It was back in 2004 that Casper and I started Spoiled Milk while both living in the UK. Of course in those days we were more concerned with making short films or producing flyers for our friends’ bands, but the seeds had been sown for the company that exists today. Now, nearly five years later, we are supplying a broad range of fantastic clients with our design, technology and strategic services from offices in both Copenhagen and Zürich. The journey has been a tremendous experience and I speak for everyone, new and old, when I say that we’re all very proud of what we have achieved together so far. I think the greatest aspect of this company has been the chance to meet and work with so many interesting, talented and friendly people.

So, my recent decision to move away from full-time duties has been a difficult one to make. The reasons are simply that I need to take a break. After devoting so much of my time and energies to Spoiled Milk over the years, it’s important to me that I take some time out now – an extended sabbatical if you like – to work on some other projects and explore other interests.

This doesn’t mean I am leaving completely. I will remain a member of the board of directors, as well as assuming the new role of Technical Consultant. Our Zürich-based technologist Christian Vollenweider will take over the Technical Director duties and continue steering the ship along with David, Casper, Frederik and the rest of the team.

There are many exciting times ahead for Spoiled Milk as we enter the next phase of our development. We are no longer the new upstarts on the scene, but now find ourselves as an established part of the web, design and creative markets. We will strive to continue building on this story, while still promoting our core values in usability, intuitiveness and feeling.

Speak soon!

Russell.

In recent months, a blossoming trend has gained popularity among proclaimed online pioneers, social media experts and the likes. A trend to summarize the latest developments of the Internet into the simplistic and rather confusing term “Web 3.0″.

Among the first efforts to represent a new Internet era was Dan Gilmour in 2005 who stated that the emerging Web 3.0 would allow that “machines talk as much to each other as humans talk to machines or other humans”. Two years later Jason Calacanis tried to sum up Web 3.0 as “…the creation of high-quality content and services produced by gifted individuals using Web 2.0 technology as an enabling platform”. No, not an entirely clear definition, when trying to kick off a revolution.

A notable development came in May of this year when Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg held their D: All Things Digital conference. In their associated article named “Welcome to Web 3.0” Swisher and Mossberg defined the Web 3.0 as “the real arrival, after years of false predictions, of the thin client, running clean, simple software, against cloud-based data and services”. These developments were further illustrated through the steps taken by iPhone and iPod Touch – reminding the authors of “the formative years of the PC and PC software, in the early 1980s, or the early days of the Web in the mid-1990s”. Even if the iPhone represents a radical product innovation, it would hardly justify the introduction of a new era.
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So, why does it not make sense calling the new Internet “Web 3.0″?

The Internet does not work with dividable versioning like e.g. the Mozilla Firefox browser, the Windows operating system or other marketed products do.

On the contrary, the Internet is a dynamic mass of ever-increasing information and communication changing on a constant flowing basis rather than in separated releases.

No, you probably never heard someone say: “Oh, did you download the new Internet?”.
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Then why are people still calling it Web 3.0?

In short, to create a joint reference point for easing the understanding of current significant trends. Problematic here is if the laid out definitions struggle to differentiate themselves from definitions of previous epochs and the “seminal moment” fails to inspire to action and rather leads to confusion.

Additionally, being a spokesperson for something as powerful as the “new version of the Internet” can be a noteworthy business, which can help you sell books, conference tickets and consulting hours.
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What should we call it instead?

When disembarking the versioning trail, other approaches include naming by year (chronological) or naming by significant developments (subject-based).

In arguing for the former approach, Robert Scoble has taken on a leading role to spread the word of the “2010 Web” and has even listed a number of suggestions for what it is.

The organisation empowering individual artists to produce art unrestricted by external boundaries requested Spoiled Milk to develop an online replication of their philosophy. Nothing less.

Challenge

Sound Development AG is a hub following a family tradition of supporting independent culture by providing facilities and aid in an environment that allows artists to realise projects freed from boundaries of classical culture institutions.

The organization wanted their presence on the web to be a simple, easy-to-use and clearly structured archive where users could access their running projects. Further, the website should function as a documentation platform for projects and seek to interlink these.

The aim was to create a visually simple interface, since Sound Development AG as the “mothership” wished to stay in the background. The attention of the visitors should instead be attracted to the many vibrant projects. At the same time Sound Development AG wanted to transcend the feeling of how Sound Development AG works and acts in order to give users a glance of their highly personal way of realising projects with artists.

Solution

In collaboration with the designer Alain Leclerc von Bonin we came up with the solution of combining two websites in one: The simple XHTML and AJAX driven overlay works as the basic interface of the information-based project archive. In the background there is a fullscreen Flash media player acting as the emotional layer that gives users an insight into Sound Development AG in a more multimedial and personal manner.

The information layer and media player are linked together and every information channel on the website has its corresponding channel that plays the related media modules. The user can either browse the website in a classical way or by zapping through the channels of the media player.

www.sound-development.com

Earlier this week we launched a new website for the intuitive PopScan® e-commerce solution – a crown jewel product by Swiss software company Sensational, whose visual identity and online presence we updated earlier this year.

This new PopScan® online showroom now has a range of great new features including a product tour, an extended product feature guide, customer case stories and more. All of this is administered by our Casein CMS which makes the client able to edit all languages and site modules on the website with ease.

Visit the site here www.popscan.com (oder auf Deutsch www.popscan.ch) to find out more.

Russell Quinn of Spoiled Milk was recently interviewed for an Italian online magazine ‘The Tamarind’ by Giovanni Biglino:

“Spoiled Milk is certainly a name that sticks with you. It is quirky, curious, and it is associated with a design company based in Copenhagen and Zürich, two cities that lately have been topping the quality of life charts and have certainly built a reputation in the design and contemporary art field. An example of a successful enterprise founded by two young creative talents and now counting a staff of eleven, whose activities range from designing music records’ covers to online graphics, from branding to the conception of a limited-edition book that will collect experiences of young people living in different parts of the world, the Being Abroad project. Russell Quinn, founder and technical director, tells us more about Spoiled Milk.”

Read the full article.