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YouBama - An Effective Use Of Social Media

If you haven't checked out YouBama yet, you should. 

Created by two Stanford University students, it's a very smart use of social media to build, and grow, a platform of grassroots support.

Mashing-up both YouTube and Digg, all of the content on the site is both created and ranked by viewers such the the most popular videos rise to the top. 

As you will see, it's a simple, yet effective presentation that doesn't try to be more than what it is.  And this is why it works so well.

I have no idea who the "Naive New Beaters" are...

... but I really love their music video.

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Peaches and Tone Loc Do The "Wild Thing"

The audio quality is crap, but this pairing of Tone Loc and Peaches, to celebrate the 25th Anniversary of ""Wild Thing" is great fun.

The Guitar Zeros

I love this.  The Guitar Zeros are a real band that uses reconfigured Guitar Hero game controllers to make real music.

Influencials And The Power Of "The Link"

Scott Karp hits the nail on the head when he writes on his blog Publishing 2.0:

"In the networked web era, influentials may not be people with a particularly connected temperament or Rolodex, or people who control and influence monopoly distribution channels (e.g. newspapers), but rather people who influence the network by leveraging the most powerful force on the web — the link. People like bloggers, top Diggers, del.icio.us power users, Facebook users who share lots of links, MySpace users who embed videos, Twitter users who post lots of URLs, or any social network user with links to lots of friends."

He then goes on to say:

"Journalists and PR professionals, the influence brokers of traditional media, have lost a huge degree of influence on the web in large part because they don’t link to anything. While traditional media brands are still powerful channels on the web, they are losing influence everyday to the link-driven web network — journalists and PR professionals can no longer depend on controlling these former monopoly channels to exert influence online."

A lot has been written about "Influencers" and how important they may be in spreading information and endorsements, and ultimately, driving sales. At a time when  so much of our time is spent online, I think that Scott's analysis is the best so far. 

You can read his full post here.

Wanna See A Fantastic Homepage?

Click here.

(I love when designers go lo-fi. The connection it makes with me, the viewer, is so much stronger)

Radar Catches Up With Josh Harris (Remember Pseudo?)

Of all the colorful characters to emerge out of the initial dot-com explosion in the early '90's, Josh Harris was my all-time favorite.

Like many who were involved in the early days of "Web 1.0", I have fond memories of hanging out at the Pseudo loft on Broadway and Houston abusing both my mind and my body far too much for my own good, listening to some of the worlds greatest DJ's play live until the wee hours of the morning.

In their most recent issue, Radar Magazine catches up with Josh as he puts together his latest venture, Operator 11.

For a trip down memory lane check out the the clip below for "We Live In Public", a documentary-in-progress.

We live in public trailer from RADAR on Vimeo.

"19 Of The Best Ads I've Ever Seen"

To see just how creative ads can be, click here.

The Super Bowl, A Snack Food Orgy

I'm a huge fan of the videos produced by GOOD Magazine.  Their latest, on the effect the Super Bowl has on consumerism, is terrific.