An online tool for demographic prediction. It's not right 100% of the time, but it does deliver some thought-provoking responses.

"A good marketer doesn’t have to advertise."

Read the whole thing. The ending sentence alone is worth it.

Via Rexblog.

Marketing, Advertising, The Future

I gotta admit: I don't "get" Kevin Smith and his movies.

but recording a commentary a la DVD commentaries ,making it available on iTunes for free, then encouraging fans to go to the movie again and listen to the commentary on their iPods is a *brilliant* way of increasing repeat business to his movies.

Marketing, Movies, iPod

Via Slashdot is this story of a publishing company caught with 11,000 unlicensed fonts that's going to set them back almost $150k in fines.

Ye-ouch.

Software, licenses, busted

I'll admit it, my lack of insturmental musical talent annoys me at times. So I can definitely see the value in something like this.

iBox - A lightweight AJAX-based image preview script.

I like the OSX-like loading image, too.

Microsoft workers prefer Google.

Ye-ouch.

or drummer for Spinal Tap?

You decide.

Lileks:

"...everyone's selling something now. Even if they're giving it away."

And there, my friends, is Web 2.0 in a nutshell.

I needed this right now.

Actually, if we designers are actually honest with ourselves, we need a creative kick in the pants almost every minute of our lives.

Computer Arts - 50 Ways to Become a Better Designer

Design, Creativity, Inspiration

Sorry about the lack of updates, I've been a tad under the weather as of late.

For now, content yourself by humming They Might Be Giants "Ana Ng" while playing with the "What if Earth Were A Sandwich Tool."

Look, no one loves the iPod more than me. I got a 1st Gen when they came out, and love my 20gb Photo.

But I fail to see how they're useful at work, unless it's as background noise.

and if I am, someone can set me straight in the comments section, but if the definitive magazine for the working photographer, Photo District News, doesn't have a single RSS feed for their news, why are we expecting photographers as a whole to "get" Web2.0?

PDN, Web2.0, Photography

Arnold Newman died Tuesday.

His work was VERY influential on what I do, probably as much or more as Gene Smith was.

Arnold Newman, Photographers, Portraiture

The Presentation Zen blog talks about an ongoing frustration of mine; people who think they're not creative and therefore settle for crappy looking documents and presentations.

Creativity springs from those few years in early childhood, when you learned how to color in between the lines, but hadn't learned (yet) that the sky wasn't supposed to be chartreuse, as your teacher/parent/peers told you.

You're not six years old now, and your Crayolas are now Microsoft Office or Photoshop or Dreamweaver. Learn how to paint the sky pink again.

Creativity, Design, Presentations

Looks like Google want to make Picasa play in Flickr's sandbox.

Yep, saw that coming.

Technology is catching up to what I want.

Computers, Technology, Future Tech

Ok, wanting to capitalize on your brand strength is a good idea.

But Disney coming out with "Old Yeller Dog Food" may test that theory to it's limits.

What's next, "Finding Nemo Sushi"?

Marketing, Branding, Oops

"Microsoft out of acquisition targets, may acquire self."

I'm not sure, but I think "acquiring yourself" is against the law in at least a couple of Texas counties...

Microsoft, humour

An absolutely fascinating look at the power of the internet.

As Glenn Reynolds says, "A pack, not a herd.".

Internet, Community, blogswarm

How often do we change our language to match what works best for our clients?

I was in a local McDonalds for dinner yesterday, because as the parent of a two-year-old boy, my dining out at restaurants without kid's meals and play areas has withered away. The crew behind the counter were chatting happily to each other in Spanish about what order was up and where were the fries and all the other things that are needed to make a McDonald's run smoothly, not knowing I could understand them, when a previous customer walked up and voiced a problem with his order.

Immediately, everyone who was involved in solving this customer's problem switched over to English. Spanish may have been the native tongue of everyone there, but out of respect for the customer and ensuring his comfort, they spoke in a language he could understand until his problem was solved. They kept up the English until he was satisfied and left, then switched back to Spanish (and no, they didn't gossip about him afterwards, either.).

How often do we do that? It's easy to fall into tech talk and show off for our customers. Do we stick with the language we know when problems with our clients arise, or do we switch over to slower, less efficient language that they understand and calms their worries? Sometimes, being efficient must be second-place to be understood.

Customer service, Communication

Amazon.com's opened up their web services to the public, and Jungle Disk has come out with a snappy little WebDAV enabler that makes offsite backups easy and cheap.

How cheap? How does $0.15 per gigabyte per month sound?

As I type this, the contents of my home directory are being transferred up to Amazon's servers for offsite backup, for about the price of one fast food meal per month.

Cool.

I gotta admit, I love how all of Apple's iLife fits together. I enjoy kicking back and fiddling around with Garage Band, and making home movies in iMovie is a blast.

But sometimes, I don't want to be creative and build something, I want to mindlessly blast some pixels into smithereens. And on an Mac, my choices are limited compared to PC's. Settling down for a few minutes to guide my squad of Marines thru Beirut is a good way to end the day, but I want to enjoy the breadth and depth of games on my Macs that's out there for the PC. I want Battlefront's Close Combat series to be OS X compatible. I want a good air combat game. I want Harpoon. Badly.

And I'm not alone in that. At some point, Apple needs to realize that a "digital lifestyle" includes recreation as much as it does the creative side of things.

Apple, Computer Games

We went Hi-Def a few months ago, and I gotta agree with Mark Cuban, it's going to revitalize TV. Not too sure about the revival of the big networks, though, as content is still king, and I'll put up with a low-def version of Mythbusters versus a HiDef version of some inane sitcom any day.

But sports in HD? Wow.

HDTV, HD, TV sports

Brand Autopsy - Rushkoff on Word of Mouth
"People may talk about a brilliant advertising campaign, but they will never advocate an ad the way they advocate a product they love. A company’s real relationship with a customer is not communicated through the marketing, however compelling it may be. It is communicated through the cup holders in the doors, the easy-to-read LED display in the cell phone cover, the user-friendly menu on the digital video recorder, or the leak-proof absorbency of the baby diaper."

Yep.

One way is improving your product and services to protect yourself and your customers.

The other is charging the customers more for something they should already have.

Decide for yourself which will be more profitable in the long run.

Security, Customer Service, Blunders

Canoe.ca has a cross-branding push on, it seems.



Canoe.ca, Marketing, Cross-branding