Ray Kurzweil, futurist, inventor and author of The Singularity is Near, and other ground-breaking books on the future of computing and technology, will deliver the keynote address at the iMedia Breakthrough Summit, March 21 - 24 in Coconut Point, FL. Kurzweil has been called the restless genius by the Wall Street Journal and the ultimate thinking machine by Forbes. As you can imagine, I'm simply thrilled to have Kurzweil take the iMedia stage to inspire the Breakthrough audience with his vision of what's to come.
My enthusiasm is shared by the Breakthrough Summit Advisory Board who are all self-declared super-fans of Kurzweil. He even has the cachet to cut through the tech noise. As an example, amidst yesterdays iPad launch that had the industry blogosphere buzzing with iPad or iFad debates, Breakthrough Advisory Board member Renny Gleeson, who is also the Global Digital Strategies Director at Wieden+Kennedy aptly summed up our "get:"
Ray Kurzweil, Father of Singularity to speak at iMedia Breakthrough - put down the iPad and upload your brain NOW.
Renny, I agree.
We hope you'll join us at the Breakthrough Summit to explore the vast potential of emerging technology and media platforms. We'll dig deep into the brave new world of... Read more
Archive for January, 2010
Ray Kurzweil and the Brave New World of Media and Advertising Innovation to the iMedia Breakthrough Summit
The children of cyberspace will not believe in Santa
This holiday season store sales were flat compared to last year while, according to Comscore, online sales grew 4% to a total of $29.1 Billion U.S. dollars. December 15th was the highest online spending day ever recorded with sales totaling $913 million. Comscore's chairman, Gian Fulgoni attributes the increase to, "a strong late season spending surge, propelled by effective retailer promotions, guaranteed shipping and a major snowstorm on the eastern seaboard that convinced many to shop from the comfort of home." Although everything that Mr. Fulgoni said was true one thing that he failed to touch upon is that many consumers go to the stores to see the merchandise and then look online for the best deals. There is a shift in the way consumers purchase which includes going to the stores to physically see the merchandise and then seeking the best deals online. Furthermore, what about the kids who every christmas beg for Santa, Baby Jesus, or the three kings to bring them their gifts? Will they also go online and place an order on Santa.com? What if Santa.com doesn't have the best deals?
During the holiday season I was in the U.S. and noticed this behaviour first hand. While... Read more
Print is up the creek, without an iPad-dle
Forget the Cupertino keynote, if you have missed GQ's Men of the Year in the Christmas rush, then I recommend everyone download Condé Nast's new GQ January 2010 app for the iPhone. Why? Because it's a great example of the future of interactive design.
I've said it before and I will say it again; the future for magazines is not in creating browser-based web pages. We're hopefully past the days of newsletters formatted in MS Word, or experiencing websites with terrible typography, microscopic little pictures and business-card sized videos, not to mention, those tiny little ads embarrassingly hidden in the corners, jumping up and down saying 'click me, click me!' It's all more annoying than the donkey in Shrek.
Despite the amazing advances in functionality on the Internet over the last few years, design in digital channels is a long way from the offline aesthetic renaissance spurred on by desktop design programs like Quark Xpress. One only needs to browse a newsstand and marvel at the freedom of design, where bold, beautiful, creative typography are sensually entwined with stunning imagery. Even the Wall Street Journal runs color photos now! In contrast, type in the URLs of these same... Read more
