Nick Ehle » new york

Mary Meeker's Update Internet Trends

nickehle — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 17:18:47 +0000

This presentation on Internet trends is a must read. Mobile internet is going to become the dominant way that we go online, and the inflection point where mobile eclipses desktop / laptop is just around the corner. There is only going to be more disruption in the tech industry with existing players (Google / Apple) and new companies (Tapulous, Zynga) taking advantage of these opportunities. Get ready for the ride!

Internet Trends 2010 by Morgan Stanley Research

View more presentations from CM Summit: Marketing in Real Time.

This American Life: Live!

nickehle — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:17:38 +0000

Image by Dominic Neitz

Clear your calendar and watch the encore performance of This American Life on Thursday, May 7th. Read the rest of this post to find out why, but most importantly, you should take five minutes now and buy your tickets for your local movie theater. This is a great show, and it is a lesson that other traditional media brands should learn from. Q1 earnings are in, and the results are not good. Media companies need to become more creative and find new solutions as they are adapting to the changing business environment.

Nonprofit organizations are feeling the same hurt. The drop in charitable donationsdue to the downturn in the economy is affecting service organizations and other charities in big ways. Due to a large shortfall in donations during its recent pledge drive, PRI’s This American Life staged a live performance at NYU on April 23rd. Ira Glass explained their fundraising challenges on The Colbert Report.

This American Life is the best radio broadcast on the air and over the Internet (subscribe via iTunes), and I jumped at the opportunity to go see the show live at NYU, but unfortunately the live show was sold out. Luckily for me, the show was also broadcast live to over 400 movie theaters around the US, including NYC. So, on April 23, my wife and I made our way to our local movie theater for the show.

At first I was skeptical that a radio show could translate well to the big screen, but my skepticism melted away immediately. My favorite monologue of the night was the third act (39 minutes into the podcast above) when Dan Savage delivered a story about the death of his mother and how he felt himself being pulled back to the Catholic faith for comfort in the aftermath. If you are not familiar with Dan, he is a very popular syndicated sex columnist and hardly a candidate for a religious reawakening. All the more reason that I found his story to be surprisingly moving.

See the show, and let me know what you thought. You won’t be sorry.

Spring Has Come to New York

nickehle — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 23:33:19 +0000

Spring is my favorite time of year, and we have been having great weather in the city for the past couple of weekends. I’ve been taking some pictures of flowers in bloom around the city with my iPhone, and here are some of my favorites. For more you should check out my Flickr photostream.

Tulips by St. Bart’s in Midtown Manhattan

Daffodils outside of 96th Street 6 line subway station

New "Green Building" in Hell's Kitchen

nickehle — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 01:55:38 +0000

Yes, there is a recession but I like to focus on the positive. Today I ran across a pic of an incredible new development on the city’s west side. It’s called “Clinton Park” and is a block away from my old apartment on 54th and 10th. I love developments like this that creatively increase the amount of green space in the city. I’m hoping that those terraces will be publicly accessible.

New building proposed in Hell’s Kitchen in NYC. Right in my old ‘hood. Photo courtesy of guestofaguest.com.

I LEGO NY

nickehle — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 00:11:59 +0000

*Taxi*, by Christoff Niemann

I absolutely love this piece in the NY Times. Creator, Christoph Niemann is a ex-New Yorker now living in Berlin, but his love for his former home is obviously weighing on his mind. This “Taxi” piece is one of my favorites.

This is EXACTLY the type of creativity that traditional publishers need to encourage and create more of. I can’t see something like this getting published in paper version of the Times.

I found “I LEGO NY” through his current work, “My Life With Cables”, but I think that the Lego work is truly inspired.

Christoff’s love for my city shows up in some of his illustrated books as well. I found this NYC-inspired cityscape when browsing through his online portfolio.

*The Police Cloud*, by Christoff Niemann

I Lego NYC : In what’s probably the greatest thing… (curbed.com)
New York Gets a Lego Look (gothamist.com)
GeekDad 2nd Anniversary Contest: Put Your GeekFamily on a LEGO Package (wired.com)

Views of the snow in NYC

nickehle — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 13:58:48 +0000

I took some pics of the view from my office this morning.

It's Made of People!

nickehle — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 03:04:12 +0000

I was taking a walk in my neighborhood the other day and ran into this sign at a local Italian place, which gave me quite a chuckle. I was tempted to scream out the catch phrase from Soylent Green.

For those who have never seen Soylent Green, take a gander at this youtube video.

My Debut in New York Magazine

nickehle — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 05:29:55 +0000

For a birthday a few weeks ago, I was hanging out with a few friends in Radegast beer garden, which is a great spot in Williamsburg. If you are a fan of beer gardens, this is a must and has a lot of advantages over the Bohemian, mainly being the lack of B&T at Radegast.

While we were at Radegast, there were a few folks from New York Magazine completing a proflie writeup on the bar. Of course, I was a key focus of many of the photos as well as the subject of an interview, so I have been anxiously awaiting the release of the article and my 15 seconds of fame. The article was just published on New York Mag’s site, and I have sadly been given a very small showing in the final article. For those of you that can’t quite see me, I made it a little easier for you.

Gogol Bordello @ McCarren Park Pool

nickehle — Sun, 06 Jul 2008 04:27:21 +0000

On the first day of summer (6/20/2008), I went with some friends to see Gogol Bordello at McCarren Park Pool in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. I took some photos there, but this guy’s are much better.

I have put together a short video of the night, highlighting the spot as well as the first sundown of summer 2008. Enjoy.

I had a great time at the concert and will be back for future events at McCarren Park. I may even catch Wet Hot American Summer on Tuesday, July 8th. Let me know if you will be there!

Summer Plans of the Elite

nickehle — Fri, 27 Jun 2008 02:14:49 +0000

To a guy like me that grew up in rural Indiana and then suburban Atlanta, I saw New York as the ultimate in cool. Over the past few years living here, I have increasingly seen the class divisions in the city, economic as well as culturally. For me, this becomes increasingly pronounced over the summer more than other times during the year. Summer officially began about a week ago, and I’ve been running into a number of articles about “what is summer” and “what summer means to me.” They have ranged from the typical advice on summer reading to some odd things I haven’t run into and smell of elite New York thumbing their nose at the common folk.

For example, Newsweek had an article recently on The Virtues of a Stiff G&T. I had always thought thought that the gin & tonic was the drink of choice for irritating yuppies. The article goes on for several hundred words and explains the history of gin, but never explains WHY it’s a summer drink. I call shenanigans! Gin is not a summer drink. I’ll stick to my Brooklyn Summer Ale thank you very much.

The other odd piece I ran into was on NPR’s On the Media. They had Malcolm Jones (coincidentally also from Newsweek) on the air explaining that reading War & Peace is a great classic that everyone should read at least once, and that the summer is the perfect time to read it. I have never read the novel, and I’m sure it’s great. However, over the summer, I enjoy lighter reading. For example, I may pick up the new book by David Sedaris. Hence, the entire publishing category of “beach reading.” If I do pick up a classic over the summer, it will be one of my favorite modern classics like Catch 22, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, The Great Gatsby, or Mrs. Dalloway.

So what am I doing over the summer? Not a ton of plans. I am going on vacation the 2nd week of July. I also went to The Mermaid Parade in Coney Island and a Gogol Bordello concert last weekend. I have two posts drafted to write about those, so they are coming! I don’t have a lot of hard plans other than enjoying as much time outside as I can and getting out to the Hamptons a few times this summer. Does that make me a New York elitist?

What are you up to for the summer?