Sorry fisher friends, this is not a post about bass (rhymes with lass)
but bass (rhymes with face).

The T. and I went walking last Sunday and found the Kensington Bass.  I first read about it this bass in the Spacing Magazine. 

The Kensington Bass is a public art installation for bass players.  A bass was built on a street light pole.  Its completely in tune and operational.  There is no external amplification but if you put your head to the pole, you get a great sound as it reverberates inside.




The encounter with the Kensington Bass inspired me to upload my first YouTube video (will I be at a party some day saying, "I totally remember my first YouTube video, it was ...")  Its a very close up shot of the T. playing so that my circa 1999 digital camera could get some sound. 

Any other bass playing Trawana readers?  Go to the Kensington Bass, play it, record it, upload it.  And tag it baby, tag it.

The AccordionGuy was sending off SquishyCows if you emailed him with a request.  The only catch was that you had to take a picture of the SquishyCow in an interesting locale.

I had a similar request for a 'cow from Calum when I posted a pic of the adorable SquishyCow at ISPCon.

So I went to a conference in Las Vegas and nabbed a pair of SquishyCow for Calum.  But first, I took them on the road to do some sight seeing.




You can see my pics along with Joey's and hopefully more (Calum!) here.

Tonight I am listening to CBC Radio and they are broadcasting EuroQuest.

While on air, the host mentioned that there is a blog for the show called EuroQuest EuroBlog on Blogspot!

Its interesting to see that a current affairs show for Radio Netherlands would use a blog for their homepage.  A blog, or (to describe the real functionality) a web page that puts the most recent entries at the top of a page and automatically archives pages is the ideal forum for a radio show.



Another blogger that got much attention by the CBC was the person who wrote the World Cup blog.  This photo blogger moved around the city taking pictures of all the celebrations through the past month.  I heard him on the radio three times.  Four years ago the CBC would never have brought on a member of the public in this way at all.

The World Cup is on now and what a shock to discover that I can't even listen to it on line.  I am supporting two teams: Trinidad and whoever is playing England.  I supported Trinidad because a team with the slogan 'Soca Warriors' is so cool, it deserves everyone's support.  And besides Trinidadians (along with other West Indians) brought roti to Toronto for which I shall, in return, support their national football teams.

I wanted to watch the Trinidad - England game.  But I had a lot of meetings that day so I couldn't leave the office.  A ha I thought, I can listen to the BBC or Radio Eirrean stream.  (I recalled how when we were in Ireland 4 years ago the Ireland - Germany game was playing on the radio in every shop we walked into).   But on Thursday, no joy.

BBC / Radio Eireann don't play the games on the Internet stream outside of the UK / Ireland.  They block it via IP address.  I searched and searched but I couldn't find a site that was broadcasting a pirate stream.  I also searched for a stream from Trinidad and no joy their either.

FIFA has very effectively locked down Internet broadcasting of the game.  I know FIFA has broadcast contracts in most of the world, considering the incredible global popularity.  So is it a surprise that it has restricted broadcast via Internet in regions with the highest broadband adoption.  I think FIFA's decision is pretty traditional broadcast thinking.  Stick to traditional broadcast mediums where the revenue model is clear i.e. million dollar ad contracts with Carlsberg.  But why wouldn't FIFA want North Americans to be able to watch games via Internet broadcast, including commercials?  Its only growth region is North America considering football is already pretty popular in India and China.

Old school thinking.  It would have been fun to see the load that broadcasting the World Cup would have on the US Internet backbone!

But there are some interesting items on the World Cup on the InterWeb such as a vidoe archive sponsored by Nike & Google.  Here's a great video of the Brazilian team - all the more beautiful because it uses fab Brazilian music.

Yahoo is sponsoring a Flickr Set of all World Cup fan photos.  You can see those here.


 

Last tuesday I attended CaseCamp.  It was organized by Eli Singer as a 'DemoCamp for marketers'.  Individuals and organizations were invited to present a marketing case with a challenge and a solution.  Eli used similar rules to BarCamp with a strict 15 minute presentation length, 5 slides with 5 words per slide.

No one really followed Eli's rules except Eli.  He co-presented with Susan Bloch-Nevitte, Executive Director of Public Affairs at the AGO, on the bloggers event at the Frank Gehry exhibit.  The AGO invited a small group of bloggers to come to the AGO for a 'media only' style event with a wine and cheese and viewing of the exhibit.  I recall reading about the exhibit on one of my favourite blogs Spacing.  I thought this was a great way for an arts institution to reach a new demographic.  This is a great example of how blogging can be extremely effective for public relations.  This case was the most interesting for me at CaseCamp.

Kate Trgovac also did a really interesting presentation on a marketing campaign at PetroCanada for Winter Olympic Promotion. 

CaseCamp was similar to DemoCamp in that some presentations are really interesting to me and some are less so.  This is exactly what I expect of this type of event.  In some respects, I prefer CaseCamp because it asks presenters to present a case (opportunity/action taken).  DemoCamp is less strict in this way since DemoCampers are just asked to present some kind of demo.

Specific thoughts on CaseCamp:
- I would like to see some presenters to present a case with just the problem and surrounding background.  The audience could provide suggestions for a solution.  The presenter could say what steps were actually taken and how it was resolved.  (i.e. We had a PR disaster, this is what happened.  What would you do audience? )  This is generally how cases are done in courses I have taken.

- Eli should be strict about the 5 slides.  This is difficult to do when people have a prepared presentation.  But reminding people before the next event and during the event will enforce the idea.  5 slides is a good rule

-I like the venue and structure of the event.  Going to a bar, having a drink and talking to people before we start is great.  I prefer this to the DemoCamp structure of present and then we all head over to a bar afterwards.

-

Some pictures from May's DemoCamp

Ross shows his fashion sense by bringing the IBMMacTop.




Joey and Jay quickly step in as MCs for this event.  Unfortunately David Crow was taken very ill but is now recovering.




Ross and Joey present Start Page, I really enjoyed this presentation.  I think this is going to be a great product!  It was also great to see James Woods.  When is he going to do a DemoCamp presentation?

Aside from Ross's presentation on Start page, the most interesting presentation for me was on 'Blogscope'.  It is a U of T Comp Eng. research project and is to improve search for high volume text streams (a.k.a. blogs).  When I see this kind of project that I feel assured that the students have their job secured at Google, if that is their chosen path in life.  They are fast become search algorithm experts. 

But it also interests me that there is still so much research to be in Search towards its improvement.  BlogScope provides information analysis that goes beyond Google Analytics.  It is effectively a step towards a multi-dimensional seach engine.  The axis being time (bursts of writing on one topic) and keyword (relevant words that appear around the keyword entered by the user).

This makes me ask why Google is not simply continuing to develop its core competency - better and better search.  Adding dimensions to search, search audio content and search pictures (Riya) I don't think it would be hard for Google with its resources to copy what Riya has done.