ThingsAmongMany

While revealing this may put my Bond fandom in question, I have to admit I just got around to seeing Quantum of Solace (in my defense, in NYC it’s a lot more comfortable to see a movie a couple weeks late once the crowds have diminished - but I digress). In brief, I really like Daniel Craig as Bond - he won me over in Layer Cake - and while I think it was missing a hit of something that was present in Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace didn’t disappoint. Overall, still a winner.

But I didn’t start this post to write a review. I want to talk…sunglasses - among other things. Yup, I was curious about the sunglasses that Bond sported in this latest film. A quick search for Quantum of Solace Sunglasses revealed that I wasn’t the only one who was interested; there’s a LOT of discussion about these specs flying around the interwebs. The long and short of it is that Craig seems to be wearing the Tom Ford TF108 19. This model was based on a discontinued pair of Oliver Peoples Airman frames that Craig recommended for the film. Of course, there’s still quite a bit of controversy over which he was actually wearing in the film.

Of further interest is another site that I landed on in my search: JamesBondLifestyle.com. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, but yes, there’s an entire site (and probably more) dedicated to discussions of the clothes, cars, gadgets, and what-nots featured in Bond movies. Of course, who can watch a Bond flick without feeling some moment of reflection on their own personal wardrobe? You just can’t help but wonder…if the clothes make the man, what could they make me?

I stumbled onto this interesting new(?) site the other day. MakeFive.com is yet another new take on the social network model - though this one capitalizes on something we’ve talked about a bit lately on BrandsAmongmany, interaction as competition - that allows users to start ranking competitions for the top five…whatever. Anyone can then submit their choices for top fives in that contest, or vote existing recommendations into their list, and you earn points for your participation. So, for example, the competition that caught my eye was The Most Influential Designers of Our Time, by user chrynkow. Games can be started in just about any category, though design seems to be a pretty popular topic so far.

But the real question, of course, is “why bother?” Well, what would any good competitive site be without prizes? All of those points you accumulate propel you up the ranks of the community. Those who are ranked highest are eligible to win a variety of prizes (they change each month, apparently) as reward for their participation and trendsetting opinions. Looks like you’d better get an early start each month, though, if you want to participate. The top ranked participant has upwards of 8900 points right now!

Learn more about the prizes and rules here, or just jump in head-first and sign up for an account.

Trend-spotting and cool hunting sites abound these days (yes, some might classify this site amongst their ranks). Without getting into a discussion of what qualifies as a such a site, I will say that most of these are blogs - sites that consider their small writing staff a group of experts who others should look up to. Sure, they’re open to commenting and discussion. And not many would argue that a blog is anything but a community-oriented type of site. But now that notion has been taken a step further.

Whether you want to call it more “2.0″ than these blogs or a step toward something even further, social aspects of the connected world are here to stay. And a new site has now stepped forward to bring trendcasting out of the blogosphere. Check out edopter. Created by the pair at One Blue Brick, Matthew Rosenberg and Andy Thompson, edopter allows any user to establish what they see as an upcoming trend. As other edopters join to support that trend, it grows more established within the system. Users who create more popular trends, of course, gain rank within the system.

It probably sounds a lot more complicated than it is, but its something along the lines of trend-spotting blog meets social network (despite their claim that they don’t want it to be a social network). There’s still a few kinks that are in the process of being worked out, but after chatting with Andy, it sounds like they’re well on their way to sorting things out. And if you’re in need of a new trend to support, how about jumping on the *AmongMany bandwagon?