The former securities analyst and now Kleiner Perkins partner Mary Meeker (sometimes known as “The Queen of the Net”) just delivered her annual PowerPoint of Internet mega-trends at the Web 2.0 Summit. You can see it here. As usual, it’s amazing and not to be missed. Here’s my favorite slide:

This graph shows the first six quarters of iPad shipments, in blue, in comparison to the first six quarters of shipments for the iPhone and the iPod. This is staggering, and it plays in very nicely with a comment that Apple CEO Tim Cook made during the Q & A portion of today’s quarterly earnings report. I’ve typeset the quote really big so it can’t be missed.

Get ready.

Jump to this link

I wrote about the Italian magazine Intelligence in Lifestyle back in December of last year and I’ve gotten to know its art director, Francesco Franchi, since then. He’s incredibly talented. The magazine now has a new masthead courtesy of the famous type designer Christian Schwartz of Commercial Type, which, if you ask me, makes for the very definition of an embarrassment of riches.

Francesco has posted samples from the magazine in this Flickr set for everyone to marvel over.

Jump to this link

“Everything about your life is exciting. To everyone.” A spot-on spoof of mobile apps shot in a weekend my friend Alex Cornell. The video is so polished, I almost believed it was a real product. Visit Jotly.co to see for yourself.

Jump to this link

Next Wednesday evening I’m going to be appearing at the headquarters of Daylife, a cloud publishing startup here in New York City founded by friend and (if you can believe it) high school classmate Upendra Shardanand. The event is part of the company’s “Nightlife@Daylife” series, in which they periodically bring in guest speakers for discussions on interesting topics.

I’ll be interviewed on stage by another friend, Daylife Chief Product Officer and serial entrepreneur Marc Hedlund. The topic will be tablets and the iPad, keying off many of the ideas I’ve touched on in past blog posts, including one I wrote in August: “What Comes After Reading on iPad.” This might include some hints as to what I’ve been working on all year.

You need a ticket to the event, but luckily they’re free and there are a few left at this EventBrite page. Please come by if you can, and if you do, please say hello.

Jump to this link

A short but effective blog post about how the barriers to entry have been dramatically lowered for startups in recent years. Its basic message comports nicely with my own thoughts on why there’s never been a better time for designers to start new businesses outside of the services industry. Read the full blog post over here.

Jump to this link

I know nothing about this project, except that this artist/model-maker is Japanese and apparently prolific. This Flickr set includes seventy-five of the artist’s delightful, caricature-esque models of what seem to be real people.

Oh wait, here’s the artist’s profile page over at his rep’s Web site. If you want to take a closer look at the models, see them all here.

Jump to this link

I’ve been working on a project that’s required me to full immerse myself in the world of gradients, textures and making user interface widgets look shiny, chiseled and/or chunky, so this was a refreshing reminder that 8-bit art is still wonderful.

They’re a little steep at US$16, but it’s nice to know they’re out there.

Jump to this link

If you stash your iPhone by your bed at night, here’s a handy way to keep it charged and functional: designery home products vendor Areaware sells Alarm Dock, a clever holder of sorts that displays the phone horizontally in a familiar presentation. The company even has a companion app that displays the time just like a clock radio.

The product copy says, “The Alarm Dock uses a nostalgic product language to meet the progressively thin and disappearing profiles of consumer electronics. It is at once a critique and an accommodation to new technology.” Uh, yeah. Anyway, I bought one for my girlfriend, and I’m happy to report that it’s a substantial object, meaning the wood (real beechwood) is solid and of sufficient weight to keep it from being easily yanked by the cord. Buy it here.

Jump to this link

Earlier this afternoon I posted this on Twitter and it proved pretty popular, so I thought it worth posting it here too: Gawker has an excerpt from Walter Isaacson’s forthcoming biography of Steve Jobs that gives some background on how Jobs came to choose this uniform. Read the article here.

I figured posting it here would also give me an opportunity to reprint one of my favorite quotes from David Byrne: “People will you remember you better if you always wear the same outfit.” I’ve always liked that one.

Jump to this link