This new household sailboarder from Germany hangs onto the rim of one's toilet and surfs the swirling waters keeping the bowl clean and odor free. [via Strange New Products] …
Making Sense Of The Snippets
This story from The New York Times sounds strangely familiar. The accelerating speed of business and the relentless churn of consumer trends can create nightmares for marketers and their advertising agencies. By the time clients and creative directors realize that hemlines are going down, they may actually be rising again. Some agencies are responding by honing their trend-spotting skills. DDB, part of the Omnicom …
They Leave The Empty Kegs On The Cutting Room Floor
Today's Slate takes a look at the promotional ads colleges insert into football telecasts. If you're a college football fan, no doubt you've seen these and had a good chuckle over them. The ads typically run for 30 seconds during halftime. As state-school spokespersons are quick to point out, colleges don't pay for the airtime—the slots are provided at no cost under most college-football television contracts. The …
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PETA’s Onion Imitation
Kentucky Fried Cruelty: Deciding to make a statement every time he’s asked for or signs his name, a 19-year-old PETA staff member—formerly known as Chris Garnett—has legally changed his name to KentuckyFriedCruelty.com, the same name as PETA’s Web site that gives the lowdown on KFC’s refusal to eliminate the worst abuses of chickens raised and killed to fill its buckets. The former Dover Plains, New York, resident …
On The Road Again, This Time In A Biodiesel Car
From The New York Times: While Bono tries to change the world by hobnobbing with politicians and Sir Bob Geldof plays host to his mega-benefit concerts, Willie Nelson has birthed his own brand of alternative fuel. It is called, fittingly enough, BioWillie. And in BioWillie, Mr. Nelson, 72, has blended two of his biggest concerns: his love of family farmers and disdain for the Iraq war. BioWillie is a type of …
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Click Fraud Competes With SPAM For Title Of “Most Heinous”
Wired: Pay-per-click is the fastest-growing segment of all advertising, reports the Interactive Advertising Bureau. Last year, Yahoo! alone ran more than 250 million individual listings, according to Michael Egan, the company's search-marketing director of content strategy. Yahoo! doesn't break out PPC earnings separately in its financial statements, but Goldman Sachs analyst Anthony Noto believes that keyword …
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Talk Radio 2.0
Washington Post: XM Satellite Radio Holdings Inc. plans to introduce new technologies next year that will allow users to switch stations using voice commands. XM, working with Kirkland, Wash.-based VoiceBox Technologies Inc., is designing a system that allows the driver of a car to control the radio by asking it to search by genre of music, for example. The system will then reply to the driver with several …
Intel’s Not Inside Anymore
USA TODAY: The world's biggest chipmaker said Thursday it will scrap its 37-year-old logo and well-known tagline as part of a major rebranding that will emphasize its shift away from its core PC business and into consumer products. The original Intel logo featuring a lowered "e" will be replaced with one showing an oval swirl surrounding the company's name. The phrase "Leap ahead" will supplant "Intel Inside," which …
