10 Ways Twitter Will Change Blog Design in 2009

Learning about tweeting? See how twitter can change things.

http://mashable.com/2009/01/04/twitter-blog-design/

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Brothers In Arms iPhone Game Review - AppVee.com

Every time I think I've seen a great iPhone app, another appears. It's
amazing to see the capabilites of these small devices and to imagine
what's to come. Gamer or not, see where brothers in arms takes gaming
to a new level on the iphone.

http://www.appvee.com/t/brothers-in-arms

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Becoming A Power Twitter User With New Firefox Addon Power Twitter | Social Media Vision

This may be worth checking out. A twittified firefox add on that keeps
you in touch with all your tweeple.

http://socialmediavision.com/social-media/blogs-social-media/twitter/becoming-a-power-twitter-user-with-new-firefox-addon-power-twitter/

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Retailers Brining SalesPeople Online

Traditional Brick and Mortar retailers have begun to recognize the opportunity to extend the value of their trained consumer facing sales people into the online space, leveraging their expertise, and their branded recognition, to offer valuable information and service to shoppers. One case in point is Best Buy who has launched www.askablueshirt.com to allow consumer electronic shoppers to take advantage of the expertise of the trained Best Buy sales force to build shopping preference and drive instore traffic.

Additionally, they are using the distribution power of this environment to generate buzz around events like Black Friday, in this case, showing photos of people camping out prior to the big holiday sales event. It shows that Best Buy, and other leading retainers, are starting to experiment with online well beyond their e-commerce and general brand building activities online.

Ask ChaCha

Nielsen reports that ChaCha, launched less than a year ago, is the fastest growing mobile search service to surpass Yahoo! and Google. ChaCha's 300% quarter over quarter gain is tremendous, but also a result of an increase in mobile search supported by the latest hardware options.

Personally, I like the concept. Users text a question and get a reply in minutes. With so much content out there, it's useful. Users must, however, be specific or the relevancy in the results are lost.

Big brands including McDonald's, Coca-Cola, and even the Obama campaign, have leveraged the tool for marketing purposes and have reportedly seen response rates up to 5% which well exceed mobile industry averages.

The Obama campaign specifically, used the service to urge early voting. Folks using ChaCha received a prompt that offered the option of getting more information on how and where to vote early - and of course there was a plug for Obama.

This will be one to watch - although it might be hard to miss.

www.chacha.com

A Weekend In The Life of Today's Shopper

To help illustrate how digital technology is changing the way shoppers shop, we introduce you to a Young Gen X family and their digital shopping experiences over one weekend with the holidays appraoching.

Meet Bob and Sarah and their 4 year old son Zac. This dual income family lives in the suburbs of New York. Bob works full time in Manhattan at an advertising agency and Sarah works part time at a prestigious marketing services agency in Westport, CT. Their lives get crazier by the day.

Friday afternoon

·Sarah has picked up Zac from daycare and is back home. She needs to plan her grocery shopping list, so to keep Zac busy, she sets him in front of the computer and fires up the toy section at Amazon.com. Watching him, she chuckles, 4 years old and he’s creating his own holiday wish list. Dragging and dropping items…his total is over $10,000! Sarah uses this time to get organized. She checks the mail and remembers how her mom used to get those over-sized Val Pac mailers and store circulars. Now Sarah gets alerts on her cell phone to download new coupons in her pre-selected categories.

·The holidays are approaching and Bob is behind on his gift shopping. He’s walking down 6th avenue in New York City and wondering where he can get the best deal on a digital camera without having to pop into store after store. Bob opens the Slifter application on his cell phone and researches deals and product reviews within a 5 block radius. Bob’s turned 6th avenue into the main aisle of an electronics store.

Friday afternoon is turning to Friday evening

·Bob is rushing to Grand Central Station to catch his train. He gets a call from Sarah with a plea to pick up some dinner. Wanting to avoid the after work lines, and trying to eat healthy before the holidays, Bob goes to his favorite sandwich chain’s WAP site and places his order right from his phone. He’s pretty sure Sarah likes Banana Peppers.

Its Saturday morning and the family is up early.

·Bob and Zac decide its time for a little video gaming. They fire up the console and a welcome reminder tells them they have earned enough loyalty points to download a free, new adventure for their favorite game – Life is good!

·Sarah still needs to do her grocery shopping. She goes to her iKan unit in the kitchen and reviews her personalized, recommended shopping list based on purchase history. She presses the Buy Now button to have her groceries delivered. Check one chore off the list!

·Bob decides to go to the local electronics store. He’s shopping for a Tablet to go with his new digital camera. When he comes to the aisle the screen on his cart instantly changes with a list of Tablet suggestions personalized based on his previous purchases. The loyalty card in his wallet is embedded with an RFID tag, so he’s greeted by a sales associate ready to answer questions. The sales associate uses the screen on his chart to pull up the chain’s custom social networking site so Bob can check out consumer reviews.

·Sarah decides its time to do a little holiday shopping for herself. With Zac in tow, she heads out to her local department store. In the dressing room she uses the virtual shopping assistant to see what her outfit would look like with different color matches. She goes with Fuchsia on Black.

Sunday night, Bob gets a text from his boss

·Bob still can’t believe his boss is making him travel last minute! He’s racing to catch the flight and instead of stopping at a kiosk to print his boarding pass, he simply shows the QR code on his phone at security. This leaves him enough time to go to the self-service kiosk at the gate and download a movie for the flight to his laptop in under a minute.

·Sarah, missing Bob, thumbs through an Esquire Magazine for gift ideas for Bob. She comes across a Ralph Lauren Ad for a Cashmere Sweater and special offer. She scans the QR code on the page with her cell phone to get more details before she decides to make the purchase.

•Zac, missing daddy, grabs a photo from The Target Shutterfly site and posts it to Daddy’s Facebook page


These are just a few of the touch points that marketers can use to drive incremental sales with Bob, Sarah, and Zac. Technology makes their shopping experience more intuitive, personalized, convenient, which drives a stronger value proposition overall for shoppers.

As demonstrated by this family, technology has dramatically accelerated the sophistication and variety of shopper touch points. This will become more pervasive over the next 5-10 years. Availability and adoption will increase and scale will drive implementation costs down. Shoppers will have access to products and services anytime and anywhere.

Axe, Eat Your Heart Out

Because nothing will get the girls knocking down the door to jump your bones like the scent of freshly flame-broiled beef.

Burger King has released its own fragrance: Flame. For when you want that just-got-off-the-night-shift fast food employee smell. Irresistible.

Of course, this works as a formidable PR stunt. But will anyone buy it in its undoubtedly short lived life?

Fostering Not Just Innovation, But Intellect

The campaign around Herman Miller's new chair, Embody, does more than what it sets out to do - foster innovation. It also fosters intellect. It is a site that is emotionally soothing, mentally stimulating, and seemingly an innovation in and of itself. I highly recommend perusing with a coffee and bagel tomorrow morning.

Check out TODAY'S THOUGHTPILE now

That's Not What It Was Supposed To Look Like!

We have all been under the gun to launch a new site... and realized in final testing that things are looking stellar in one browser but nothing like what you designed in another. And those last minute panic questions of "what happened" and "why" start to run through your head. There may be an explaination... beyond that of the "it's the client firewall!" Curious? Read on...

Audio Bones: Lame or Worthwhile?

Apparently, some of us have "deformed" ears. In other words, we complain about the iPod ear buds' failure to properly fit into our cartilage. Well, lookey here.

So, it's sound that's actually conducted through the bones of your ears, leaving the eardrum open to hear all the background noise. Clever, but kind of pointless at the same time...

Paul Newman, We Salute You

We simply had to make the first post of the week one that honors Paul Newman and the more than $250 million dollars in profits from the Newman's Own line donated to charities. A truly remakable man, remarkable cause, remarkabe products and a remarkable website that I referred to many times as best in class for staying true to the voice of a brand and for pushing a brand to a higher emotional ground.


I encourage everyone to visit newmansown.com


Although the main site is unavailable due to heavy traffic there is a simple page live that has a wonderful retrospective video thats well worth the 4 minutes to seel

For the Shameless Exploitation in Pursuit of the Common Good WE SALUTE YOU!

Cool New Banner Ads

In the recent "I'm a PC" campaign, Microsoft takes aim at the Mac ads that have reigned for more than two years. After a brief run with Jerry Seinfeld, the ads are now featuring ordinary folks who profess their devotion to PCs.

I caught the latest in the series of ads on the MSN home page... a very cool banner execution where a mosaic of images filled the background behind the homepage. And as you click on each image, it feeds a video of that person into what I think is a 300x250 video player. I think this would look even better filled with dog images and adoption videos... don't you?

Wholefoods.com Site redesign

Whole Foods has followed the trend of retailers relaunching their web-site to add more value to the consumers and enhance the shopper experience.

Secet Ingredient Videos & Podcasts, store locaters, store specials and a huge assortment of recipes with new search tool,high impact photography and flash as wells as social apps (rate and post recipes and freshly picked blogs).

Check it out at

wholefoods.com

Internet Killed the Newspaper Star

Google has just taken up the arduous goal of bringing all the glory of paper-press-periodical humanity to the Interweb.

Soon, you'll be able to view billions of pages of archived newsprint from the comfort of your cubicle.

Pretty neat, and you don't even have to get your hands all inky.

AdAge Article on mobile advertising

Not sure if this will load up correctly. If it doesn't, then use your
mobile devise!

http://adage.qwapi.com/site?t=FnTlaZuPXsZiMMsVa.wgJw&tsid=QWS5E80C78A14BCF5E93D0F38C05D18F5161367e40&tcid=84d03862b23e4fa0a9e4ac7c7c59e03e

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Get inspired:
http://creativebureau.blogspot.com

Cell Phone Coupons Get Local

I was just watching ABC News and they featured a piece on a new player, 8Coupons, in the Cell Phone Couponing industry. They have a wide array of local NYC offers from services, to Spa and Beauty to restaurants. They work with/train local vendors to make it easy for the consumer to simply show the offer on their phone to the cashier to get their offer. Could this be the end of the local coop mailer that stuff our mailboxes each month? Check it out at:

http://www.8coupons.com/

Life

Nice. Simple. Smart.
(for a coaster)

$34.5 million spent on Facebook virtual goods? | Negative Approach - CNET News

http://news.cnet.com/8301-13846_3-10030354-62.html?part=rss&subj=news&tag=2547-1_3-0-5

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Get inspired:
http://creativebureau.blogspot.com

Google Chrome Explained.

Google Chrome explained

Explorer, Firefox or the new Chrome?

I've been a big fan of firefox since it came out. For me, it's anything that gets me away from the clunky IE browser. Plus I'm biased, pre IE winning the browser wars I was exclusively a Netscape user. Anyhow, it's been announced that Google is launching a new browser called Chrome.


Find the article here


WASHINGTON (AFP) - Google on Tuesday launches its own internet browser, Google Chrome, in a new challenge to Microsoft Internet Explorer and Firefox.
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The Chrome browser, designed to cope with the next generation of graphics and multimedia dominated web applications, was announced in a Google blog late Monday.

It will launch initially for Windows machines in 100 countries, with Mac and Linux versions to come.

"We realised ... we needed to completely rethink the browser," Google's Sundar Pichai said in a blog post.

The application can be downloaded for free and its code will be open source so no rights will have to be paid by anyone using or adapting the software.

Chrome is Google's latest weapon in its bid to become the leader in all Internet areas. The latest major browser war was won by Microsoft when it won the battle for dominance in the 1990s against Netscape Navigator.

According to various estimates, Internet Explorer, which is the default browser on computers with Windows operating systems, is used by between 60 and 80 percent of Internet users around the world, with Mozilla Firefox a long way back in second place.