Ok, so I am comparing a media presentation with an insights presentation (so perhaps this is my response to data deluge).

However, all I am saying is, more thought & analysis please:

And less 'data set against an epic soundtrack' please:

Will Self uses the phase 'paradigms of imaginative experience' within about 10 seconds of the start of this thought piece (which is one of four). But don't let that put you off (he mentions Buffy later). This is the good stuff. It's interesting that Self suggests the web is fragmenting, rather than unifying, which opposes the view which evangelists tend towards.

I also love his note: "people upload their imagination to the web". That to me seems very true (for reference, please login to Facebook).

As an aside, this kind of commission is a clever, appropriate approach to promotion for the English National Opera's production of Two Boys.

Well-known fact: Google makes (most of) its billions by providing relevant advertising. Google has a peerless search product, and places contextual search ads on its own sites and those of affiliate publishers, earning megabucks. This much we know.

Yesterday, Dapper was a cool mashup service. It took different feeds in from websites and spat out cool mashups for wunderkinder to embed. It's smart and useful (we used Dapper in ICAN with Yahoo Pipes, to create a crude proof-of-concept for a recent project for Oracle).

But today all of that just looks like sandboxing. A prototype for something much bigger: Dapper MashupAds.

Simply put: this creates the same relevance for display as search advertising. The videos below hint at the potential shift. If this product develops as it should, ads simply become just good, useful content. Dapper is going to be devoured soon.

(I note that the above has more than a nod to the now famous Web 2.0 'Machine is Us/ing Us' video. It also gives a hat tip to the insufferable Ogilvy, but anything with a soundtrack that reminds me of Alex Kidd in Miracle World is ok).

Update: Can't embed using YouTube or Vimeo. Posterous, WTF.

Great point by Arianna Huffington regarding conservative commentators. Why do they do so well on talk radio, but so poorly on the web?

Because they are blowhards.

Any attempt to interrupt or correct an inaccuracy gets easily roared down on talk radio, where the ability to deny interruption puts the speaker at an advantage. This advantage is worthless on the web, where people can and do comment, correcting and confirming the veracity of a given statement. Jump to 15 mins for the comments specifically on this. Or better yet, just watch the lot.

I missed a memo: MTV now offers a content API which allows developers to use their music videos and all related metadata. API solution providers Mashery are behind it. However, it looks like the videos are not playable outside the USA, due to copyright restrictions. Open data, close data. Fist, meet face.

In 2007, the Washington Post hired web builder Rob Curley to develop a hyperlocal news website, loudounextra.com. The Post had the idea that local news is a context that works well for people online. A year on and the site itself (despite a terrible URL) is good. But it hasn't gained the traction it had hoped, and the WSJ proudly declared it a flop. Rob posted a frank mea culpa and response as the project lead.

Hyperlocal services and information are definitely taking off. But I'm more of a believer in providing localised services and utilities than localised news online.

Paidcontent.org is a good source for information on similar media projects.

Currentlly working on a couple of interesting web projects involving visualisation. The clients in question have huge information repositories, but are not unlocking their full value.

Visual representations of data, and relationships, are a method of unlocking this value. Just look at election coverage to see how vast reams of data get tamed visually. Google Analytics is another obvious example.

The work of information artist Jonathan Harris has been inspirational. The excellent Flowing Data is a great resource. ReadWriteWeb has a collection of tools. Edward Tufte demands more than just a mention; he's like a Data Representation God.