iCaught - bringing YouTube to television

I ran across an interesting new TV program last night called "iCaught". It's a real table-turner.

The show concept is simple... it takes videos from the web (mostly extraordinarily popular YouTube videos), plays them on TV and tells the story behind their creation. Of course, it's kind of ironic, since YouTube so often captures TV content, and is the subject of copyright infringment allegations. Here the network (ABC) has flipped things to capitalize on the popularity of YouTube videos... and uses its story-telling strength to offer a level of detail beyond the scope of YouTube.

Check out the iCaught website, where you can upload videos, view recent stories, and watch channels with titles like "red-handed" and "out of control".

What do you think? A clever role reversal or a lame attempt at leaping into "user-created" content?

The Future of Bottled Water

Perhaps it's selective perception, but I feel that I'm seeing a growing number of articles on bottled water these days - and a growing tension.

The footprint of bottled water on society is growing rapidly, drawing critiques like this Fast Company article (actually, quite a balanced and thoughtful article), and policy reaction like the St. Louis school mentioned here. We've also seen Pepsi recently admit that it's Aquafina water comes from the Missouri River... the same source as local tap water.

At the same time, we see Bottled Water manufacturers ramping up production, and unveiling new packaging, as in this Evian bottle.

Is there an emerging backlash against bottled water? We've changed our habits to consume bottled water, will the environmental impact drive us to return to the tap? What trend do you see here... and is the ground-swell strong enough to have any impact in the short-term?

The Grand Tour

Design agency, The Partners have come up with a really innovative solution to promote the National Gallery.
Instead of creating advertising campaings to woo people into the Gallery, they've bought the gallery to the people.

The Grand Tour is an exhibiton of pieces from the Gallery placed around London - outside. Obviously not originals, but rather high quality prints.
You can download a walking tour and audio guide at www.thegrandtour.org.uk

100 Tips to Improve Your Life - Creative Collection

(Scott) Ran across this collection of 100 tips to improve your life... from "Empty your Inbox in 30 seconds" to "Use your Money to buy Happiness", an organization named Behance has assembled the advice from a bevy of blogs.

http://www.behance.com/Featured/Articles/100-Tips-to-Improve-Your-Life/5591

It's an interesting way to aggregate information, so check it out. You might just find a tip or two that is useful. Kudos to PSFK for pointing to the list.

User Generated Mind Mapping

(Adam) I come across this http://humanbraincloud.com/ which is currently a game based on mind mapping using 1st associations around a random word.

Although it is currently more of a game, I think there could be potential to use this within innovation projects as a source of stimulus. Or could a version be set up that is exclusive to a company or a group? This would give more control over the inputs, as currently unsurprisingly "sex" is the word that gets the most attention.

If developed down a more commercial route I could see this as being of interest to companies as a source of inspiration. What do you think?