Today is May 1st, 2008, and here in Italy (yes, I’m here for 17 more days) it’s Labour’s Day Holiday. Since tomorrow is friday, many people took the chance to go away (sea, mountain, lake, whatever). Instead, I’m still here, in my small apartment near **Assisi (enjoy my [Creative-Commons photos**](http://www.flickr.com/photos/25012939@N03/2456185599/in/photostream/) here on Flickr). Surfing the internet, I stumbled upon this 1974 book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. (see what Wikipedia has to say, or read the full text online). ... Read more

Today I discovered 99designs.com, a website that lets you run design contests: you set up a contest, and the relative prize, and then wait for designs to come. After one week, you decide which one is good, and pay it. Cool. Design contests are often an exploitation of designers’ time, but in this case it seems that rates are fair, and clients are cool. They offer, for example, guaranteed prize contests, in which clients pay in advance, and then the winner gets the cash directly from 99designs. ... Read more

**What is Twitter? ** A web application that allows you to post SMS-style messages, follow other people messages, and interact with them. Today I want to give you a great list of the best websites, tools, and guides about Twitter! 01) Twist : see trends in Twitter, and compare them. An example? Ubuntu vs Vista. 02) TwitterLocal : tweets nearby a location. 03) TwitterLocal Stats : locations with top tweets (spolier: Tokyo is number 1! ... Read more

Had a great evening, dinner for a new book (I contributed), then wine tasting, then out with Lorenzo for a beer and a chat. Great :-) # re-reading Gin, Television and social Surplus: http://tinyurl.com/5zyhqd # How Second Life can change First Life: http://tinyurl.com/6ydome #

I suggest you to read this great post on HereComesEverybody: it is about Gin, Television and Social Surplus. This excerpt is** illuminating**: For the first time, society forced onto an enormous number of its citizens the requirement to manage something they had never had to manage before–free time. And what did we do with that free time? Well, mostly we spent it watching TV. And again:_ In this same conversation with the TV producer I was talking about World of Warcraft guilds, and as I was talking, I could sort of see what she was thinking: “Losers. ... Read more

[inspired by Werner Vogels on Twitter]

Twistori is an “ongoing social experiment”. I’m not completely convinced, but… it’s interesting, at least, and the website is simple and clean. It uses Summize.com to collect “twits” (or twitts, with double T?) in real time. Thank to Twistori, I re-discovered Summize, which is a great tool to analyze Twitter trends.

Watch this video: it’s the world simulation game, twitter-aided. Interesting event, interesting conclusions. Of course, discovered via Twitter. The group that created this is: “a working group of Kansas State University students and faculty dedicated to exploring and extending the possibilities of digital ethnography”. Cool, guys. Make the world a better place :-)

I love the Coldplay.com homepage, clear, essential, minimalistic, “zen”, elegant: [image source] And I also love their music. Today, thank to Luca’s twittering (again!), I visited their website after years of absence. They offer free download of their new song, Violet Hill. An important side note, from wikipedia’s Coldplay page: _ Despite Coldplay’s worldwide popularity, the band have remained protective of how their music is used in the media, refusing its use for product endorsements. ... Read more

cooking my veg lunch. # I’ll go to “Le Web” (France, dec 08), and I’ll definitively use this service: http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/529385 #