Late Night with Jimmy Fallon is cool. There I said it.

Through it’s nerdy cool image (take Questlove of The Roots, the show’s house band, tweeting during the show as an example) the show that replaced Late Night with Conan O’Brien has become the perfect nightcap for the fast-paced, ridiculously attentive, socially-connected 18-35 demographic. This is mainly because Fallon, who gets respect from both nerds and celebrities alike, creates a comfortable environment for guests and his audience to truly connect (usually through Twitter). Armed with a MacBook atop his desk and with guests ranging from technology blog editors to famous actors and singers, Fallon has managed to capture an audience that has, for the most, alluded the big networks.

Kudos to Jimmy Fallon. The show is entertaining, real and like Fallon himself, just the right amount of awkward without losing it’s cool.

Kanye West, who was sitting front row at the Vuitton show, has designed a line of five LV sneakers. Only one design, above, was featured in the show — a monochromatic midtop with no frills, save for a quilted flap in the back, all the easier to tuck pants into. “The inspiration came from a jacket with a huge collar in the movie ‘Dune,’ ” West says. “Most sneakers focus on the tongue, so I wanted to do something different.”

West plays off the key part of his design here. He didn’t just do something different to be different. He addressed a specific need he knew other people might find value in (i.e. not sullying up the cuffs of your jeans) and used some inspiration from a different medium to come up with a creative remedy. Isn’t that what we’re all charged with as designers in the interactive realm?

Via The Moment

With friends, I tend to tone down the geek talk. Mostly because by talking about things not tech related away from the day job it reminds me that I’m a real person with interests outside of the web.

One thing I will talk freely (and perhaps geek-ily) about though is the convergence of TV and the web. It makes more sense as days go by that TV and the Internet are two channels that need to be combined. Sports tempt you to check fantasy teams while watching the game. Re-broadcasts of The Daily Show are watched online at Hulu. And YouTube of course has spawned a whole new generation of amateur screenwriters, producers and actors while giving an alternate channel to mainstream media.

So where has that lead us? TV with the Internet, check. TV over the Internet, check. Internet over the TV…not so much. AppleTV tries to address that gap but it’s still not as ubiquitous as the iPod and not as integrated a solution as I’m thinking of. For example LG is creating TVs with Netflix built-in. That’s a great start but still not there.

The future of TV over the web as I see it is all about the broadcasters (mainstream and amateur alike) pushing interactive content out through the tube. Think of clicking on Chris Paul during a game and bringing up his season stats as the New Orleans Hornets play live. Or pausing the Daily Show and pulling up every clip of Jon Stewart making fun of George W Bush. It’s years away (and I know Microsoft is trying already) but that is the future of web+TV convergence I’m speaking of.

Other partnerships maybe in bloom that make this possible, Google? Sony? Apple? No one knows. But it is becoming more clear that, much like the future of networked computing was mobile, the future of home entertainment and information is web-based television.

UPDATE: Jon Gruber predicts AppleTV is getting an overhaul at Macworld tomorrow.

UPDATE 2: CNET has a great summary of Yahoo! and Intel’s partnership and their foray into Web-enabled TV, including a dock-like interface that overlays your TV broadcast and links to widgets like Flickr, Weather and more.

• Teehan+Lax-designed Telus Holiday Gift Guide is live 
• Facebook’s ad service, Beacon: Not cool.
• CSS-savvy developers get some “Best of 2007″ love
• Get to know Jamario Moon (specifically his hops)
• Leaving a huge void in Southern Rap music: Pimp C of Houston-based UGK unexpectedly passes
• The Raptors have 3 of the NBA’s top 21 most efficient players. (No other team outside of the Spurs has that many).
• Coming soon: HD on the Web
• Favorite Things: Dinner at Xacutti.  The perfect mix of food, service and ambience 

HappySlip is the funniest and freshest sketch comedy show since Chappelle’s Show, and it’s not on TV.

The recap and box score are here, but nothing beat actually watching LeBron score the last 27 25 points (29 of the last 30) for his team while getting shoved, fouled and possibly injuring his back. It was certainly reminiscent of another No. 23 I used watch kill my (then) beloved Knicks as a kid with clutch play after clutch play.

Now with the Cavs up 3-2 there’s at least a glimmer of hope I might watch the NBA Finals (since I promised in the pre-season that I’d boycott a Spurs-Pistons finals rematch).

Update: Highlights of the last 25 buckets, courtesy of True Hoop

But Bryant’s poor play shouldn’t overshadow the effort by a young Memphis team playing without 3 key players (Miller, Atkins, Stoudemire) and playing with a poor-shooting Pau Gasol. (Pau did play solid defense and made the game-saving block on Bryant as time-expired, however.)

I’ve stayed up late to watch a lot of Lakers games this season but end-to-end this was one of the best games of the year. FSN’s play-by-play and colour guys are fun to watch as well. At one time when Kobe forced, and missed, a difficult turn-around jumper over 3 defenders their color man (who’s name I will track down) noted “now that’s a 10pt shot from Kobe, he needs to try to just get two-at-a-time.” Couldn’t of said it better…