Simply give

Sometimes in life you feel like giving something away without really knowing why. You just do it. Then, later in time, things comeback to you in ways you’d never expect. Life is beautiful.

June 30, 2008 | Tags: | Leave a Comment 

dança dos piões


by Gauthier Bouly

June 29, 2008 | Tags: | 1 Comment 

The new Firefox in town

For those of you who still open Internet Explorer everyday give yourselves 2 minutes and download the new Firefox 3. You’ll be surprised on what you have been missing.

Firefox 3

What’s new?
It’s faster. It’s cleaner. It’s easier to use. I noticed a huge jump in speed on the first use, even with 20+ tabs. Good to know that both the Web Developer Toolbar and PicLens add-on updated to the latest version seamlessly.

There are a few new features and big news on the performance side. Regarding the new look, it takes a while to get used to but it think it grows on you.

Smart (social) marketing
At the launch of version 1.0 Chris Messina (actually it was a guy named Rob from an ad agency - see comments) got this crazy idea of getting people to pay for a 2-page New York Times for Firefox. It worked pretty well and 10.000 people paid and got their names of a NYTimes ad. This time they decided on a different strategy but equally smart. Firefox 3 set out to break the world record of number of downloads in 24 hours in order to bring awareness to the broswer. This resulted has resulted so far in a huge number of bloggers covering the story at the same time creating a big snowball effect that has resulted in 6,792,781 downloads so far, a server crash and a nice Power User’s Guide.

June 18, 2008 | Tags: | 3 Comments 

O Segredo de um Cuscuz

Há algumas noites fui ver O segredo do Cuscuz. Saí da sala com a sensação de ter visto um não-filme mas, felizmente, não escrevi logo a minha opinião.

É um daqueles filmes (como o The Van e o Los Lunes al Sol) que de tão próximos da realidade que são, que me demoram a mim uns dias a digerir. Grandes partes do filme são filmadas em grandes planos de pessoas e em quase tempo real o que aumenta a sensação de realidade.

A Hafsia Herzi é absolutamente absorvente (i.e. artisticamente) e tão interessante em diálogo como na sua famosa dança do ventre:


Uma loooonga mas muito interessante crítica é feita pelo Vasco Câmara no Público.

June 17, 2008 | Tags: | Leave a Comment 

Monocle: 20 Most livable cities

Monocle: 25 most liveable cities

This will be the great image on he cover of the next issue of Monocle. The July/August issue will also bring the 2008 edition of 20 Most Livable Cities index which was carefully crafted by the good guys at Monocle.

Correspondents were dispatched worldwide to assess the cities. The entire issue is devoted to the concerns, forces, people and policies that make our cities work.

Here’s the final list (found at the nice Copenhagen Cycle Chic since Monocle’s article is not up yet):
1. Copenhagen
2. Munich
3. Tokyo // 4. Zürich // 5. Helsinki // 6. Vienna // 7. Stockholm // 8. Vancouver // 9. Melbourne // 10. Paris // 11.Sydney // 12. Honolulu // 13. Madrid // 14. Berlin // 15. Barcelona // 16. Montréal // 17. Fukuoka // 18. Amsterdam // 19. Minneapolis // 20. Kyoto.

Can’t wait to read the whole article / magazine.

Update: very good news! Lisbon is number 24 on the list! Here’s a pdf of the article.

June 12, 2008 | Tags: , | 5 Comments 

Opostos da Silly season

Começou a silly season em Lisboa (e provavelmente no resto do país). Não gosto da pasmaceira e da falta de profissionalismo que invade o país nesta altura.

Por outro lado Junho começou, o tempo está mais quente e Lisboa está mais calma porque muitas pessoas vão de férias (e porque o preço do combustível faz muita gente deixar o carro em casa). Não era tão bom que Lisboa fosse sempre assim?
lisbon view

June 3, 2008 | Tags: , , | 4 Comments 

What is Social Media?

Concordo com o Carlos. This video about social media is really well done. Probably one of the most simple explanations I’ve seen so far.


The whole plain english series is very interesting.

June 3, 2008 | Tags: , , | Leave a Comment 

Offbeat Guides: personalized travel guides

I love this idea. Travel guides are normally full of stuff you don’t need and often don’t include the stuff you could actually use (like events). Offbeat Guides solves this problems but building a customized and ondemand travels guide just for you.

Offbeat Guides

How does it work?
You start by answering 5 questions: 1) What’s your name? 2) Where are you going? 3) Where are you coming from? 4) What are your travel dates? 5) (Optional) Where are you staying when you’re there?

It then builds a personalized travel guide based on information from Wikipedia, Wikitravel, Flickr and other services. It covers around 30 000 destinations. The guide is not free. You can get a pdf version for $10 or a printed version for $25 which you will receive in the mail.

Here’s an example pdf of a travel guide:
Paris Travel Guide By Offbeat Guides - Find Documents

The company has been launched by David Sifry (Technorati ex-CEO) and it’s one of the most interesting projects I’ve seen so far that merges physical and online worlds.

Travel services are changing again.
Mass travel customization is certainly of the best areas where the web can be useful. We’ve been creating so much content in the last decade. For example TripAdvisor alone has millions of travel related reviews, Flickr and Panoramio have millions of photos and Wikipedia is full of updated and fact-based information.

One suggestion
One thing I would really to see is a relashionship with something like Dopplr. Guides would include who are my friends traveling or living at the destination.

The discussion about the new Offbeat Guides is going on at Techmeme.

June 2, 2008 | Tags: , , | 2 Comments