David Byrne: Playing the Building - Boing Boing

David Byrne turns the Battery Maritime Building in NYC into a giant musical instrument as part of an art installation called "Playing The Building"

My favourite quote from Byrne:

"It's not like a musician sits down at this and has any more skills playing this than anyone else. It kind of democratizes the whole experience, and I think people know that when they approach it. They realize right away that they're not any worse and probably not much better than anyone else playing the thing."

A lot of my own focus is on using WYGIWYS (What You Get Is What You See) tools to democratize content creation services. We're seeing it extend beyond office tools like powerpoint and into video and audio editing tools (especially mashup tools). It's classic long tail thinking: When the force of cheap (or free) production tools meets the force of cheap (or free) distribution, democracy is at its best.

Link to BBtv Video on Boing Boing

Chris Anderson Speaks on Free.

Courtesy of the Jason Calcanis and the gang at Mahalo, Wired Editor-In-Chief and Long Tail stopped by to give an hour long talk on his new book: Free. Upon release, he will be giving it away, you guessed it... Free.

Both videos are about 30mins, so it's a 1 hour viewing time. There are some great tidbits in there, and some powerful, if admittedly unfinished ideas.

Link to Mahalo blog post:Mahalo Live Lunch with Chris Anderson