The Flicker Blog and Podcast

• Welcome to Phonezoo
  Just when you thought that user generated content had occupied all available media types, along come user generated ringtones (for those who are inexplicably bored with those that their phone came with and don’t want to shell out hard cash).
  (tags: phone mobile ringtones ugc free)
• adaptiveblue - the web your way
  A rather interesting/exciting plug-in for Firefox that turns your browser into a social and semantic search tool. As is often the case, explaining the concept seems to have presented the company with the greatest challenge.
  (tags: firefox social web web2.0 tags search application del.icio.us delicious semantics attention semantic)

• Five steps to a better design portfolio, by Jeffrey Veen
  Jeffrey Veen on presenting your online design portfolio in the best light to potential employers. It’s all common-sense stuff, but it’s surprising how many designers fail to demonstrate a thorough grasp of their chosen medium.
  (tags: design portfolio online web veen jeff)
• kuler - create and share colour themes
  From Adobe Labs, a rather nice flash app for interactively creating, reviewing and sharing colour themes or palettes. The ability to create sets of colours based on rules (complementary, triad etc) is a rather nice way of quickly evaluating combinations.
  (tags: colour palette adobe flash web design tool tools interactive)

• Peter Donnelly on TED Talks
  A great talk by Peter Donnelly on the consequences of misinterpreting statistics. If you’re not an expert, be very careful about any conclusions that you draw from seemingly transparent data!
  (tags: stats statistics research mp3 talks audio TED)
• TWiT 76: Too Zune?
  A particularly enjoyable TWIT episode wherein the imminent release of the Microsoft Zune is discussed. Just how many barriers to entry can a company erect?
  (tags: twit zune mp3 podcasting podcast laporte microsoft audio download technology)
• Sleevenotes
  A mashup of Last.FM, Wikipedia, Flickr and You Tube that uses your Last FM profile to dynamically create information around the artists and music you are currently listening to.
  (tags: flickr web2.0 youtube reference MP3 social mashup music audio)
• George Osborne: Politics and Media in the Internet Age
  Despite the surprising source, a thorough round-up of the huge revolution that has occurred in media consumption and distribution. Thinly veiled and questionable political positioning aside, an interesting read.
  (tags: media consumption distribution web technology politics george osbourne speech)

Three talks from the TED Conference that I’ve recently listened to, all with an underlying theme of the impact of choice on happiness.

Malcom Gladwell talks (literally) about the perfect tomato sauce being the perfect tomato sauce(s) - i.e you need many options to satisfy the many differing tastes of consumers.

Dan Gilbert talks (metaphorically) about how you can believe that you’re happy with any tomato sauce providing any concept of choice is removed.

And finally, Barry Schwartz does his ‘Paradox Of Choice’ talk - claiming that all of the choices that we are presented with in contemporary society are the principal cause for unhappiness in our lives.

All of the talks make entertaining and compelling arguments, but I do remain more convinced by the assertions of Dan Gilbert and Barry Schwartz. Malcolm Gladwell’s talk indirectly equates business and marketing success with happiness - that a succesful product automatically means happy consumers. Nonetheless, three great talks that are well worth a listen.