Worldwide social network preferences by continent

The French newspaper LeMonde published a map on 2008-01-14 showing a divided world for social network preferences across the world.



Source: Le Monde.fr: Réseaux sociaux : des audiences différentes selon les continents

No clear winner here, though the front-runners are definitely Facebook, Orkut (Google) and MySpace (News Corp).

What is particularly surprising to me is Friendster is still alive and well—in South East Asia. This map does not represent Chinese social network sites though, which I think will likely tip the figures.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

FriendFeed is now public

Friendfeed came out of private-beta and publicly launched today.



Friendfeed integrates with your friends' popular social destinations (e.g. del.icio.us, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter) and aggregates them in a single feed. It's all the things that you make Facebook addictive without the splur of application requests that annoys you.

One really cool feature of FriendFeed is the idea of imaginary friends. When you add an imaginary friend and hook up their user profile on other networks, their activities will get added to your friends' feed and you can enjoy the ambient voyeuristic addiction of your social sphere without the added guilt of spamming your friends to join yet-another network where you can be dumb-founded for explaining the networks' immediate benefits (think Twitter).

You can comment on any of your friends' items across all the sites. The comments you make are only visible to your friends, making it possible to discuss things among your own circle of friends on even the most popular items without the noise of the public Web that most won't want. I do wish however that FriendFeed would also post comments on the public web (particularly for Flickr).

I have been beta-testing this site since last year and I am very happy with it. Create your account and try it out!

Related SML Universe
+ SML FriendFeed
+ SML Network

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Processing + Music = Magic!

Today was the first time I see a seamless integration of music + processing. It's an amazing beauty created by flight404. Enjoy!


Solar, with lyrics. from flight404 (aka Robert Hodgin) on Vimeo.

Also see HD version on Vimeo and Flight404's blog post about his process.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

The sweetness of fast lens

My Canon 50mm f/1.4 arrived in the mail today. I just tried it on and it's really sweet, as in *really* fast. To understand just how fast it is, when I put it wide open, I am able to shoot at 1/750 seconds inside the office, which is unbelievable.

It took me a very long time to decide on getting this lens. A fellow photographer said the lens is boring. Well it's boring when you have lots of light, but when you have no light, I think that this lens is awesome.

I decided against the the f/1.8 after seeing the rather inferior bokeh from the Flickr Canon EF 50mm f1.8 Pool. It appears that the pentagon-shaped bokeh a result of the lens using a 5-blade shutter. I am also a little bit bothered by the number unfavorable reviews of 1.8's construction.

I did not go for the f/1.2L because I can't afford it. It is an absurd amount of money to set aside for a hobby--although I will be revisiting this later if I get a portrait photography business going.

I will be posting photographs on my photo blog soon. Stay tuned.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Business content portal + social networks

FastCompany.com redesign launched with many social features (Web 2.0)



+ Member profile
+ Comment box
+ Ability to start your own blog
+ Ability to add 3rd party feeds onto your own page (function as blog reader)
+ Professional networking features for opportunities + ventures
+ Article recommendation
+ Inline poll (agree / disagree)
+ Article tagging
+ Article bookmarking

All these things are not new, but I'm glad that finally there's a business entity who recognize the power of networks to add value to their content.

We'll see how this rolls out.


©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.

Yes we can

dipdive.com


THE YES WE CAN SONG WAS RECORDED AT ETHER AND RECORD PLANT IN LA ON JANUARY 30 AND 31ST, 2008.

ceo of inspiration:
barack obama:

song produced by:
will.i.am

guitar by:
george pajon

video produced by:
will.i.am and mike jurkovac

director:
jesse dylan for cYclops form

executive producers:
will.i.am
mike jurkovac
fred goldring
jesse dylan
priscilla cohen
sheri howell

associate producers:
sean larkin
sarah pantera
carol cohen
steve koskie
wendi morris
scott spanjich

talent:
adam rodriguez
alfonso ribeiro
amaury nolasco
amber valletta
auden mccaw
anson mount
austin nichols
aisha tyler
bryan greenberg
cliff collins
common
derek watkins
ed kowalczyk
enrique murciano
eric balfour
eric olsen
esthero
fred goldring
harold perrineau
herbie hancock
hill harper
john legend
john schaech
kareem abdul jabbar
kate walsh
kelly hu
maya rubin
nick cannon
nicole scherzinger
sam page
sarah wright
scarlett johansson
shoshannah stern
taryn manning
tatyana ali
tracee ellis ross
will.i.am

crew:
carol cohen LINE PRODUCER
matt harrison PRODUCTION SUPERVISOR
adam martin 1ST AD
kevin o’neil 2ND AD
araeia robinson PRODUCTION ASST.
patrick mcgovern PRODUCTION ASST.
rolf kestermann DP
ryan brown 1ST AC
justin rhoads DIT
marek kanievska 2ND UNIT DP
torre catalano 3RD UNIT DP
jamie banfield GAFFER
kevin shipley ELECTRIC
braydon baldwin GRIP
adam joeseph SOUND
damon d’amato TELEPROMPTER
adam kleinfield STILLS DIT
brett freedman HAIR AND MAKE-UP
asia geiger HAIR AND MAKE-UP
terrence “biff” butler EDITOR
carold lynn weaver POST PRODUCER
anton capaldo-smith ASSISTANT EDITOR

vendors:
rock paper scissors EDITORIAL
indie rentals CAMERA
cinelease LIGHTING AND GRIP
film this! PERMIT
image mechanics STILLS
rushes TELECINE
greenberg teleprompting SCRIPTING
line 204 WALKIES




©2008 See-ming Lee 李思明 SML / SML Pro Blog / SML Universe. All rights reserved.