YHOO and the 'user-generated' look

If we drink the current digerati kool-aid (e.g. The Economist New Media Survey, 2006), user-generated content will inherit the Earth, and everything will look like it came out of the living room of Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar. Yahoo co-founders Jerry Yang and David Filo try the approach with their own product plug (Announcing the new Yahoo! homepage ), perhaps not nearly as funny as the beloved Wayne and Garth, but still impressively charming for a couple of billionaires:

Newscloud view of Google News

Newscloud view of Google News
Originally uploaded by lyndon.

Neat little experimental front-end to an online news site. Found via digg at:
http://digg.com/technology/Google_News_Cloud

Ironman in Action at Wildflower 2006

Tom Knauer, a Hawaii Ironman qualifier and tireless evangelist of the triathlon sport, generously led over a dozen friends on a weekend RV trip to Wildflower 2006. He showed us all a wonderfully fun time, no matter what event we took on.

Here's a much-deserved digital media toast to Tom:

May your pre-race bike tuning always go without a hitch:



And may you always finish with cheering crowds (note: video requires broadband connection and contains VERY LOUD crowd noise - adjust your speaker volume before play):



Thanks for sharing the joy of the sport , coaching a few of us through our first tentative steps, and for suffering all the unforseen headaches of pulling together this road-trip.

triathlon

If we are what we eat...

Lunch 2006 May 3 Wed - sandwich
Originally uploaded by lyndon.

... then this flickr feed is my self-portrait in the making:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/lyndonwong/tags/eatinghabits/

I recently volunteered to subject my eating habits to analysis as part of a sports nutritional study. I've never known much about the topic, other than the notion of fueling up on carbohydrates before endurance activities like long runs.

To minimize the tedium of recording every little thing I ate, I had the brilliant idea of photographing my food (...a picture can capture a thousand calories in an instant, and digital cameras make it viable to record everything). Of course, vanity quickly set in, and I started to:

1. adjust my eating habits to make the photo stream look more flattering

2. leave out photos of some between-meal snacks

OK, so I cheated, just slightly... but overall, my little experiment hints at one of the many potential benefits of leading a transparent life, aided by social software. Imagine if all of us had photo streams of our daily food intake... and concerned friends, strangers, and nutritionists weighed in with comments.

Since the public appetite for 'reality media' seems quite high, this could one day trump watching silly television shows. I personally would love to follow what Lance Armstrong eats week-in and week-out.

Transparent or Opaque: a generation gap in progress

My new homepage, 2006 Apr 23
Originally uploaded by lyndon.

Over the weekend, I re-organized my homepage and briefly mulled over whether to incorporate a 30Boxes calendar badge. Was I comfortable with anyone being able to see my calendar? My little dilemma seemingly frames the new generation gap, between the young who eagerly live their personal lives transparently on the Web, and the old who cautiously debate what to make private or public.

The new applications categorized under the "Web 2.0" moniker cater to a willingness to be open about one's opinions, travels, schedule and interests. The old, especially outside of software-focused fields, find these 'digital life' sharing applications of limited relevance, and even caution the young to beware of the consequences of public expression when seeking future employment.

But how carefully groomed and scripted should all of us be from the moment we exist on the Web? What should a prospective employer, customer, friend or romantic partner think of any person who surfaces nothing authentic from a Web search? Whom should we trust? In the Internet Age, the important choice facing all of us is not whether to be digital or analog, but whether to be transparent or opaque.

lyndonwong | web2.0 | 30boxes

Wildflower For A Cause

Friend Mika Hirota is training to complete the long course (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile ride, 13 mile run) for this year's Wildflower Triathlon , in part to raise several thousand dollars for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She has set a wonderful goal on multiple fronts, and I've contributed via her donation page.

Tags: triathlon

Creator of "Beijing or Bust" documentary detained

The disappearance of film-maker Hao Wu has been brewing in the blog-o-sphere for a few weeks, with requests by some concerned individuals to minimize publicity while Hao's family quietly communicated with his detainers. But Web-savvy sympathizers have quickly mobilized. Reuters reported two days ago on Hao Wu's detention by Chinese police, and Reporters Sans Frontieres reported earlier on efforts by Hao's sister to secure his release. I simply know Hao as a former colleague from Excite@Home who was justifiably proud that his first documentary film was aired on PBS station KQED in December 2005. I hope for Hao's speedy release.

Metamorphosis

Photo by The Jud

Fascinating to witness the Tom Cruise visit to Yahoo spin from an internal speaking engagement into a mass-media event through a chain of digital transformations from employee camera-phones to blogs to network television (see "Inside Edition" coverage using Yahoo employee-posted media). If nothing else, this rapid metamorphosis and associated public debate demonstrates the growing impact of user-generated content. Or, consider it a "Web 2.0" style buzz-marketing stunt. Either way, very impressive :-).

OpenLaszlo Meetup

Meetup.jpg
Originally uploaded by PTWithy.

Thanks to Tucker Withington, I finally got a peek at the OpenLaszlo Meetup last week in San Francisco. Rain and traffic conspired to delay the return of my Yahoo commuter shuttle back to the city in time for the meetup. As a result, I missed free beer, free pizza, demos of exciting multi-runtime AJAX technology, and what was undoubtedly a cool party as well (see flickr photos).

It's Tom and Jerry

It's Tom and Jerry
Originally uploaded by maidelba.

Referring to the men rather than the mice, caught this morning at URL's Cafe on the Yahoo campus either debating the future of the Web, or just looking for some good cheese .