It's all going to be lost

The internet is almost 20 years old

Just under 30% of the entire population of the earth is hooked into it

All those people have pumped unfathomable amounts of effort and creativity into it… information, content, ideas, tools, services, art, science… you name it, it’s online.

It’s changed our world and how we live our lives by providing a whole new reality and environment

But none of it is real and the thing that amazes and enthralls us today, will have vanished without a trace by tomorrow

Sure various types of data persist, but eventually if someone severs the connection… it’s gone.

The creativity of the past is treasured in galleries and museums, our ancestor’s innovations are resurrected from the earth and marveled at, even the mundane records of our daily lives warrant a more permanent presence… but what of all the online brilliance, creativity and ingenuity? That incredible site, that fantastic new tool, that indispensible new service or community… how can we make the day they are superseded, which they all will be, from also being the day they are lost to history?

That’s why I love this idea: http://www.storyworldwide.com/digital-archaeology/

find something by looking for something else

Take a great piece of utility like GPS navigation, add a new twist of accidental discovery and you get the genius that is Serendipitor http://www.serendipitor.net/ (Thanks Pop-Up City)

Serendipitor from mark shepard on Vimeo.

And, in case you’re kept awake with nightmares of data sniffers recording what sort of bread your web enabled toaster of the future is going to be serving you, it’s also well worth taking a look at the sentient city survival kit Serendipitor is part of http://survival.sentientcity.net/

Sentient City Survival Kit - Quick Start Guide from mark shepard on Vimeo.

Ted Baker London encourages styling via Twitter

At 2 p.m. ET on Friday, Ted Baker London will open the first live, Twitter-operated styling studio.

Over a two-hour period, a rotating selection of seven U.S. fashion bloggers will use a live video stream and Twitter (Twitter) to direct hair stylists, makeup artists, runners and models to create a number of different looks from 450 pieces of Ted Baker’s Autumn/Winter 2010 collection. Spectators can follow the styling session, which takes place at Ted Baker’s headquarters in London, live on takeonted.com and on Twitter by following @ted_baker.

Viewers are also encouraged to tweet in their own styling suggestions with the hashtag #takeonted. The best ideas, the company promises, will have a chance of winning a prize.

We think this is a clever promotion to raise awareness of Ted Baker’s clothing line among fashion bloggers and their readers, and is sure to boost the follower count of Ted Baker’s Twitter account, which currently sports a little less than 600 followers, as well. This marks the first big social media promotion we’ve seen from the company.

Lauren Indvik - mashable

A Foursquare For Beer Lovers

Untappd is basically Foursquare for beer lovers. Rather than checking in at a location per se, you check in with what type of brew you are enjoying. You can also attach the physical location of your hops-flavored concoction.

Untappd is a mobile web app. It works on iOS, Android, webOS and BlackBerry 6.0 and higher. What we really like about Untappd is that despite being a mobile web app, it could easily pass for a native app.

Graphics, animations, pop-up notifications and navigational structure are all akin to what you see in native apps like Foursquare or Gowalla. The app is also quite responsive and can use your location.





Untappd uses Foursquare’s mapping API for business names, which makes checking into specific locations a snap. You can also push your checkin back out to Foursquare. Like other location-based social sites, you can earn special badges based on when you check in, where you check in and what kind of brew you declare as part of your checkin.

What makes Untappd different from just a “Foursquare with beer badges” concept is that you can comment on what beers your friends are drinking. You can link your Facebook and Twitter accounts to find your Untappd friends, see what they are drinking and then comment or toast that drink. The app also shows you beer recommendations and shows a list of what beers are currently trending.

The website for Untappd lets you comment or toast others’ entries and view your checkins and badges. You can’t check in via the website; instead, Untappd wants you to use the mobile experience.



We really like how Untappd integrates with Foursquare for its checkin process, because it makes it easy for Foursquare fans to adopt. You can also choose to post your beer-flavored checkin to Facebook or Twitter.

We love the user interface. Seriously, this is one of the most well-done mobile web apps we’ve seen. We also appreciate how easy it is to check in, search for beers and even add beers to the database of drinks.

As niche social sites go, Untappd is very well executed and offers a good value-addition to an already popular social network.

There is some real potential for Untappd, especially if bars or breweries want to get involved in any sort of location-based deals promotion. How cool would it be to get a listing of happy hour specials or weekly promotions? We think any brand that paired Untappd with happy hours would have something really special.

Christina Warren - Mashable

Use Your Phone Number to Make Online Purchases with paymo

Online shopping once required a credit card. Boku makes it possible to make purchases online using a mobile phone number instead. Rather than keying in your credit card number, address and security code, all you need to make a purchase using Boku’s payment option, Paymo, is your phone number.

Because the cell phone carriers charge merchants fees as high as 35% for this kind of transaction, Boku started out by exclusively targeting virtual goods. The production cost for such goods is minimal, and therefore their retailers can typically afford the high carrier fees. The company has since expanded to providing its payment option for online services like dating sites and for digital goods like music downloads.

Co-founder Ron Hirson says that the company next aims to expand as a payment method for pay-walled content. Eventually, as carrier rates come down, it aims to be an easy checkout option on ecommerce sites and for frequently purchased physical goods like fast food, coffee and transit.

Boku launched in 2008 when Hirson, Mark Britto and Erich Ringewald — all of whom had founded and sold other companies at this point — acquired mobile payment companies Paymo and Mobillcash. Since then, they’ve raised more than $40 million in three rounds of funding and have partnered with carriers in 64 countries, most recently Brazil and Israel.

While Boku faces competition from companies like Zong, onebip and Fortumo they claim to have the largest reach. Their partnerships with more than 200 carriers gives them access to about 2 billion potential customers. How successful Boku will be at making their payment method an option on more of these 2 billion people’s purchases will depend largely on carrier fees. The high fees that carriers currently charge merchants will unlikely outweigh the convenience that Boku provides its customers.

Partnerships with Vodafone in the UK and AT&T in the U.S. have inched Boku closer to becoming a plausible option for a wider variety of goods by creating higher price points, which allow consumers to make larger purchases and lower carrier fees.

With the company already making about one transaction every second, we’re not making an astounding prediction by betting on its success. Boku was smart to target the global market from the start. There are about 5 billion mobile phones worldwide, and — especially outside of the United States — not all of their owners have credit cards. Enabling these people to make online purchases increases merchants’ potential customer pools.

Boku also takes advantage of three things the world is becoming increasingly obsessed with: online shopping, convenience and secure payments (eBay CEO John Donahoe recently pronounced mobile the safest way to pay online). Although Boku declined to comment on rumors that both Apple and Google (Google) want to acquire it, we understand why they’d be interested.

Sarah Kessler - Mashable