It's Here! What the Critics Say About the iPhone

Here's a nifty chart of the top-rate reviewers who examined the Apple iPhone and what they thought. They differ on the keypad, but they all agree the network speed (Cingular/the "new" AT&T) is the phone's biggest weakness.

read more digg story

Daily Show Viewers Know More About Current Events Than Fox News Fans

A couple of years ago, there was a big stink when Bill O'Reilly derided viewers of the Daily Show as a bunch of potheads. Not long after his snark, a study was released that showed that Jon Stewart's viewers had higher education levels than those of FOX News. Now comes a new study on who knows the most about current events. Daily Show viewers are 2nd, right behind newspaper readers. FOX News viewers, alas, are the least informed. Check out the questions they asked. How many did you get right?

read more digg story

Watch Videos Online, Get Free Mag. Subscription

As more and more of us zip through t.v. commercials and ignore ads altogether, marketers are coming up with bribes to get us to pay attention to their messages. One such bribe that I thought might be of interest to you is this offer from Dwell magazine. Watch a few videos online, get a free subscription to Dwell (a very cool magazine).

How Seth Godin Gets Trade Show Buzz

He's the master at marketing gimmicks that work. A client sent me http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2007/06/trade_show_tact.html on Seth Godin's latest trick to get traction at a trade show. It involves t-shirts and a contest. Simple enough, right?

Reminds me of the best attention-getter I ever saw at a show. Many years ago, I was at a Broadcast and Promotions Executive conference. Lots of creative folks trying to get our attention. One exhibitor had a guy drawing sketches of -- wait for it -- our butts! Seriously. He was doing butt sketches. (I asked him to shave a few pounds off of mine.) You could not go down an aisle at that trade show without seeing someone showing off their "butt sketch." This worked because it was t.v., and t.v. folks thought it was edgy.

What about you? Got any great ideas on ways to stand out at a trade show?

Make Life Easier: OpenTable.com

Welcome to our new feature, "Make Life Easier." From time to time, we'll post links to tools we find particularly useful. Stuff that has made our lives easier, like OpenTable.com. OpenTable is the reservation system used by lots of restaurants in major markets like New York, San Francisco, and Atlanta. You can go online and search for a restaurant with an open reservation at the time you'd like. It's the fastest, easiest way to find an opening that we know of. And OpenTable preserves your information so all you need to do is login, click around to find the restaurant and time you like, and submit your reservation. They'll even record notes to the restaurant if you wish ("this is a surprise birthday celebration; can you bring a dessert with a candle in it?").

It's taken years for OpenTable to build their restaurant database. (Read more here at the New York Times.) Restaurants resisted the technology at first, but they love it now. They're able to record a diner's preferences on where to sit, dietary requests, etc., which enhances their ability to provide superior customer service. It's a win-win for all and it's our pick for a service that Makes Life Easier.

Fast Forwarding Through Commercials

Can you name five t.v. commercials off the top of your head? How about five newspaper ads? A few years ago, I used to ask this question whenever I gave a talk on advertising. Few people could recall print or radio ads, but almost everybody could remember some of that year's hottest t.v. commercials. But those days are long gone. Since we have become a TiVo-obsessed nation, a full 2/3 of us with digital video recording capabilities simply fast forward through the spots.

This is great for those of us who are impatient and prefer our programming commercial-free, but it presents obvious problems to the networks who are able to provide that programming by charging advertisers to put their messages in front of us consumers. Today, advertisers are demanding to know not just what the show's rating is, but how many people actually viewed their commercials. We are all waiting to see how this new ratings system will unfold.

In the meantime, some savvy advertisers have started putting secret messages in their spots encouraging viewers to pause their TiVos and get clues.

Price of Stock Photos Going Way, Way Down

Back when I started my advertising career, if we needed a photo for an ad, we generally hired a photographer and models, rented a studio or site, and bought or rented props. All in all, a pretty expensive proposition. As technology and computers evolved, stock photo companies cropped up offering us photos for hundreds of dollars (on disc) or photo libraries for a few thousand. Soon, they made their way online, making it easy to search for the right image. A photo with a good enough resolution for print typically costs about $300.

But new online companies are disrupting the old stock photo model and offering photos for a mere $1 or so. Literally, just a buck. These "technology disruptors" allow photographers to upload their photos and users to buy them for a mere fraction of what it would cost on the traditional sites. The downside? The photos aren't always as good a quality as on the expensive sites. But often, they are.

There has been a lot of press lately on this trend towards "microstock" photo sites such as iStockPhoto and Shutterstock. If you're interested in learning more, check out these articles: Photo wars: A $2 billion business gets rough and When Are Photos Like Penny Stocks? When They Sell.

We use iStockPhoto a lot; most of the images on this website came from there. And for those times when we can't find the right image super cheap, we use sites like Picturequest. It's still a lot cheaper than hiring a photographer! (Every now and then, we still need to do that to get the "perfect" image.)

New Way of Making Music

The digital music revolution continues. Last year was the first year that downloaded single sales were greater than CD sales.
Today, we learned that Justin Timerlake’s new label has signed its first artist, Esmee Denters. Guess where he found her? On You Tube! Just like “American Idol” has the power to break an artist, now the social networking phenomenon is enabling artists to generate fan bases before a label ever signs them.

Here's a link to a clip of Esmee Denters on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OozOELyx_yY

New Olympic Logo Very Controversial

Here’s what 400,000 pounds (approximately $791,000) gets you.

The logo for the 2012 Olympics to be held in England was revealed today and the reaction has been largely negative. If you haven’t already figured it out, the shapes make out the year “2012” in an eighties-style design throwback. (Yes, the 80’s are making a comeback. But the question is whether what is retro today will be completely outdated five years from now.)

My guess is that the committee making the decision was looking for something younger and fresher, and they relied on graphic designers to tell them what was “cool.” It seems that no one bothered to ask basic marketing questions: Is it legible? Does it resize well? Does it communicate the main point (the Olympics)? Is it memorable?

Well, on that last point, they may have a “yes.”
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/3/story.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10443673