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You have arrived at the web home of Noah Brier. This is mostly an archive of over a decade of blogging and other writing. You can read more about me or get in touch. If you want more recent writing of mine, most of that is at my BrXnd marketing x AI newsletter and Why Is This Interesting?, a daily email for the intellectually omnivorous.

December, 2006

Best Links of 2006 (vol. 2)

[Editor's Note: This is volume two of my favorite links of 2006. Volume one can be found here.]

Well folks, it's time for round two of the best links of 2006. For those that missed the first half, go read volume one.

Now onto the links . . .

Best Links of 2006 (vol. 2)

  • The Marketplace of Perceptions: This may be the article I quoted most this year. Behavioral economics is rocking my world and this is a perfect primer.
  • Good News Day: Continuing on the inspiring tip is this story of Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams beating a seemingly cureless disease with perseverance and rhymes.
  • 'Baby, Give Me a Kiss': This one's certainly not inspiring and I hope it doesn't offend anyone. The LA Times sent a female reporter to interview Joe Francis of Girls Gone Wild fame. In the process she witnessed a date-rape and was attacked by Francis. Girls Gone Wild is an undeniable phenomena and Claire Hoffman, the writer, contemplates why. The article is a look at the dark side of the digital explosion. "This is so much bigger than Francis," Hoffman explains. "In a culture where cheap and portable video technology lets everyone play at stardom, and where America's voyeuristic appetite for reality television seems insatiable, teenagers, like the ones in this club, see cameras as validation. 'Most guys want to have sex with me and maybe I could meet one new guy, but if I get filmed everyone could see me,' Bultema says. 'If you do this, you might get noticed by somebody—to be an actress or a model.'"
  • Architecture and interaction design, via adaptation and hackability: Dan Hill of cityofsound is brilliant. He's got an amazing ability to pull together all sorts of different disciplines and spit out a coherent idea. This is actually the full text of an interview he did with Dan Saffer for his book Designing for Interaction. These were the questions posed: "Can products be made hackable, or are all products hackable? What types of things can be designed into products to make them more hackable? What are the qualities of adaptive designs? You've spoken on putting "creative power in the hands of non-designers." How do interaction designers go about doing that? What can interaction designers learn about adaptability from architecture?"
  • Video Explains the World's Most Important 6-Sec Drum Loop: It's long, and somewhat dry at times, but this 18-minute video explains the incredible history of the amen break which is the probably the most ubiquitous sample in history.
  • Banksy Punks Paris: Banksy's most famous move was putting his own art in New York City museums. In this installment Banksy droplifts a bunch of specially made Paris Hilton CDs with music by Danger Mouse and a custom-made booklet.
  • Dove Evolution Commerical: Rounding out the YouTube trio is an ad of sorts. As part of the Campaign for Real Beauty Dove shows the world how our idea of beauty became so distorted. The video depicts a 'regular' woman going through the process of becoming a billboard model. After much makeup, stretching and shrinking the person we see at the beginning of the video is completely different than the product at the end.
  • Getting Customers to Love You: This was the year of the 'ordinary Joe' and nowhere was this more apparent than marketing. All over the industry people are finally realizing that we'd forgotten about customers. In this article Jeanne Bliss, from Land's End, gives 10 tips for getting customers to love you. They're simple, but they're great reminders to put customers first.
  • The Confession of an American Jew: I can't say I ever really considered it, but there are a whole lot of Jewish comedians. Look at the list: "he Marx Brothers, the Three Stooges, George Burns, Jack Benny, Milton Berle, Sid Caesar, Carl Reiner, Neil Simon, Woody Allen, Mel Brooks, Henny Youngman, Jackie Mason, Don Rickles, Buddy Hackett, Rodney Dangerfield, Lenny Bruce, Gilda Radner, Andy Kaufman, Jerry Seinfeld, Larry David, Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller, Sarah Silverman." Luckily, Wayne Gladstone over at The Morning News was kind enough to think about it and offer up some amazingly amusing thoughts on the subject.
  • Rethinking Every Rule of Reinvention: Who better to speak to reinventing a brand than a man who has helped both Nike and Starbucks reinvent theirs. I'm not sure there's any single revolutionary point in here, but taken together it's an incredible roadmap to thinking about marketing the right way.

I've also got two special bonus links for you . . .

  • BONUS: Professional Radicals: This entry is really just a vehicle to post a 1994 book (in PDF form) from 'iconoclastic British ad agency of the 1990s' Howell Henry. The PDF is fantastic and I'm forever in debt to Gareth for posting.
  • BONUS: I Saw NY: Last but not least is the Renegade holiday/New Year site. It's a guide to New York City written by Renegade and friends. You can even register to contribute yourself. I've been unbelievably pleased with the quality of what people have added, there are about 20 places I've discovered on there that I want to visit. I Saw NY. For FTC purposes I do work for Renegade, however, I was not compensated for posting this link. :)

Well, that's it. Hope everyone is having a great holiday. Just in case you missed it, go check out volume one.

December 26, 2006
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Noah Brier | Thanks for reading. | Don't fake the funk on a nasty dunk.