Two Days Late

But Happy Thanksgiving Break!

Not on youtube

The link isn't to youtube.

But if it were on youtube... it would be my favorite link ever.

http://failblog.org/2008/10/20/best-man-fail/

Baidu shares sink

According to this article, Baidu shares sank because of the unreliability of medical ads it features. This to me brings up an interesting question of responsibility of information. Just like Google, the main page has no ads... but I cannot remember a time when Google's reputation was harmed when there were unreliable sites or ads on the side of the page.

NEW YORK (AP) -- U.S.-traded shares of Chinese search engine operator Baidu.com Inc. sank Monday -- a drop one analyst attributed to a report by China's state television network that Baidu may have let unlicensed health clinics buy popular medical ad keywords on its search engine.

American Depositary Shares of Baidu fell $45.11, or 25.2 percent, to $133.78 in afternoon trading. Earlier, the stock traded as low as $130.51 -- its cheapest price since May 2007.

Sterne Agee & Leach analyst James Lee said Monday that a report by CCTV over the weekend into medical malpractice in China indicated some consumers may have found their way to improperly licensed or unlicensed private clinics and health centers via advertisements that came up when they searched for health-related topics on Baidu.

Baidu, which holds a 70 percent share of the search market in China, removed the ads for medical practitioners that were considered questionable over the weekend, Lee said.

He sees the report as hurting Baidu's reputation, but doesn't think it will be hurt financially as much as Monday's share price decline seemed to indicate. Lee doesn't think health-related ads make up that much of the company's total advertising.

"The stock is obviously overreacting," he said.

In a client note, Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster said the questionable ads on Baidu "were typically selling drugs; we do not believe these are fake drugs per se, but were being sold through non-accredited medical Web sites that should not score as high on sponsored results."

Munster said that Baidu acknowledged in an online statement that this is true and that it has to put more focus toward sales practices, not just its technology.

He thinks the company will see a financial impact, but believes it will be "less than one would expect."

A Baidu spokesman could not immediately be reached for comment.

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/081117/baiducom_mover.html?.v=1

New Star Trek Movie!

I know that one of our recent readings discussed the idea that dismal revenue from the Star Trek films has led Paramount to abandon them altogether and that any new Star Trek lore is fan-created... But the NEW Star Trek movie is being directed by J.J. Abrams and comes out at Christmas. It follows Kirk and Spock from their youth into their first battles with the Romulans and looks awesome. That's basically paraphrasing Wikipedia but the trailer is also really enticing. Just FYI.

more classifications

i was looking through some of our older readings, and stopped on a creative industries technical report from the UK, conducted in January 2008 by NESTA, the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts.

they divided the creative industries into the following segments:

+ Advertising and Marketing
+ Architecture, Visual Arts, and Design
+ Film, TV, Radio, and Photography
+ Music and Performing Arts

[+ Publishing]  --may or may not be applicable to our list
+ Software, Computer Games, and Electronic Publishing

i thought this was interesting because having these 6 segments would be able to encompass what they deemed the "Creative Trident":

1. those engaged in producing primary creative output [writers, craftspeople, composers, etc.]

2. those engaged in interpretive activity [i.e. performers interpreting works of drama, dance, music, etc. physically + digitally in a wide variety of media]

3. those supplying creative services in support of artistc and cultural production [editors, lighting designers, music producers, etc.]

also, if we go with this classication scheme, we might want to consider excluding those businesses which we labeled as just 'venues' for creative output -- i don't think that they would fit very well into any of these categories.  perhaps place them in a separate 'periphery' circle that could expand to more larger-scope and extrapolated 'supporting creativity' but non-creative businesses.

Industry Sectors

Hey Everyone,

I've added my businesses to our map, but we have not yet decided how we want to organize everything as far as industries are concerned. I liked Trevor's list from last class, but have some potential additions. Here is my suggestion:

Gaming
Support
Performance
Venues
Broadcast
Design
Fine Arts

What do you guys think?

Google Flu Trends

The final post in a whirlwind of updates, I promise:

Today I read about a small project on Google.org that is using geographic data about specific Google searches to accurately predict when and where the flu will hit in various areas of the United States.

What's even more fascinating is that by using this data, Google can outpredict the Center for Disease Control's estimations by up to two weeks...

Check it out at www.google.org/flutrends

Funny coincidence

IDEO (one of the businesses we are studying in Central Square) has a desktop widget called "The Big Questions" which prompts users with a new "big" question every day.

After today's lecture, I thought it was funny that today's big question was:

What does sharing look like 5 years from now?

What a coincidence, right?

Anybody want to answer the question?

Adding a Business to the Map

I thought I'd post a concise guide for adding businesses to the map:

1. Click on the link in the email sent by Google where you were invited to contribute to the map. If you didn't get an invite, shoot me an email and I'll invite you again. If you just go to Google Maps, you may need to click on "My Maps" in the upper left.

2. Click on the map ("Central Square Creative Industries") in the list, then click the Edit button.

3. You can now search for any of your businesses in the search box at the top of the page. When you find a business to post to the map, click on it, then click "Save to My Maps." Make sure to save it to our map ("Central Square Creative Industries"). Edit as much of the content as you want (change the marker by clicking on it in the upper right of the little box), and click OK!

4. When you're finished, make sure to click "Save" and "Done" in the left sidebar.

Once we get all of the businesses posted (hopefully by the end of this week), we can look into some categorization concepts... Post ideas in the comments!

This is a Pirate / This is Not

An advertisement commissioned by the Consumer Electronics Association, as discussed in class. More info + larger version at the EFF »

physical mapping

on collars

from labor -- a blue-collar economy
to professional services -- a white-collar economy
to the creative industries -- a 'no-collar economy' [richard florida]
to... a green-collar economy?



'Provocative, personal, and inspirational, New York TimesThe Green Collar Economy by Van Jones is not a dire warning but rather a substantive and viable plan for solving the biggest issues facing the country--the failing economy and our devastated environment. From a distance, it appears that these two problems are separate, but when we look closer, the connection becomes unmistakable.'
The Green Collar Economy, Van Jones 2008

ps. he is also the founder of Green For All and the Green Jobs guru + will be speaking at Sloan on Wednesday, November 19 from 6-7.

[i wonder where this book stands on the greenwashing continuum?]

also! according to Wikipedia -- [which, according to Encyclopaedia Britannica's former editor Robert McHenry, is 'fundamentally incapable of rising to a high standard of excellence,' and, according to WP's first editor in chief Larry Sanger 'that the anti-expertise bias among Wikipedians foreshadows the death of accuracy in scholarship'...]

-- the spectrum of collar colors seems to be much more vibrant than i had originally imagined:

the pink-collar worker [white-collar but traditionally 'female']
the gold-collar worker ['low-wage, luxury-seeking]
the grey-collar worker [neither white nor blue, somewhere in between]


polka dots, anyone?