Wish Twitter would promote their special curated content a bit more. I love when they take data and make it accessible, visible and help us connect the dots.

” If the sun goes out, we’re hosed anyway”.

Zakuani isn’t there yet. Not quite. The last stages of the recovery process could take a while, to go from part-time to full-time training, to playing reserve games, to making the 18-man roster for MLS games and finally becoming a starter again. He still needs to regain full sensation in his right foot, and that requires time.

And no, taking VC funding is not monetizing.

I understand that Sarah Lacy might be pissed at AOL for screwing up Techcrunch, but after all, as John Gruber pointed out, if Mike Arrington had never sold TechCrunch to AOL in the first place, it would’ve never gotten that far, right?

The American military will close two military bases in the German state of Bavaria by 2015 as part of a planned drawdown of forces stationed in Europe.

League officials are considering holding the Super Bowl’s 50th-anniversary game in the home of that other Big Ben.

That would be London, England and that would be epic.

Tickets are anyway $5000 to see the game. The people that can afford that can easily fly across the pond.

What team to root for?

In general I am more of a Boston fan, rather than New York. Boston feels, at least in baseball more like the underdogs. But…

I think I will have to make up my mind after the first quarter.

Check that: Sebastian Vollmer, A German is playing for the Patriots – it’s settled!

We’re staging a global talent search to bring together the most remarkable lineup in TED’s history. A series of public auditions in cities around the world will reveal voices, talents and ideas that delight and surprise. As a result, at least half of our TED2013 program will literally be crowd-sourced through what we’re calling the TED2013 Worldwide Auditions.

Have something to say?

Apple’s incredible numbers last quarter were mostly explained with the word ‘innovation’. No other company has spend the money, time or made the leaps and bounds in developing new products that pushed the boundaries of innovation. At first there was the iPod. Followed by the iPhone and now we have the iPad, and each device is selling better than the last.

One number was a bit sad to look at though.

Apple’s iPod sales are dwindling. Almost forgotten, the music player is long eclipsed by the huge success of the iPhone and the iPad. Nothing wrong with that. It’s good to have your own product be cannibalized by a new product you create that sells even better.

But could it be, that the the reason the iPods are not selling well anymore is not JUST because of the stellar sales of more popular products, but also because Apple stopped innovating in the music category?

Perhaps the innovation curve has come to a conclusion for Apple. They’ve decided the innovation ultimately leads to evolution and after everyone had a music player the natural ‘upgrade’ meant to sell everyone a phone.

Okay, I get this, but what about music?

Spotify and Rdio are innovating in that area. iTunes is a dinosaur that everyone hates. And as a syncing station, music store, somewhat app store, but not for all apps, movie rental place, etc it seems completely ripe for some innovation, no?

And what about the device, the iPod? iPads are huge and iPhones are chained to an expensive contract?

Fitbit, Jawbone UP and the just announced Nike Fuelband are innovating in the area of bringing us content to a small devices that fit around our wrists and connect to the cloud for tracking statistics.

Time for Apple to get a move on and bring us a wristband/watch, with full access to the app store.

Why not take the “app-enabled’ device-idea and open up more channels on where apps could innovate a product. That’s the ultimate innovation.

LEGO Facebook page has a picture of the mini figures.

Enter, Douglas Scott owner of Exotic Hikes and blogger. He takes the mystery, or rather the guess work out of the Peninsula and leaves the beautiful mystic in tact. I can’t wait for him to take me up there, to places I haven’t see and help me make my own, this beautiful piece of our world which is right in my backyard.

Not enough has been said about the Amazon.com homepage redesign, which is a bit surprising to me. It’s one of the most visited site on the web and usually mayor design changes like this one have all the bloggers talking for weeks.

A few folks commented on Twitter about the minimalistic design approach, calling it “Swiss design”, but also lacking identity, which could be the definition of Swiss design.

Also so far the design only extends deeper into the site only across the header. Most other pages still look the same as before.

The logo is getting smaller with each iteration. This is either a design decision with ‘mobile in mind’ and or continuing the trend of becoming a mall, rather then just the world’s biggest store as Amazon billed itself in the late 90′s.

From Largest Store That Sells Everything To Electronic Delivery Service

The Kindle and Amazon’s electronic offerings (read: media downloads) are now front and center of the page, which is a clear indication where Amazon expects the biggest returns.

(Even an advertisement is more prominently featured on the homepage then links to product pages, which is an interesting trend I have been watching for some time now.)

Physical items feel almost hidden from the page. Sure, Amazon sill sells them, but doesn’t it feel like they are not trying anymore? I wouldn’t be surprised if their ‘Prime’ shipping, along with cut-throat pricing is getting to them and delivering electronic content, media and even ads seem to provide more profit?

This tells me is that Amazon is increasingly trying to move their business to provide service offerings, ad placements and their own products (Kindles) which they sell at a loss in order to make money on electronic media delivery.

If I’d be a physical product purveyor who’s recently relied on Amazon to feature and sell their product I would start sensing the changing time and start my own shop, rather then relying on Amazon to deliver the sales. Clicks and downloads seem to be more of interest to them these days.

Of course, there is nothing wrong with this trend. Amazon can do as it pleases, pivoting is not a bad thing for a business. But if you recognize it early, you as customer, partner or competition can position yourself to take advantage of this.

The network’s total viewership across all video programs in 2011 reached nearly 800 million, while annual revenue was up 53 percent compared to the same period last year.

Well done, well done indeed!

Then it’s eight more-or-less solid hours of ass-in-chair because surprisingly, that’s the way stuff gets done.

Brad Evans had stints as a right back with the US National Team. This time around, he was back in his more natural midfield role and he hopes the experience will act as a catalyst for a strong showing in 2012.

If coach Klinsmann continues to add Sounders players to the National Team roaster, and they certainly deserve it, then this is going to be very interesting. I am slowly making the Sounders my #1 team. Not just because of the piss-poor performance by my team VfB Stuttgart, but also because it’s right to support your local team. I am far off from ever considering rooting for any other team but the Nationalmannschaft but if Klinsmann can deliver, and the players he picks are players I know, then I might just start falling in love with the US National team… and then what?

Well, I was just reading ‘Making Ideas Happen‘ by Scott Belsky of ‘The 99 Percent’. A book for the entrepreneur, contractor and all around modern business person.

Have  a listen and read the book.

For all its faults, this is likely the greatest virtue of Davos: The massively interdisciplinary nature of the conference and its attendees. People at the top of their respective fields actively seek to learn about things they didn’t know or understand before. That’s the kind of petri dish from which real innovative ideas can occasionally emerge.

Audi’s “Game day” commercial about vampires dying in the bright headlights is just brilliant.

All around great spot. They even included a #hashtag at the end: #solongvampires to encourage social conversation beyond the 30 sec. spot.

While you’re on Youtube, check out the Audi brand channel. Youtube is creating really nice brand pages – looks really tight.

Now to complete your adventure, check out the new Audi allroad… man, what a beautiful car. Me wants it!

Sure, the @handle and the icon are still there for each post, but along with it is now the real name, or the name that the person chose to create the account in bolded font. Interesting move, I say. It makes the homepage and my feed have a completely different feel. Of course the update has not pushed down to the apps yet. Otherwise I perhaps would’ve seen it sooner.

With Twitter growing more and more into the most important and dominant communication platform it will be interesting to see how Twitter chooses to keep the balance between the need to monetize their service and keeping the all important credibility with the people that matter, the movers and shakers, and increasingly not just tech leaders, but leaders all over the world in every genre and position.

Neither Techncrunch or PandoDaily have picked that story up as of yet. Are they sleeping or looking away since those tech sites increasingly are not independent journalism outlets, but venture funded startups themselves?