cheesiest thing you’ve EVER seen. But (and it’s a big but) imagine using this technology to embed personal details into video for a programme campaign. Steve – get on the case!
Westlife Wedding
And now the obligatory utterly pointless game designed by people who need to get out more (but if you’re going to click on it, put your headphones first for a delightful little song at the start)
Brussel Sprouts
Ok, perhaps its time to stop looking at novelty sites, and move things up a notch.
Ten by Ten is a site that automatically observes what leading international news sources (currently the BBC, Reuters and The New York Times) are saying and showing on their websites, and pulls together one hundred images an hour that represents the world at that moment. The important bit is that it runs with no human intervention, it makes no comment and has no agenda, it simply shows what it finds.
Ten by Ten
If there’s one UK site that really has a seat at the global table, it’s the BBC. So much of what they are doing is deeply impressive. This is my latest favourite. When watching video on their site, you can choose to send a link to a clip of content rather than the whole thing. With incredibly simple “stop/start” editing tools you can select a particular scene and then forward the link to a friend. Give it a go. I’m green with envy.
Seen It
Here’s a germ of an idea that’s not fully executed yet, but you get an idea of what it might become at some stage. Retreivr (hateful web 2.0 name!) allows you to sketch or upload a picture, and Retrievr’s search engine will find all the images in Flickr that match it by colour and shape. At the moment the results are limited. It doesn’t yet have face or object recognition so if you’re drawing a cat you almost certainly won’t get pictures of cats but it does return matches by shape and slabs of colour. Imagine a time sometime soon where a picture editor can search for exactly what they’re looking for with a quick drawing. Or imagine searching for all pictures of yourself on your computer by uploading an image of your face and asking it to find more of the same (this was rumoured to be in the new Windows Operating System out next year). Anyway, try this with simple pictures and low expectations.
Retrievr
Still on the subject of picture recognition, remember a while ago I sent you a site to find your celebrity lookalike via this kind of software? Well, why search for people when you can search for stuff! This site takes that idea, mixes it up with a site like “As Seen On Screen” and voila – find those shiny black shoes that Ray wore on last week’s X Factor. Or not.
Like
As I have made clear before, travel remains one of my enduring new media obsessions (not travel on my computer in virtual reality worlds I hasten to add – but ways the web is making exploration in the real world a whole lot more fun.) Virgin Atlantic do some excellent podcasts which offer city guides to their key destinations, not rocket science but just plain good. You can find out more from the site, or simply search in iTunes. They are free, easy and surprisingly good.
Virgin Podcasts
One step on from this is something I mentioned a while back. Imagine walking tours, or museum or city guides done by people you trust, available on your ipod on demand. At the moment, the one live example available based on walking tours is fairly atrocious. Its American (pronunciations like Shonghai instead of SHANGhai), fairly pricey for each guide, and rather irritating, but it’s STILL a great idea and they cover a lot of destinations.
Tourcaster
Remember all those community sites I sent a while back? Here’s a new one for the list. Friends Abroad puts you in touch with people who speak the language you want to learn and who in turn want to lean English. So if you are desperate (post Borat) for a Kazakhstani penpal to help you get to grips with the nuances of their rich language, this could be the place to start.
Friends Abroad
Finally, why break the habit of a lifetime. I’d better end with something that dumbs the tone down again. This video is mildly amusing, but hover over the bottom of the screen whilst or after enjoying the video, and look at this simple and fairly neat navigation. Quite nice for a video rich site.
Neave
Ok, until next time, by which stage Sergey and Larry will be several trillion pounds richer and lots of time will have been spent in dark rooms trying to come up with something better than the big G. If you figure it out, do make sure you let me know.
posted by Blach at 5:06 AM
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