LongStation

She is cute. Nice voice. Fun Video. It made me smile.

I love the charts from Silfry about the state of the internet. Below is a direct quote from the site:

http://www.sifry.com/alerts/archives/000443.html

• Technorati is now tracking more than 57 Million blogs.
• Spam-, splog- and sping-fighting efforts at Technorati are paying dividends in terms of the reduction of garbage in our indexes, even if it does seem to impact overall growth rates.
• Today, the blogosphere is doubling in size approximately every 230 days.
• About 100,000 new weblogs were created each day, again down slightly quarter-over-quarter but probably due in part to spam fighting efforts.
• About 4% of new splogs get past Technorati’s filters, even if it is only for a few hours or days.
• There is a strong correlation between the aging and post frequency of blogs and their authority and Technorati ranking.
• The globalization of the blogosphere continues. Our data appears to show both English and Spanish languages are a more universal blog language than the other two most dominant language, Japanese and Chinese, which seem to be more regionally localized.
• Coincident with a rise in blog posts about escalating Middle East tensions throughout the summer and fall, Farsi has moved into the top 10 languages of the blogosphere, indicating that blogging continues to play a critical role in debates about the important issues of our times.

Tech Crunch listed Art Face Off as a contest between different categories of Art, where the winners are voted on by the public and the winner recieves $1000.

I think this would be a good idea for already existing social sites, like YouTube and Flickr. TBS is attempting to create a video contest along the same lines where people upload “funny” videos and the winner gets $10,000. This is just restating the obivious value of user generated content to attract generation Y and the advertisers that target them.

Today one of our clients, Network International, sent the office a pecan pie from “Goode Company“.

Holy smokes. It is so good.

Apparently I am not the only one that thinks so, as I found the fourth result in Google was a link to someone asking for the recipe. (Sorry no one has replied)

So, if you are ever in Houston you had better stop in for some pie. No wonder we are one of the fattest cities in the U.S.

Mit Ad Lab posted a press release from Whirlpool that indicates Whirlpool will have 3D models available for use with Google’s Sketchup!

This is a great example of Whirlpool advertising (in this case producing 3D models) where th audience is. What a great brand exposure for appliances within architecture models displayed for clients. MIT suggests that  Google may eventually go as far as allowing purchase links from inside Sketchup, or what if you could see an entire projects cost association with different features. Pretty cool?

This powerpoint shows results of varied questions asked the advertising community about online advertising spending and also about advertising in general. Here is the link: http://www.aaf.org/news/pdf/aafsurvey_2006.ppt

One highlight is the advertising budget for online advertising is supposed to rise from 16% to 23% of advertising budgets. This is a 42% increase. With a majority going to search advertising.

Also, 71% of advertising executives surveyed believe the internet is “very effective” or “most effective” for direct response advertising. Wow, hats off to “Ed Schipul” for making that call 5 years ago.

At http://www.usersubmitter.com/ you can pay to have your article Dugg at Digg. Now this is just outrageous and I hope it won’t last long. I believe the social world will help police it pretty quick. It just brings up the question of:

1. What is next?
2. Do you agree in paying for online social software network “hits”? (or is paying for friends as detestable now as in the past?)

Let me here about it? Please.

Bear Skin Rug brings you a game that looks like a lot of fun if you have time to waste. I suggest the doodle game on trips to relatives and other “holiday” destinations.  Here are the rules;

Person A draws something. Anything. A shape, a bridge, an amorphous blob; whatever strikes A’s fancy. Person B then draws something of their own, influenced by the previous drawing. Sometimes it may be the shape; sometimes it might be the subject matter. Sometimes it might just be one little piece that looks like it could be a piece from something else. Then… it’s Person A’s turn again.

I am sure these scientists have better use for “Temporal and spatial control of transgene expression using laser induction of the hsp70promoter” than branding… but I can think of a few additional uses myself. Apparently according to the telegraph:

A team at the University at Buffalo that developed the world’s first GM butterfly has now adapted the work to create the fluorescent marking on the wings of the insect to demonstrate an innovative tool that will make it easier to find out what genes do, in this case those that play a role in making the patterns on wings, from stripes to eye spots.

The researchers demonstrated their method by using a laser to stencil the silhouette of a butterfly upon the surface of a butterfly’s wing.

The butterflies were otherwise unaffected by the laser, which could activate specially implanted fluorescent genes, according to the study published yesterday in the journal BMC Developmental Biology by a team in America and Germany.

If you want to know which camera to buy for Christmas, maybe you should stop here: http://www.flickr.com/cameras/

Boing Boing and Waxy both reproted the page on flickr which charts the most used cameras by camera type. Also if you ask me, I think looking at what results the photographers get from a certain camera is important too.

I didn’t personally know there was enormous difference until Ed Schipul let me borrow his Cannon EOS Digitla Rebel XT. I take photos with a Cannon A75.

After taking photos with both Cameras, the difference is extremely noticeable. Below are shots from the two cameras…

you tell me which camera is which?

You can find some links to some great Altoids ads here.

Did I mention that my Dad won the “harriest chested man contest” on his last cruise? I wonder if he felt like this in school?

 This is from Your Mom’s Basement and boy is it funny. See for yourself:

Ha ha.

BOA gets a “Cease and Desist” letter from Universal Music as reported at “Boing Boing” for covering U2’s song “one” (See earlier post of video on youtube)

My opinion is that the cover changes the song well enough to be considered original… from an artists point of view.

I imagine it is not a fight that BOA would like to mess with. But I am with them in this case.

I would hope that Bono would find it as enjoyable to laugh at the BOA guys as the rest of the world does? Maybe Bono could tell Universal Music how stupid they are getting lawyers involved and creating a gap between U2 and the audience they sing too.

BOA didn’t do anything to damage U2 sales and a piddly law suit between BOA and Universal Music would do more to damage U2’s brand. Aren’t lawyers great?

“Be One With Us” seems more fitting for U2’s brand. Apparently U2 asked concert goers in Melbourne to text their voice to put pressure on G20 politicians. That sounds like a better place for U2’s name… not associated with suing BOA for a hideously funny cover.

Bono lets here you shut up Universal Music.

Sounds like Yahoo will have some interesting social items added to searches to help local businesses and markets. I like the idea… now lets see the execution. Below is a quote and link from the Ad Age article:

 http://adage.com/digital/article.php?article_id=113392

Ad Age: You mentioned user-generated content. Can you give some examples?

Mr. Miller: There’s rich info that users are able to provide on the merchants. They can post photos of the business or the service — photos of what the inside of the cafe looks like, for example. One recent example is a carpenter or cabinet maker — someone had taken a picture of the cabinet maker’s work.

Tagging is a powerful phenomenon that allows users to say this business is romantic, this coffee shop has WiFi. It allows users to access and organize internet data in their own way and makes an easy index to recall later but it also gives us a really powerful way to search across really generic listings that we can provide to other users.

Ad Age: So how does this all make money for you?

Mr. Miller: These small to medium businesses are very clear what they’re trying to get: additional leads or business. There’s a lot of opportunity in what the internet and user-generated content can bring in terms of targeting audiences and getting more in touch with customer base. To the merchants’ chagrin, their reputation is being formed online without them being in touch with it. The real opportunity is for them to see their ratings and reviews, see how are they doing in the minds of their users and figure out how can they channel and form the reputation that’s formed online. We give them tools to keep in touch with users. They can be e-mailed when rating/review gets posted by customer. They can subscribe to a service that allows users to make reservations through Open Table, who we partner with.

What great video editing… and imagination.