5 Picks from The Wired 40; NVIDIA helps us visualize….

Wired each year posts a top 40 list of businesses. Called The Wired Top 40 of course. The criteria is:

We start by looking for the basics: strategic vision, global reach, killer technology. But that’s not enough.
To land a spot on our annual Wired 40 list,
a business also needs the X-factor – a hunger for new ideas and
an impatience to put them into practice.

The top 3 companies for 2006 are Google, Apple and Samsung in that order. I wanted to highlight 5 others on the list that seem like good things will happen for them based on societal trends. This is my top 5 wired subset list from a NON investor.

1. NVIDIA – Wired Rank 21 – These folks make graphics cards. Really good graphics cards. With the growing importance of visualization of information. Open source usually lags in innovation behind private companies (oh shoot me). We all need dual monitors with great graphics. Betting on NVIDIA is easy.
2. GENENTECH – Wired Rank 04 – how can you go wrong with customized drugs for specific patient groups. Marketing teaches us that markets diverge, not converge. So we need drugs for divergent humans. Evolution, eh?
3. MONSANTO – Wired Rank 25 – Frankenfood meets Ethanol. Corn number 2 is not the be-all. Monsanto in my opinion will benefit from the world’s energy demand. And we benefit because ethanol is a cap on the price of oil as it can only grow to the point of being higher than the price of ethanol and people switch (energy companies do this with feed stock versus natural gas in flex plants)
4. LI & FUNG – Wired Rank 32 – outsource production of clothes for major brands. If there is anything I learned from reading on marketing and then Jane Jacobs it is that first you outsource, then innovate, then export. They either grow through the brands themselves, or innovate and become the brand. Either way it sounds like they are in the driver’s seat.
5. CISCO – Wired Rank 12 – I
   thought they were goners a few years ago with the horrible user
   interface (command line, hello?). Then they bought Linksys and seem
   ready to continue to route our world. The market will grow and it is up
   to them to mess it up. I don’t think they will.

Now we just need to figure out the nanotech battery companies that power the dewalt drills. 18 VOLTS! Put that in your hybrid.

And just to repeat – I am not an investor. For all I know these are the
next Enron. But the business models sound good without looking at the
balance sheet.

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? – A BestSeller

Congratulations to Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg and the whole team at Future Now Inc. Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? is on the best seller list. WHOOOOOOOP! 

And the blatant promotion continues  …given they are a client. And IABC is a client. So I must point out that the Eisenberg barking cat road show hits Houston in July. If you talk to them, be sure not to mention that it is HOT in Houston in Jully. We want it to be a surprise.

Here is the information on the upcoming presentation:

Waiting for Your Cat to Bark? Persuading Customers When They Ignore Marketing

Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg Co-founders

Future Now, Inc.

Thu 27-Jul-06 11:15 AM to Thu 27-Jul-06 1:00 PM

Microsoft AdCenter Gender Predictions for Demographic Marketing

The demos of demographic profiling of search on adlab site of adcenter search technology. The image to the left demonstrates the end result; you get gender approximations based on search term. These are estimated from the behavior of the user I am guessing from total search patterns.

So, hypothetically if a searcher is obsessed with someone perhaps this indicates a male behavior. That profile data is tied back to search terms and presented to the marketing team as such. Interesting.

All kidding aside, I do see real value in demographic data when formulating strategy for clients. This does matter. Note that Google only released google trends after it was obvious that technorati and blogpulse visual reporting was skyrocketing in use. Perhaps this will lead to a similar disclosure from adwords or overture in the future?

Privacy? That is another matter.

Mark Cuban is a PR Machine – and Doesn’t Know It

Mark Cuban, by default, accomplishes what tons of PR people TRY to accomplish. He does it unconsciously. What is that? He is brutally honest and genuinely interesting which makes him Brangelina. (his words) More?

I’m sorry for what I make you cover.

In my naive days I used to think that news stories were meant to be stories of interest. That they were uncovered topics that were being revealed to a public thirsting for information and knowledge.

Now, Im coming to realize that there is something more to how stories are selected. Im just not quite sure what that “something ” is.

(more….)

It is perhaps a bit disingenuous to suggest that you don’t understand how being a dot-com-millionaire-loud-sports-fan-nba-owner makes you newsworthy. Hmmm. Personally I’d rather read about Mark in the news than Brittney or Brangelina any day. Keep up the "something" Mark!

RELATED: Mark Cuban photo selected from flickr because it is set up with a creative commons license. If you aren’t familiar with CC it is worth reading up on. Give away some content and you will get linked. And THANKS SDK for the use of the photo!

Bumptop – Great Concepts to Integrate into Vista and OSX

Watched the video on bumptop from the link on 43 folders. Bumptop is a new desktop interface prototype. Many of the user interface metaphors are similar to a real (physical) desktop; moving files around, stacking, shuffling things. The critique on 43 folders, linked above, addresses several of the limitations.

On the PLUS side, the  "zip" motion of circling  and drawing a line through the middle is innovative. I can see using that interface in favor of the CTL-CLICK-CLICK-CLICK method I currently use. Circle, zip through the middle, post to flickr. Easy.

The biggest missing component is an increased utilization of horizontal adjacency. I have mentioned this before in a post on Open Crouquet.