Tribute to Tim Russert

What an amazing legacy to leave behind--both politically and personally:



---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

Video Vault: Using Crowds to Predict Outcomes at Predictify

I've been following the written Scoble for quite some time now, but am just now really starting to appreciate his (and many others') video contributions. You will start to see much more of his work on my site, so consider yourself warned:

Source: FastCompany.TV
Summary: "Predictify is an interesting new service that predicted the correct outcome of almost every playoff football game, among other things. How? By using you playing a game on its service. Here we get the scoop from Mike Agnich, co-founder and CTO"...



---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

Photo Vault: 4-Year Anniversary Pics

It's our 4-year anniversary weekend: a great day with wifie in Kirkland; tomorrow we're hiking Tiger Mountain in Issaquah:



---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

Video Vault: Zefrank- Monologue Audition Video Credits

I usually don't post this stuff, but sometimes it's tough not to:



---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

Spain: More Cell Phones Than People

Source: PBS.org, MediaShift
Post:"Spain’s National Obsession with Mobiles, Texting"
Written by: Jennifer Woodard Maderazo

Having lived in Madrid in 2001, it was crazy to see how much more advanced they were then with their telecommunications than we are even today in the US : free incoming calls, free texting, recharging minutes in grocery stores. Maderazo writes up a fairly detailed description of the culture of text messaging and personal computing in Spain:

"To say that Spain is crazy for cell phones is an understatement. Approximately 44 million people live in Spain, but in January of this year the number of cell phones in the country reached 50 million. There are more phones than people here. While Americans might also be addicted to the cell, the Spanish relationship with the cell phone has evolved differently from ours for reasons that are clear and others that remain a mystery..." (keep reading)

---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

Tim Russert Dies at 58

One of the saddest stories in a long time. I listened to Russert every week on Meet the Press and always looked forward to his contributions to the political dialog. What makes this particularly sad was his passion and excitement for this election.

Ambinder has a great post up on his blog.

---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

The Future of the Novel

What is becoming an increasingly favorite feed, ReadWriteWeb has a recent post about the direction of the novel: Will The Future Novel Be More Than Text on a Page. With the revolutionary Kindle, everything is changing regarding the consumption of words on a page: books, newspapers, and magazines are becoming forms of nostalgia with each passing day.

(A side note: The new trend--one in which I believe will turn to habit and permanence in the foreseeable future--is simplicity: a reduction of clutter in our garages; a simple online experience where the days of flashy and wordy distractions will be replaced with mass RSS consolidation and social network aggregation; our offices digitalized to the point of Zen-like... okay so I'm fantasizing here a bit. But, while I do think simple will be the new favorite flavor--and while there is no doubt I will be reading and applying in my life everything described here--the chances that the masses will start truly changing their consumption habits are pretty remote.)

A quick close-in-thought on the future of the novel: I can't wait for its evolution. I will always have a copy of my favorite novels (A Farewell to Arms, The Sun Also Rises, The Fountainhead, The English Patient), but other than those and a few others, bring on the Kindle and all that follows.

---
A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,
StageKid

Leadership: Behind the Scenes

If you don't have the time to watch the whole video, the last 5 minutes are particularly solid...

StageKid

Time to change your bookmarks/RSS/Blogrolls! I have finally decided to brake away from the chains of the Blogger domain and will now be publishing from a new, owned by me(!), domain: www.stagekid.com; (uppercase won't matter; may take a few days to transition). I will also be changing all my online properties to StageKid, so be on the lookout for some hopefully interesting--yet sometimes embarrassing--contributions (e.g. Seesmic).

For my most complete lifestream head over to FriendFeed...

A frothy Guinness to you for stopping by and another for coming back,

StageKid

Morning Coffee: NYC, 3G, Organic, Changes, JK Rowling Speaks

Another great post from ReadWriteWeb discussing the need for New York City to step up its Web 2.0 game...

Wired has a nice recap of yesterday's iPhone 3G (2.) day of insanity...

American.com has a new article on "The Problem with Organic Food"...

Steve Ruble quick-posts "How Friendfeed Will Change PR and Marketing"...

Otis at Goodreads posts JK Rowling's Harvard Commencement Speech ...