RT @9swords: 20 incredible infographics, interactives and data visualizations http://bit.ly/cPX7Km

Amazing motion-graphics visualization video from @jess3 on State of the Internet - http://bit.ly/9Yh4uD @techcocktail (RT @GeniusRocket)

 Geek Alerts

Brand Flakes for Breakfast

Lost At E Minor

Holy Cool

If It's Hip It's Here

The Jailbreak

Scribe Media

Card Observer

We Heart

Information Architecture Quotes

No batteries? No problem. The NightStar CS2 is the world’s first renewable energy shake flashlight. Just shake it for 90 seconds and you'll see the light. NightStar uses repulsion magnets to rebound the charging magnet, which is the most efficient way of de-accelerating and re-accelerating the charging magnet.

The Code Organ analyzes the ‘body’ content of any web page and translates that content into music. The Codeorgan uses a complex algorithm to define the key, synth style and drum pattern most appropriate to the page content.

Firstly, the Code Organ scans the page contents and removes all characters not found in the musical scale (A to G), and then analyzes the remaining characters to find the most commonly used “note”. If this is an even number the page is translated to the major pentatonic scale of that particular note, it becomes minor if there is an uneven number.

If my blog took a shower, this is what it would sing. Enter your favorite URL. It's very entertaining. Thanks to Lost at E Minor for discovering the Code Organ. It's a great way to feel the hidden vibe in content. And it gives added dimension to the written word.

On the night of the first day of announcements from this year's MWC, therefore, it may be easier to forgive me for making an analogy between tapas and apps, and butchering a metaphor far longer than I could at other times. Since, like tapas, apps can be anything - they can be games or utilities, feed readers or miniaturized applications, it seems a small leap of faith. Apps are often bite sized versions  (see how this will go?) of bigger web properties, kind of like snacking versions to keep a mobile consumer's appetite satisfied until a bigger serving is available.

Most of the headlines from today's show focused on apps, so it appears that the 'tapas trend' will continue to be on the menu for mobile consumers for the near future.  The creation of a new alliance, the Wholesale Applications Community, is intended to create a common approval process across multiple OEMs to facilitate access to the world of mobile consumers for application developers.  But should application developers be able to use one recipe to appear on any device  with any carrier?  And can all of the chefs in the WAC kitchen ever agree on a standard recipe? Imagine getting Wolfgang Puck, Tom Douglas and Ferran Adria all to agree on a single preparation for salmon tapas.

The combination of Maemo and Moblin to create MeeGo may not create enormous benefits or greatly enlarge the app world for consumers any time soon, but the news does provide another proof point that app stores likely won't just be a phone phenomenon since the combined OS is targeted at in-vehicle infotainment systems, connected televisions and consumer electronics. This Nokia-Intel platform, however, may simply be a mash-up of two lagging open source projects, with each ingredient still needing the proper plating on a killer piece of hardware to break through with consumers.

Adobe's announcement that it has joined the LiMo Foundation shows how badly it wants in on the mobile app business, having been absent in any meaningful way from smartphones till now.  In addition to that news, though, Adobe announced its Air for Android, which in conjunction with AIR on the desktop, gives web web developers familiar tools to build standalone applications that run on the devices using Google's Linux-based mobile operating system. With the exclusion of support for Flash on the iPad, iPhone and iPod, and the failure of Flash Lite to have a notable impact on mobile development to date, Adobe has been trying to get a seat at the app store table for a while.  As an ingredient brand in websites,  Adobe has not had as much leverage to date with device manufacturers and carriers as they may have anticipated with the popularity of the mobile browser.  Apple has preferred to think of Adobe as the "trans fat" ingredient in mobile applications and browsers, positioning it as the enemy of performance and an ally of viruses.

The old United Mileage Plan only offered frequent travelers rewards; even value customers who paid less per ticket were rewarded if they flew frequently with margin-eating benefits that became entitlements, like upgrades, legroom, warm food and peanuts. Price competition intended to increase share of customers further devalued the overall service the airline provided, and still rewarded customers who paid less. Moderate travelers ended up in invisible customer-land.

And then someone in United's corporate strategy team or marketing department must have realized a key customer insight: people will make real time decisions to throw money at their travel situation to improve it. While A La Carte programs can give the appearance that a company has a "nickle and dime" approach to sellling, they seem to fit in better in an economy where everyone - businesses and consumers - are monitoring and managing their budgets.

My trip, made at the last minute, landed me in a back row middle seat both directions. A seat map seemed to reveal I could only move to another middle seat in the back of the plane. And then, upon web check in, I was presented a variety of offers which enabled me to improve my travel experience.

Premier Travel Options let you purchase your way to loyalty program status if your miles didn't get you there. Given I had an early morning flight, and I wanted to be able to open my laptop and get work done before an afternoon dinner meeting, the Premier Travel option seemed worth it to me, priced at around $75 out of pocket. It got me a security line upgrade, earlier boarding for my overhead luggage, and bonus miles. All of which allowed me peace of mind and a few more minutes with the snooze button in the morning. For a little more money, the Plus tier would have added in more miles and Red Carpet Club access With less time at the airport, that was less valuable to me, and with free wifi at the Seattle airport the benefits of the Red Carpet Club have diminished.

My return trip also had a middle seat in the a row near the rear. But this time, Premier Travel was not available, although an award accelerator, to increase the earned miles for the trip, and premier security and boarding line access were. A Red Carpet Club day pass was also offered. However, it was the seat upgrade I really valued, so for 15,000 miles and $50 I was able to upgrade directly to First Class, which brought along the benefits of Premier Travel, without the mileage bonuses. I had a complete picture of my end to end experience at check in the day before.  No wondering if I will get the upgrade, no worry about missed overhead bin storage because I was in the priority lines.

To ensure the best trip possible for me, I gave the airlines 15,000 miles back, plus another $125. This is money they never would have gotten from me in the old system. I would have been placed in the upgrade queue at the gate only to wait till 30 minutes before departure to learn my fate. My cheap ticket or mileage balance often put me at the bottom of the list.  By creating these a la carte offerings, United opens the door to earn more after the initial purchase by giving me the chance to make game day calls to improve my journey and increase my spending. By arbitraging what upsells they make available and at what price, they can create an after market for unsold iinventory, they can generate additional revenue on the initial low cost ticket purchase.

As corporations put pressure on travel agents and airlines by scrutinizing travel budgets and travel perks, it may fall to the individual traveler to make the ROI decision to supersize their travel plans. The individual customization United now offers for each trip enables the company to drive higher revenue per customer, while providing perks to customers for particular trips they may need to improve.

The relationship between price and value varies, and kudos to United for recognizing that the consumer journey between initial purchase and service activation can change that balance.