Ion's blog

Shag, via Otomano.

Mr. Jobs, who refused comment for this article, has long turned conventional product announcements into part of the Apple mystique. Since his return to Apple in 1997, he has often unveiled new hardware and software while sitting at a computer keyboard much like a performing concert pianist in front of cheering crowds. “Steve might as well have invented the term ‘event marketing,’ ” said Stewart Alsop, a former Silicon Valley editor and conference promoter who is now a venture partner at New Enterprise Associates. “You focus everything on a moment in time and then persuade everyone to anticipate that moment.”

Apple’s marketing wizard has deftly used speculation about his next commercial move as an essential component of each new product introduction. The company’s customers spend countless hours chattering about whether the company’s next new portable computer will include the G5 chip or if an Apple cellphone or media center is just over the horizon. And while Mr. Jobs has fired and even sued his own employees in the past for leaking information, the first news about some Apple introduction has frequently appeared in a news account, on a Web site or, occasionally, in business newspapers in China or Taiwan where the company’s products are manufactured.

In the personal computer industry, where Mr. Jobs’s company still has a tiny market share, his ability to attract a disproportionate share of media attention has long irritated his competitors. Once, shortly after Mr. Jobs introduced a new version of his iMac consumer PC, his rival, Bill Gates of Microsoft, groused that Apple’s innovation was confined to colored plastic.

Uno todav

I just saw this new (I assume it’s new) thing on Amazon moments ago, and I’m blown away. I ran across SIPs on the Gonzo Marketing page, where two “statistically improbable phrases” are listed for the book, to wit: “public journalism” and “market advocacy.”

I “discovered” this using Safari. Checking the page with IE, Firefox and Netscape, I don’t see the SIPs. I assume they must be coming in other browsers, but for now, that seems to be the way it is. Here’s what Amazon says about the service:

Amazon.com’s Statistically Improbable Phrases, or “SIPs”, show you the interesting, distinctive, or unlikely phrases that occur in the text of books in Search Inside the Book. Our computers scan the text of all books in the Search Inside program. If they find a phrase that occurs a large number of times in a particular book relative to how many times it occurs across all Search Inside books, that phrase is a SIP in that book.

Once we identify a phrase that is statistically improbable:
For books where the phrase is a SIP, we provide an exact count of and link to the occurrences in those books.
For books where the phrase merely appears in the book, we provide a link to those occurrences
We also display a link to search A9.com for the phrase

Have some ideas for improving this feature? Please send your feedback to sitb-feedback@amazon.com

Whoa, wait… This is weird. They must be developing this thing as I’m writing, because I just went back to that page, and now it includes not just the two phrases above, but also: cause marketing, social marketing, gonzo journalism, permission marketing, broadcast model, cause related marketing, worst practices, and broadcast advertising. Whatever browser you’re using, I assume you can see the A9-assisted search results for worst practices. Holy moly.

—

Sin embargo, metamos en el juego un componente interesante:

SK Glenn Davis to describe his weeklong silent retreat, and he’s almost at a loss for words. Here, finally, is what he comes up with: “It’s the best vacation I’ve ever had.”

A fan of the Transcendental Meditation courses, oil massages and herbal treatments offered by the Raj, an ayurvedic spa in Fairfield, Iowa, Mr. Davis, 53, a car dealer in Richboro, Pa., eagerly signed on six years ago when he learned of a program that would let him experience the classes and bodywork in silence. “The whole idea behind T.M. is that you’re silent during the meditation, and this was a chance to be in silence for an entire week. It’s so restful,” said Mr. Davis, who has also attended silent retreats in Livingston Manor, N.Y., and Heavenly Mountain Resort near Boone, N.C., sometimes accompanied by a friend in the construction business. “Your whole life is focused outward, and this was an opportunity to get to a very deep state of rest. You don’t realize how much effort it takes to talk until you’re not doing it.”

Este fin de semana lo he pasado, las 48 horas, sin decir palabra. Dos frases imprescindibles: “Big coffee and a blueberry muffin, please”, “a refill please”, y una no prevista, cuando me preguntaron d

For her younger daughter’s first birthday, she and her husband paid $50 to rent a clubhouse, $200 for machines to dispense cotton candy, hot dogs and popcorn, and $250 for a woman to give a Little Mermaid performance.

For another birthday, Ms. Szarka hired a $100 face painter for 20 guests, as well as a tea party organizer for $300, so the kids could don princess costumes and enjoy a tea party with miniature fine china.

“I like making my kids feel special,” she said. “It’s the one day of the year where the focus is all on them. We spend a lot, but we don’t buy them as many toys and we only do it once a year.”

Parents like Ms. Szarka were clearly on Charlotte Cassese’s mind when she opened a birthday party center called Glam Jam last spring in Randolph.

For $300, parents can give a party for 10 girls at Glam Jam’s warehouse operation, where guests create their own lotions, lip gloss and eye shadow. The girls, ages 6 and up, can then get their faces painted and dress up in boas and sunglasses for a red-carpet fashion show. A big-screen TV projects their images as they strut down the carpet. Parents can buy their own video of the show before they leave the event.

De c

MR. ALLEN’S prescription includes systems for getting all obligations – for work, home, hobbies – collected and written down in one place. (Actually doing them, of course, is a different matter.) With ResultsManager, users are encouraged to create a MindManager “map” for each project or obligation they take on – planning a vacation, making sales calls, writing a report. The related activities for each project are thus grouped in one place, but the program can sweep through all the projects and produce a functional “dashboard” of tasks to be done today, tasks that can be done at a computer, tasks of the highest priority and so on. It works better than it might sound. With some difficulty, items in the dashboards can be synchronized with the task list in Microsoft Outlook.

Both of these visually oriented and, therefore, right-brain programs take getting used to and require tinkering to bring out their best. That is why my left brain accepts them, too.

Estoy pensando en una entrada sobre la muerte (o no) de una “serendipity”, anal

Nada especial en este art

La imagen llega via Brooklyn Bridge, y coincide bien con la aparici

The participant reclines on the Bodyshelf, a furniture with embedded
sensors, smart materials and computer vision recognition. This tangible interface detects subtle bodily movements and gestures. By moving their bodies, people instigate Intimate Transactions, which generate an evolving, flowing combination of ghostly bodies, dynamic texts and spatial sound.

The shared experience allows each participant to gradually develop a form of sensory intimacy with the other, even though they are geographically separated and cannot physically see or hear each other.

La instalaci