Tuesday, 19 February 2008 |
The World’s Coolest Houses
Our first book, the World’s Coolest Hotel Rooms, will come out June 1.
Published by Harper Collins Publishers (US) and designed by the Sydney
based War Design, the inaugural Cool Hunter book will soon be followed by the next volume, the World’s Coolest Houses.
To make that happen, we are on a furious hunt for supremely cool
projects from beach homes, country homes and city pads to holiday
houses and ski retreats, we want to know where the coolest houses are.
We are looking for the most unique houses from Sao Paulo to Sydney.
Slightly cool, standard-issue luxury won’t do it. The houses we want
must think like Zaha Hadid who said “I like architecture to have some
raw, vital, earthy quality.” So, if you are an architect of such a
house, please submit your project for consideration or if you're a
photographer who has photographed such a house, please get in contact -
This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
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Tuesday, 27 November 2007 |
Welcome to the Wild Wild Web, a modern-day gold rush that has created a
new economy where, in theory, anybody with a computer and an internet
connection can make their fortune.
And just like the Californian
and Australian gold rushes, it’s a time for heroes, villains, geeks,
geniuses, charlatans, visionaries . . . and suckers. In the Wild Wild
Web, some fortunes are made, some are lost and the pace of change is
lightning-fast. There is always a new kid in town and there is always a
new plague to watch out for, though this time it’s not cholera or
typhoid, but spam and spyware. There is always some new tool to help
make that fortune faster and a landscape paved with golden
opportunities: email, broadband, blogs, the people power of Web 2.0,
maps, video-sharing, Skype and virtual worlds, to name just a few.
Fortunes
have been made at a rate never seen before. Google made its first $1
billion in less than six years. It took McDonald’s 24 years to do that.
eBay partner Jeff Skoll’s fortune arrived so quickly he was still
living in a share house when the company listed in 1998 and suddenly
made him worth $4.8 billion. No wonder every man and his dog wants to
start a successful internet company (or even just a blog).
As of
June 2007, there were an estimated 1.1 billion internet users around
the world and some 110 million active websites*, including 70 million
blogs. Out of all of this chaos, 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds
Behind Them is a collection of case
studies of some of the most
inspiring people behind many of the Web’s success stories.The oldest
company we feature in the book, Amazon, started in mid-1995.
Astrology.com, created by Australians David and Kelli Fox, started soon
afterwards, in December 1995. The newest companies we feature,
NYCgarages and Twitter, were started in 2006.
As well as the big
guns such as YouTube, Google, eBay and Amazon, we have looked at a
variety of other sites, some chosen for their rapid success, some for
their popularity, and others for their ingenuity: their ability to
cleverly harness aspects of the Web and create new ways of making
money. Many started from scratch: from lounge room to global brand
(aussieBum), basement to multi-million-dollar buyout (CollegeHumor),
sideline experiment to $38.9-million sale (RSVP).Gary Vaynerchuk
launched a video site called WineLibrary.com with a camera and a desk
in the back of his father’s liquor store in New Jersey. Finishing
college is not a prerequisite for internet success: several of the
founders profiled here dropped out of Harvard, including Facebook’s
Mark Zuckerberg.
In
1995 there were an estimated 18 million users of the internet. Growth
in internet usage was increasing at 2300 per cent per year (despite the
frustration of dial-up services). The well-documented dotcom bubble
began. A big idea and a cute
domain name could inspire investors to
pour millions into a project. The ill-fated Boo.com fashion venture
burnt through $160 million in cash before the company was liquidated in
May 2000.Walt Disney’s Go.com ended up writing off $790 million
in
losses. Pets.com raised $82.5 million in an IPO in February 2000. It
closed months later. Ouch. It was a time when businesses with the
turnover of a few country shops were being valued at more than $1
billion.
In 2000, the leading technology index, NASDAQ, lost
87 per cent of its value. Many of the companies featured in 50 Great
e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them were created as the technology
bubble burst in that year, proof that the NASDAQ
collapse could not
harm a solid business with genuine products and services that consumers
were prepared to pay for, or that advertisers were prepared to fund.
Net-a-Porter and PayPal went live in the volatile time of the dotcom
bust in March 2000 and have gone on to flourish.
Many
e-businesses passed through this time relatively easily. Some may have
had to hold off on going public, and others did not enjoy big
venture-capital cash injections – but for many start-ups this turned
out to be a blessing in disguise, as they
minimised costs and grew
without the pressure of outside investors looking for quick profits. A
co-founder of travel search engine Kayak, Paul English, cautions
start-ups not to go out and raise too much money. ‘It is easy when you
have a lot of money to think you are doing well – you become delusioned
and the product might not be working,’ he says. For Carsales.com.au
co-founder Greg Roebuck, the boom and bust did not change the value of
the internet. ‘The value that the internet’s always provided is still
there and still growing,’ he says.
Venture capital was never
going to factor in the business plans of many of the entrepreneurs we
have profiled.The only capital they could find was through their credit
cards. There is an exception to that.The founders of Australian site
Arts Hub used to borrow money from a man they called ‘Mr X’ when their
cashflow was really bad.The cash would be transferred to a bank account
and they would pay it back with 10 per cent interest within six months.
The
2000 crash has long gone and investment is flowing into the new economy
again. In 2006, venture capitalists in the US invested $25.5 billion in
3416 companies, and investors spent $26 billion in 5000 companies. Yet,
as Microsoft’s director of business development Don Dodge points out in
his blog (dondodge.typepad.com), for every brilliant investment in a
company such as Google, there are 100 flops, so investors need to kiss
a lot of frogs.
In the Wild Wild Web there is space for the
common man, like eBay PowerSeller Phil Leahy, who started his eBay
business Entertainment House by selling some old records from his
collection. He has come back from bankruptcy to be one of
Australia’s
most successful online sellers. However, the Wild Wild Web is not a
place for everyone. Just as there is a tendency to romanticise the Wild
West, the history of the World Wide Web has been glossed over so that
creating a successful webbusiness seems – well, easy. For anyone who
starts to think creating a viable, profitable start-up is simple, think
again. People talk about the ‘magic of the internet’, says the open
software pioneer and creator of hot start-up Lulu, Bob Young. ‘But it
is not easy stuff,’ he says. That is why these 50 e-businesses, we
hope, make for inspiring reading. By Emily Ross & angus Holland. Exlusive online extract from the new book, 50 Great e-Businesses and the Minds Behind Them.
Independent You Tube Review
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Thursday, 14 June 2007 |
Do you remember pop-up books? Those cumbersome hardbacks filled with
leaping tigers, squawking birds and various other fantastical
images?
Well, Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart have taken it upon themselves
to transform this childish novelty into something close to art. Their
trilogy of pop-up books, known as ‘Encylopedia Prehistorica’, can
easily claim to be among some of the most sophisticated books ever
made. Ornate depictions of sharks and dinosaurs are painstakingly
constructed from scratch to create and mimic the movements of the
animals in their natural habitats.
The books, although designed principally for children, have found a
huge adult audience, achieving cult status alongside other pop-ups such
as ‘The Pop-Up Book of Sex’ by Melcher Media.
The third and final book in Sabuda’s and Reinhart’s collection, ‘Mega
Beasts’, tackles the furry titans of the ancient world.
Sabre-toothed cats, bears taller than basketball hoops and the
elephant’s hirsute cousin the woolly mammoth, are all beautifully
crafted to leap out at you over 35 pages.
As well as joint projects, the two have been working on their own
individual books. Reinhart has recently completed ‘Star Wars’, and
Sabuda is currently working on his version of ‘The Chronicles of
Narnia’.
‘Encyclopedia Prehistorica: Mega Beasts’ by Robert Sabuda and Matthew Reinhart is published by Walker Books in the UK. By Matt Hussey.
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Tuesday, 27 February 2007 |
After a hard days work, the last thing most of us feel like doing is
having to say hi to your neighbor over the fence or cook dinner. The
first can be avoided by building a bigger fence or telling your
neighbor you can't stand them. The second can be achieved by cooking on
days when you can be bothered and freezing the meals for a time that
you can't be stuffed.
Can I freeze It? is
a collection of innovative recipes which are easy to make and totally
freezable for future consumption. Imagine how you will thank yourself
when you get home exhausted and simply defrost and re heat a delicious
meal you made from the book three weeks ago. From Marsala Beef Stew
through to Lemon Roasted Chicken and back , this book has it all.
Can I Freeze It, has chapters which look at cooking for a crowd, and
how to 'eat now and save for later'. Written by acclaimed New York
based food writer and stylist, Susie Theodorou, this remarkable book is
filled with luscious color photographs which will make your mouth
water. Can I Freeze it, is the perfect book for the busy gal or
the guy on the go. By Lisa Evans
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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 |
It's the ultimate solution for the time poor erudite urbanite -
an
iPod-style gadget that stores the digital audio to your favorite books,
from bestsellers to classics. Now there are no more excuses to not
finish reading 'War & Peace' - you can listen to a narrator read it
to you on the subway, on the way to work, or during your morning
workout
session. The playaway digital stores
6-20 hours of content and allows you to place up to 50 'bookmarks' in
the audio so you'll never loose your 'page'. by Lisa Evans
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Friday, 03 November 2006 |
After the success of the 'Puppetry of the Penis' phenomenon, which involved the live stage show and later, a DIY book version, the penis is back in vogue. Apart from their obvious use, the willy can be employed as a comedy tool, as this brilliant book from Quirk Book publishing demonstrates.
PENIS POKEY is a fun book which has holes cut through the centre of it for ones willy to poke through. Once inserted into the hole, the willy interacts with the illustration on the page to create a very funny scene indeed. From monkeys to underpants, the pages unveil cute opportunities to create various stories with your Johnston as the main star. The only thing missing was a page with a politicians head on it with a hole through the forehead, although we don't necessarily need a demonstration. by Andy G
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Friday, 15 September 2006 |
The newest offering from Thames and Hudson has
an unexpected literary edge. The book is a photographic portfolio of
the world's most magnificent libraries. Before you start snoring, we're
not just talking about your school library, we're talking
about true cathedrals of knowledge housed in some of the globe's most
stunning period buildings, absolute architectural landmarks in their
own rights. Libraries featured include the British
Library in
London, the Escorial in Spain, the Whitney Museum and the Pierpont
Morgan Library in New York, the Bibliotheque nationale de France in
Paris, the villa Medici in Rome and the Hamburg University Library,
among others. by Billy T Also, check out Kids Republic
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Thursday, 03 August 2006 |
Two years in the making, Supply and Demand represents the sum body of work for the artist Shepard Fairey
and his close to two decade long sociological experiment into the
semiotics of consumer society. Forget most of those other graphic art
fools from his generation - this guy is the real deal.
From
clothing to posters to "viral propaganda", Shepard Fairey has long been
one of the biggest names in the street art scene. The book documents
the evolution of Fairey's art from its underground punk rock inspired
beginnings through to his adaptations of revolutionary imagery and use
of propaganda from the all powerful communist state. 'Supply and
Demand' is a fascinating look into this artist's worldview as seen in
symbolsù and, most importantly, the context they exist in. Art critics
Carlo McCormick, Steven Heller and Roger Gastman (as well as Fairey
himself) help examine and illuminate the meaning behind the posters,
flyers, silkscreens and stickers which invite (or command) the
viewer to deconstruct images that want us to OBEY‚. In the book we
witness Fairey's adventures from gallery showings to arrests for
vandalism and the spread of his iconic work throughout the world.
Fairey's work is stunningly catalogued in this layout and binding, and
exists not just as the art itself, but includes photography of the art
in its intended surroundings. For both Shepard's fans and just street
art admirers, Supply and Demand makes a great addition to anyones
collection. No way will you be disappointed - it's big, colorful, and
encapsulates the artist's amazing contributions to history. by Mark C
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Friday, 10 March 2006 |
As a website, its been a phenomenon, as a book it's been a massive best-seller. Frank Warren's Postsecret book has proved it's worth its weight in gold with Harper Collins publishers offering him a series deal for four more books. The first postsecret book sold more than 150,000 copies - that's a lot of secrets! From website, to exhibition to book, Warrens brilliant concept has it's contributors to thank for it's success, every day people with a secret to share. The success of both the website and the book proves what we already know about ourselves but are afraid to admit, that we are all obsessed with other people's business. by Billy T - buy the book online
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Friday, 10 February 2006 |
The typical business success story starts like this: Mr X has a
brilliant idea in the bath one morning. He calls a friend, and together
they build the invention in the garage. Then they go out and sell it
from the back of Mr X’s car, and before they know it, they are both
millionaires. We like these stories because they make us think we could
easily do the same thing. All we need is that great idea, right?
Miracles do happen. Nike’s Phil Knight did start out selling running
shoes from the back of his car. Pierre Omidyar did just happen to have
an idea for an Internet site—eBay—that made him a billionaire several
times over. James Dyson became one of Britain’s richest men after
inventing a new kind of vacuum cleaner in his shed.
But these
fairy tales tend to skip over the details, the parts of the story
where, for example, Dyson had to build 5,127 vacuum cleaner prototypes
before he actually got the thing to work properly, where FedEx founder
Fred Smith nearly went broke several times over in the early years, and
why Debbi Fields of Mrs. Fields Cookies fame now has little to do
with the company that bears her name. Having a great idea is the easy
part. As the one hundred businesses in this book all demonstrate, the
real talent lies in knowing what to do next: how to finance and build
the product, when and how to market it, and—most importantly—how to
persist with it and continue to believe in it through the inevitable
difficult times. Like Lonnie Johnson, the rocket scientist who had to
spend eight years knocking on doors before somebody agreed to build his
invention, the Super Soaker water gun. The book covers a range of
companies, from recent startups to firms over one hundred years old,
from the origins of Corn Flakes to the birth of satellite radio; the
genius of MTV to the Red Bull energy drink phenomenon; from the Walkman
to the Nike sneaker. What they all have in common is a talent for
innovation, which can take many forms: inventing a whole new
product, taking somebody else’s idea and making it work better, or
simply taking over the market by selling products cheaper than anybody
else—take a bow, Samuel Walton.
There’s the story of the home
recipe for Liquid Paper that turned into a global company, why one of
the world’s richest men (with a $40 billion fortune) still drives a
non-descript
Volvo, and how the fortuitous purchase of a nude picture
of Marilyn Monroe kick-started the biggest-selling men’s magazine in
the world. This book is about the brains behind the Barbie doll, about
the woman who started Weight Watchers because, she recalled, “even her
poodle was fat,” those clever girls that created the Juicy Couture
tracksuit, and the man that reinvented the circus and became a
billionaire in the process.
There are the businesses you might
have seen down at the mall, such as Build-A-Bear Workshop and Dippin’
Dots ice cream, and wondered, where did they get the idea for that?
We
came across companies that created their own communities, such as
Pierre Omidyar’s eBay, which now has a population larger than
Britain’s, and Craigslist, which grew from an email bulletin to a few
friends into the world’s biggest free listing service. If nothing else,
reading through the one hundred profiles here demonstrates that there
is no single path to becoming an entrepreneur and no single type of
successful business. Nor is there a “correct” way to make a business
work. Each entrepreneur has their own set of circumstances, their own
personality, quirks, and survival skills. They develop their own
leadership style to suit their circumstances to learn to succeed. When
opportunity knocks, they listen. The simple truth is that there are as
many ways to succeed in business as there are great businesses. Here's 100 of them by Emily Ross & Angus Holland buy from Amazon
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Tuesday, 07 February 2006 |
And on the seventh day, God created Lego! If this book was out during scripture class when I was eight, I might have paid attention. The Brick Testament is a hilarious adaptation of bible passages captured in Lego bricks. From Genesis through to Exodus, the world's oldest stories are delivered through detailed Lego scenes and humorous text, all in amazing detail. Both the scenery and the characters, although simple, come together to form a very descriptive scene that is nothing short of hilarious. The beauty of the book is that some of these pieces would have been custom made to tell certain passages. I mean where else do you get a Lego Moses?
by Andy G
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Monday, 16 January 2006 |
'Erotic Cinema' is the bible of hot flicks. Although people have been getting jiggy since the dawn of time, the first on screen kiss was only recorded in 1896 on film. Douglas Keesey's 'Erotic Cinema' is a comprehensive and beautifully presented book which looks at the history of eroticism in the cinema. Be it straight, gay, bi or otherwise, if its hot and its appeared in the big screen, then you will find it here.
Covering cinematic cult films such as Betty Blue, Kids and Law of Desire, through to both soft and hardcore porn, Erotic Cinema is a comprehensive look at what makes the silver screen sizzle and how we, as an audience respond to it. Keesey's top ten list of the hottest movies ever is bound to leave itself open for dispute or at the very least work as a great pick up line. Oddly enough Sharon Stone's infamous 'leggie' did not make the list. by Billy T
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Friday, 09 December 2005 |
Who would have thought that peaceful Switzerland could have produced camouflaged architecture during the cold war: fake upper-middle-class houses, fake farmhouses, fake rocks, etc. To believe it is to see it in Leo Fabrizio's book: Bunkers. For the past four years Leo Fabrizio has been busy documenting the Swiss bunkers through photography.Fabrizio's gathered images of the most spectacular Swiss fortified structures, which thanks to sophisticated camouflage techniques and characteristic Swiss care, resemble real theatre sets. While the present tendency is to forget about these works, even to disown them given their disuse, the 29 year old photographer's aesthetic approach aims to show them from a new angle. by Yvan Rodic
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Friday, 14 October 2005 |
Do you ever find yourself wondering, "Has she had work done?" Do you flip through supermarket tabloids to see who's the latest star to have gone under the knife? Do you secretly love before and after photos? Well, let's face it, who doesn't? Aesthetic surgery has become a global phenomenon. In places like Hollywood, the mystery isn't who's had work done, but who hasn't. Cosmetic surgery has lost a good deal of its shock value over the years, as treatments like Botox have blurred the perceived boundaries between serious, risky medical procedures and casual trips to the doctor. But make no mistake: going under the knife remains a messy enterprise, and you'll find plenty of supporting visual evidence for that notion in the pages of Aesthetic Surgery. From liposuction to lip implants, this highly illustrated book from hip German publisher TASCHEN, explores all the ins and outs of body sculpting via photos, illustrations, essays, and interviews. It's a fascinating page-turner that makes you want to find out more about the curious creatures we humans are - strangely addictive.
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