Central Perk

luni, 15 iulie 2013

Damn Cool Pics

Mind Blowing Computer and Gaming Stations
20 Years of Hollywood Box-Office Disasters That Failed Miserably
Women's Boxing Kiss
Korean Photoshop Requsts and the Results
What Your Coffee Says About You [Infographic]

Mind Blowing Computer and Gaming Stations

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 12:32 PM PDT

20 Years of Hollywood Box-Office Disasters That Failed Miserably

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 11:32 AM PDT

Women's Boxing Kiss

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 10:35 AM PDT

Swedish pro boxer Mikaela Lauren kissed opponent in an intense stare down at weigh-in.

Korean Photoshop Requsts and the Results

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 10:20 AM PDT

Be careful what you ask for.

Request: Please remove me from this photo so that it looks like the child is flying.

Request: Can you make this look more like a wild animal?

Request: I'd like to be in a single shot with Iron Man

Request: Can you make me look like a super-hacker?

Request: I'd like to look cool while I grill.

Request: Can you remove the photos reflecting the guy with the camera and leave me alone in the booth with the guy standing behind?

Request: My friend recently got married. Can you make this image reflect this?

Request: Can you make my face lighter?

Request: Make me look like a pimp surrounded by women.

Request: Make it look like I am eating something no one else has tasted.

Request: Can you remove the woman on the right of my friends and I?

Request: Can you make these guys look like superheroes?

Request: Please lower the pants below the sock so that you can see them and put a bottle of Soju in front of me.

Request: I want to be a superhero.

Request: Please add a bear to this picture.

Request: Please make this boring picture more dramatic.

Request: Please make the white background more colouful.

Request: Please change the picture so that it looks like I was sleeping on a mattress surrounded by celebrities.

Request: Please make this picture look as dangerous as it did in the movie "Peppermint Candy" and that the train is pulling up.

Request: Please change the box so it looks like I am holding a treasure and make the atmosphere warmer.

Request: Can you remove the people behind me and make it look more like Disneyland

Via Facebook

What Your Coffee Says About You [Infographic]

Posted: 15 Jul 2013 09:05 AM PDT

Who doesn't love to play the game of decoding the personalities of complete strangers with their choice of coffee, dog, sweater, what have you?

Go to town with this fun infographic courtesy of DoghouseDiaries!

Seth's Blog : Q&A: Controlling the Ideavirus

Q&A: Controlling the Ideavirus

Our series continues...

Dennis O. Smith wrote in with this question about Unleashing the Ideavirus: "I understand the concept of spreading the idea, but how can you control or direct that growth? 'Going viral' is great for fast growth and sharing of your idea, but are there mechanisms to steer it, trim it, shape it, etc."

The reason that so many people catch a cold every year is that no one is trying to control where it goes. The reason that Wikipedia is so robust is that control is decentralized. The reason that there's a huge disconnect between corporate marketing and ideas that spread is that the culture of contagious ideas is anethema to the command, control and responsibility mindset of the industrial marketer.

There's a huge difference between, "I want people to talk about this," and "I want to control what people say."

But, and it's a huge but, the marketer decides where the virus starts. She decides who the first sneezers will be. She decides on what easy-to-use tools may be made available to the group that she's identified. These decisions go a very long way to determining what happens next.

Napster and Facebook were both optimized for college students and were intentionally seeded there. Sure, the founders could have picked nursing homes or military academies, but the character and culture of the college campus ensured that not only would these ideas spread, but that they would spread in the desired direction.

If you want to spread an idea among policy wonks, don't involve People-magazine style celebrities, or aim for big numbers. Instead, find the hive that matches the group you'd like to be discussing your idea, and (this is the big and) create an idea that not only interests this group, but is easy and fun to spread precisely among this group.

[When I launched this book, I knew which group I wanted to read it. So I wrote in a tone that appealed to this group, placed a long excerpt in Fast Company, which was sort of patient zero for this group, and then gave the book away for free (it's still free online) with explicit instructions to share and email it to people who might become engaged with it.

No, I couldn't control what would happen, or where it would go, or what the impact might be, but by picking the 3,000 people who got it first, and then making it easy for this group to share it, it quickly got to over a million readers. This wasn't the fastest way to get to a big number, but it was the best way to get to the right number and kind of people.

The temptation is to be big, when the real goal ought to be effective.]

PS last time I checked, you can get a used copy of the 13-year old edition of the book for a penny. You may notice that I've chosen not to update past blog posts, past books or past websites. That's because each is a testament to when it was written, as opposed to being a constantly updating resource. Even so, I hope these older books can add value and give you perspective.

PPS Fritz Lieber wrote about the out of control ideavirus in his short story "Rump-Titty-Titty-Tum-TAH-Tee" published more than fifty years ago.