April 30, 2006
untitled 318
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Somewhere along the line a belief was generated that if you want to see the artist’s work on your wall, you have to pay money for the privilege. And not just to the artist- but a whole string of middlemen: gallerists, publishers, dealers, framers, art retailers etc. Everyone is entitled to a slice of your dollar, yessiree.
And you don’t mind paying the big bucks, do you? No, because I’m a celebrity, and you’re in my thrall. You’ve read the right magazines, you’ve seen me partying with the rock stars, you know how hot I am. It’s all about me and my friends, you and your kind don’t really matter. You’re just lucky you can afford to by a small table at the party me and my people get paid to attend. Maybe we'll even let you talk to us.
Whatever. It’s a chronically inefficient, expensive and defective system that simply does not work for the vast majority of artists. A chronically defective system based on 20th Century ideas about art, celebrity and commerce.
Which is why I gladly encourage folk to download my work and post it on their walls instead. I want to make the process as friction-free as possible. I want the people who like my work to enjoy it with a minimum of fuss. I don’t need their money. I can make money other ways.
And it’s starting to pay off. When I hung a drawing in a gallery in my early-90s hipster art scene days, I was lucky if 200 people ended up seeing it. But now every time I post a new drawing on gapingvoid, maybe thousands of people see it. Sure, it took me five years of posting every day before hitting critical mass, but who cares? It now creates far more economic opportunity than any gallery owner could ever possibly hope to offer.
If you’re an artist, and you want a glimpse of the future, forget the gallery scene. They don’t know anything. Check out the internet instead. That’s where the action is.
April 29, 2006
i had just sold the client
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stormhoek cartoon label
I want to use my cartoons for the new Stormhoek label design, starting later this year.
The plan is not to do typical wine-related messages in the cartoons, but unrelated messages like this or this.
Think about it- you're walking down the aisle in the wine section of the supermarket, and instead of the usual wine-related messages being broadcasted at you from the bottles, you see something more like this, or this. Edgy, random, a conversation starter etc.
Obviously, if you're familiar with my work, you'll understand the story. But methinks it'll work for the "virgins", as well.
Anybody?
[UPDATE: To see the new label designs as they're rolled out, go here.]
will myspace
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[Inspired by Technology Evangelist's recent post.]
dulce et decormum est
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[Hat Tip: Wilfred Owen 1893-1918]
April 28, 2006
a blog gets the audience it deserves
PT just asked me the following quetion:
What exactly is the use of blogging if you have no idea often who it is you are talking to? In other words - are they bright? Are thay sane? Are they knowledgable about the things they purport to be? If it is simply an uncontrolled medium through which anyone can say anything then it seems to me it will become no more than a modern day Tower of Babel.The short answer is; a blog gets the audience it deserves. If the people reading and leaving comments on your blog are a bunch of losers and idiots, it might have more to do with the quality of what you write, and the vigilance with which you monitor your comments, than any limitations of the media.I do however accept that the technology is here - but how to make it really useful?
You're right, the technology is there. Everything else is up to you.
April 27, 2006
looks like it was just a rumor...
Just got an e-mail from Rick Segal a few minutes ago:
I'm in China right now, typing this via my EVDO card on China mobile, looking at Technorati...Looks like the rumor that China had shut down Technorati was a bit premature.
Anybody?
cull the weak etc
Nice thought from Marketer's Eye:
For what it is worth, I don’t care if “Blogs as a business model” has “peaked”. If it has, then some of the heart-not-in-it folks will drop off and clear the air a bit. You can’t force a good blog, and it is painful to see some people try, convinced that it will be profitable if they can just force it long enough.
BBC goes 2.0
MediaGuardian.co.uk: "The BBC today unveiled radical plans to rebuild its website around user-generated content, including blogs and home videos, with the aim of creating a public service version of MySpace.com."Not sure how big a story this is. Centralized social media? Huh? I already have a blog. Why do I need them?
[Link: Rubel]
April 26, 2006
first it was google...
Now it seems China is blocking Technorati.
Anybody?
[UPDATE:] Looks like it was only a rumor. Good news.
nice thought:
Everyone wants to feel as if they are a part of something important. You, me and just about every person I've ever met. So let me ask you this.. what is your purpose? As a leader what do you convey to the people under you?
first geek dinner in san antonio
The very first Stormhoek 100 Geek Dinner is about to launch, on May 1st, in San Antonio, Texas. Says Kami:
If you will be in San Antonio on May 1 and want to meet up with us, please contact me via e-mail at kami (at) yahoo (dot) com. I need a head count pretty quickly because Stormhoek needs to know how much wine to send.Thanks, Kami! This totally rocks.We haven’t settled on a final location yet, but we are looking at Central Market, 12 noon on May 1, 2006. I will keep the RSVP crowd apprised on the final location via e-mail and I will also post it the day of the event here.
I love San Antonio. Used to go there occasionally, back in my UT college days in Austin.
Wow. This is all becoming real. Very exciting.
Not sure how it all happened exactly, but the gapingvoid DNA and the Stormhoek DNA are becoming more and more intertwined by the day [I suppose this was the tipping point.].
We're hoping to have the cartoons adorning the Stormhoek bottle labels by year's end. The edgier, the better [Within reason, of course- no point doing it if we offend all the wine retailers, and they end up dropping us en masse etc].
But... and I think Seth would agree with me here, if you're a small [wine] company, located 6,000 miles away from your customers, and have the marketing budget of a flea, then you have to push the edges.
I don't see any other alternative. Do you?
[UPDATE:] Good Grape has a REALLY good synopsis of the Stormhoek campaign:
What's happening here is very interesting and compelling. If the wine delivers, this could be the seeds of the next great wine case study ala Yellowtail.
98052
98052 is the zip code for Redmond, Washington, corporate HQ of Microsoft.
Full story here and here.
crime-infested urban cesspool
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entrepreneurs don't need money
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April 25, 2006
we need to re-invent
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Robert Scoble, Microsoft’s high profile blogger, went on a blog holiday for the past week and it obviously gave him time to do some serious thinking.He has posted a marathon post which posits five ways to improve Microsoft’s image both internally and externally.
What are his five suggestions?
* A guaranteed Terabyte of Internet-based storage space for EVERYTHING and for EVERYONE running Windows in the world.
* buy every [Microsoft] employee a top-of-the-line Dell machine with dual monitors running Windows Vista. And do it now.
* Change employee behavior through public compensation change logs.
* Get rid of corporate speed bumps.
* Force marketers to explain their decisions — in public on their blogs.
I'm still not sure what Microsoft's "Big Idea" is. Except maybe protecting what they already have, of course. Maybe that's enough. Maybe it isn't. Time will tell. I wish them Godspeed.
April 24, 2006
small world (in tokyo)
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Chris Heathcoate, a British blogger who works for Nokia in Helsinki [I hung out with him at Reboot last year in Copenhagen], was recently in the Hotel Miyako in Tokyo, when he went into the hotel men's room. There he stumbled across a framed gapingvoid print. Small world.
[Back story:] The manager of the hotel is an old friend of my cousin. The former bought the print off me a few years ago.
gapinvoid widget
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Following my conversation with Michael and the Gillmor Gang a week or two ago, I've decided to build the widget.
Here's some ideas:
That's the basic idea. Have I left anything out?
1. The widget will allow anyone to have regularly-updated gapingvoid cartoons published on their website or blogs, fed through via RSS.2. The widget will be paid for via text ads- Google, Yahoo, or whoever, with some sort of revenue split between me and the subscribers.
3. The widget will come in two versions i.e. large and small. The big one [1] will be about 400 pixels wide, the small one [2] will be about 150 pixels wide,the latter good for fitting on blog sidebars. Visitors to the blog will click on it and the full-size widget [1] would pop up etc.
4. Because of the adult nature of some (but not all) of my cartoons, there would have to be some sort of filter, designed to suit the nature of the subscirber and his/her readers. Ergo, every cartoon will be tagged either "Safe", "Semi-filtered" or "Unfiltered", so that the subscriber can choose what level of filter he/she wishes to have.
I don't know how feasible an advertising revenue split is, technologically. But I would prefer it if there was. If anyone has a friend at Yahoo, Google, or anywhere else that deals with this stuff, please let them know I wish to start a conversation.
Thanks, as always, for all your help and goodwill. Rock on.
April 23, 2006
wrong question:
Wrong Question: "What If Media 2.0 Is Less Profitable Than Media 1.0?"
Right Answer: Nobody cares.
"authority aggregator"
A client of mine needs something built.
Basically, it's an "authority aggregator" like Memeorandum, Megite, Tailrank etc.
But instead of it being about tech or politics or whatever, it aggregates stories specifically pertaining to my client's industry, identifies the most authoritative stories from the most authoratative sources, and then posts them online in simple, aggregated form.
So if you think you can help and could use some business, please drop me an e-mail. Thanks.
April 22, 2006
April 21, 2006
i have measured my life out
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[Hat tip to The Master.]
April 20, 2006
hughtrain stormhoek
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A little Hughtrain-inspired piece of Stormhoek marketing collateral. What do you think?
April 19, 2006
LE1600 lust
For the last two months, I've been drawing my cartoons on the M1400 PC Tablet [the cartoon above was the first Tablet cartoon I published], which Motion Computing no longer makes.
It has been replaced by their new LE1600 model, which I now find myself lusting after [naturally].
The spec diffferences between the two models are posted here in PDF. Enjoy.
[PS. Thanks to Ron Hayes at Motion sales for sending me their specs.]
[NOTE TO SELF: I wonder if Motion would ever hire me to blog for them professionally, the way Scoble does for Microsoft. I bet I could do a pretty good job.]
somebody hire tom raftery, dammit
Got an e-mail from Tom Raftery today:
Hey Hugh,Rock on, Tom. As somebody who started blogging during an unemployed period of his life, I can certainly relate.I read with interest the report in the Boston Globe how blogging can improve your chances of getting a job so I decided to try an experiment this morning - I am looking for a job through my blog - http://www.tomrafteryit.net/gis-a-job-seriously/
It'll be interesting to see how it pans out - can I market myself as my own global micro-brand?
I'm not holding my breath!
And sometimes it works. The Economist liked Megan McArdle's blog so much they offered her a job. I love it when that kind of stuff happens.
how to market to geeks.
How to Market to Geeks.
1. Start at the bottom of the corporate food chain. The further down, the better.[Full Disclosure: I own equity in Thingamy.]2. Forget about the "decision makers". Connect with the "thinkers"- that's the way forward in this new age of ours.
3. If in doubt, go read this. from an IBM employee.
black and grey 419
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[Bonus Link:] From The Guardian:
Ignore bloggers at your peril, say researchers· Online pundits 'influence businesses and opinion'
· Companies are falling foul of negative net buzzBloggers and internet pundits are exerting a "disproportionately large influence" on society, according to a report by a technology research company. Its study suggests that although "active" web users make up only a small proportion of Europe's online population, they are increasingly dominating public conversations and creating business trends.
abusive editors and meagre paychecks
Oh Jeez, here we go.
"Can Blogs Make Money?" in The Wall Street Journal.
Blogs have a lot of buzz, but there's still considerable debate about whether that can translate into profits.While many blogs remain little more than amateur diaries, several bloggers have tried to parlay their online ramblings into branded businesses. One, Jason Calacanis, co-founded Weblogs Inc., a network of blogging sites that was acquired last year by AOL. Mr. Calacanis has been an outspoken proponent of blogs as business vehicles, arguing that quality content can drive enough traffic to attract advertisers.
But longtime Internet entrepreneur Alan Meckler is skeptical. Mr. Mec