Vacation Reading

I leave for Barcelona today. Can't wait. I haven't been on vacation yet this year, so it's a much needed break from life. Wish it were coming at a bit of a better time, but isn't that always the case?

Anyhow, I've printed out a ton of articles to read and think about while I'm away, and I figured I'd post links to all of them in case anyone wants to read along. If you find anything interesting, just come back here and add your two cents. Let the conversation continue while I'm gone.

Vacation Reading List

• Paul Graham: The Power of the Marginal
• LA Times: Baby Give Me a Kiss: The man behind the 'Girls Gone Wild' soft-porn empire lets Claire Hoffman into his world, for better or worse
• Digital Web Magazine: Understanding the Unconference
• StrangeHarvest.com: Some Advice To a Young Designer
• Functioning Form: Design Group Organization
• New York Times: The Brand Underground: The idiom of today’s alienated (or anyway, hipster) youth isn’t art or music or literature. It’s turning an idea you have — or maybe your 'i' self — into a product.
• Momus: Story Got Legs
• zengestrom.com: Bling Men's Baseball - The Social Importance of Peripheral Vision
• www.art-themagazine.com: The Ghost in the Network: Alexander Galloway and Eugene Thacker
• Paul Graham: What You Can't Say
• Washington Post: 25 Years Down the Tube: MTV turns 25 today, which is still a few months younger than Justin Timberlake.
• Boxes and Arrows: The Elements of Style for Designers
• Digital Web Magazine: User Interface Design - Taking the Good with the Bad
• Influx Insights: The Brand Underground: What Does This Really Mean

So I have no idea if any of those articles are interesting because I haven't read them yet, but if you do and enjoy and have something to say, come back and comment. Start a new conversation, don't sweat it.

In addition, I figured I ask a few questions to ponder while I'm gone.

• If you had access to the attention data of millions, what would you do with it?
• What's the most important cultural shift that will happen as a result of all this user generated content?
• Can YouTube be beaten? How?
• Can Myspace be beaten? How?
• Are people becoming brands?

Those were all the questions I could think of off the top of my head. Before I go, let me make one last reading recommendation. Chartreuse's "The Big Difference Between Old and New" is as good a 'state of the media' as I've read. This line almost made me cry:

Old media is begging for attention.

New media is attention.

I'll leave you with that to chew on. You may get a few sporadic posts while I'm away, but I'm not making promises. Take it easy!