Is it just me, or has anyone else noticed that on every web page you pull up dealing the horrors of the sub-prime mortgage fiasco that’s happening right now, and how it will increasingly affect the housing market. Not to mention the spill over effect it will have on anyone in the construction and other building associated trades… Each and every one of these pages carries ads for real estate companies, new housing developments and mortgage companies? I mean yes… If it was print, with a couple of weeks up front copy dates to deal with… I could understand it… But this is the Internet for crying out loud. You can change or re-work whatever you want in minutes. So what is it… Laziness… Stupidity… Or just blind hope that everything is going to change in minutes? I’m going for a combination of all three!
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Something you're going to see a lot more of in the near future!
One of my pet peeves, as I've posted before, are people writing about advertising in the main stream media, who obviously have no idea what they are talking about.
Today's piece by Dominic Rushe in The Times Online in the UK is a perfect example. He's talking about the Julie Roehm, Wal-Mart kafuffle that has gained so much attention in the last few weeks. What’s so funny is that he's obviously used as his source an article that ran in last weeks New York Times. Unfortunately, he doesn't seem to have read it very well. I left him this comment...
If you're going to rely on the New York Times article of last Friday as your source material for this column... At least read it properly. You say... "Wal-Mart investigators even tracked down the pair to a Holiday Inn hotel room in Guatemala where, with ear pressed to the door, the agent heard “moans and sighs”. That was not Julie and Sean, that was another couple and was part of a completely separate investigation. And along with other reporters you fall into the trap of stressing the "sexy bits." Negotiating a job with the agency she was interviewing to handle the Wal-Mart account, was not only contrary to her contract, it was also unethical, probably illegal, and certainly dumb. You also forgot to mention that she was also supplying the agency with confidential Wal-Mart documents and emails. Claims that these kinds of articles in the New York Times (and now in The Times) will damage Wal-Mart are crazy. Few of their customers read, let alone the NYT or The Times.
Perhaps as an employee of "The Wizened of Oz" he is only used to getting his information from his bosses unspeakable tabloid rag, the New York Post, which has become famous for distortion and lack of substance.
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Bringing you the really important news as it happens... Britney Spears Bald!
After making the previous post on the launch of the IPhone this coming month, I just came across the following observation from columnist John Dvorak, who's been writing about technology since the early eighties... "During this phase of a market, margins are incredibly thin so that the small fry cannot compete without losing a lot of money. As for advertising and expensive marketing this is nothing like Apple has ever stepped into. It's a buzz saw waiting to chop up newbies. The problem here is that while Apple can play the fashion game as well as any company, there is no evidence that it can play it fast enough. These phones go in and out of style so fast that unless Apple has half a dozen variants in the pipeline, its phone, even if immediately successful, will be passé within 3 months. There is no likelihood that Apple can be successful in a business this competitive. ... What Apple risks here is its reputation as a hot company that can do no wrong. If it's smart it will call the iPhone a 'reference design' and pass it to some suckers to build with someone else's marketing budget. Then it can wash its hands of any marketplace failures." Funnily enough he gives exactly the same time scale (three months) that I did below, before the "coolness" factor wears off. Obviously, great minds think alike!
As anyone who’s ever worked with an Art Director or designer knows, people who work with Mac’s are like religious fanatics. If it comes form Apple, it has to be worshipped. And if you’ve ever attended MacWorld, Steve’s appearance on stage in his super cool black outfit with the latest iObject is greeted by the faithful as if he had just come down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments. So you just know the launch of the iPhone - Rumored to be June 11th – Which is also the date of Apple’s Worldwide Developers conference in San Francisco – Will be when the frenzy for this $600 dollar appliance begins. Every teenager with an iPod will want one, not because it does anything better than the free one the phone company gives you when you sign up… But because it looks cool! The problem I always have with stuff like that is that in about three weeks, everyone has one, so it’s not cool any more. Still, for $200 a week, you were looking pretty smooth there for a while. Anyway, my money’s on the 12th. Why? Because any Apple maniac worth their salt knows that The Company only releases stuff on Tuesday’s. ‘Cos that’s when Steve say’s “Make it so!:
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Look into my eyes... You will each buy ten iPhones... You will each buy...
Whatever happened to the days when kids stuck in the back of cars on long journey would play games that involved the use of pencil and paper and looking out the window to identify and count telegraph poles or the number of sheep in a field. Well now, it would seem that electronic games, CD players, DVD players and iPods are not enough, ‘cos now Chrysler and Sirius Satellite Radio are bringing the tube to minivans. The DaimlerChrysler unit will offer Sirius Backseat TV--a product new to cars and satellite providers--first to its minivans and then to the Chrysler 300, Dodge Charger and Magnum, and Jeep Commander and Grand Cherokee. The feature, which will be exclusive to Chrysler Group vehicles for the first year, will initially carry content only from Nickelodeon, Disney Channel and Cartoon Network. Hopefully the little brats will be equipped with headphones, because if I was driving and had all that racket going on behind me… I might end up sticking them in the trunk. Oh, wait a minute, minivans don’t have trunks. I’ll have to think of something a little more drastic.
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I don't want no stinkin' cartoons... Where's the porn?
Interesting piece in Spiegel on-line today about Google’s continuing project to digitize just about every piece of printed material on the face of the planet. Apart from this being a mammoth undertaking when you consider that the Google search page could end up being the gateway to the content of the 32 million books, 750 million articles, 25 million songs, 500 million images, 500,000 films, 3 million television programs and 100 billion public Web pages that Wired writer Kevin Kelly estimates humanity has published since the days of clay tablets. To store this volume of data -- estimated at 50 petabytes -- would require a building the size of a town's library. But having used the resource when researching “MadScam,” and using it now while writing my next book; I’m all in favor of it. I’ll leave the question raised by some that it seems a bit risky to entrust the universal wisdom stored in the world’s mostly public libraries to a private company, to others to answer.
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You'll need the bolt cutters before you can scan them!
If you’re in the market for an Xbox, or a new PC, pack up any stray weaponry you may have lying around and grab a flight to Mexico. It would seem that Mexico City's newly-elected mayor Marcelo Ebrard has decided to purge the city's mean streets by dishing out cash or a free Xbox for every handgun turned in to the police, while anyone surrendering a heavy caliber-weapon, such as a machine gun, will earn a shiny new PC. This would seem to be a rather more serious ratcheting up of the usual trade in programs offered by your local consumer electronics store. But, as at the last count, I think there were three guns for every inhabitant of the United States, it might be something worth considering. Although the NRA might have something to say about that, what with video games being far more dangerous than that loaded Magnum 45 you have a habit of leaving lying around in the kitchen drawer.
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Throw in the transporter and I'll give you an extra gig of memory!
This just in… "CBS has struck a deal to supply Sprint TV with full episodes, live mobicasts and video highlights from several CBS shows. On demand content includes nightly mobicasts of CBS Evening News with Katie Couric, full episodes of Jericho and clips from several popular prime time and late night shows including the three CSIs, Numbers, Survivor and Late Night with David Letterman. The content will be ad supported with short video pre-rolls. OK… Let’s get this straight. In order to get a couple of percentage points knocked of your monthly cell phone bill, you must be prepared to watch ad saturated TV programs on a screen the size of a postage stamp. Not forgetting that the sound quality will not only be pathetic, it will annoy the crap out of everyone within a ten yard radius, while you subject them to THIRTY MINUTES of a magazine program laughingly referred to as a “News”broadcast! Hey… Where do I sign up?
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Yeahh... But I saved a dollar fifty on my cell calls last month!
Interesting to read that Virgin Atlantic Airlines is supporting a campaign to add another ethnic neighborhood enclave to New York City. First there were Little Italy and Chinatown, and now, the plan is to add, "Little Britain," if British entrepreneurs Nicky Perry and Sean Kavanagh-Dowsett, owners of two "Terribly" British eateries Tea & Sympathy and A Salt and Battery and shop Carry On Tea & Sympathy, have their way. The pair has enlisted Branson's airline to support their efforts to rename Greenwich Avenue in Greenwich Village, as the area is home to nearly two-dozen British-owned businesses. The campaign is part of CampaignForLittleBritain.com, which features a petition that will be presented to a local community board, and then to Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Ironic posters with slogans like, "What's one more Queen in the Village," have been displayed promoting the campaign, and a viral video is up on YouTube.Funny though, not a mention of the very best British shop in New York... "Myers of Keswick." Makers of the best pork pies and sausages this side of the Atlantic.
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When it comes to gourmet food, you have to hand it to the British!
I'm not usually a fan of spots that rely on tons of CGI to make their point, but I have to admit I really like a new spot for Gatorade by Downtown Partners DDB in Toronto that shows what happens inside the head of Sidney Crosby, center for the Pittsburgh Penguins, as he prepares to take a shot on goal. Inside Crosby's head we find a veritable hive of activity, with a group of men dressed like air-traffic controllers gathered around a miniature hockey table with graphics reminiscent of a video game. Within the one minute spot there are tons of different, wacky things going on, including guys firing up massive boilers, another man searching through hundreds of pictures of the oposing goalie, there's even a line of emperor penguins marching along the ice. You literally have to watch it several times to catch everything. Which is fine, 'cos I'm sure it will be shown repeatedly during games and sports shows. Much more interesting than all those boring car spots. Too bad it only airs in Canada.
