April 8th 2008
Credit card numbers were selling for as little as 40 cents each and access to bank accounts was going for $10 in the second half of 2007, according to the latest twice-yearly Internet Security Threat Report from Symantec, which you may download here. As highlighted in our earlier article, Big Business Big Brother, data breaches […]
April 8th 2008
This week, the House Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet held the first-ever Congressional hearing to learn about virtual worlds. Committee Chair, Rep. Ed Markey of Massachusetts, convened the meeting, which took place both in the Rayburn Building in Washington and in a virtual Rayburn Building in Second Life. Representatives asked questions such as: Could Second […]
April 3rd 2008
Today’s conference kicked off with Chuck Scothon, General Manager and SVP , Girls Mattel Brands, and Rosie O’Neill, who is Sr. Brand Manager and “Chief Barbie Girl.” That means she manages development of initiatives including the BarbieGirls.com virtual world. Social critics suggest such toy centered worlds provide a pedagogy of consumerism, and make products and […]
April 1st 2008
Back in November, I wrote about Facebook facing a huge privacy slapdown over social advertising. Michael Arrington, founder and co-editor of TechCrunch, is obliging us by attempting just such an action — and, as in professional wrestling, for him it’s all about the timing. In his excellent public explanation, Mr. Arrington cites a California law which […]
March 31st 2008
There’s a reason superheroes wear masks. Nobody wants to be perpetually liable for saving the world. Plus, such heroes would be attacked, lobbied, and ultimately reviled when they can’t be everything to everyone. This week, Craiglist enjoyed the benefits of not being a censorship hero. The 7th US Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Craigslist […]
March 25th 2008
Over the last few months I’ve written about the scale of China’s Golden Shield, also known as the Great Firewall of China. I’ve also posted a link to a site for testing which sites are blocked from several large cities in China. As the web is increasingly used to organize protests, Chinese censorship in advance of […]
March 23rd 2008
At this year’s SXSW Music and Media Conference in Austin, an idea was floated that was supposed to “monetize anarchy” found in the music industry vis-à-vis illegal copying. The idea: a five dollar monthly surcharge on broadband internet service as a royalty for downloading music illegally. This is also known as a “utility model.” But […]
March 22nd 2008
Penn Jillette is the taller, louder half of the magic and comedy act Penn and Teller. He is also a research fellow at the Cato Institute and has lectured at Oxford and MIT. Somewhere along the path of being a magician, writer of best-selling books, and producer of a film about a single dirty joke, he developed […]
March 18th 2008
You rate restaurants with online reviews. Same with contractors, professors, even blogs. Now a new web services allows the public to rate and comment on the work of uniformed law enforcement officers. Some sites already provide aggregate data for neighborhoods, but let’s face it, sometimes you may want to discuss the work of a particular officer. […]
March 17th 2008
Where have all the protests gone? Many of the most interesting and successful are making creative use of new online environments. And they’re winning concessions from the powers that be.
The future of digital experiences will be built by strategists who grasp the full array of emerging business, social, and technical models. Specialties in user experience, branding, application design, and data science are laying the foundation for richer user experiences and business models breakthrough products and revenue based marketing.
UsefulArts is a soapbox to discuss the front line of digital experience, and the agencies and platforms that enable it. Digital business needs a cadre of leaders who can connect c-level enterprise thinking with the ways these new interaction models can help organizations to matter more to their most important stakeholders.