• Video interview with Bob Pearson, Dell’s Vice President, Communities & Conversations, on their continuation of using social media
• Epica Awards winners 2008
• The real Shaq’s Twitter profile
• The Science of the Future of War (Wired)
• MediaPost interprets the stats of IBM’s digital media survey
• Jeremiah Owyang’s round-up of social networks site usage
• Gartner survey shows consumers predominantly use the internet for email and search
• Nokia Build phone configurator/designer (UK only)
• Joost pushes onto the iPhone but faces performance issues
• AdWeek asks if the end is near for display ads
• 20 strange and endangered species
• Yahoo’s top searchs for 2008 (same as 2007)
• Copyblogger’s ultimate blogger writing guide (which really applies to everything you write or say)
• David Armano’s 4 C’s of community
• Images of Peter Beste’s book True Norwegian Black Metal
• Mac internet share hits record 8.87%; Windows drops below 90%
• Nokia’s newly released N97 is taking on the iPhone (demo video at Mobile Crunch)
• Google launches a competitive research & keyword research tool
• Couponing in the digital age (Adweek)
• Gay penguins steal eggs from straight couples
• US research findings on target audiences for online games advertising
• Facebook launches their Connect service (TC) and Power.com tries to do the same
• In the meantime the end has come for once called Twitter killer Pownce
• Razorfish issues last rites for Web 2.0
• Adweek article on the two different agency spheres and balancing the billable day vs. the creative way
• Some inspiration to make creative use of your old books
• Wrestling is not always just a show, proven by Joey Mercury’s face that meets ladde
• Dog Photo Booth by Sharon Montrose (check the Border Collie puppy)
• Last but not least here’s help to pronounce names: howtosaythatname.com

And your eggs:

[via Hollywoodtuna]

Wonderful but Salma Hayek was even better. [via The Superficial]

See all 100 pieces of awesomeness at Wellmedicated, part 1 and part 2.

Arjen Robben assembles his studs with his mind:

I still like the target practice with Michael Ballack more. Punchier. Literally.

Renault making creative use of the internet meme of spotting unfortunate URLs that went around the webs a while ago.

Highs:

• Diving trip to the Bait Reef on the Great Barrier Reef and seeing ridiculous amounts of coral and its mindblowing spectrum of reef fish (Nemo), white tip reef sharks and sea turtles
• Helicopter flight over Whitsunday island with the magical Hill Inlet (picture above) and Whitehaven Beach, Australia’s most photographed beach
• Hiking up onto the 240m high Passage Peak in the early morning
• The ever present and very communicative cockatoos
• More sea turtles and tons of stingrays casually snorkling in Catseye beach just in front of the resort
• Patting some very tame and cuddly dingos

Lows:

• Hamilton Island literally being one big resort with everything commercial somehow connected and expensive
• Bad food
• Being tickled by a jellyfish
• My ears struggling with the pressure equalization during the dive

If you’re over 25 you would remember the time before the interwebs and what coming home from a trip brought with it being checking the mail and phone messages then doing laundry. These days I’m always astonished what the digital life asks for. I must have spent hours checking email and Facebook, going through my RSS feeds, updating Wordpress, editing and uploading pictures to my photo blog and create a Facebook album. Much to the displeasure of my needy dog Mack.

Right, I’m off to Hamilton Island, one of the 74 Whitsunday Islands on the Great Barrier Reef, for a few days so no posts but here’s a collection of links I collected during the past week:

• First off, like every Xmas, it’s time to ElfYourself with OfficeMax
• Then, aLp, Alien Loves Predator, is back!
• 10 reasons to find a blog buddy
• Rumors around LCD Soundsystem, the world’s greatest band, splitting up
• Australia film not received well overseas
• Offbeat Guides, personalised travel books as a PDF or real-life copy (why not just a mobile app?)
• bio-bak.nl, hit it!
• Lessons in Internet Marketing
• FlowingData’s visual guide to the financial crisis
• Typealyzer: analyse a blog
• Ever heard of the mysterious sailing stones on Racetrack Playa, a seasonally dry lake in the Death Valley?
• AdAge asks whether magazine publishers still believe in the act of publishing
• A list of 10 free CMS systems
• PC Magazine goes online only (like most print media in the near future)
• Time magazine asks how many blogs the world needs
• Microsoft to rebrand Live Search
• Wired lists the top 10 amazing biology videos
• Resumes are dead. Social media is your new resume
• The End Flickr set
• The HD version of Digital Kitchen’s True Blood title sequence (also check out the featurette)
• Monty Python now has a YouTube channel
• Last but not least the good old baby powder hair dryer prank

Lighting matches with nunchucks

There’s a special edition which comes with an action figure of the master himself.