chroma

Flickr Sellout

I've been a Flickr user since pretty much the beginning, and I've avoided moaning about the fact that eventually I'd have to switch to a Yahoo! account to use the service. They kept putting it off, until this week, when all of us old skoolers (their term, not mine!) got an e-mail: we have until March 15 to make the move. Like it or lump it.

I realize it's petty to complain about this, but I did anyway, sending Flickr an e-mail explaining that I like being old skool, and didn't want to change to Yahoo! (I just got a chuckle when I read that I'm not the only one). Of course I don't expect to hear back from them. The only reason I'm bringing it up here is that I really do love Flickr.

I distinctly remember the first time I fooled around on Flickr, I became an instant addict: a major epiphany: AH! this is what the web can become. Look at all these tags, and public photos, and community. I told everyone I knew about this amazing thing they had to check out. From then on, I was sold on what social media was all about. As Fred Wilson points out, Flickr remains the quintessential 2.0 example. Everything is just great about it.

But business is business, the 30 million or so Yahoo paid for Flickr has to be recouped somehow. Call me petty, but it just doesn't feel good to be part of the sellout. Community doesn't stand a chance against the big bucks, and this is something that others will have to face sooner or later (You Tube, and others). Bah!

 

UPDATE: Scott at Publishing 2.0 points to more revolt in the Flickr community.

What's Next for Consumer-Generated Content

This year's Super Bowl will probably mark the moment that consumer-generated content finally jumps the shark. Three advertisers in on the game, and ads made by semi-pros; how exciting.

It didn't take long for it to move through the cycle of being new and kind of interesting (that original Apple ad by the teacher seems like ages ago) to played-out cliche.

If there is anything left in it, though, it will most certainly be nothing but a footnote in media history once You Tube kicks the revenue sharing model into gear. You Tube has been the best example of community and the undeniable pull of attention that has changed the media world, but cold hard $$$$ trumps attention every time.

Will the introduction of money poison the well of the gift economy? Am I too cynical?

(more from Scott Karp and Pete Blackshaw, and Nick Carr who rightly points out that it's only a matter of time until the licensing agreement on You Tube will be an exclusive license. Which will make You Tube pretty much like the Old Media we know and loathe).

Graphic Recording

This is a very impressive "graphic recording" of a talk given by Guy Kawasaki. Isn't it pretty?  (My fetish for infographics grows stronger by the day, I should seek help).

 

via

Creating Passionate Links

This is the most searched-for image that leads people to my weblog. A nifty side-by-side comparison of old and new marketing originally posted over a year ago.

It's from the exceptional Creating Passionate Users, as good a weblog as you will find anywhere. I'm not sure why so many more people are searching it for these days than when it was originally posted. 

Maybe you missed it when it was originally posted, and you'll find it as useful as the dozens of people that have looked for it here?

Person, Place, Thing

I'm stealing the idea of a "Person, Place, Thing" roundup from Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper.

As Faris points out, Talent Imitates, and you know the rest. Each Sunday, I'll post my picks of the notable Person, Place and Thing of the week. So, for this past week:

Person: Isiah Washington, entering "rehab" for anti-gay comments, and helping to take PR and political-correctness to another level. 

Place: It's just a virtual place, but the Plannershere Wiki will hopefully be the place for the world's planners and other wannabes (like me) to geek out.

 

Thing: The Ad Generator.  There's something intrinsically sticky about this idea, it hit a nerve. The fake ads are strange and eerie, and compelling to flip through.

Meet Me at the Plannersphere Wiki

 

Finally. The Plannersphere wiki will be the place to store and build collected planner knowledge, and I for one selfishly look forward to having a lot of questions answered. 

What are the different types of planning out there, as practiced at various agencies? What are the interesting new hybrids we should be aware of? What is the future of planning? What skills do we need to work on and how? When will weblogs kill planning once and for all? 

I'm fairly new at a lot of this, so I have tons of questions. I'm really looking forward to this, I really hope everyone gives 100%. There's an expression I heard once, and I wish I had written down because I can't remember it word for word. It sums up what all this weblog nonsense is about for me, and what I hope will come out of the plannershere wiki:

"If you are really passionate about something, and you meet someone who is as passionate about it as you are, you owe it to that person to tell them everything you know".

(the picture is of the Trinity College Library in Dublin. I like to peek at some Hot Library Smut from time to time)

Snap Off!

i don't know how to thank Ilya enough. I can't stand that Snap browser preview thing that is infesting a lot of website and weblogs that I check out. It drives me nuts, but Ilya at MIT Advertising Lab has this tip:

turn it off by clicking on "options" in the right top corner.

I Don't Get It: Paris, Exposed

I'm starting a new category here at Chroma: I Don't Get It will catalogue all of those things, and there are countless, that I just don't get. Cultural blips on the radar that, try as I may, I can't get my head around.

Rather than explain further, I'll let the first entry speak for itself and what to expect:

Recently, Paris Hilton forgot to pay the monthly fee for her storage locker, so a lot of her stuff was put up for auction. Videos, journals, sex toys, pictures of cocaine snorting, you name it. All that could be YOURS! for the low low monthly fee of, wait for this, $39.95.

"Did she really give Cher's son herpes?" (?!?!?!?)

"See what she buys!"

Just some of the secrets exposed, if you're willing to part with 40 bucks a month.

I'd love to get a clue of what this means for Western civilization, because as it stands: I Don't Get It.

PC Today

 

That's Hattie McDaniel in Gone With the Wind, playing a role that sadly remains a fixture in pop culture: the "big, funny, sassy black woman who teaches whitey how to laugh" (that's from Radar magazine's great roundup of the top ten stereotypes in movie history. They include, among others, such classics as the Asian exchange student! the irie Jamaican! and that same lovable Indian character that has been making cameos since The Party.

Of course, just about all of the stereotypes in the piece make sporadic appearances on commercials to this day. Do any of you fellow Canadians wince at that recent Rogers ad with the big black aunt on the phone?!. Stereotypes like this are just one reason why a lot of ads often seem awkwardly out-of-sync with culture, seemingly suspended in a place and time detached from reality.

I was thinking about stereotypes and racism while watching Grey's Anatomy tonight, because racism and "insensitivity" has been a hot topic over the last couple of weeks or so.  Fans of the show will know about one of the main actors, Isiah Washington, admitting himself into counselling (he likes to call a fellow actor "faggot" a lot, which likely can't be doing much good for his career. In Washington's (own?) words:

"I regard this as a necessary step toward understanding why I did what I did and making sure it never happens again. I appreciate the fact that I have been given this opportunity and I remain committed to transforming my negative actions into positive results, personally and professionally."

WTF? What kind of bullshit is that? Washington is in his 40's, not Grade 3. He's going to talk to someone about using the word "faggot"?  Doesn't this seem a bit odd, and totally contrived? Does anyone buy this?

PC is back, if it ever went away,  but for some reason it just seems slightly surreal and strange to me this time around. The Big Brother incident in the UK is another example which I can't really make sense of. I don't watch the show here, but even reading about the whole thing is a bit crazy. Now the the Indian Government has promised to "take appropriate measures". The Indian Government?! What measures?  I'm lost. I know the two incidents are totally different, but for some reason they give me the same uneasy feeling. Where's Borat when you really need him?

WTF? McD's Subliminal Ad

Was this an accident, or are going back to looking for boobs in ice cubes?