Open up your mind and say, ahh...

New York is saying goodbye to the venerable Ford Crown Victoria taxi and hello to the … Karsan?

Well, maybe the Karsan. Or a Nissan of some kind. Or maybe another Ford. Whatever the case, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has been pushing for a replacement for the Crown Vic, which is being phased out in favor of a more efficient and wheelchair-accessible hack. This being New York, the city wanted something iconic. Something cool. Something it can call the “Taxi Of Tomorrow.”

So the Taxi and Limousine Commission launched a contest to get feedback from city residents and taxi manufacturers. The winner gets an exclusive contract to provide taxis for 10 years. A finalist will be picked early next year and hit the streets of Gotham by 2014.

“The yellow cab is one of the most iconic symbols of New York City,” Hizzoner said, according to Reuters. “Taxis have been an important part of our mass transit system and we are going to create a new taxi for our city that is safer, greener, and more comfortable than the ones we have today.”

Whatever vehicle gets the nod, it will be a minivan with loads of head room, big windows and loads of space.

Nissan’s proposed vehicle riffs on its NV200 van; it gets bonus points in our book because Nissan may develop an electric version. Ford has offered its Euro-cool Transit Connect van — which also is available with an extension cord — slathered in yellow paint.

But by far the most interesting submission comes from Turkey. We haven’t seen so intriguing a taxi since Arnold Schwarzenegger took a ride in Johnny Cab. The Karsan V1 looks like the smallest of the three candidates, but it’s got an interesting four passenger configuration where one passenger faces the others. It’s also got a glass roof and a built-in wheelchair ramp.

“Each is promising, but none is perfect,” Bloomberg told The New York Times. “We are not obliged to go with anything if it does not meet our needs.”

Styling aside, versatility and durability will be key considerations in choosing the Taxi of Tomorrow. The new cabs will be added to the fleet as older models are retired. New York has more than 13,000 cabs, and the fleet is comprises of 16 models from nine manufacturers.

Regardless of what vehicle is named the Taxi Of Tomorrow, the means of choosing it was groundbreaking — for a transportation project, anyway. By utilizing social media and other outreach methods, the Taxi Of Tomorrow invited public participation in a way few transportation projects ever have.

Got an opinion? Voice it on the online Taxi of Tomorrow survey. You might even win free cab rides for a year.

Main photo: Edgar Zuniga Jr. / Flickr. All others: New York City Taxi and Limousine Commission

The Karsan V1.

Ford’s all-purpose Transit Connect commercial van, done up as a taxi.

Nissan’s entry, based on the NV200.

1. For the money
2. To be challenged
3. For the pleasure/calling of doing the work
4. For the impact it makes on the world
5. For the reputation you build in the community
6. To solve interesting problems
7. To be part of a group and to experience the mission
8. To be appreciated

Why do we always focus on the first? Why do we advertise jobs or promotions as being generic on items 2 through 8 and differentiated only by #1?

In fact, unless you’re a drug kingpin or a Wall Street trader, my guess is that the other factors are at work every time you think about your work. (PS Happy Birthday Corey.)

FarmVille has been unseated as the most popular application on Facebook by an application called Phrases, ending FarmVille’s long domination of Facebook’s top application charts – at least if you look at monthly active users.

In February 2010, the massively popular FarmVille game had over 80 million monthly active users, towering not only over all other games on Facebook, but also over all other applications of any kind. Currently, Phrases is on top with 54.4 million monthly active users, followed by FarmVille which has 53.9 million monthly active users. However, since Phrases – a do-it-yourself quiz and trivia application – is not technically a game, FarmVille is still the most popular Facebook game.

Digging deeper into the numbers from AppData, which tracks applications on the Facebook platform, reveals that Phrases probably won’t stay on top of the monthly active user charts for long. Looking at daily active users, FarmVille is still well ahead, and Phrases has in fact been losing ground as it recently stopped serving U.S. users. With a sharp drop in daily active users in the middle of November, Phrases is likely to lose the number one spot when the monthly user data gets updated.

It’s also important to note that Farmville is a huge time investment, while Phrases is an entirely different type of application, which doesn’t require nearly as much activity from users.

As for the rest of the list, Texas HoldEm Poker, FrontierVille and Mafia Wars – the third, fourth, and fifth app according to AppData – are also created by Zynga, which is the company behind FarmVille. Add to that Zynga’s plans to release another FarmVille-style game soon, CityVille, and we can safely say that Zynga is still the absolute king of the Facebook app platform. FarmVille’s temporary slip from the top app position won’t hurt it much, if at all.

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark. If you would like to have your startup considered for inclusion, please see the details here.

Name: Hashable

Quick Pitch: Track and share all your social and professional interactions and discover who else is out there to connect with.

Genius Idea: Networking is an important activity for most of us. In the age of social media, tools like Twitter and LinkedIn help us extend offline networking online, but private beta startup Hashable seeks to both simplify and better track our personal and professional interactions.

Hashable helps you document real-world connections with friends and professional contacts by using hashtags to describe interactions. Hashable tracks actions, connections, salutations, props and any other type of hashtag you can dream up.

With introductions, for instance, a Hashable user can introduce any two Twitter users or e-mail contacts using the “Make an #intro” feature. Hashable publicly (or privately) notifies both parties via Twitter or e-mail and follows up to verify a connection was made.

The “Post a connection” feature lets you specify a hashtag and the e-mail addresses or Twitter names of the people you have connected with offline. With this feature, you can use the system to quickly document all types of exchanges with hashtags such as #justmet, #meeting, #breakfast, #lunch, #dinner, #drinks, #coffee, #golf, #tennis, #brunch and #thanks.

Hashable supports Twitter and e-mail and will soon support iPhone-app connections. The service employs game mechanics to inspire user engagement, rewarding users with points in the form of “Hashcred” for making introductions and receiving connections; super users are highlighted on the “top connectors” leader boards.

The ultimate aim is to create a new data set around person-to-person interactions. The premise is that people already share their breakfast meetings and coffee get-togethers on Twitter, so Hashable wants to capture that information and structure the data for individual user and global insight. It’s the social graph concept that Facebook is working to build around friends, but with relationships and specific interactions in focus.

The startup just closed a $4 million round of funding led by Union Square Ventures, giving the company a rumored $30 million valuation, according to All Things D. That’s not too shabby considering the startup pivoted from a financial data site to focus on this idea not too long ago.

Hashable is currently in private beta, but the first 1,000 Mashable readers to follow the Hashable Twitter account will receive invites to the site.

Image courtesy of Flickr, Tedx SF

The Spark of Genius Series highlights a unique feature of startups and is made possible by Microsoft BizSpark, a startup program that gives you three-year access to the latest Microsoft development tools, as well as connecting you to a nationwide network of investors and incubators. There are no upfront costs, so if your business is privately owned, less than three years old, and generates less than U.S.$1 million in annual revenue, you can sign up today.

The Routemaster bus, probably the best-known symbol of London in the world, is about to be resurrected.

The original hop-on-hop-off design, with its open rear deck, was perfect for car-choked streets: you could jump on when it was stopped and off again without waiting for a pre-determined stop. And because each bus had a driver and a conductor (to collect your fare), the Routemaster never had to wait while the driver fiddled with coins.

Being England, though, this amazingly practical bus was canned. Why?

Safety, and penny-pinching. Every Londoner has either fallen off the back of a bus, or seen it happen to some other poor soul, and this kind of self-responsibility isn’t permitted in the Nanny State. And two workers on board obviously costs more than one. The buses were also environmentally dirty, and there was no easy way for disabled people to get on and off.

But the Routemaster is back, and even better than ever. The new version, designed by Thomas Heatherwick for Wrightbus, combines the old 1958 design with modern buses. The open rear-deck is back, but it can be closed when needed (at night, for example, to keep the drunken gangs of baseball-capped, knife-wielding teenagers out).

The new bus has three doors: joining the single rear entrance are a front and a side door. There are also two staircases, solving a major congestion problem, and a source of missed stops on full buses. The center door is also accessible to wheelchairs. Best of all, it will have the both driver and conductor, although the more traditional indoor cab will mean the driver will no longer have to climb in the window like a monkey. A prototype will arrive next year, and the first new Routemasters will take to the roads on 2012.

Over in England, complaints are already being made, mostly focusing on the design, which comes on as something between the original Routemaster and the bridge of Kirk’s Enterprise. But with this new bus, in combination with London Mayor Boris Johnson’s drive to make the city bike-friendly, London’s traffic may no longer be the bad joke it has historically been.

Photos: TFL

In 2007 I said that Facebook would be the home page for your personal brand. Now it seems that Facebook is officially setting out to become your homepage period.

The other day I logged into Facebook and noticed a new message at the top of the screen. I was presented with a simple way to make Facebook my homepage so that I could see “what’s happening with friends as soon as I opened my browser.”  And, I’m not the only one.

Why am I taking the time to let you know that Facebook is making it easy for you to drag and drop Facebook to your home button?

Facebook started out as a social network, but it is officially growing into a full-fledged personal OS, where friends and experiences are interconnected inside and outside of Facebook. And, at the center of everything is you. Facebook is a platform where relationships create the construct for the 3C’s of information commerce. The acts of sharing and consuming content in social media represent the social dealings between people and set the stage for interaction and education.But, it is the platform that offers a sandbox for development and also a solid foundation for social architecture. It is the sites that feature Facebook interconnects that weave the fabrics of relationships and the ties and interests that bind us.

More than one million websites have integrated with Facebook Platform.

150 million people engage with Facebook on external websites every month.

Two-thirds of comScore’s U.S. Top 100 websites and half of comScore’s Global Top 100 websites have integrated with Facebook.

The more we interact with Facebook around the Web through Likes, Shares, and Comments, the more we feed the social effect and the greater the personalization inside Facebook and within its partner sites.

Indeed, according to comScore, Facebook traffic soared by 55.2% hitting 151.1 million in October 2010, up from 97.4 visitors at the same time last year. It’s also important to note that Facebook was home to 300 million active denizens last year and now it has a population of more than 550 million. While Google is earning 173.3 million visits in the U.S., Facebook’s trajectory is only gaining in mass and force. And it’s only gaining momentum…

- 50% of active users log on to Facebook in any given day

- The average user has 130 friends

- People spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook

Don’t Google Me, Facebook Me

Over the years, Google has missed steps to foster a social network of its own, perhaps focusing on a culture of code rather than a culture of social sciences. What lies ahead is a quiet war where  your social graph is at stake. Facebook is taking large steps to move you away from Google and toward the social web.  As this new “homepage” request rolls out to active users worldwide, we will see many follow Facebook’s instruction to now make the social graph the starting point to their online experience each and every time they fire up their browser. Doing so changes behavior and teaches us that we can indeed get a little help from our friends by leaning on them for empowerment, entertainment, and enlightenment.

We don’t take to Google for insight, we  now take to the stream…

What’s materializing before us may in fact represent the beginning of the end of the Google era of Web domination. This is the rise of the Facebook economy (F-commerce) where commerce represents the currency of information and engagement and the net worth of the relationships we nurture. While it doesn’t beat the drum in its march toward online supremacy, Facebook is in fact setting out to help you improve the way you communicate, discover, and share. Since you are at the center of the social egosystem, Facebook is designing products and services that make managing and interacting with your social graph more efficient.

From Gmail to Facebook.com > We now have a new messaging platform on its way to us with @facebook.com email addresses yours for the taking. It changes how we think about messages and exchanges and may in fact, encourage us to follow Zuckerberg’s vision away from the traditional inbox. By integrating messaging into one system that connects through multiple clients and devices, Facebook also starts to minimize the value of Google Talk. Does Google turn its 193 million Gmail users out of the inbox and toward a social network…something like say, GoogleMe? Now with its social hooks in MySpace, Google must revisit its human algorithm.

From Google.com to Facebook search > The future of search is social and we are already investing in social media optimization (SMO) in addition to SEO. We can’t underestimate Facebook search. Google has long dominated search and the behemoth of a company is showing its age and its weaknesses. Even though Google is experimenting with integrating social into traditional search results, its algorithm is in dire need of a human touch – a human algorithm. At the same time, Facebook is slowly but surely improving its search feature. What used to simply display results within the network, now starts to feature results from around the Web where the displayed list is curated by the actions of your friends – as part of the platform. This will only improve and become more substantial in the coming months.

From Google Voice to Facebook + Skype > Google Voice is a valuable service that combines voice, Web, and email. While it’s not getting thunderous roars of attention, Skype and Facebook are introducing the ability to call friends directly from the News Feed. As this integration becomes seamless and demand for such a service gains awareness and pervasiveness, Facebook and Skype will rival Google Voice one day.

From Google Latitude to Facebook Places > Google is experimenting with geo location, but Facebook Places is gaining mass adoption. Competing for attention online and offline is helping Facebook merge experiences and channel the activity into the News Feed.

From Google Groups to Facebook Groups > Google Groups was once one of the Web greatest hosts for contextual networks, groups organized by interests, events, and causes. Now with the release of the new and improved Facebook Groups, people are forming nicheworks, networks within networks. Their focused activity is enhanced by a dedicated group framework that fosters collaboration and conversation whether the group unites relationships or actions linked by strong, weak, or temporary ties.

From Google Docs to Facebook + Microsoft Office > Google Docs are the industry standard for Web collaboration around documents, spreadsheets, presentations, forms and artistic canvases. While the world was abuzz with Facebook’s messaging service, Microsoft introduced Office Web Apps as part of the new messaging system. The technology alliance allows people to view Word, Excel and PowerPoint attachments with the Office Web Apps directly in Facebook. It just the beginning of something more productive…

Twitter Me This…The Facebook Generation

And what of Twitter? I believe it is the moon that orbits a networked planet. It turns the tides. It defines its rotation.

Twitter is your window to relevance, but Facebook is your homepage for the social Web.

According to recent data released by Hitwise, Facebook accounts for 25% of all page views in the U.S. And it’s only going to skyrocket as we interact with content and one another through the Facebook platform. Depending on which data we review, Google is either in Facebook’s rearview mirror or in its sights. Hitwise claims Facebook has already surpassed Google in terms of views. Earlier we stated that comScore has Facebook nipping at Google’s heels. Either way, it’s just a matter of time until Facebook traffic surpasses Google with tenable data supporting the historic milestone.

We are witnessing the dawn of the social consumer and their network of preference for the immediate future is Facebook.

As I’ve previously observed, the medium is no longer just the message. In social, the medium is the platform and as such, people now represent both the medium and the message where reach is defined by a blending of the social graph, the context of the story and the expansion and contraction of strong, weak, and temporary connections. The Facebook platform serves as the foundation for our Social OS and in turn, we are its driving force. With every action, we trigger an equal and opposite reaction. With our relationships serving as Facebook’s construct, we are realizing that the social graph effect may in fact, spark greater volumes of reaction than Google, or any of us, may have anticipated. Welcome to the Facebook generation…the question is, will you call Facebook home?

Image Source: Shutterstock (Edited)

If you have kids eight or older, you might find yourself learning about Paper Jamz in short order. They are (despite the name) plastic guitars that let you very convincingly pretend to play one of three rock songs out of little on-board speakers. The two Flying V style guitars in our house as of yesterday play “I Wanna Rock and Roll All Night” and “School’s Out for Summer,” for starters. My daughter woke us this morning to a rousing concert of “School’s Out for Summer,” wearing the jangly Princess Jasmine top from Halloween and a peace-sign laden skirt from a blanket. Oh, and she had a headband in her hair.

Prior to a few weeks ago, she hadn’t ever shown an interest in music. Her dad (that’d be me) plays several instruments, and I break out the guitar here and there, but even then, she wasn’t all that into it. Only now, she’s eating her cereal with her Paper Jamz guitar plopped on the table beside her (evidently, in case she needs to break into “You Really Got Me”).

We don’t have TV, so marketing has a tough time of reaching my kids. She hears about things at school, of course, but that’s only one source of influence (and I say “only one” knowing that it’s stronger sometimes than home). She saw the guitars in a Wal*Mart circular sent to the house, and that was enough. She knew she needed it. She had to have a Paper Jamz guitar.

Two Sides of Marketing

Some marketing is designed to convince you that your life would be better if you had this (we’ll call that the A side). Other marketing is designed to find the people who are actually seeking that and give them more education to help them make a decision (this, we’ll call B). When I look at how we use social media more often than not, it’s for B and not A. We usually use social media to listen for the people who are expressing an interest in a product or service that we offer, and then we give them content like blog posts and videos to help them better understand how much better the world would be once you really get the product or service that you want.

When I look at how my daughter reacts to the Paper Jamz, this product that we didn’t know existed, I think a little more about how we can work with clients on the “A” side of that marketing. For instance, our client Rainforest Cola has a new, all-natural 100% natural (good for you, etc, etc) cola beverage. First time anyone’s made a cola that’s full of antioxidants and stuff. You don’t know that you need this product. You don’t know that it tastes way better than the other energy drinks on the market (oh, and between us, it tastes delicious with bourbon in it). We’re doing the B type of marketing, the education and the helping people understand that it’s really good for you *and* delicious and stuff.

The A-side of marketing, the “ADVERTISING” side of marketing, still has to sneak in between what we know and what we NEED (being bombastic and smirky here) to know, so that we can then help educate people (the “BRIDGING” side of marketing) that it’s what they want.

Which are you spending more of your time on? When you think of a marketing mix, are you employing social media on the A side or the B side? What else?

Charity work and non-profits are getting a shot of reality-TV inspired, crowdsourced, social gaming goodness just in time for the holidays. Yoxi, pronounced “YO-see,” is a new website that challenges teams of everyday people to create solutions for pressing social issues such as food, health, education and the environment.

Yoxi picks a social issue and teams submit videos for their ideas. An online audience then gets to vote for their favorites in a manner similar to voting systems on reality shows like American Idol. However, instead of creating the next Kelly Clarkson, Yoxi hopes to create some real change. Rather than just a crowdsourced free-for-all, the teams will receive guidance from famous judges and industry experts.

Once chosen by the audience to advance to the final round, two teams will receive marketing support from top advertising agencies. The winning team will receive a cash prize from $5,000 to $40,000.

Teams are currently facing off in the first competition called, “You Are What You Eat,” challenging them to reinvent fast food. There are no limitations to the ideas, which can range from ad campaigns to technology, or even proposed school programs.

Yoxi has also added incentives for the audience to vote by introducing a social gaming aspect to the site. Users start at level one, with one vote and a limited amount of “energy,” a way to pace participation. As they continue to participate, they rise in levels and receive more votes, influence, and “energy” to perform more actions on the site.

The ties to online video and reality shows shouldn’t come as a surprise; Founder Sharon Chang worked closely with the teams behind both American Idol and Hulu. She and her team have taken those two worlds and blended them into social good. “One of the reasons started this is because people don’t do things,” Chang says. “It’s like pulling teeth to get people to want to take action.”

Wary that people are constantly asked to vote or rate things like concerts or restaurants, Chang wanted to make those votes special again. “You only have one vote,” she says. “And it’s very important. You have one, you have to choose.” It’s also a smart move; projects will need to recruit a wide base of fans rather than relying on spamming the site or trying to game the system.

Chang also says that while video quality will obviously be considered, projects are considered based on their merit and the strength of their ideas. The judges and experts can help guide the voting public to see these values over a poor idea with great production values or editing.

Yoxi’s larger goal is to bring social good into mainstream conversation. It’s a refreshing shift away from page views and ad pages. “This isn’t about driving traffic, about creating a destination site,” Chang says. “We want it to be a movement, and a movement has followers, not ‘traffic.’”

Are you interested in Yoxi and it’s approach to social good? How can tech help bring social good into mainstream? Do you think it’s possible or is it already part of everyday life?

The iPhone boasts a pretty decent camera, backed up by a ton of really cool apps, but there’s no doubt there are a few specialized areas of photography — shooting video and still life, for example — where the iPhone could use a helping hand.

We’re not suggesting anyone buy the entire set of accessories we’ve listed below, but you may find one or two items could really improve the shooting capabilities of Apple’s mobile.

So, take a look at the add-ons we’ve found, and let us know in the comments any iPhone accessories that have helped you with your iPhotography.

1. iPhone Tripod Holder

This tripod holder is one of a few options available, but its real selling point is its low price, making it ideal for anyone who might have an occasional need to stick their iPhone on a tripod. For just under $10, you’ll get a simple but useful sturdy mount that features durable brass threads for a secure attachment.

Cost: $9.95

2. Owle Bubo

The Owle Bubo is a fairly major accessory for the iPhone. It transforms the mobile device into a camera with some comprehensive features. It adds a full-size lens, an external microphone, four tripod mount points and an integrated cold shoe for adding lights and the like. Finally, with an ergonomic design, the added weight the Bubo provides increases control for a more camera-like experience.

Cost: $169.95 for iPhone 4, $159.95 for 3G/3GS

3. Flip-Cage with iPhone 4 Mount

This folding tabletop stand for your iPhone 4 or 3GS model can be used as a small tripod and doubles as a desktop stand for watching movies or making Facetime calls. In addition, the iPhone mount can be removed so you can use your phone on any tripod.

Cost: $38.90

4. Factron Quattro Cases

The high-end Factron case for your iPhone will add some metallic and leather chic to your mobile, giving it a classic camera look and feel. The five interchangeable lenses (sold separately) will add more effects to your shooting repertoire. The case is available in 15 different colors and finishes and is made of “duralumin,” which certainly sounds rugged.

Cost: Approx $220

5. Zacuto Zgrip iPhone Jr. Handgrip

The Zgrip iPhone Jr. is a handgrip system for shooting more stable video on the move with your iPhone, and it also offers a thread to mount the handgrip to a tripod for stationery shooting. There’s also another thread on the top for mounting other accessories such as a light.

Cost: $69

6. USBFever’s Special Effects Lenses

If you can’t afford to splurge on Factron’s case-and-lenses system above, then USBFever offers some affordable alternatives. Its range of detachable lenses for mobile devices include fish eye, wide angle, macro and telescopic. The success of the results will no doubt vary, but there’s certainly some fun experimentation to be had.

Cost: From $13 to $22

7. Griffin Clarifi

Designed for iPhone 3G and 3GS, Griffin’s Clarifi case boasts a built-in lens that claims to give your iPhone a boost in camera resolution. Macro and close-up shots are instantly finer in detail, while you can still slide the lens aside for normal photography.

Cost: $34.99

8. Joby GorillaMobile for iPhone 4

Joby is now offering a product especially for the iPhone 4. The stand-alone bumper protects your phone, while the detachable, flexible tripod offers adaptable positioning. In addition to photography, the GorillaMobile can also be used as a desk stand, or even, suggests Joby, attached to a treadmill to watch your favorite show while working out.

Cost: $39.95

9. ZoomIt SD Memory Card Connector

This clever dock connector accessory (and the free app) allows you to use SD memory cards with your iPhone. It lets you view, access and share all of your photos (and other files) from your SD cards on the go without the need to connect to your camera, Mac or PC. It’s slightly pricey, but a fab solution for anyone who favors the SD memory card format.

Cost: $59.95

10. Glif

The soon-to-be-released Glif (enabled by Kickstarter) offers two functions: letting you mount your iPhone to a standard tripod and using a kickstand to prop your phone up at an angle. It’s a simple and elegant solution that’s seen some positive backing. You can pre-order yours now.

Cost: $20

When it comes to art, to human work that changes people, the mass market is a fool. A dolt. Stupid.

If you wait for the market to tell you that you’re great, you’ll merely end up wasting time. Or perhaps instead you will persuade yourself to ship the merely good, and settle for the tepid embrace of the uninvolved.

Great work is always shunned at first.

Would we (the market) benefit from more pandering by marketers churning out average stuff that gets a quick glance, or would we all be better off with passionate renegades on a mission to fulfill their vision?