Found this over at O’Reilly Radar. Interesting visualizations that compare the social networks discussing #justinbieber (left) and #teaparty (right).

As you can see, the #teaparty folks are far more connected than their distant #justinbieber cousins. That’s interesting, but not really surprising. The political world has more connective tissue than of-the-moment entertainment.

As Mac Slocum mentions in his post, a lot can be said by visualizing data. “Groschupf didn’t tell me the Tea Party movement is more connected. He showed me.” The Justin Bieber visualization presents a conversation that is dependent upon mass media. The result is a less connected, wider range of receivers.

We all know what happens when a lesser known artist is featured in an Apple commercial. Careers are launched. Artists like Passion Pit stop by TBWA\Chiat\Day to play free gigs and hope for a call.

Of course, it’s not just any lesser known band that finds success, it’s the talented one. This reminds me, PepsiCo’s Bonin Bough often talks about “scaling good ideas.” The company looks for startups with great potential and uses its enormous influence to push things along. Investing in a group like Foursquare speeds up the diffusion of their innovation. Goodness rubs off on both parties. This is why we need to think more like VCs.

A recent Economist article looks at online behavior from an archaeological perspective, observing how users are migrating from blogs to social networks.

Online archaeology can yield surprising results. When John Kelly of Morningside Analytics, a market-research firm, recently pored over data from websites in Indonesia he discovered a “vast field of dead blogs”. Numbering several thousand, they had not been updated since May 2009. Like hastily abandoned cities, they mark the arrival of the Indonesian version of Facebook, the online social network.

Such swathes of digital desert are still rare in the blogosphere. And they should certainly not be taken as evidence that it has started to die. But signs are multiplying that the rate of growth of blogs has slowed in many parts of the world. In some countries growth has even stalled.

Love it. It’ll be interesting to look back in ten or so years and see exactly how things evolved.

“The most interesting trend in the development of the Internet is not how it is changing people’s ways of thinking but how it is adapting to the way that people think.” Great composition for Iron Man 2 by Prologue.

[ht spime]

On Shell’s new Let’s Go advertising push:

As BP repeatedly botches its communications efforts around the environmental disaster that is the worst oil spill in U.S. history, nearly every other oil company has gone silent save one: Shell Oil.

While Ms. Singer said the intention of the campaign was not to separate Shell from BP or the oil spill, some marketing industry executives think the campaign is doing just that. “Everyone in the oil industry has fallen into a deep pit because of this debacle and it’s a mark against the whole category,” said Dean Crutchfield, chief engagement officer at Method, a brand-experience agency. “This is a breakaway campaign for Shell looking to distance itself from BP and what seems to be irresponsibility. It’s a stake in the ground of where Shell wants to go to distance itself from the category.

Great storytelling (ht JWT), and seemingly perfect timing. Loving the Guitar Hero action. Also check out the Kim and Kite spots. More at AdAge here.

This is something that any New Yorker will appreciate. Remember that all too familiar moment of orientation as you surface from the subway system?

A considerate cartographer wielding a stencil and a can of spray paint has left a helpful navigational compass at the top of the stairs outside the NRW train at Prince Street for commuters exiting the station. As even native New Yorkers cant attest, everyone has exited a subway station and needed a moment to reorient themselves; a directional compass will make it that much easier.

When we give up control of our mobility, traveling a city’s underground networks, we easily lose our sense of direction. This seems to be a quick and simple fix. Follow as the story develops at NYC The Blog. HT BERG.

Near Future Laboratory makes an interesting comment on a project out of MIT.

They’ve used a laser beam and a camera sensitive to the light reflected from that beam to track the motion and articulations of one’s hand as it moves and makes mouse-like gestures.

What I find curious here is the way they’ve extended the “mouse” metaphor even when the mouse has become “invisible” — or, rather — those bits of plastic and wire and so forth that constitute the mouse are now no longer necessary. But, we’re still operating with the same movements and gestures as if the mouse were there. Which makes me wonder why go through the hassles of taking it away…

Why take away the mouse when the interaction isn’t improved upon? Here we see an interaction designed for legacy behavior, behavior that was formed because gesture control wasn’t yet possible.

What is this object? According to This Means This, This Means That it is an Inuit map.

It is made from wood. Rather than being visual, it is tactile. The Inuit hold this map under their mittens and feel the contours with their fingers to discern patterns in the coastline. The advantage of this map is that it can be used in the dark, it is weatherproof, it will float if you drop it into the water, and it works at any temperature. It will also last longer than one that is printed.

Desired information should be presented according to a specific situation. Today, we depend on our mobile phones to visually navigate, but this clearly isn’t optimal while on-the-go. Can an iPhone also be enabled with haptic feedback and provide a more ambient means of navigation?