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The Future of Photo Sharing

// June 15th, 2011 // No Comments » // News, Social Media

Stan Bashmashnikov - SMB.com

BY STAN BASHMASHNIKOV – SMB.COM

It is increasingly evident that social media is no fad — but in fact a mainstream staple. Many parts are constantly moving within this dynamically complex whole. When it comes to user engagement and interaction, an argument can be made that online photo sharing is the single greatest force behind this. Buddy Media, one of the more prominent social media consulting companies, points out that user engagement on Facebook spikes 20% when photos are thrown into the mix of context. This isn’t surprising, but rather intuitive. Pictures are worth a thousand words – not the other way around. And as a result, consumers are more likely to respond in any way, shape or form to a picture, as opposed to just plain text.

The groundwork is clear. Companies are quickly responding to this rapidly-growing sector. In this section, I am going to highlight a few companies – both new and known – who are setting into motion unique and different methods on what we, the consumer, can do with our online photos.

Color’s patent-pending advanced proximity algorithms locate all other smartphones using this application. Every photo and video is instantly shared with other nearby phones.

Color is an application for iOS and Android devices that – at the heart – is a proximity based photo sharing solution. Essentially, Color digitally connects multiple smartphones, which are within a pre-specified range of each other, and allows those users to “digi-sync” their photos, videos, and text to one defined destination. Picture going out on a Friday night for a friend’s birthday. You can bet there are at least 5 people taking pictures and/or video. And of course – these individuals sporadically document different parts of the night. No clear timeline exists. Things become lost in translation. Only bits and pieces span across an extended period of time, leaving many gaps. Color’s patent-pending advanced promixity algorithms locate all other smartphones using this application. The work is done for you – right then and there. Every photo and video is instantly shared with other nearby phones. Seamless and intricate - with no uploading, emailing, or attaching required. Their website and demo can be found at www.color.com.

The concept is truly revolutionary. Between all of the clutter in the mobile world today – the potential of this idea can reach FourSquare proportions. What I mean is there are parallels: the location-based concept combined with mobile photography blend a “checking-in” function but for your pictures. Imagine you are at a Yankee game or a Bob Dylan concert. Now, picture your FourSquare feed – and then your Instagram library. By loading this app, you are checking-in with only photos. You may scroll through recent photos from behind the Yankee dugout or backstage at Dylan’s rehearsal. My imagination may be getting ahead of itself. Nonetheless, the possibilites are endlessly intriguing.

Kaptur allows a user to easily arrange all media from an event so everyone’s photos, videos, and status updates can all be found in one place.

Kaptur, unlike Color, lives online and focuses on the consumer’s need to structurally organize their photos to one location. Their platform lets a user easily arrange all media from an event so everyone’s photos, videos, and status updates can all be found in one place. Once you have media organized this way, you can treat it as a single album and download it all at once, share it with friends, and organize it however you like. A great use case for this are weddings – as exampled on their website (www.weddings.kaptur.com).

Proximity-based software is irrelevant in this case, since wedding albums are inherently selective and specifically organized (bride’s family, groom’s family, friends, etc.). I asked owner and CEO Tej Bhatia what changes he envisions in this field and how Kaptur plans on adapting in a rapidly evolving arena. “While social networks are ‘social’ and photosharing does ‘share,’ both are still based on the concept of user profiles and photo albums, neither of which scale well for groups. Kaptur provides a solution that scales without changing any existing user behavior when it comes to social networking and photo sharing.” Simple yet brilliant, Kaptur is poised to move the photo sharing industry further along towards a more synchronized, all-inclusive digital destination.

Twitter’s recent integration of a native, in-house photo and video sharing service into it’s platform is a real game changer. You are able to enter a keyword or search term which will return results, in addition to a filmstrip of photos and videos.

Which brings us to the beast in the room (or more appropriately – on the web): Twitter. Now, we already know the power of 140 characters. We’ve seen the social, marital, and political repercussions time and time again. And of course, we’ve found out that an image is definitely worth a thousand words, not just 140 characters. So why is this relevant when it comes to photo sharing? People posting pictures to twitter has been around since Day One, right? This is all true. Twitter’s recent integration of a native, in-house photo and video sharing service into it’s platform is the real game changer. Third party companies, such as TwitPic and YFrog, become rendered obsolete.

The bigger differentiator is that all of these photos and videos, uploaded by the Twitter community, will now be searchable. Very similar to the hashtag user experience, a specific keyword or search term will return results, in addition to a filmstrip of photos and videos. Categorically speaking – this gives Twitter a huge x-factor when it comes to competing with Facebook. Unlike Facebook, you are able to search through the masses without certain privacy restrictions. The “public domain” that Twitter has created will only compliment the search-ability of their photo sharing service. Who knows – Google Images might have to watch it’s back.

Evidently, an exponential number of innovations are being made in the field of digital photo sharing. And for the right reasons, mind you. Between proximity, organization, and mass outreach – one can argue that an exciting road is being paved right in front of our eyes (and hands, ears, etc.). Our society wants things to be quicker and easier. These wants, one by one, are rapidly coming to fruition.

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Stan Bashmashnikov (@stanmichaelbash) runs stanmichaelbash.com, focusing on topics including online marketing, social media, and innovation. Please visit the Contact Me link at the bottom of the page for more info.

Creative Week ’11

// May 31st, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Events, News, Social Media

Stan Bashmashnikov - SMB.com

BY STAN BASHMASHNIKOV – SMB.COM

Vitality still exists in the creative industry. Yes, and more so than ever before – as proven last week. New York City hosted Creative Week from May 9th – 15th to celebrate the most ingenuous, innovative, and introspective minds in advertising, design, and digital media.  The One Club, a non-profit organization that aims to propel the recognition and promotion of excellence in advertising served as chief host for what was a week filled with tremendous highlights.

Before acknowledging the present, humility still lies in appreciating the past. The awards have truly evolved throughout the years. In 1961, the Advertising Writers of New York first awarded “Gold Keys” to honor great copywriting. 15 years later, the Gold Key was aptly replaced by the Gold Pencil. Evidently, the times have changed. The keys on a typewriter and lead pencils are rarely used in modern day ad agencies. But the memory remains. The next generation of creative minds has never looked so promising.

The Gold Club organization was generous enough to provide me with a Creative Week Press Pass that granted coverage of the week-long events from an angle exclusive for most. I am both grateful and humbled by this. There was so much content to absorb. But one theme was clear: brands were extending beyond TV and branching out into the real world. What I mean is, brands such as Old Spice, Gatorade, and Nike – for example, had integrated the user-experience into their campaigns (which we will get into later). The games had definitely changed – and in my opinion, for the better.

New York City hosted Creative Week from May 9th – 15th to celebrate the most ingenuous, innovative, and introspective minds in advertising, design, and digital media. Photo credit: The One Club.

The icing on the ad-cake was the The One Show – a who’s who awards gala comprised of modern day Mad Wo/Men from the advertising industry. The scene was elegant and classy. Top-shelf mixers were shaken, not stirred. Alice Tully Hall in the Lincoln Center was flowing with cocktails, hors d’ourves, and the muffled sounds of creative conversations that one could only hope to catch a dose of. Of course, this is to be expected. I could tell after conversing with a few award recipients and their colleagues in attendance – I was in for an eye peeler. It didn’t end there. A celebrity showing had also made their mark. Isaiah Mustafa, better know as “The Old Spice Guy,” was the show host. Not to be outdone – house DJ ?uestlove of Grammy award-winning Philadelphia hip-hop band The Roots  provided a great mix of musical ambiance in the theater. The power players were all in attendance: Oglivy, DDB, BBDO, Leo Burnett, Weiden+Kennedy, TBWA – among others. Curtains up.

It was extraordinary to finally be able to associate not only names, but faces, with creative campaigns. Ads from tv, print, and digital immediately became even more familiar. My eyes were telling my mind: “Are you seeing this?” More notably, Ogilvy’s Topsy (VIDEO) campaign resonated ever-so deeply with the audience. The project followed a woman living with AIDS for 90 days. The goal was to document her medical treatment that she previously didn’t have access to. The commercial, ingeniously, is played backwards from Day 90. You are introduced to a timid woman. By Day 1, you feel the hairs stand on the back of your neck.  The words “miracle” and “hope” come to mind.

One Show host Isaiah Mustafa ("The Old Spice Guy") and ?uestlove (The Roots) rehearsing before the show begins.

Best in Show – it seemed – was a lock for Old Spice. After all, their bread and butter was hosting the show. Not so fast, extremely eloquent and funny, Old Spice Guy. Nike’s Write The Future (VIDEO) took the grand prize. Such a commercial, done to this caliber, is fantastic in all sense of the word. If you are unfamiliar with it – Nike launched the campaign in June of 2010 to coincide with the World Cup. The effort was aimed to make up for the fact that they were not official sponsors. It did the trick. The 3-minute storybook sequence showcases superstar, I mean superheroes – in their respective countries – all on one field, and the “journey” they must take to win the cup. Coupled with a few cameos, the player’s personalities really get to shine. The message: you control your own destiny, or more aptly put: “Write The Future.”

The following night, the One Show Interactive awards were held at Terminal 5 - showcasing the best of the best in digital and online advertising. Essentially, this was the virally-inspired, new wave of advertising tactics that the industry has seen as of late.  Kevin Swanepoel, President, puts it all into perspective: “Ten years ago, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube didn’t exist. Google had eight employees and was little more than a promising search engine. Facebook now has over 500 million users who spend 700 billion minutes per month on their site. Twitter users are sending out 55 million tweets a day. YouTube users are watching 2 million videos a day.” Retrospectively, these are powerful benchmarks to consider. And so, while some individuals grew weary and cautious of the times – the brave few marched on. He adds “This simple insight led our winners to use social networking in blog and innovative ways – to create wonderfully entertaining branded entertainment. Their adaptation and adjustment of their craft to the consumer marketplace are the reason they are being recognized.” Clearly, the rules are being re-written. We live in a society that is ever changing. Those part of the new media are the ones doing the writing.

The One Show Interactive awards were held at Terminal 5 - showcasing the best of the best in digital and online advertising.

Droga5′s Puma (VIDEO) Hardchorus campaign was a definite crowd-pleaser. Who doesn’t like English football? Who doesn’t like singing? Mix them together. A group of twenty plus English football fans, or “hooligans,” gather around a camera to sing Savage Garden’s “Truly,Madly, Deeply.” That sentence alone should be enough reason to see it. The comedic undertones and halfway-decent harmony is even more reason to enjoy this delightful ad. I love 90s music, and hate to admit that I knew the words to that song. But, evidently I’m not the only one. Nicely done, Droga5.

TBWA’s Gatorade Replay (VIDEO) campaign won multiple Gold, Silver, and Bronze pencils at both shows. The Replay campaign principle tugged at every athlete’s nostalgic recollection: the chance to replay a memorable game from their past. Limits had to be made. Gatorade selected various games – primarily along the criteria that the game ended in controversial or abrupt fashion. In one specific instance, two rival high-schools in Detroit took the ice eleven years after a 1999 hockey game almost cost a player his life. One can only imagine the overwhelming closure completing such a game can produce.

Backstage following the One Show Interactive awards, Isaiah Mustafa was a charismatic host with outstanding material (and a little help from his writers).

Creative Week reminded all that unwavering creative thought and a well-crafted idea can go a long, long way. Even to an award show. Even to have the idea be the host. It is remarkable – and again, a true testament to the minds behind the wheel. The medium for which the message is conveyed is limitless – more so than ever before. Television and print campaigns, once the pioneers of the industry, are now being complimented with a strong social media and digital marketing presence. Well rounded approaches lead to significant results. Having all of these tools in an organization’s arsenal is well – deadly.

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Stan Bashmashnikov (@stanmichaelbash) runs stanmichaelbash.com, focusing on topics including online marketing, social media, and innovation. Please visit the Contact Me link at the bottom of the page for more info.

The One Club is the world's foremost non-profit organization for the recognition and promotion of excellence in advertising.The One Club produces three annual awards competitions: The One Show, O

Social Media Week ’11

// March 11th, 2011 // 1 Comment » // Events, News, Social Media

Stan Bashmashnikov - SMB.com

BY STAN BASHMASHNIKOV – SMB.COM

From February 7th – 11th, Social Media Week simultaneously descended upon media-savvy cornucopias such as New York City, San Francisco, Toronto, London, Paris, Istanbul, São Paolo, Rome and Hong Kong. These week-long series of biannual conferences aim to bring thousands of people together every year through both shared and collaborative learning experiences. Essentially, the underlying goal is to try and advance our understanding of social media’s role in modern society.

Crowdcentric, owner and operator of Social Media Week, graciously asked me to help alongside fellow social outreach consultants at primary hub locations including Google HQ, Paley Center for Media, Red Bull Space, JWT, and Hearst. Within these social media hubs, multiple daily events were organized bringing together nearly 5,000 professionals from over 40 different industries. Obviously – social media has cross pollinated across the majority of today’s professions. It goes without saying that the week-long festivities can be defined best using buzz words: unique, inspiring, engaging, definitive, and memorable – all rolled into one.

Social Media Week 2011 ran from February 7th - 11th. There were over 5,000 attendees in NYC alone from nearly 40 industries.

In order to appreciate SMW’s rapid growth, one must take take a step back and look at it’s young history. The week-long event was first held in February of 2009, solely in New York City. Organizations such as The Nielsen Company, New York Times, and Razorfish, among others, served as initial sponsors. The attendee response was extremely welcoming – and enough reason for SMW to expand to more locations: San Francisco, London, Berlin, São Paulo, and Toronto in February of 2010.

Collective attendance tripled from 2,500 to nearly 8,000 worldwide in only a year of operation with the help of sponsors such as Pepsi, Motorola, and Meebo. The week of events are now bi-annual – typically held in February and September, respectively. Social Media Week 2011 (February) was anticipated to be nothing short of spectacular – and it undoubtedly lived up to all of the hype.

SMW's Opening Party was held at the Celeste Bartos Forum inside the New York Public Library.

Monday had finally come – and the first destination on my itinerary was the Google Hub. Sola Obayan, Google Hub Producer and Principal at BTO Solutions, led a dynamic group of production assistants and social outreach consultants in promoting, organizing, and effectively executing the daily events. A special thanks goes out for her guidance and leadership. While I was only able to lend my services for the first two days, they were equally filled with a plethora of events, volunteers, and curious attendees.

The first day included a discussion led by Sapient Nitro, outlining what our lives would be like if they were a complex social network. The concept was at times amusing, yet downright brilliant. For example, what if we spoke in “tweets” to everyone we interacted with? Or what if we reprinted embarrassing pictures of our co-workers and handed them out? Sounds a bit ridiculous – but actually, many parallels were drawn between real vs. social behaviors. You’d be surprised how small the disparities really are. The context was incredibly insightful and surprising to the majority of the attendees. A feeling of “realization on how social media has re-shaped our lives” was prevalent throughout the room.

The following day, Opera Solutions hosted an open discussion on applying major data analytics to the abundant amount of social media data that is out in cyber space. Taken directly from the pamphlet, this statistic is eye-opening: “Facebook logs 695 status updates per second and Foursquare tallied more than 381 million check-ins in 2010. Over 35 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute and Twitter’s 170 million users send 95 million tweets each day.” While many theories were offered and broken-down, it was evident that a real answer does not exist – Yet.

The Paley Center for Media was one of five Social Media Hubs during SMW 11. Paley showcased the Open UN discussions on Tuesday and Thursday.

The week was moving right along. Between running around New York City, meeting individuals within different facets of the industry, and compulsively tweeting out relevant content – I would say my mind was occupied. Mentally speaking, being short on rest was a trending topic. Next on the list was the Paley Hub, located at the Paley Center for Media. It was coordinated and led by Melissa Hall – the Marketing & Events Director for the Independent Handbag Designer Awards. Again, a special thanks goes out to her and all of the individuals  along the way who are undoubtedly the reason why social media is so engaging.

My time spent at the Paley Hub included involvement in a day-long Open UN session entitled Engagement in the Age of Real-Time. Hosted by the United Nations Global Pulse, Open UN during SMW was geared to serve as a free-flowing conversation about how open, social, real-time technologies are changing the relationship between people and institutions around the world. In fact – if you think about it – open platforms are allowing for unique opportunities of participation in the real world that was once reserved only for experts. Numerous points, and counterpoints were made – all of which are too lengthy to list. The discussion was academic to near perfection. The panel was very engaging – which in turn propelled the audience to interact even more so.

The Red Bull Hub, located in SoHo of NYC, provided a more laid-back, gaming-art inspired theme.

This recap would feel incomplete without mentioning the sheer astonishment, decadence, and magnitude of the JWT, Red Bull, and Hearst Hubs. I was able to help out on a minimal scale at these respective locations – while still allowing myself time to catch the majority of discussions. One of the biggest draws of the week came on Wednesday at JWT, when CEO & Co-Founder of Foursquare, Dennis Crowley, spoke about the future of location-based mobile platforms. “We live in a dynamic time and I’m excited what Foursquare has in store for the 2011 year” he mentioned during an extremely brief chat following his speech. Upon recent launch of the Foursquare 3.o update, it is even more clear what he meant.

One of the many highlights of my week came at SMW’s Opening Party (New York Public Library) and Closing Party (District 36), respectively. Working alongside Marcel Opilka from Nokia, I was tasked as the primary photographer at Nokia’s Photostation via their brand-new N8 devices. Yes – a camera phone operated photo station, but you’d be surprised, this thing was a tiny beast. The 8-megapixel photos were spot on. I have to thank Jazzo Marrero, of Brooklyn Robot, for assisting me in creative pose-ideation and impromptu PR duties. Our participants were also very clever. Comes with the territory, wouldn’t you say? The Macallan scotch surely aided in this process. You can find most of the pictures here and here. Once taken, the photos were instantly uploaded to SMW’s facebook page and copies were digitally printed to give to participants. Hilarity ensued.

Left to Right: Ben Scheim, Maria Laboy Perez, & Stan Bashmashnikov at SMW's Closing Party (District 36). Photo Credit: Gary He & Insider Images.

Overall, the week ended on a high note. Many thanks to the entire Social Media team – led by Toby Daniels, Brian Leddy, Lauren Hurst, Ben Scheim, and Sara Haile-Mariam. All of the volunteers I met along the way – looking forward to reconnecting once again. It was truly a pleasure working with you all. A fantastic job done on such an immerse, wide-spread scale. The power of social media made it feel like all 5,000+ NYC attendees were in one, intimate setting. And that rare ability to bring so many people together is a true testament to the undoubted longevity of this young industry.

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Stan Bashmashnikov (@stanmichaelbash) runs stanmichaelbash.com, focusing on topics including online marketing, social media, and innovation. Please visit the Contact Me link at the bottom of the page for more info.

A Special Place for LOST

// June 8th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

Mike Desjardin - SMB.com Contributor

BY MIKE DESJARDIN — SMB.COM CONTRIBUTOR. In the minutes following the series finale of Lost, I shook my head and cursed the set.  In the hours following the finale, the end of the show had time to settle, and I wasn’t as incensed.  In the days following it, the things I enjoyed most became rosier, and the things I didn’t enjoy got a whole lot worse.

In fact, weeks later, I’m still trying to figure out precisely how I feel about the ending of Lost.  Some days I wake up feeling more sentimental than other days, and the image of the Oceanic survivors finding each other in the afterlife puts a smile on my face.  And then there are moments when I find myself thinking back to season four, when a doctor on Charles Widmore‘s freighter winds up dead on the shore of the island a half an hour before he’s actually killed, and I quickly have to stop myself from calling up fans of the show to kick and scream about the direction of the final season.

It’s unfortunate that, for all of the enjoyment I got out of watching Lost for almost six years, I’ll always look back on the show with disappointment.  If I was upset with an episode during the series’ run, I was always reminded (by others and myself) that the show could only intrinsically be viewed as a whole piece once it was finished.  Now that it’s over, I’ll always think of Lost as an incredibly ambitious but equally as flawed piece of work.

Season five ended with characters who were stuck in 1977 instinctively finding it necessary to detonate a hydrogen bomb in an effort to diverge time.  For what seemed like a half-baked plan based only on the math of a physicist who’s death proved his own math wrong, it was interesting to see so many characters drop their driving motivation in favor of a plan that would certainly kill hundreds of people, if not themselves, too.

To put it bluntly, it was frustrating for season five to have treaded water for so long only to have Faraday return from a physics retreat in which the entire direction of the season (and what would eventually be the series as a whole) was spawned off-screen.  Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have gotten very used to telling us that, regardless of how we feel about the series, for them, it’s always been about the characters.  If the end of season five was the beginning of the final act, then the show’s denouement was based primarily on Faraday’s botched math problems, Jack going against almost everyone’s wishes in regards to detonating a nuclear bomb, and Juliet convincing Sawyer & Company that they should support Jack largely because her parents got divorced and she never had faith in monogamy.

Suddenly, everyone was willing to fight and die for Jughead’s detonation.  Even on the off-chance that such a plan would, in fact, work, no one bothers to ask about what would happen to their consciousnesses in this new, crash-free timeline.  Would any of them remember the original timeline?  Essentially, they were proposing suicide with the added bonus of possibly existing in some realm that they would never know about or experience personally.

But, again, I told myself to wait.  “Wait until this whole show pans out before you criticize what could end up being connective plot tissue that ushers the players into a thrilling final act.”

Capturing the religious undertones prevalent throughout the show, our "Losties" are depicted at their own Last Supper.

Season six began with the introduction of an alternate timeline in which the 815′ers land safely in L.A., the island is underwater, and the dying words of Juliet seemed to imply that detonating Jughead did precisely what Jack thought it would.  “It worked,” she said, dying in Sawyer’s arms.  This is reiterated, too, when Miles scans her dead brainwaves.

So, the stage was set for the closing chapter of Lost. Throughout the season, we were teased with moments signifying that these two timelines were porous. Characterizations began bleeding in from one timeline to the next. Jack’s neck wouldn’t stop bleeding, Sun bumps her head and forgets how to speak English, and people in the alternate timeline often glance at one another with a strange feeling of deja vu (see: Kate briefly recognizing Jack in her getaway outside of LAX). By the time the season introduced us to Desmond’s episode, “Happily Ever After,” fans were dying to know what, exactly, this alternate timeline was all about, and what implications it had for the survivors. Week after week, however, nothing ever came together in the parallel world. Even when characters began achieving enlightenment in the alternate timeline, we were still left with no explanation as to how the timelines were connected.

Meanwhile, Alt-Faraday (known as Daniel Widmore) spoke with Desmond about the possibility of parallel worlds existing as a result of a nuclear detonation.  Back in the primary timeline, the Man in Black continued to play a chess game with Widmore and Jacob – a game in which the audience had no notion of the rules and outcomes, but seemed to be learning more about as the season went on.  All we knew was that Smokey wanted off the island, Jacob and Widmore could not allow that to happen, and were it to happen, everyone the characters ever knew and loved would “cease to exist.”

By the highly debated episode “Across the Sea,” it became apparent that this was all we were ever going to learn about this conflict:  bad guy wants to leave, something bad would happen if he succeeds, and the candidates are part of Jacob’s plans to keep his brother on the island in the event of his death.

“Across the Sea” was such a polarizing episode because most fans knew that it’d be the last opportunity for the writers to drop some heavy mythological twists into the mix before the final three hours of the series.  Speaking for myself, I wasn’t expecting a checklist of answers to the show’s biggest mysteries, but at the very least, I wasn’t expecting an awkwardly written episode that only confirmed what we had already assumed from what little information we had been explicitly given.  “Across the Sea” didn’t put existing pieces together in a way that brought the entire conflict into light.  Instead, it took platitudinal ideas that viewers had a shallow understanding of and told us that our  vague understanding of these things was all we were supposed to know going into the finale.

Jacob and The Man In Black were at odds throughout the show - but not when it came to wine.

Between “Across the Sea” and “The End,” the ideas we had originally assumed to be true were confirmed with very little extrapolation, and the details we focused on (the “rules” of Jacob/Man in Black’s game, for instance) fell by the wayside. Candidates and the fact that some of their names were crossed out was reduced to being “just chalk on a wall.” The fact that Hurley was the only one who could see Jacob became irrelevant, and the notion that Jacob could selectively project himself to others (Desmond and Sawyer, for example) at different stages of his life amounted to absolutely nothing.

Throughout its final season, Lost continued to present us with things like kid-Jacob and “do not kill” lists that didn’t include crossed-out candidates, all the while (unbeknownst to us) sweeping these very things under the thematic rug.

In fact, Widmore’s presence on the island and his motivation in regards to the Man in Black (undoubtedly one of the central conflicts of the final season) turned out to be manufactured and unclear.  Widmore was the main antagonist for arguably the show’s best season, and his entire change of heart was explained with a throwaway line about Jacob visiting him and “showing him the error of his ways.”  The line may as well have been, “I used to be a bad guy, now I’m a good guy.  Just roll with it.”  Up until the end of the series, I told myself that the only excuse for such an asinine turn of events would be if it turned out that Widmore was in cahoots with Smokey all along.

Looking back, most of the on-island conflict is either too shallow or too ingrained within a history that you’re explicitly told not to think about. The Man in Black’s motivations are as simple as “he just wants to kill everyone and leave,” but the manner in which these events take place involve unwritten rules we’re never clear on.

At first, you catch yourself saying, “Wait a minute, that’s all there is to this story?” Then you inevitably follow that up with, “But I don’t get what happened to Claire and Sayid and what the pool of dirty temple water is all about…”

It smacks of the producers wanting to have their cake and eat it, too.  While they’ll be the first to tell you that they fully expected people to be incredibly pissed off at the end of the show, they managed to write an ending that emotionally satisfied casual viewers and still left the door open for hardcore Lost whack-jobs to fantasize about answers they’ll never get.

Take “Across the Sea,” for instance:  straightforward and almost too simple, and yet, the seeds were planted for fans to speculate as to whether or not Mother was the smoke monster before Jacob’s brother.  Casual fans take the episode at face value, and more intense viewers find its unexplained implications juicy enough to explore well after the entire series is over.

Ordinarily, these mysterious realms of unexplained information are exciting enough for me to enjoy after the full canon has been given. In Lost’s case, though, the possibility of the origin story being deeper than it appears is just as likely as the one-dimensional, pseudo-religious allegory given at face value. The significance of one is canceled out by the other, and when both are just as likely, I find myself not caring enough to even talk about it.

And that, to me, is the saddest part about the final season of Lost.  For a show that dared its viewers to immerse themselves into the mystery of this island, the whole story was eventually reduced to a “best not to ask such things” experience.  The alternate timeline was the biggest victim of this.  It’s best not to ask who’s in the church and who’s not in the church during the final scene of the show.  It’s best not to ask whether people like Miles and Keamy were also part of this purgatory, or if they were like Jack’s son — that is, metaphysical beings constructed by other characters out of a need to settle personal issues before moving on.  It’s best not to ask what Ben has to work on before going to heaven, or if the Rousseau and Alex of his purgatory world are real in the first place or stuck there with him until he decides he’s ready.

The Constant remains one of the best Lost episodes to date - covering themes such as time travel, betrayal, and love.

Almost everything about the sideways world is metaphysical, metaphorical, and grounded entirely within a universe that lends itself to very little analyzation. And while the finale was emotionally satisfying on certain levels, to reduce more than half of the final season to a hypothetical world that falls apart upon close inspection is a crying shame for a show that always invited us to closely inspect it. The bigger shame, still, is how many elements of the sideways world were finely tuned red herrings just to throw us off the trail: The final shot of season five, Faraday telling Desmond that he thinks their timeline exists as a result of a nuclear detonation, Juliet’s proclamation of “it worked” regarding a candy bar…

The most interesting aspects of the final season of the show were a means to stall until that final scene in the church.  And if Jughead didn’t do anything but put these people back in 2007 so that they could stop some incarnation of evil from doing something evil before killing him in a relatively uninteresting fashion, then most of season five was a means to stall until the last episode, too… An episode that wrapped everything up with not much more than a kick off a cliff and a big stone cork in a cave.

So I often find myself thinking back to the head-spinning sci-fi elements of season four, and it always ends with me shaking my head.  Admittedly, it was unrealistic for any conclusion to have matched my expectations, but after almost six years of thinking about Lost and writing about Lost, the finale did little to wrap up the on-island timeline in an interesting fashion, and then rendered half of its final season largely irrelevant to the Jacob/Man in Black conflict.

But then there will always be days when I wake up feeling sentimental, and I’ll remember Hurley’s big stupid grin when Charlie opens his motel room door and the two friends are reunited.  And for a while, the finale will sit well with me.

Until I start thinking about it again.

—-

Mike Desjardin has been reviewing television shows and movies for nearly ten years.

Introducing: Google TV

// May 25th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

Stan Bashmashnikov - SMB.com

Google recently announced plans to launch an integrated TV service that may very well be the next big wave in technology. Check out this great article from Discover Magazine:

Not happy with only dominating the Internet, software giant Google is looking to expand into the television business, too. It won’t be producing content, but Google will be creating software in partnership with Sony and Intel that will help bring the Internet to TVs and set-top boxes all over the land.

With the just-announced Google TV, people will be able to access web features like downloadable games, Facebook, and streaming video on their TV as easily as if they were flipping channels. Some existing televisions and set-top boxes [already] offer access to Web content, but the choice of sites is limited. Google intends to open its TV platform, which is based on its Android operating system for smartphones, to software developers. The company hopes the move will spur the same outpouring of creativity that consumers have seen in applications for cellphones [The New York Times]. Google expects that products based on its software may be ready as soon as this summer.

Google’s TV platform will use Intel’s Atom chips and may also give Sony a leg up in a highly competitive hardware market, as Sony hopes to bring out the first appliances and maybe even TVs that encorporate the software. The project will use a version of Google’s Chrome Web browser to create an interface where people can use the TV not just to poke around the Internet, but also to play videos from Hulu or YouTube. The company has reportedly already built a prototype set-top box, but the technology may be incorporated directly into TVs or other devices [The New York Times].

However, Google TV will face stiff competition from Roku and Boxee–two existing devices that allow users to stream video from Netflix and a selection of other sites, while Yahoo has also come out with a TV platform that allows users to access certain Web sites. Those competitors, unsurprisingly, say their products are superior to what Google has planned; Roku CEO Anthony Wood argues that the expensive chip inside a Google TV box would raise the device’s cost to about $200, far higher than Roku’s $80 device. But as Google hasn’t officially acknowledged the project yet, price estimates for Google TV devices are pure speculation.

Experts see Google’s project as a pre-emptive move to get a foothold in the living room as more consumers start exploring ways to bring Web content to their television sets. Google wants to aggressively ensure that its services, in particular its search and advertising systems, play a central role. “Google wants to be everywhere the Internet is so they can put ads there,” one insider says [The New York Times].

The Return of SMB.com

// May 19th, 2010 // No Comments » // News

After a year long hiatus, stanmichaelbash.com is back!

I am going to keep this posting very short – as there is still much work to be done with the site. Stay tuned.