This is probably one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen:

Although its practicality is questionable. Nevertheless, it rocks.

A great article by the Seattle Times titled Media to move to Web, Gates says discusses how traditional forms of media are dying. And with them, goes traditional methodologies of advertising. A few memorable quotes:

“We’re saying newspapers will go online, and there will be massive innovation that comes out of that,” Gates said. “We’re saying that TV, the biggest ad market in the world, will completely go online and have the kind of targeting interaction that you only get out on the Web today.

He said Microsoft’s challenge is to link all of those platforms to give advertisers a comprehensive profile of a consumer — her preferences, what ads she viewed in the last month and which ones she acted on.

“That’s the code that they’re trying to crack, and if they do, they’ll be unmatched,” Cohen said.

It makes Microsoft’s rivalry with Google for online advertising more interesting, he said.

Google dominates the search-advertising industry by drawing so many more people to its search engine.

“Google is obviously a great, fierce competitor,” Cohen said. “They’re doing lots of stuff right, but I think you can argue that they don’t have nearly the range of assets that a Microsoft brings to the party.”

More and more, companies are investing big advertising dollars into venues like Facebook and MySpace, and beyond.

Go on, read the entire article.

ERADICATION STERILIZATION RE-POPULATION RE-INFECTION

This movie trailer… is amazing. If it were a person, I’m pretty sure I’d be attracted to it.

There’s also this nifty flash game on Fox’s official site, whose URL just happens to be http://www.foxinternational.com/28weekslater/viral/. Huh, that’s funny. I’m reminded of a post from the Brains on Fire blog which asserts that “it’s not viral until it goes viral.” I’d agree with that. And I think that URL is pretty goofy, actually. Why not /game? (Oh and P.S., if you play through the simple game, you get a very worthwhile extra and extended clip of the movie).

The storyline is an extension of 28 Days Later. The last of the humans infected with the Rage virus have died of starvation, London has been secured and sanitized, and families have begun to be reunited. Thanks to the U.S.’s military presence in London, all seems to be going pretty well. Except, didn’t they mention in 28 Days Later that there were reports of infection in New York City? Hmm.

Anyways, clearly the plot turns when somehow, the virus begins to spread again. Mutation? A hidden zombie? Biological warfare? We’ll have to watch the movie to find out!

Unless you’re like me… and read the plot line spoilers online. Oops.

That, is brilliance. Because that’s exactly what I want to see on MySpace; a woman in a pink shirt dancing around like a moron. My left hand had to fight off my right hand in order to avoid visiting True.com. Oh wait, no it didn’t.

Who comes up with this crap?

I wanted to share with you a few things. While you may think I’m just inanely rambling based on the disconnected title above, it will all become clear :)

My good friend Trey Ratcliff runs a photo blog that he calls Stuck in Customs. It focuses on his eclectic worldly travels, and the HDR photographs he captures during his visits to many different countries. HDR stands for high dynamic range imaging, and is an exposure technique that allows for some amazing shots. Wikipedia has a much more detailed explanation of it. Just to give an idea, here are some of the amazing shots he’s done:

 

Anyways, Trey is a very talented HDR photographer and his pictures are always eye-candy. Yesterday I was checking out his blog, and read the following:

I was walking back to my hotel the other night and I came across this DKNY fashion shoot. It was a big old hullabaloo with a crew of about 9 people and a bunch of pretentious DKNY manager-types standing around holding clipboards and scowling.

I started taking shots. Everything was cool until a jerky guy with a clipboard and a scowl came over and said, “Sorry you can’t do that we have a permit.”

I said, “But this is a public street in New York.”

“But we have a permit.”

“This is for advertising DKNY, right?” I prodded.

“Yes.”

“Well I get over 3 million visitors to my photography blog per month. So either 3 million people will hear me say something nice about DKNY or something mean about DKNY.”

“We have a permit, sir,” rolling his eyes at the word “blog.”

So anyway, if you have a choice between DKNY and something else that might not be made by elitists that hold clipboards and speak with faux British accents, choose the other.
[link]

Bad, bad, DKNY. The fact that people still roll their eyes at the concept of social networks having considerable sway and leverage towards a brand, astounds me. Here was an opportunity for DKNY to get free, genuine, positive word of mouth for themselves. A free mention on a highly-trafficked blog by someone who is, by all measurements, an influencer. But oh well, that’s DKNY’s loss. Now I’ll probably just go buy something less snobby… like Prada, for example.