Much like Mozilla, we believe that the Web is the greatest tool available to us. It connects and empowers us, and allows for the open sharing of ideas. Mozilla Mark Up is about celebrating this resource and making a statement that an open Web is an essential part of our future. Mark Up’s message is that we are all authors of the Web, and by leaving our Mark we are supporting a Web that is open and in the hands of the people.

Besides making a kick-ass browser, people love Mozilla for their commitment to promoting openness, innovation and opportunity on the Web, and we wanted to do them justice. From the beginning, we aimed to make something more than just another technical showcase – we wanted to connect on an emotional level with the Web.

Collaborating with talented artist Evan Roth (yet another reason for us to get excited about this project), Mark Up was born – at once both a beautifully visualized metaphor of everyone’s contributions to the Web and a call for support to keep it open and collaborative.

At its most basic level, Mark Up is a collection of user-submitted marks, all connected in a continuous line in 3D space that is symbolic of our message. Using Evan’s Graffiti Markup Language (GML) as the data storage for our Marks, Adam Miller, the lead developer on the team, created the drawing input system that we would use to capture users’ Marks. From there we started experimenting with visualizing the Marks in 3D.

One of the first challenges we had to address was making the experience accessible to as many as possible – a mandate from Mozilla’s mission statement. This meant that we couldn’t use WebGL (due to the issues with certain Intel processors), a major setback for any website creating a 3D experience. Adam dove right into addressing this problem, and was able to create a bespoke visual engine that simulated 3D while maintaining an optimized framerate on slower computers.

After we had the prototype up and running we added the capability for special marks that could have a quote attached. These would be for notable guest contributors such as Lawrence Lessig, a well-known Internet advocate who also contributed to the Mark Up manifesto.

Additionally, we are making the source code and data set available to the public, enabling anyone to make their own visualizations. A future community section will showcase these projects.

The launch of Mark Up is the culmination of an exciting collaboration between Mozilla, Evan Roth, and the Barbarian Group, and we’re proud to be part of a project that not only has its roots in the open web, but also seeks to foster and cultivate its future.

Viewing the artwork of an artist you aren’t familiar with is like having a conversation with a stranger. Occasionally you’ll connect immediately and the interaction will be revelatory. Sometimes all you can hope for is an emotional response. But mostly it’s inane small talk about the obvious, leaving you feeling nothing at all except maybe slight annoyance. Without knowing the context of an artwork and motivation of the artist, without any idea of who it is you’re conversing with, all you can base your appreciation on are superficial values like technical execution and style, and whatever other personal baggage you’re bringing to the table.

That’s why I find it such a luxury any time I have the opportunity to hear artists speak about their work and process. This past Saturday I had that opportunity when I attended Seven on Seven, organized by Rhizome at the New Museum. Here’s the official description:

It was an inspiring day, with a good mix of highly conceptual ideas and product centered experiments. In all the presentations it was revealing to hear the artists and technologists talk about the process of meeting each other (some for the first time) and trying to collaborate on a project. The sharing and evolution of ideas was evident in the many different influences and interests that the teams talked about.

One recurrent theme seemed to be the ephemeral quality of digital and the idea of permanence. In Camille Utterback and Erica Sadun’s presentation they spoke about trying to digitally recreate the marks that time and history leave on more tangible objects, and how those marks can add to the experience, especially in regards to user interfaces (the handle of a sword that forms to the wielder’s hand over time, for example). They also touched upon the increasing amount of data that is constantly accruing, and how in the real world time often has a subtractive property, wearing away at the finish of objects, while in digital it’s often additive, with more and more information being stored in memory. These ideas were evident in their final product – an iPad app that utilized the camera to “burn in” images on the screen over time, with the user able to rotate, scale and move the image, creating a sort of visual history.

Two artists/technologists that I was excited to see were Ricardo Cabello, mr. doob, and Chris Poole (founder of 4chan). Their end product was driven by their mutual interest in social interaction on the Internet, and in particular the organic discovery of shared experiences. They presented a site that creates a layer on top of the Internet, allowing users to leave comments, images and videos over existing websites. It is at once a commentary on the ephemeral nature of comments as they fade over time and the content beneath them changes, as well a tool that people can use to interact with each other and create a dialogue.

Another team that commented on ephemera was made up of Emily Roysdon and Kellan Elliot McCrea. Their idea stemmed from the notion of bringing events, ideas and movements back from the obscurity of time in order to emphasize them. Sort of like bumping a thread in a forum, but with historic events.

Other interesting concepts that were talked about during the day included the relationships between humans and responsive architecture, the lack of commitment/permanence in digital life (the ability to undo and change your desktop as much as you want), the appropriation of content in the form of supercuts (supercut.org was created by the team up of Michael Bell-Smith and Andy Baio, interaction with strangers on the street, and the complex emotions that can be read from facial expressions of people doing something as simple as listing important people in their lives (the end project of Zach Lieberman and Bre Pettis included video of this projected onto miniature 3D fabricated scans of the subjects’ faces).

With the compressed timeline of 24 hours, I was impressed by the teams that had more fleshed out products to present, but the most interesting thing was hearing the thought process that led to the end result. Getting an in-depth look behind the scenes of an artist’s process is always inspiring, and Seven on Seven was no exception.

Lebron James is one of the biggest living brands right now, and a brand that is desperately in need of some reimagining. It’s a really intriguing problem because contrary to most athletes who suffer PR crises, Lebron’s didn’t happen in his personal life (see Tiger, Kobe, etc), it was a result of a decision he made as a professional athlete.

This Sunday as I was watching football I saw this new Nike commercial:

I was struck at the apparent honesty in this commercial, and it really forced me to rethink all the negative press he has been receiving lately. It humanized Lebron and made him instantly relatable, as a young person who’s character is still being defined. The tone was also done well and it seemed to reflect his personality, balancing humor with a look into his more serious side.

This reminded me of the last Bagels with Barbarians where Gary Dakin from Ford Models talked about the models at his agency as living, breathing brands. I was a little taken aback because I had never heard someone speak so blatantly about people as commodities. Yet that is exactly what Dakin’s models and Lebron are. However, sometimes people need to be reminded that these living brands are human just like us. One of the most powerful ways to salvage an image is to appeal to a person’s own sense of imperfection.

Lebron’s new ad (it really is an ad for Lebron as much as it is an ad for Nike) is a smart way to begin the long project of rebranding Lebron. I’ll definitely be staying tuned to see how his story and brand develop.