Written on 25th May 2009
2 COMMENTS Zee, Editor in Chief at The Next Web, Principal at WeDoCreative.
Using iPhone app Brushes, artist Jorge Colombo managed to draw a fabulous finger painting of a Times Square scene for the New Yorker magazine.
Of Portuguese origin, since 2003 Jorge Colombo has started working on digital videos, initially restricting himself to one-minute movies, later moving into longer projects. And in 2009 he started also making drawings on an iPhone. (Prints available at www.20×200.com.)
You can actually see how Colombo painted his scene in the video below, recorded using Brushes companion app Brushes Viewer.
With so much information on the internet today and the content continuously growing, it can be very difficult to discover an online media site where your voice can be heard. Uncovering a place where you can make a difference and have an influence is even more difficult. A new Israeli start-up, BloggersBase.com hopes to fill that void. This unique blogging platform is an online citizen journalism magazine that is powered by its readers. Here, readers and bloggers alike can discover top quality content while simultaneously influencing the magazine.
BloggersBase.com is a competition-based content discovery platform where bloggers submit content on a variety of topics, and based on readers’ ratings, the highest quality content is discovered and featured on the site. The magazine consists of multi-authored blogs, each on a different subject. There are four main topics categories: Entertainment, Technology, Lifestyle and World Affairs, containing together ten different blogs. Based on reader ratings and responses, the highest quality content is discovered and featured on the site. The rating system is not the standard vote “up or down/yes or no” as seen on other social networks such as Digg or Mixx, but rather is on a scale of 1-10 and is based on a variety of criteria from professionalism and relevance to writing style and creativity. The more accurately you rate, the higher your influence becomes in deciding which content makes it to the main blog. This reader influence is one of the things that make BloggersBase such a unique platform.
The rating system applies to more than just the actual posts, but to the users as well. When you first register for BloggersBase, you are given a title as a reader and as a blogger. As a blogger, you begin as a Newbie and work your way up the scale to Scribe, Penman, Composer, Essayist, Columnist, Author, Wordsmith and eventually Scholar. Your rank is determined by the number of posts you have submitted, their scores, and the responses generated from these posts. As a reader, you start off as a Subscriber. In the beginning you aim to match the crowd’s opinion and as your ratings become more accurate, you gain influence and begin to move up the reader scale to Appraiser, Commentator, Reviewer, Critic, Analyst, Trend-Setter, Sage and Oracle.
Another distinctive quality about BloggersBase.com is the ongoing competition across all categories. This competition enables bloggers to take advantage of reaching their target audience while also earning the chance to receive money and maximum exposure for their blog. To be eligible for the competition, bloggers submit posts a.k.a. “Nuggets” into the “Goldmine”. At the end of each competition time slot, the top bloggers in each topic earn the opportunity to co-author the main blog for their category, resulting in added exposure and respect. In addition, the top two bloggers in each topic receive special monetary prizes and have the privilege to co-author the main blog for the following week and continue competing.
Although BloggersBase is a new platform, it seems to have great potential for becoming a reliable source for quality content which it’s bringing to the web in an exciting and different way, giving power and influence to its readers as well as exposure and prizes to its bloggers. To read some of the highest rated and most viewed posts on BloggersBase visit the links below:
World’s largest and most influential technology blog TechCrunch finally got the design its content deserved. When I was introduced in the world of tech last year, I was surprised by the amateurish looks of the top blogs. The only one who did it for me was ReadWriteWeb, with its clean, red, and well-thought over lay-out.
But now that has changed. With the redesign, the ads have been tamed – orderly structured at the right and top -, the network links better highlighted, and – most importantly, TechCrunch has adopted the magazine style. No more endless texts, but short excerpts on the frontpage. By choosing this approach, TechCrunch’s design becomes more accessible for less web-savvy people who aren’t used to the overabundance of text. Maybe we should consider that at The Next Web as well.
(I’m not the only thinking this, I guess after RWW and TechCrunch adopting the magazine lay-out, more blogs will follow)
Here’s a short overview of Techcrunch’s design during the years:
TechCrunch’s first logo dates from 2005
The design on the left lasted till May 2006, its succeeder wasn’t really never popular. Although it was the design which served TechCrunch during its big break-through.
The answer to that question seems to be a resounding yes going by the title of a new Japanese magazine called Shinkansen&Love. The Shinkansen (bullet train) is apparently now the way to see the big city, go shopping and find love.
It is actually a fashion-related magazine with accompanying stylish video minisite to show what a wonderful time you can have shopping in Tokyo. All sarcasm aside, the combination of intercity trains and love, while having its roots in some strong history (The Orient Express for example), is comical even for Japanese.
Written on 25th May 2009
2 COMMENTS 
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The Next Web Blog is closely associated with The Next Web Conference which is held annually in Amsterdam, The Netherlands. At this event speakers from all over the world come together to talk about, and show off, the future of the Web. (More info 
