Wednesday, November 2, 2011

New Music : 3D Na'Tee-Switch

Ignore the extreme homemade quality of video. Listen to the flow. 

It's refreshing to hear female voice absent of ticks, weird accents and monster voices. 


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Like Crazy

As most critics have noted it is a GOOD movie. 

 

Well directed, brilliant acting from the leads and beautifully shot. 

I have a bit of a soft spot for melancholy films so I quite enjoyed it. However, while I considered it a GOOD film it never became great film for me because I found the main characters Jacob and Anna unlikeable. 

I found them incredibly selfish and impulsive. I'd call them assholes but they are beautiful assholes who hand make chairs and recite poetry in a lovely British accent so I guess that gives them a pass (I dunno maybe). 

As an aside I loved Alex Kingston and Oliver Muirhead as the parents of Felicity Jones' Anna.

Solid B+. Go check it out. 

 

Like-crazy-poster-1

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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

I am my own boss try it out for yourself.

Hi Friend!
my options were fading fast I decided to just dive right into this now I live a luxurious life seriously the sky is the limit
http://www.grupicoane.home.ro/WayneJones45.html
goodbye

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Monday, October 3, 2011

Video of the Day: "Being Elmo" Trailer


This looks lovely. 

There is no denying the cultural impact of Elmo and Kevin Clash's ability to bring so much heart and humor to a bit of felt. 

I'm definitely going to check this out. 

Also P.S. Elmo dancing to Lady Gaga. 

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Friday, September 30, 2011

Video of the Day: Adele's "Someone Like You"

I can not get enough of this song. 

Adele looks as beautiful as ever with an equally gorgeous Parisian backdrop. 


(P.S. I think I need that coat)

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Wednesday, September 14, 2011

ABC + Gilt Offering Free Online Screening of new series Revenge

Gilt_revenge

Pre-premiere online streams are nothing new, but this is the first time I've seen free screening access distributed via Gilt. 

Its a smart way to drive awareness for the sereis to a substantial audience of Gilt City subscribers.  

I'd heard of the series and was interested in the cheesy fun of it. I'll probably check out the online episode. 

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Wednesday, June 29, 2011

Which Website is Right for Me

Serious Shoes: 8 inch Louboutins en pointe

Ballet_louboutin

All for a good cause to raise money for the English National Ballet whose funds were recently cut. 

Beautiful shoes but just looking at them make my feet hurt.  

These would be perfect for Daphne Guinness or Gaga. 

via The Fashion Bomb 

Full story here: http://bit.ly/jaHwYh

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Wednesday, June 15, 2011

Monday, June 13, 2011

Why Groupon Is Poised For Collapse

Groupon is essentially holding a portfolio of loans backed by the receivables of small businesses. If a business goes under, consumers will come back to Groupon for their money back. Unless Groupon is actually doing credit assessments on businesses that it chooses to feature, this is a big risk for Groupon.

The onerous terms for participating in Groupon also create an adverse selection problem. The most successful businesses don’t need Groupon for customer acquisition or financing.

The assumption is that nothing will go wrong and all of these “loans” will be paid back. (At least the subprime mortgage lenders were able to sell that risk off to Wall Street and AIG.)

Like the mortgage lenders, Groupon doesn’t know exactly how much risk it has piled up. Because some merchants track redemptions on paper, Groupon has no way of knowing how many unredeemed Groupons are outstanding. If a business goes under and the records are unavailable, every buyer of that Groupon could try to make a claim against it. (The risk is mitigated by the fact that a lot of redemption occurs within the first 60 days, but we don’t know how much.)

Google, with more than $36 billion in cash on hand, is uncomfortable enough with that risk that it dumps it onto Google Offers buyers. Groupon could mitigate this risk by changing its terms and conditions so that the consumer is responsible in case a merchant goes bankrupt.

Relying on float

Where does Groupon get all the money to give to these merchants? Credit cards—yours. Groupon gets paid within a couple of days by its banks. It then takes that money and gives it to the merchant in three chunks. From Groupon’s S-1:

Our merchant payment terms and revenue growth have provided us with operating cash flow to fund our working capital needs. Our merchant arrangements are generally structured such that we collect cash up front when our customers purchase Groupons and make payments to our merchants at a subsequent date. In North America, we typically pay our merchants in installments within sixty days after the Groupon is sold.

We use the operating cash flow provided by our merchant payment terms and revenue growth to fund our working capital needs. If we offer our merchants more favorable or accelerated payment terms or our revenue does not continue to grow in the future, our operating cash flow and results of operations could be adversely impacted and we may have to seek alternative financing to fund our working capital needs.

Translation: They’re using money from new deals to pay for previous deals. They need to keep growing revenue. As of March 31, they owed merchants $290.7 million.

In the agreement I’ve seen, the first installment is 33% in 5 days. If they have to pay merchants faster, that could lead to problems.

And Google might force that to happen. According to Google Offers’ payment terms, merchants receive 80% of their share in 4 days—more than twice as much, 1 day earlier.

There’s no way that was an accident.

If Groupon matches these payment terms, they’ll need cash faster and need to grow faster. (Google Offers accelerates the rate at which Groupon’s scheme has to draw in new suckers.)  If Groupon doesn’t match, it gives Google a key differentiator to win deals. If those businesses  go with Google’s more generous terms, that too will starve Groupon of the cash it needs to pay earlier merchants.

Now here’s the crazy part.  Not only is Groupon effectively giving loans to merchants, but it also works the other way around.  The merchant is on the hook for the entire value of those deals until Groupon pays the merchant back its portion.  Unlike other loan providers, the merchant is making a short-term loan to Groupon. (Not technically, but effectively.) They buy inventory in advance of the Groupon run. They also serve the initial rush of customers. The business is in a hole before they get their 30- and 60-day Groupon payouts.

While the chances might be small, Groupon merchants should know that they’re taking on the risk of Groupon’s collapse. If Groupon collapses, a lot of small merchants could be left holding the bag.

If you know of a business that closed after running a Groupon or other daily deal, please send an email with the name of the business to dailydeals@agrawals.org. And remember, correlation is not causation.

Photo credits: Rachel Lovinger and Rocky Agrawal.

Groupon image

Website: groupon.com
Location:Chicago, Illinois, United States
Founded: November 11, 2008
Funding: $1.14B

Groupon (www.groupon.com) features a daily deal on the best stuff to do, see, eat, and buy in more than 565 cities around the world. By promising businesses a minimum number of customers, Groupon can offer deals that aren’t available elsewhere.

Learn More

Information provided by CrunchBase

Really interesting read.

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Maybe next time Bron Bron ...

Friday, June 10, 2011

Thursday, June 9, 2011

Thursday Morning Jams: Kilo Ali - Baby, Baby

Thanks to my friends from the dirty for introducing me to Kilo freshman year of college. 

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Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Tuesday Morning Jams (The Classic Reggae Edition): Foxy Brow "Sorry"

If you claim to like reggae and don't know this song. FAIL. 

Brings back memories of being little and dancing around the house to WLIB with my mom and sisters. 

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Monday, May 23, 2011

What I’m Digging Right Now: Black Orpheus


Black-orpheus_3
I recent
ly re-watched the 1959 Brazilian film Black Orpheus  which, made obvious by the title, is a retelling of the classic Greek myth of Orpheus and Eurydice.

 

The film is set in a favela of Rio during caraval and if you have not seen it, it is a riot of color, beauty  and drama all set to a samba beat.

 

What really struck me while watching it is the pervasiveness of black culture in the film. I rarely see the  African elements of Brazilian society emphasised in popular culture (or at least what gets exported to the states), however it is the focus of this film from the people of the favela to the music to the Candomblé ceremony at the end.

 

Black_orpheus1
Black_orpheus_4
From an aesthetic perspective I am in love with costume design with the bright colors and the 50's feminine silhouettes .  

Black_orpheus_2

I’m inspired to incorporate these  into my summer wardrobe making bright dresses with nipped in waists a staple.  Something like this Boxing KItten dress would be right up my alley. 

 

Boxing_kitten_1
If you haven’t seen it I highly recommended checking it out.

 

Also I’ve been taking Samba classes at Alvin Ailey on Wednesdays from 7:30-9. If you are in NYC I really really recommend.  Come shake your ass with me.

 http://www.alvinailey.org/beginner-samba/afro-brazilian
Black-orpheus_5

 

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Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Muppet X-Men

Ads that I'm loving: Volkswagen PiƱata

Things I love about this:

1. The intensity of the kid wailing on the piƱata

2. The fact that the car is not shown until the last 5 seconds of the spot but we still get the key takeaway about the car's durability without the clichĆ©d images of a car driving through rough terrain . Thanks Volkswagon for recognizing that the public is smart enough to put 2 & 2 together.  

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Monday, May 2, 2011

Single Serving Site of the Day: http://obamakilledosama.com/

Coincidence? The into to N.O.R.E’s SuperThug and the Bin Laden’s final whereabouts.

I know I’m weird but when I heard about the mansion in Pakistan this is what came to mind.



Lyrics 

Im Im actually waitin on the boss now
He said we have some kind of special assignment or something
Hes supposed to be callin me like any minute now any minute
Hold on hold on lemme get the phone
Hello? Jackson here
Ya what? you found (Manuel Noreaga) Osama Bin Laden ?
In (the Phillipines) Pakistan?
He has a mansion?
Ok we on it on it right now... right






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Abbottabad resident unwittingly live-tweeted the US assault on Osama bin Laden’s compound

Wednesday, April 13, 2011

Read Write Web: 2011: The Year the Check-in Died

Guest author Mark Watkins is the CEO and co-founder of Goby, an inspiration engine for finding fun things to do. Prior to Goby Mark led R&D at Endeca, a search and business intelligence software company. You can follow him at @viking2917.

In July 2010, Foursquare had 2 million users performing 1 million check-ins per day. By the end of the year, that number had risen to 5 million users performing 2 million check-ins per day. Impressive growth, yet this means check-ins per user declined from 0.5 per person to 0.4. It also suggests that many of those five million users aren't active.

The trend for Facebook Places is even worse. Facebook had at least 30 million members check in at least once in a shorter time frame as a newer service with a larger built in user base. Yet Facebook Places offers even less value than a Foursquare check-in. There are no points to win and no discovery element like tips; it's just a flat statement that, "I am at Starbucks." As a result, early indications are that Facebook check-ins strongly lag Foursquare check-ins.

The other day, I checked in for lunch at the Ace Hotel in New York City, an epicenter of the digital elite, and, according the Foursquare, the single most checked-into hotel in the world. The place was packed and I could barely get through the door, much less find a place to sit down. Yet, over the course of my two-hour stay, only three other people checked in.

Why Check-ins Are Going to Falter

In 2011 check-ins are going to go the way of the eight-track tape and disappear. You probably already see this happening. How many of your friends are consistently checking in and broadcasting? How many "I just ousted Fred as the mayor of Starbucks" messages do you see in your stream? Across my network - a large and tech-savvy network - I see less than 1% of people checking in on any service, and the trend is down. Some people are undoubtedly checking in privately, but that has major (negative) implications for how a service can spread.

Both Yelp and Facebook have the advantage of huge audiences who visit the services with a clear purpose. People are on Facebook to socialize, and on Yelp looking for a great restaurant. Check-in services aren't going to replicate this scale or focus of audience in the short run, making it hard to make check-ins a mainstream activity. A number of check-in services have effectively already thrown in the towel; BriteKite abandoned its check-ins entirely and Gowalla integrated itself with Facebook and Foursquare check-ins.

All of this doesn't mean, however, that Gowalla, Foursquare, MyTown, Loopt and all the services with check-ins at their core are necessarily going out of business. It does mean they need to find a way to deliver deep value to people beyond the check-in. And unless Facebook and Google provide more value than they currently do, their check-in services will languish as well.

Let's take a look at why check-ins are going to falter and then explore some areas for delivery of deep, lasting value.

Why do people check in? Why should they?


  • Finding people near you, a.k.a. serendipity: When your friends happen to be at the same location, it's like magic. Especially useful at conferences, this is check-ins at their best.
  • Points and the hoped-for rewards: Whether it is rewards on SCVNGR or deals on Foursquare, people hope to get a discount: a free appetizer, a dollar off coffee. These deals are in their very early stages on location-based services.
  • To remember things: In new cities or new venues, I'll often check in (privately) just to remember the place I went. Marshall Kirkpatrick has discussed this use case as well.
  • Personal branding: While most people wouldn't use this term, it is what's going on. People are creating a personal online identity for themselves, showcasing who they are by telling everyone what they're doing. (Less charitably: they're bragging, and I'm just as guilty of it as most).

Here's why none of these are going to lead to significant growth for the LBS players.

  • The serendipity factor is very much a creature of big cities, certain demographic segments, and New York in particular. If you're in New York, where all your friends are within 10 blocks of you and can quickly get from one location to the next, this is actually awesome. But it's not so hot in big cities like Los Angeles that are too spread out for these serendipitous moments to happen.
  • Games are fun for about two weeks, but most don't have staying power. Like a lot of folks, I really dig Call of Duty: Black Ops, but I can only kill so many zombies before it's time to do something else. Games are a novelty and have a very finite shelf life. So long as check-ins are "just a game", they'll be subject to the short life cycle of a game.
  • Remembering things holds promise of long-term value; a digital memory bank of places I've been could be really handy. It's just not clear that most people really need it. Unless you spend all your time traveling and going new places, there's just not that much to remember.
  • Personal branding is most common amongst the digital elite - the bloggers, social media mavens, tech execs (ok, I plead guilty). Outside a niche set of people who want the personal branding (or ego boost) of the check-in, most people not only don't want to check-in, but they don't know why they should. Most women I talk to are creeped out by broadcasting their location.
Next page: How do check-in services go mainstream?

Photo by KecMec

Page:  1   2  Next  »

Interesting post by Mark Watkins.

I personally rarely use Foursquare any more. I forget to check in and there is no real incentive for me to share my location.

The few times I do use it generally are in restaurants to view tips and recommendations.

I wonder what this means for the new wave of "check-in" platforms like Get Glue.

Perhaps consumers are reaching some type of threshold for adopting new platforms and social behaviors.

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Thursday, March 31, 2011

Video of the Day: Woodkid's "Iron"

Circling around the office @BBH today.

Arresting music and imagery.

Although I'm kind of not into the Agyness Deyn appearance. 

 

Woodkid - Iron from WOODKID on Vimeo.

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Game of Thrones vs. Camelot : Food Truck Face-Off

In the HBO v. Starz marketing showdown between epic, old-timey fantasy series there is an interesting duplicate effort in terms of using food trucks as a promotional tool. 


In one corner we have HBO's Game of Thrones with a food truck featuring meals created by celebrity chef  Tom Colicchio.

Got-food-truck

In the other corner we have Starz' Camelot with a "traveling dining hall' featuring free turkey legs. 

Camelot

FREE TURKEY LEGS!!!!!!!!


The weather in NYC is shit today so it's unlikely I will be trying the food at either but regardless of my enthusiasm for smoked poultry, the HBO option clearly wins.  

 

I will still absolutely watch both shows. 


Has anyone had a chance to check these out?

 

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Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Living With Chronic Bitchface

Story_of_my_life

This is the story of my life. 

Kristina at http://blog.krisatomic.com/ girl we are soo on the same page. 

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Friday, February 25, 2011

Dope Kickstarter Project: Black: A Solo Exhibition with Russell K. Frederick

Oscar Predictions

Oh you thought these would come from me?

I have legit to add to the conversation BUT my friend Cory is a big film nerd and he has some intersting predictions. 

Check em out: http://modage.tumblr.com/post/3503622079/oscar-picks-predictions

All I can say is I hope Annette Benning doesent win. I thought she was overly shrill and obvious and has been playing that same role since American Beauty. Also the thought of giving her the award as a consolation after loosing twice before is absurd. 

 

 

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Aural Cure for Rainy Days

Weather sucks and I am on the brink of letting my co-workers know what I actually think. 

Guaranteed pick me up -- Mr. Stevie Wonder ya'll. 

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Thursday, February 24, 2011

Oscar Talk with Mike Tyson & Leonard Maltin

<div style="text-align:left;font-size:x-small;margin-top:0;width:512px;">Oscar Talk with Mike Tyson & Leonard Maltin from Mike Tyson</div>

 

<p>

Not going to lie. I have kind of a soft spot for Iron Mike after the documentary Tyson. 

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Friday, January 28, 2011

T-Pain Got a Facebook 'Like' Button Tattoo

Via Gawker

I mean. At least it's not an ice-cream cone with lightning on his face...

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Thursday, January 27, 2011

If the Best Picture nominee posters told the truth

Questionable Casting: 'The Dark Tower', Javier Bardem offered lead role as Roland in Stephen King adaptation

I may have mentioned this before but I am kind of a nerd. 

And in true nerd fashion I have read many many Stephen King books.

As a true fan of King I have spent dozens of hours pouring over his epic "Dark Tower" series and waited for the day when the books would be brought to life via film. 

So the thing is: A. a movie is actually happening and B. Javier Bardem has been offered the lead as Rowland. 

I mean, yay awesome Javier is talented and all but since King has freely admitted that Rowland was modeled after a 1970's Clint Eastwood, Javier just does not compute. 

My ideal casting for Rowland would have been Daniel Craig who has the right look and evidenced by his portrayal of Bond can do the cold-hearted bastard that we all learn to love very well. 

Hmm.. let's see where this goes. 

Full story at EW.com http://bit.ly/gwnJwZ

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Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Ted Talks: Drawing upon humor for change

Great video from TedWomen featuring New Yorker cartoonist Liza Donnelly who uses her cartoons to talk about ways women can use humor to break gender norms.

 

 

For more on funny women shaking things up, I highly recommend watching the documentary "Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work" (it's on Netflix instant streaming). Joan is a bundle of contradictions when it comes to feminism but its hard to deny what she has done for women in comedy and entertainment, and if you watch E!'s Fashion Police you see she is still funny as hell.

 

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Jean Claude Van Damme + Dubstep = Whaa??

I don't know what this video has to do with anything but I am in to the sweet sweet 80's dance moves of Mr. Van Damme. 

(ganked from Street Carnage) 

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See little kids act out Oscar nominated films that are totally inappropriate for little kids.

The Fighter:

 

Watch more Kids Act Out videos on AOL Video

 

127 Hours:

 

You’re watching Kids Act Out - 127 Hours. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

 

The Social Network:

 

You’re watching Kids Act Out - The Social Network. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

 

Black Swan:

 

You’re watching Kids Act Out - Black Swan. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

 

The King's Speech:

 

You’re watching Kids Act Out - The King’s Speech. See the Web's top videos on AOL Video

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Video of the Day: Confessions of a Disney Employee

You must watch the whole thing. 

P.S. WHERE can I get actual Gummy Berry juice?

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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Random News of the Day: Tom Hanks has a kid who is a rapper

Via @Gawker

So from what I understand Tom Hanks has two kids in the entertainment industry: 

1. Colin Hanks, an actor who credits include Mad Men and the surprisingly amusing (to say funny would be pushing it) The House Bunny. 

2. Then there Chet Hanks aka Chet Haze, student/rapper/man about town.

Check the rhyming skillz before it gets pulled but really?

P.S.
Not gonna lie Chet is kind of cute (at least in this pic)

P.S.S
Can we agree that Chet is kind of an awesomely bad name?


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Odd Facebook Promotion of the Day: Dentyne

This is so random I'm intrigued. 

Dentyne Gum + Marlon Wayans (star of films such as Marmaduke, Dungeons & Dragons and Thugaboo) + Sprint 


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