Jeff Jarvis is liveblogging from the Davos Conference, arguably the top “thought leader” venue in the world. In addition to his splendid insights and some play by play of ongoing discussions, this reflects how powerful blogging can be as a connection point between those who have access and those who do not.
I’m not going to get invited to Davos anytime soon, but thanks to Jeff … I’m already there.
Very bad news on the Zhou case. Her car has been found and there is a body in the trunk. No ID yet on the body but it’s probably May Zhou.
More Car: Silver 4 door 2006 Corolla Lic# 5VFG430
Student classified as “At Risk”
Police are asking the public’s help in looking for Zhou and her car. Zhou is described as an Asian woman, 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing about 120 pounds. She has brown eyes, black hair and a medium complexion. Her roommate recalled only that she’d been wearing blue jeans when she left the apartment Saturday morning.
Anyone with information about Zhou can call Stanford University police at (650) 723-9633, or after hours at (650) 329-2413.
The new big attraction in Oregon is the Portland Aerial Tram. The Portland Tram will whisk people from the lower “South Waterfront” terminal (located next to OHSU Center for Health & Healing), to the upper terminal located at the Kohler Pavilion on the main campus of Oregon Health and Science University. At 22 miles per hour the Portland Tram trip takes three-minutes as it rises over Interstate 5, the Lair Hill neighborhood, and the Southwest Terwilliger Parkway. Sounds fun!
Social networks work because social networking is the new way to interact with folks. And naturally the rise of social networks is leading onliners to complain about … social networks and how people are misunderstanding their significance:
The New York Times‘ Richard Siklos complains that it’s hard to “say no” in the online world, and you’ll aquire more “friends” than you know what to do with if you start hanging out in virtual worlds and social networks.
Brian Solis is concerned that PR people are just not getting Social Networks, especially the large agencies who Solis suggests are abusing Social Network marketing, saying those big agencies: “… screw the pooch in the public spotlight with highly visible and discussed attempts to fool, capitalize on, or manipulate the market…”
Brian’s also concerned that people are not getting what he meant in his long piece cited above.
My take is that social networking has reached that uncomfortable level of prominence where crass, objectionable commercialism is both undesirable and inevitable. At the last WebmasterWorld Pubcon people were strategizing about how to manipulate social networks to promote commercial sites and clients and I expect this to become more pervasive very fast. I think Solis would say that quality PR can be done without compromising the integrity of the social network experience and maybe that’s true but as with all things commercial we’ll see more obnoxious and manipulative stuff than quality promotion. And hey, that’s OK because this … is …. America and we like our commercialism crash, superficial, and obnoxious, right?
Wow, I sure hope the rumors about a Google Kiosk project are true. I like Google and I like Kiosks. Here in Oregon I was involved in computer kiosks for over ten years. Back in 1990 I managed one of the USA’s earliest multimedia projects using IBM Infowindow Touch monitors, computers, and laserdisc players. That was a US Forest Service partnership with my former employer the Southern Oregon Visitors Association, and we had 30 units in tourism places all over Southern Oregon.
This project led to a new project I designed and deployed as part of a SOVA, State, and National Scenic Byways partnership that put internet connected units in about 15 places. The internet solved many of the problems with the early kiosk project such as real time information availability, though it brought a host of new problems with rural connectivity issues and eventually a lack of enthusiasm for a complicated, grant driven project.
Could Google bring the necessary ingredients to make Kiosks commercially viable? I think they could by deploying broadly and with enough of an advertising footprint to interest national players who would appreciate being both in the programs and on the sides of the cabinets.
Good luck Google, I’ll always root for touch computer kiosks!
Related link – HUGE touchscreen with mapping demo – fantastic!
Effective January 23 new US Passport rules come into effect. I predict some rather interesting stories from people who are now in the Caribbean and Canada where they did not need a passport and then return when they do. In fact I’m confused about the Canada ones – a lot of “regular” people from Detroit and other border places go back and forth regularly. They won’t like paying $100 for the passport paperwork.
Air Travel Passport requirements have been relaxed *temporarily*. You can get to Mexico and Canada by land and sea without a passport but only until a date not yet official but appears to be January of 2008.
However if you even are considering plans to travel outside of the USA you should get a passport *now* because it tends to be a time consuming process.
Here’s an explanation of new rules
The OSSA has released the Kim Family search report:
Oregon State Sheriff’s Association Report
TO DISCUSS the REPORT – CLICK HERE
Feel free to discuss this or other aspects of the Kim Story CLICK HERE.
I asked my son to write a Video Games primer so I, and others, would have an idea about all the variations in gaming systems. He did a good job and so I’m linking it up here.
The Xianglu Grand Hotel will be the venue for SES China, to be held in Xiamen China in May of 2007. The English website for the Xianglu Grand is here.
Major website SEO problems notwithstanding, the Xianglu Grand looks like an amazing hotel. One of china’s largest and finest this huge hotel in Xiamen is a five-star hotel project by Xianglu China, a business consortium for petrochemical, synthetic fiber, and real estate. This appears to be the first Xianglu group’s venture into the hospitality industry.
The Xianglu Grand is located in the Huli District and overlooks Hubin, a scenic part of Xiamen. The hotel is minutes from the Xiamen Gaoqi Airport and very close to Xiamen shopping and attractions.
There are several restaurants including a steakhouse and buffet and a 24 hour lounge.
I’m tentatively planning to go this year having missed last year’s Nanjing event which was the first of it’s kind in China. There’s a great search marketing tour that surrounds this event and it looks like a lot of fun and perhaps good structure to bring to a first trip over.
Hey, who needs the mysteries of the Da Vinci Code when you’ve got THIS immaculate conception to explain?
Just don’t tell Charleton Heston, OK?
Joe Duck 