Sneakers and Interactive Media Culture

So only after a gazillion years since Niketalk launched, Puma launches Pumatalk which gives all the sad Puma fans a place to chat about their product shortcomings and product inadequacies. Pumatalk comes complete with a fresh ‘on the bandwagon’ fotolog. Actually, there are a few nice photos up there and I guess it’s all very useful to the Puma community, but I’m just dumbfounded as to how much of a Niketalk rip-off it is.

Check it out.

Nas is on the back page in new XXL with Jay Z on the cover. He’s rocking the MIKE23 Crackle Pullover hoodie.

Check out the site.

The MIKE23 crew have some new summer gear ready. Check out the site.

KicksEngine is a visual tool that searches the latest listings of your favorite kicks on eBay. They do the work of coming up with relevant keywords for you so you don’t have to. All you have to do is click on the images and the latest results will appear, simple as that. Utilizing advanced search queries of the eBay API, their results work to eliminate spammed entries as much as possible so you get the most relevant and up to date listings.

Check out the site.

Thanks to Boris and crew over at Madison Square Garden for inviting me to a luncheon with John Starks. Starks is still the man for coming out and chatting with us disgruntled season ticketholders. Starks took everything in stride, gave us open and honest opinions about the state of the team and the league, and was just a super-chilled out head. The Knicks have been listless and bleak the last few years, but seeing Starks in person brought me back to the glory days when Ewing roamed the paint, Oakley knocked dudes to the ground, and Starks hoisted bombs from downtown. If the Knicks could only find some players that could play with the same amount of heart, emotion, and leadership that Starks played with, then we might be heading in the right direction.

I’m a Knicks fan for life — born into this despair, but I still have faith in Larry Brown. Get it together this summer Larry, Get it together!

Here’s a french crew called the Sneaker Mainliner that just recently put out a sneaker forum for the heads in france to chit-chat about the culture.

Show Casper and his crew some love.

Nike and Apple launched today NIKE+. You don’t just take iPod nano on your run. You let it take you. Music is your motivation. Thanks to a unique partnership between NIKE and Apple, your iPod nano becomes your coach. Your personal trainer. Your favorite workout companion.

Get in gear. Grab an iPod nano, a pair of Nike+ shoes, and the Nike+iPod Sport Kit. Your shoes talk. Your iPod nano listens. Track your run in real time. Stay in sync. Connect your iPod nano, then connect with the world on nikeplus.com.

Here’s some other blog love around NIKE+:

Freshnessmag
Paul Mittleman (Stussy Creative Director)
Hiroshi Fujiwara
Josh Rubin
Adverblog

Check out the site.

Thanks to Joseph Cartman for the link. These were custom sneakers designed by Logan in Oakland A’s colors for our ‘2 Legit 2 Quit’ man, MC Hammer.

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Check out Nike’s Collection Royale, a celebration for the true shot-callers. The collection is stacked with limited edition kicks and tees recognizing the players who give us a glimpse into the future of the playing field.

Check out the site.

The worlds largest global touring sneaker exhibition featuring a collection of over 800 of the rarest footwear on the planet and growing… Current TV VC2 producer Devaughn Hughson shows us what Atlanta’s event was like.

The original MTV Overdrive series, “Sneak Attack” just recently launched. Go check it out to watch Sneakerheads united at the Recon/Nort NYC space for a sneaker launch. Also, Graffiti legend Stash talks about his new custom kicks.

Check it out.

[via NYTimes.com]
MY deeply hip stepson sounded vaguely amused that I was planning to check out Flight Club, the sneaker resale boutique in NoHo. Who knows what they’ll make of you, he said, his voice stopping on the “you” with just a bit too much force. The emphasis made me realize that he thinks I’m a total loser.

There are pros and cons to having stepchildren. One of the cons is that you get to relive all the terrifying insecurities of high school over and over and over again. It’s one thing if your own progeny think you’re uncool: you’re the parent; you’re supposed to be uncool. But we stepparents have only our status as potentially cool people to warm us at night.

Thus humbled, I walked into Flight Club several days ago. I was not the coolest person in the store. Then again, the people who frequent Flight Club are sneaker freaks, mostly men who are addicted to buying limited-edition vintage athletic footwear. They speak in highly technical language, tossing around terms like “tongue graphic” and “toe boxes” with the gravity of men discussing tractor engines or team sports.

Read about it on NYTimes.com.

Here’s a posting that I ripped from the Wooster Collective website. There’s been quite a bit of chatter on their site regarding how brands should and should not be assimilating graffiti and street art into their campaigns. A few weeks back, there was some public backlash over the Sony PSP campaign, but this most recent AdiColor campaign does a great job at ‘doing it right’.

Here’s how the campaign rolled-out. First, Adidas installed a number of pure white billboards, slightly branded with the adidas logo, to encourage heads to tag on the billboards. Several days later, a new billboard is layed on top of the old billboard. The main difference with the new billboard is that there are transparent aspects to it that allow the old tags to ’shine’ through on the new billboard.

It’s an absolutely brilliant campaign because it really tells the story of the AdiColor product in a simple, clear, and interesting manner. Bravo.