A leading online measurement service [Nielsen/NetRatings,] will scrap rankings based on the longtime industry yardstick of page views and begin tracking how long visitors spend at the sites.Link (via Steve Rubel)
About time.
Nielsen refines their research on TV audiences, comes up with surprising results:
A portion of a new study by Nielsen Media Research from 1,750 homes with DVRs shows that while TV networks have observed that the number of people watching shows have gone down, those numbers jump back up when time-shifted DVR viewing is accounted for.
What about time spent watching ads?
Commercial ad viewership increased when DVR viewing was accounted for as well. In homes with DVRs, ad viewership jumped 32 percent when shows were viewed within three days of live broadcast. Considering that viewership of TV shows in general jumped by 73 percent during that time period, however, it’s clear that about half of all DVR users are happy to make use of their DVRs’ ad-skipping abilities.
A young man [...] had been arrested for stealing motor vehicles and assaults with weapons. At interview he was found to be experiencing the delusion that he was a player inside a computer game (adult-certificate game, widely available) in which points are scored for stealing cars, killing assailants and avoiding police vehicles.
How many more of these are we going to see with games becoming more and more realistic? Should more realism force a change in the minimal age required to play games, pushing everything up?
In the future of the web, the majority of value is in innovation and the quality of execution, not in the funding resources a company can provide… giving employees a healthy share, and a majority share in the case of spinouts they are primarily responsible for is not only not a bad idea, it’s the BEST idea.
The cost of starting up is so low that funding matters less than before. Ideas and execution are key in a world were rolling out a money making application can take 3 months.
As of today, I am joining the ITU Telecom Forum advisory committee. Telecom is one of the world’s biggest conference. The last edition attracted more than 60’000 people in Hong Kong.
Telecom is a series of events, and the next one we will be working on is Telecom Africa in May 2008.
My role will be to help the organizers prepare the event, both from an editorial and practical stand point. I am looking forward to this exciting new project, and hope I will be able to make it to Africa in 2008!
Update on July 12: 10 seats remaining hurry up if you want to join!
One of my oldest ideas was to invite the persons who cook the best food on earth (i.e. our grand mothers) to the city’s restaurants, so that instead of sharing their talents with no-one or just a few lucky family members, they would finally get the credit they deserve from the masses.
My idea was to function in the following way: a grandmother comes to a restaurant, she is helped in the kitchen by the restaurant’s team and chef. A nice and traditional meal is served at a fixed time for a reasonable and flat price. Then at the end of the night, anybody can recommend his or her own grandmother who will be invited for the next time.
Thanks to my friend Aymon of the Cheval Blanc, this concept will come to life in ten days! And it is my own grand mother who will open the festivities, cooking traditional food from my family’s native Alsace.
Come and join us on Monday, July 16th, for the first grand mother diner!
• we invite a grand mother – carefully selected by professional eaters like Laurent Haug and Aymon Choisy – who will cook for the evening with the help of the restaurant’s team.
• you show up at the Cheval Blanc at 18h30 for a drink.
• the food (35CHF without the drinks) is served between 19h30 and 20h30.
• we install big tables to create a friendly atmosphere.
• at the end of the night, you can propose your grand mother and if she makes unforgettable food, she might be the next star!
Amélie Haug lived all her life in Alsace, first around the tiny village of Reinhartmunster, then moving to Strasbourg for a few decades to work in the city. She now lives in Ostwald, surrounded by her 4 children and 7 grand children.
A five star chef for her family and friends, she prepares all the local specialties, and will cook a menu based on the famous grundbaerkichele, small potato cakes who rendered a countless number of people completely addicted to Alsatian food.
• grumbaerkichele (Alsatian speciality made from potato and persil)
• Alsatian salad
• meat bread
• liver quenelles
• lemon tart
When: Monday, July 16, 2007 from 18h30, food served between 19h30 and 20h30
Where: Le cheval blanc, 15 place d’armes, Carouge, 022 343 61 61.
Map: here
How much: 35CHF, drinks not included. We will propose you a selection of wines and soft drinks to accompany your meal.
CAUTION: Booking is MAN-DA-TO-RY and we have a very limited number of seats!
tel. 022 343 61 61 or email info@lechevalblanc.ch
I am convinced that some small details can be much more indicative of a country’s development than GDP. Think of number of working hours per week, length of paid rest during pregnancy, or even public toilet’s cleanliness (think about it next time you travel).
Visa forms are one of these informal indicator I like to check, usually indicating a country’s worries and capacity to adapt to actual threats. Here is a small comparison between the US and Korean form:
Korean questions
Are you bringing:
5. Fake goods or other item that infringes Intellectual Property Right
7. Pornographic material (book, CDs, photos, etc…)
12. Any goods or fact that you are to declare to Customs
American questions
• are you a drug abuser or addict?
• are you [...] seeking entry to engage in criminal or immoral activities?
• Have you ever been or are you now involved in espionage or sabotage; or in terrorist activities: or genocide; or between 1933 and 1945 were you involved , in any way, in persecutions associated with NAZI Germany or its allies?
The differences in approach are quite obvious. The Koreans are asking 21st century questions, the US are still thinking about World War II.
Amazing story of rubber ducks falling from a container and turning into an invaluable source of information for scientists.
The Daily Mail reports that thousands of rubber ducks who have traveled the seas of the world since 1992 are about to end their journey. After escaping out of a container fallen off a Chinese freight ship in a storm, scientists have been followed them on their fifteen year trek. This has turned out to be an invaluable source of information for studying ocean currents.
An toys accident helping science. Sometimes this world is wonderful 
Extremely interesting article on the SF Chronicle, about the subject that got the most media attention at LIFT07 (read: the most trendy subject): Tech Overload.
Dederich, 36, is one of a growing number of information technology users and professionals who feel teched out. Gobsmacked by the information tsunami, overwhelmed by the ever-growing tide of technology must-haves and convinced that a matrix of communication instruments was insulating her from friends and family, Dederich took a sabbatical six weeks ago.“I felt like the only way for me to recalibrate was to stop completely,” said Dederich, an e-mail user since 1991 and a high-tech professional since 1994. “It’s difficult to think outside the box when you’re always in it, and the box is getting stronger and stronger.”
The early adopters are fighting back, needing more time for their offline activities, assuming that all the computered sociality is cutting them from real interaction. What does the mass of technology users think of that?
an April 2006 survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project [...] showed that 85 percent of American adults used the Internet or a cell phone to communicate. Eighteen percent of that population felt teched out and suffered from “tech-gadget remorse,” but only 2 to 3 percent thought that communication technologies diminish face-to-face contact.
No problem so far. But was this the right question to ask?
What the Pew survey doesn’t consider is the possibility that tech users are so enveloped in the worlds of e-mail and cell phones — so deep inside a blinding technology tunnel, eyes fixed on a computer monitor or BlackBerry screen — that they’ve lost the distance or proportion to judge their effectiveness in face-to-face social situations. [...]“I think the majority of our communication happens through body language and tone. And what’s happening right now is that we’re mostly communicating only with the words — which means we’re in the 10 percent zone of what makes authentic and clear communication.
“It makes it more difficult to recognize each other’s humanity, more difficult to have nuanced and difficult conversations, and it makes it more difficult to be creative.”
Let’s see. This issue is sure to come at the center stage of our preoccupations in the coming years. The debate is just starting.
Euan is a quote machine these days.
When I learned, via twitter, of the car bomb that didn’t go off in London last night my first thought was “oh well”.When I heard of the Glasgow car attack my first thought was “If I’d been them I’d have checked with a tape measure the night before”
When I watch the television I am being told that “Britain is under attack” and my first thought is how sad journalists are these days.
The twitter user has no paper to sell, that might be the difference.
