minifestos archive

Before there was copyright protection artists made money by playing live.
Recorded music is going back to it’s roots…

A few years from now music will be completely free; art/entertainment to be enjoyed by all.

Why pay for a digital recording?
Think of records and tracks as promotion to go see the artist’s live show.
If you like somebody’s songs you’ll probably end up going to see them when they come around.
Maybe you even end up buying a T-shirt!

A recording can be manipulated at will, but a good performance is hard to reproduce.
When the medium shifts back to the live show, talent becomes important again.

Is Trent the only one who get’s it?
He gives away the music, is transparent, tells you how much he sold, talks to his fans, etc.
No gimmick, no bullshit.

We’re grown up…
Stop fucking with us and get on with the show.

The next computer war will not be about the OS.
It will be fought on your web browser.

Platform is unimportant…
What matters is how we access/use/create online content.

Forget Mac/PC/Linux.
It’s Firefox, Safari, Opera, Explorer, and some newcomer who will rain on their parade.

I didn’t mention Google; they are far ahead.
Their stuff runs in anybody’s playground.

The bell curve is getting sharper.
The rise and fall of devices is accelerating.
Product universes expand and collapse at ever faster rates.
It’s the Law of Accelerating Returns!

Product design is now fashion.
Last year’s neon shoes now suck.

In 2 or 3 years nobody will carry a compact camera with them.
Cameras will be used only by professional photographers and enthusiasts.
Mobile phone cameras will be just as good as today’s point and shoots, and will get better with each passing year.

You know what business is dead too? GPS.
Who is going to buy a stand-alone device when you can have it all on your phone?
Nobody wants to carry around multiple devices when you can have it all in one pocket.
The all-in-one device takes the cake.

If I were Navigon, Magellan, Canon, Nikon, etc. I’d be thinking about partnering with some mobile people.
Times change, companies evolve.
Nintendo started out making playing cards!

TomTom is fast.
Good for them.

The seed idea for this post came from my 10 Ways To Make An iPhone Killer.

The device is the screen. Clean, minimal hardware.

Preload with basic software.
Users will take it from there, making it as simple or complex as they want.

Allow complete software personalization. Full controll, no barriers.

Free idea, mods, and software exchange.
Make a forum, award perks to the best contributors.

Phones fall, design accordingly.
The phone is complete when you buy it.
Aftermarket covers and add-ons are superfluos when you have good design.

Software is not physical.
Stop making imitation buttons.
Digital buttons should be different than real ones.

Involve more senses.
Bring haptics to touchscreens.

Camera companies are dead.
People will only carry one gadget, guess which one it’ll be.

Camera companies: get your shit together and partner with mobile companies before you’re left out.
Mobile companies: Get some real know-how from the camera people.

Charge through induction.
Avoid pluging in the phone everytime you need a charge.

More status levels.
Online/offline is not enough.
Connect to Facebook, but avoid a call from mom.

Everyone’s talking about air quality, but most people just ignore the daily noise we are surrounded by.
Crossing a busy street is a test of how many sounds your brain can process.
Notice it next time you’re waiting for the light to change.

Most of the energy we use today comes from harnessed pressure and explosions, which means loud sounds.

I see a day when noise will be seen just as second-hand smoke is seen today.
A nuisance.

Gears and bearings will be replaced by liquids and gels.
Internal combustion will be replaced by solar, wave and wind energy.
Active noise reduction will be incorporated into all devices.

Whisper quiet will have a new meaning.
Conversations, birds, wind, your own breath and your gurgling stomach.

But, I sure hope that rock shows still rock.

Now that 3D models are freely available on the internet, what’s to keep me from slightly modyfing an
existing object and turning it into something new?

I took a Panton Chair and turned it into a sofa…
Do I infringe on their copyright?
How much modification is enough to stave off the lawyers?

As I mentioned on my previous minifesto 3D Print Will Kick Our Asses,
this is just the beginning of sampling in the design world.
I can’t wait to see the equivalent of Danger Mouse’s Grey Album…

Even though we like our connection to the decimal system,
the decade will drop out of favor as a way define cultural changes.
The closer we get to the singularity,
change accelerates and the information produced will be too much to compress in a decade.

I just found out that my toothpaste comes with reinforced email.
The hard/software boundary is bluring…

25 years from now wars will not be fought over oil…

Conflict and preemptive strikes will happen when some country runs amok and pollutes or misuses the environment.
People are finally realizing that ecology and sustainability knows no borders.
If somebody mistreats the Earth we all suffer.

3 days ago I did a clean install of my operating system.
Hitting the web I immediately realized that something was different:
Every single page was full of ads. Glowing, throbbing, pulsating nightmares.
Familiar faces like Digg, Facebook, etc. were rendered hard to read.
I reinstalled Adblock Plus in my Firefox and I was again free from it all.

Then I remebered my recent trip to São Paulo…

You have no idea why, yet the city feels light.
Then it dawns on you:
no ads.

There was a recent city-wide ban on every type of publicity.
Words cannot convey the greatness of this law.
You can see the urban landscape without being told what to buy.

I’ve seen the future…
Ban the fucking publicity, and access content free from distractions.

We live in a globalized world…
It’s time we start calling countries by their real names.
It’s kind of stupid that each language calls other countries whatever they want.

Let’s call Japan, Nippon.
Finland, Suomi.
Germany, Deutschland.
India, Bhārat.

Etc, etc…

Its been happening to us all for a few years now:
The inability to remember things because it can be retrieved from the internet or your phone in seconds…

My head works in a very different way now than it did before.
The brain part that I used for remembering facts is now used to connect, and analyze how and where that info is stored.
Instead of having a prodigious memory, I’ve become a manager of information.

More and more I drop the “I’ll send you the link later” response to people.
I can’t wait for the internet to connect directly to my brain so I don’t look as stupid and unlearned as I do now.

I must be open to any and all stimulus.

Knowledge and culture are inversely proportional to self esteem.

This is it.
I think Johnny Cash giving the finger in 1969 is the moment punk started.