As of 3 hours ago, Amanda Palmer, performer, director, composer and musician, most famous for being the frontwoman of Punk Cabaret band The Dresden Dolls, has raised over US$1 million in contributions to fund the production, distribution and touring of her latest solo album.

Palmer, who had previously been on the major label Roadrunner Records, severed ties with the mainstream music industry in 2010 following the ‘ReBellyon’. According to Palmer, Roadrunner had wanted to pull clips of her exposed stomach from her music video, Leeds United, because they thought she looked too fat. The controversy prompted fans to take pictures of their own stomachs and post them online which ultimately led to a parting of ways between Palmer and Roadrunner.

Having reached her initial goal of $100 000 on Kickstarter within a day, Palmer has certainly proved that good music can be made without the middleman. In this world of crowdsourcing, community funding and digitalism, the role of the music label in dictating what the consumer wants to hear and what they will pay for, is coming to an end.

THIS IS THE FUTURE OF MUSIC, writes Palmer in her Kickstarter video and with a million dollars in her pocket and a fanbase that’s more engaged than ever, it’s a hard argument to dispute.

There’s a reason LinkedIn is as successful as it is with more than 150 million accounts and two new ones created every second. It serves the need to separate our personal lives with our professional ones. While LinkedIn has been largely unchallenged as the more serious and subdued ‘professional network’ (as opposed to seemingly more frivolous offerings of Facebook or Twitter), there’s now ResumUP – a site that turns your online profile into a visual resume.

While the infographic-fied CV is interesting and handy on its own, ResumUP’s real test and actual potential will be its capability to connect, whether it be user to user, employer to employee or recruiter to jobseeker. With visual job vacancies in the mix (companies such as Adidas, Groupon and Kraft Foods have signed on to give it a go) and the promise of matching ability between visual resumes and potential jobs, the site looks promising…even if it did take half an hour longer to create than a LinkedIn profile. ResumUP relies on you to provide what you think your skills are then rank them from basic to advanced.

If I say I’m advanced in analytical thinking and basic in team work, did I just tell everyone on ResumUP that I’m socially incompetent?

April 15, 2012 is the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic.  To recognise the event, The History Press opened a Twitter account (@TitanicRealTime) that tweets up-to-the-minute experiences as if it were 1912.

Since the Titanic didn’t set sail until April 10, current tweets are just facts about the vessel.  However, once the ship ‘sets sail’, you can expect a little more action.  Especially in the moments leading up to the collision with the iceberg.  Can they resist tweeting, “I’m flying, Jack”?

A year ago, New York based filmmaker Kirby Ferguson uploaded the first part of his 4-part web series, Everything is a Remix detailing the story of how everything from music to technology is built upon everything else that had come before it. Led Zeppelin were called rip-offs when they first started playing together and Bob Dylan’s first album included only cover songs. The last part of the series was uploaded only 2 weeks ago and outlines how our current legal system doesn’t accommodate this process of creativity, pertinent considering the recent SOPA and PIPA controversy sweeping the internet.

The point that Ferguson was trying to make was that creativity isn’t magic and those that create aren’t geniuses or anomalies, “they have just applied ordinary schools of thought to existing materials.” And of course, that means anyone can be creative and come up with something ‘magical’.

Everything is a Remix is a great series if you have a spare half hour. To get you started – the Part 1 is below.

 
But now that’s over, Ferguson has a brand new project up his sleeve. ‘This is Not a Conspiracy Theory’ is the new web series he’s trying to get off the ground. It will tell the story of how major ideas, events and human quirks have gotten us to where we are politically. The first part is to be published just before the U.S. federal elections.
 

Of course, being freely distributed over the internet through channels such as YouTube and Vimeo, Ferguson is seeking funding through the online community funding site Kickstarter. Ferguson has two weeks to raise another $10 000 for the film so if you want limited edition goodies that come with being a backer and of course, the desire to see the series made, head over to This is Not a Conspiracy Theory’s Kickstarter page.

When the White House joined Google +, we knew something was up. And lo and behold, a week later, it was announced that President Obama would be holding his very own Hangout or the first “completely virtual interview from The White House.”

If you missed live Hangout, watch the whole thing below.

No matter what your politics are, in terms of social media, you’ve got to give it to the Obama Administration. They know how to do it.

Following the success of Facebook and Twitter in his 2008 campaign, in October 2011, Obama joined Tumblr, rounding out his social media collection. The behind-the-scenes photos and user submissions are an attempt to create grassroots support.

Like any product, politicians have a brand that needs to be fostered and managed. Considering that one of the principal attributes of social media platforms is their ability to create conversation, it’s a shrewd move for Obama who positions himself as someone different to the elitism and loftiness traditionally associated with politics. That’s why ‘Change’ worked for him so well in 2008.

This new level of interactivity is definitely a step forward in this space and with these technologies at everyone’s disposal; there shouldn’t be a reason why our local politicians and government organisations can’t use these platforms to engage in a similar way.

It’s always a bummer to get a 404 error message right? Well not this one!

Click HERE to see how to do error messages right.

Sometimes we’re so caught up with populating the spaces that we think we should, we neglect the little things that customers are in contact with every day. Error messages might seem like an administrative detail but why shouldn’t you use this opportunity to apologise, make them smile, tell them something important? It might seem like something small but small things can leave a big impression.

And just imagine if every error message were this cool. Wouldn’t the world be a much better place?

WeTopia is a new social game that enables players to directly fund initiatives that improve the lives of children.

Free to play via Facebook, players create and manage their own villages, making a real-world donation for any virtual purchase — for example, when trees or vitamins are bought in the game, a partner charity will donate the same item to a community they work with. Players can also earn ‘Joy’ points, which can be spent on charitable projects in the real world.

Games for charitable benefit sounds like a great idea. CityVille and FarmVille had a user base of close to 100 million at their peak. However, social games can get old fast and user numbers can drop as quickly as they grow.

But then again CityVille didn’t have Justin Bieber. The Biebs has invested in WeTopia’s developer, Sojo (combination of ‘social’ and ‘joyful’) Studios. When he recently posted about WeTopia to his some 39 million Facebook fans, he received almost 28,000 ‘likes’, over 4,300 comments and 320 shares. Already, WeTopia has 460,000 monthly active users.

Here is LOUD’s first attempt at spreading joy. In 5 hours, we’ve donated two hot meals to Haiti and donated ‘Joy’ to the US Homeless Children Care Organisation. Not bad eh?

We’re quite proud of it but we’d need a lot more hours before it looks anything like this.

Consider yourself an athlete? You’re pretty quick, right? Almost as quick as a world-class marathon runner? You’re welcome to try your luck. Well, for 60 feet anyway.

To demonstrate exactly how fast champion marathoners have to run in order to win the 26.2 mile race, ASICS installed a 60-foot long video wall underground in a US subway station.

Along the video wall, US Olympic marathoner, and ASICS athlete, Ryan Hall, demonstrated his marathon race pace, a 4:46 mile. No one could beat him, including Ryan Hall himself who stopped by to race against his virtual self.

After the race, fans are presented with a humbling fact: Ryan Hall runs this fast for 26.2 miles.

Hats off to VITRO in the US for this sweet work.

With internet privacy becoming an increasing concern not only for parents of children who use social networks but everyone who has ever posted anything on the internet, EVER, it is no surprise that something like Take This Lollipop has come about.

Working on a similar premise to Intel’s Museum of Me – a site that taps into your Facebook profile to create a museum about well…you, Take This Lollipop goes one step further and throws a serial killer into the mix, preying on the previously latent fears that we might’ve harboured about sharing our personal information online.

We know not to share too much on the internet but what about our privacy settings? As long as privacy settings are on, it’s all okay, right? Perhaps.

Sign into Take This Lollipop with your Facebook profile and watch the stalkerish nightmare unfold. Or, you could just scroll down and vicariously experience the rollercoaster of emotions through the eyes of our Production Manager.

“They don’t have all my information do they??? I’m deleting my Facebook!”

It might seem farfetched but it might not be as implausible as you might think. What’s a password anyway but for a jumble of letters and numbers protecting all of your personal information from the rest of the world? Not all the much. Still not convinced? Try it then. Take the lollipop. We dare you.

This week, Heineken announced the selection of the 19 designers they believe have the vision and talent to co-create a pioneering nightclub concept, as part of Heineken Open Design Explorations Edition 1: The Club

The 19 were chosen from four different countries – Japan, Brazil, USA and Italy – with design backgrounds in product, graphic, motion, fashion or interior design.

Forming cross-discipline, cross-cultural teams, the designers will uncover insights and nuances from localised clubbing experiences across the globe, exchange ideas and work to challenge traditional club environments.

Their concepts will be brought to life as a ‘pop-up club’ and presented to the world at Milan’s prestigious design fair in April 2012. That’s going to be one hell of a party.