Contemporary Istanbul

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This weekend, I had a chance to visit Contemporary Istanbul, the first true contemporary art fair in Istanbul.  Last month, I had visited Art Istanbul, which featured more of a 20th century perspective on Turkish modern art, whereas Contemporary Istanbul was focused on the current movements in Turkish art.  It also enjoyed a stronger presence of international galleries.  Congratulations to Orhan Taner and the team, who put the event together.

One surprise for me was the lack of video art, which seems to have emerged as the dominant medium, if the amount of video in the biennials is an accurate indication.

OpenBC IPO: 100MM vs. 35MM

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In a comment, Alfonso von Wunschheim brings a welcome explanation to the confusion around how much OpenBC intended to raise.  Thanks, Alfonso.

The rumored 100Mio are based on the fact that they announced to
float 2’509’049 shares at 30-38 euro range, which make 75-100Mio, they
finally went public at 30 and as the greenshoe of 327’268 and 831’781
other shares went to former shareholders, only the remaining 1’350’000
went to the company representing 35Mio.

Why this?
You need to float 100Mio to justify a prime standard quotation in
Frankfurt, and if you don’t need that much money and/or you do not want
dilute some shareholders (the founders!?) too much you sell some
investor shares instead…
source:
http://www.dgap.de/link.php?plugin=db_anzeige&id=75088&b

Hakia Article on Read/Write Web

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R/WW has an early review of hakia and its semantic search endeavor.  At the end, Alex Iskold answers the fundamental question that’s on everyone’s mind:

Will Hakia beat Google? Hakia itself
has no answer, but my answer at this point is no. This current version is not exciting
enough and the resulting search set is not obviously better. So it’s a long shot that
they’ll beat Google in search. I think if Hakia presented one single answer for each
query, with the ability to drill down, it might catch more attention. But again, this is
a long shot.

I still think it’s too early to call the game in the case of hakia.  As Melek notes in the comments, they are continuously improving.  Also, this kind of attention from the digiterati can not hurt. 

Economics of Virtual Characters

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Baris brings to attention two companies that represent the changing economics of online representation.

The first is PayPerPost. This site offers bloggers cash from advertisers if they write on the topic of interest for the advertiser.
…
The second is Fake Your Space.  What they do is that they create a fake myspace (or any other SN site)
profile for you where you use the pictures of a model that looks really
hot to represent yourself.  You buy popularity.  They also give you 2
comments per week on your profile, also from good looking people.

As the fight to claim attention escalates, there will be creative approaches, as such. In tandem, new filters, behavioral and technology-based will develop to make our choices healthier.  This type of activity only supports the view that the attention of the content consumer is getting more valuable.

Acumen Fund Seeking Fellows

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Acumen Fund is an extraordinary organization that takes a disciplined approach to create sustainable philanthropic ventures. They are seeking a new class of Acumen Fellows. The ideal candidate looks like this:

Who should apply? Only those individuals with exceptional business skills,
proven international interests and a great ability to work with people. Acumen
Fund Fellows have the talent to do almost anything in their careers, and the
vision to see themselves making significant change to challenging social
problems. Fellows have the maturity to work with independence in Africa or South
Asia. They are communicators and team players. They are individuals who do not
accept the status quo. They are problem-solvers and listeners. They have a sense
of humor. Previous international experience helps. So does a track record that
demonstrates not only innovation and imagination but also the ability to work
with teams and in diverse situations. In short, we are looking to identify some
of the world’s next generation of leaders.

Here are the instructions for potential applicants.

Relics of PLT (pre-long tail) Times

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Unm
I am a Seth Godin fan.  I agree with many of his thoughts and ways.  So today, I was surprised when I saw that his blog has comments disabled.

Anyway, on to my post…

Seth’s ranting about the occasional "Under New Management" sign you see on a shop’s window:

Why would anyone put a sign like this up on her store?

If I liked your store before, now I’m on notice to be careful–it might not be as good.

If I didn’t like your store before, why on earth am I
paying attention to your little sign and why should I go out of my way
to take another chance?

This is a vivid symbol of the ego-centric nature of most marketing. The sign is about the owner, not about the prospect.

He is half-right about the sign being about the owner. Actually, the sign is about the location, the physical store.  That’s one of the friction areas in markets still bound by the economics of scarcity.  I care if the dry cleaned on my block is under new management; it’s relevant to me whether I liked the old place, or not. 

In markets where the friction of location has disappeared, the sign is almost meaningless, as Seth says.

I just wanted to point out the distinction.

Read/Write Journalism

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I had previously posted on the topics of citizen journalism and participatory media.  Now, Reuters and Yahoo are tapping (NYT; free reg req’d) into the powerful networked-ness of this phenomenon:

Starting tomorrow, the photos and videos submitted will be placed throughout Reuters.com and Yahoo News, the most popular news Web site in the United States,
according to comScore MediaMetrix. Reuters said that it would also
start to distribute some of the submissions next year to the thousands
of print, online and broadcast media outlets that subscribe to its news
service.

Apparently, there’s no compensation planned as of yet, but I am sure that will follow soon.