So, there’s this other thing that really separates us from agencies – aside from all this mumbo jumbo about only doing project work, taking on a production model, etc. We are an Internet shop. We love the Internet. Oh my god, you don’t even know how much we love the Internet. Remember all that gushing people like Wired and Nicholas Negroponte were doing in the 90’s about the potential of the Internet? They were thinking small as far as we’re concerned. Seriously, we’re part of that whole “the Internet will save humanity” school of thought. It’s the single greatest invention of our era. We could go on for hours and hours. We should probably write a book one-upping Negroponte and call it Being Wicked Digital.
Now, we’re not going to go and try to convince you that the Internet rules the school. I mean, it would be awesome if you agreed, but you know, it’s okay if you don’t. We figure that’s why you’re hiring the Internet people for your Internet needs. So you don’t need to worry about it. Fine by us.
Although there are people at The Barbarian Group that are passionate about these various things, you’re not going to see us get into broadcast advertising, or fashion, or footwear, or little vinyl dolls, or filmmaking (well, not in the traditional sense). There’s not going to be a Barbarian line of clothing (don’t think we haven’t talked about it, though). We’re not looking right now for an agent to get us script deals (well, no more than anyone else, I suppose). We have a lot of plans, and a lot of ideas, but they’re about interactivity. They’re about using technology and networks and creativity to engage people. Like we said back in that aborted mission statement.
The secret of The Barbarian Group is that we are really a big translation layer. We understand how nerds and geeks talk – we are nerds and geeks. We understand how ad people talk – we’re ad people. We understand how the Internet populace talks because we grew up with it as it grew up. We understand how artists and designers talk, because we’re artists and designers. Each of these groups has different languages, and a huge part of what we do is get them all to talk to make something greater than the sum of the parts.
For the Internet, for the people who live there. This is our audience. This is our passion. This is who we’re doing this all for. The Internet.
And not that surprising, considering Getty Images is likely getting their well-photographed asses handed to them undercut by crowdsource models like iStockPhoto. Since Getty will be “hand-selecting” Flickr photographers to represent, one would hope the quality of the stuff will rise above the usual mediocrity of Flickr’s user base and actually make somegreatphotographers at least some money.
Or Art Directors will continue to swipe CC images for free.
While I didn’t agree or disagree with the author’s point that massive amounts of data will fossilize the scientific method as we know it, I did start thinking about the future of data and how it will change everything.
Most of the supporting articles talked about existing large databases that are helping people understand immensely complex systems and information. Stuff like a satellite that takes a picture of the entire night sky every three days, unimaginable data from the Large Hadron Collider, years of airline ticket prices, and even the projected agricultural supplies for countries. Some of this stuff has been around since the turn of the century with the others right around the corner. What’s cool about all of this is that we’ve been able to harness huge amounts of data back around same time I was deleting things because I ‘ran out’ of disk space. Back then you had to be able to afford storage to stop worrying about it. Now anyone can get access to more storage than they’ll ever need at almost no cost.
So in comes the Petabyte age. Unlimited data. Not only can we stop worrying about deleting anything ever again, we can now store everything. Literally. Collective human knowledge is growing within Wikipedia and the rest of the Internet daily. We can assume that everything man-made will eventually be cataloged and remembered somewhere. People are blogging and micro-blogging by the minute. They’re shooting videos and taking photos and putting all of this onto digital storage. This is happening now.
Babies being born this very second will have their entire lives digitally recorded once they’ve left the womb thanks to their eager parents. Once they’re old enough to master a language and access a computer, they’ll take over that roll themselves by Facebooking their preschool classmates and emailing around cellphone photos of their boogers and crayon art. None of that sounds too outlandish until you wonder what celebrities or politicians do in the future when their entire lives can be perused by complete strangers. Instantly. Privacy being irrelevant.
That’s all near future stuff though, what’s after that? We could archive every tree on the planet. Then each one of their leaves. Do all the animals while we’re at it. Tracking individual atoms starts to sound less like wizardry when you’re thinking on the infinite storage level. This being the level where things start to get really interesting.
Star Trek brought us science fiction like transporters that memorized our atoms and scattered and resorted them instantly. So in 20 years, or even 10, when every baby’s DNA is coded and their atomic makeup is on file somewhere, we can finally take a crack at thinking about teleportation. THAT’S the future, all of this data and our ability to discover crazy things from it. We’ll be solving problems we never even knew about. Then again, we’ll probably also generate a whole slew of new ones we can’t solve.
Like what happens if all that information starts getting permanently erased…
on June 08, 2008 at 09:36 PM
filed under: The Internet
Watching the Celtics dismantle the Lakers for the second straight game and the announcers tell me to go and vote for the Player of the Game at NBA.com and, before I can vote, I have to sign-up first. I don’t want to sign up. And I presume since it’s sponsored by T-Mobile I’m gonna have to endure incessant e-mail offers from them in exchange for voting. Please.
Ok, I really don’t give a crap who’s chosen MVP of this game or the series or the league for that matter (although Kobe is pretty radd) but as a representative of The Internet I feel compelled to go to a site whenever the TV tells me to go to a site just to see if the experience pays off. Many times it sucks. Like this time.
For God sakes let’s stop trying to collect names and just make The Internet easier to use people!
And, for the record, I would have voted for Paul Pierce.
on June 08, 2008 at 08:45 PM
filed under: The Internet
Hilarious debate among Hollywood types at last week’s Digital Upfront about whether or not there’s been an internet video “hit” yet. Ha. Really? How about the fact that Time magazine chose user generated video content as their person of the year in 2006?
And, I guess, I should also mention our very own Subservient Chicken which has had more than 200 million unique visitors worldwide, twice the size of this year’s Super Bowl?
What is Hollywood talking about? Oh wait, they are waiting for THEIR first hit. I see…
on May 02, 2008 at 07:27 AM
filed under: The Internet
Last night, Google was kind enough to invite the Barbarians to the New York launch party for the iGoogle Artist Themes. We’ve been working with Google on the artist themes for a few months now, and we were excited to see them go out into the wild and spread the creative love.
But boy, we sure weren’t ready for the high class event! What a good time. We’ve seen our share of tech gatherings, of course (we hit an awesome Nokia/Webby Award event on Tuesday at the Nokia Flagship store), and ad events (we also hit the ANDY Awards on wednesday), but this was an ART event. We’ve not seen this kind of art star power in one room since the opening of the New Museum last fall.
The highlight of the night was a panel, moderated by Marissa Mayer, featuring… wait for it… Mark Ecko, Anne Geddes, Bob Mankoff (of the New Yorker, whose theme we produced, among others), Jeff Koons and Michael Graves.
Jeff Koons and Michael Graves? Holy heck. It’s not every day you accidentally stumble into a room featuring two of your high school idols. Also spotted: Diane von Furstenberg, and a personal hero of the Barbarian Group, of course, John Maeda. I was too chicken to go say high to him, even though I was recently on a panel with one of his former students and now a prof at the Media Lab, David Small.
Anyway, awesome night. We’re proud to have worked on this project with Google, and we’re ever thankful to Maya Moufarek, Michaela Prescott, and Andy Berndt for the gig.
on July 08, 2008 at 10:23 PM
