Slayterbox1748

In our modern day and age of technology and media it has become common to gage the level of importance of an incident by the amount of internet traffic that it produces. Last Thursday, after the two popular media icons passed away, Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, cyberspace search engines and social networking sites were flooded with hits. Tim Rutten of the Los Angeles Times pointed out:

When Jackson’s death was first reported, traffic across the Internet spiked to virtually unprecedented levels. Google’s search engine slowed to a crawl; Yahoo reported “one of the biggest things” in its history; social networks Twitter and Facebook nearly collapsed under the weight of traffic. This newspaper experienced 12 million page views at its website, apparently because it was widely credited with confirming the death.      

Despite any criticism MJ may have received throughout his life, it was fairly obvious that his death provoked a whirlwind of reminiscent comments and photographs posted throughout cyberspace. Without him, pop culture will never be the same and his fans and enemies alike have acknowledged this.      ___________________________________________________________________________________ 

The highly anticipated I-phone 3G S’s secret is out. Apple has deliberately refused to release information regarding the chips inside the new phone, but due to a miscue, T-Mobile in the Netherlands has made it public. Apple shouldn’t panic though. As soon as it was released, someone would tear it up, and the secret would have been let out anyway. This does nothing to change the fact that whatever new technology is released by Apple, countless consumers fall prey to the uncontrollable desire to be hip and millions inevitably follow.

We recycle, we monitor our shower time, we carry our own reusable bags to the supermarket. Homes and swanky hotels are becoming more environmentally conscious. Energy-wasting electricity is being swiftly replaced in favor of solar power. The hot topic around the world is a lovely shade of green.  In another effort to encourage green-ward thinking, Giftzip.com has surfaced for your shopping convenience. Inspired by creator Sam Hogg, the start-up site out of East Lansing, Michigan, is urging shoppers to can plastic gift cards by promoting greener gift-giving, and they have just the solution: e-gift cards. The site is sponsored by most major retailers that offer gift cards to their shoppers, everything from Disney to Neiman Marcus. Don’t know what you’re looking for? Narrow your search down by category: Him, Her, House, Apparel, Gourmet, Family, and Unique. From there, you have the option of browsing all the retailers advertised, and, upon clicking, Giftzip will redirect you straight to the retailer’s official website.  Handy, or just another testament to our society’s increasingly lazy attitude? With GPS, Widgets, iPhones and quick links at our disposal, could Giftzip be just another shortcut, an excuse for time-saving that hides behind the power of Green? It’s possible. With Giftzip, there exists more opportunities for retailers to advertise, and the site will generate a decline in the purchase of plastic gift cards. Slowly but surely, Giftzip will contribute Mother Nature’s cause. 

Wikipedia is the most frequented website on the net for popular subject searches. Hard to believe based on the fact that pretty much anyone can write anything about any subject and it will most likely be published. However, recently Wikipedia decided to strike back against a series of entries authored by scientologists attempting to manipulate information regarding their religion. These authors have been banned by the site’s arbitration council in a 10-1 vote, overturning some vital wikiprinciples in the process. But will this ruling work in their favor? Or will this merely encourage others to continue in the scientologist’s footsteps, in a fight against censorship? http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2009/05/wikipedia-bans-church-of-scientology /Users/gabrielr/Desktop/wikipedia-logo-en-big-244×300.png 

…They do…and they will. The web’s newest guilty pleasure, TextsFromLastNight.com, is making its sweeping rounds across the nation, and for once, we can all feel a little better about the crude, rude, or simply incomprehensible texts we sent last night.  The site, created by partners Ben Bator and Lauren Leto, is a user-generated forum for anonymous posters to advertise their unapologetically blush-worthy and decidedly hilarious text messages that they either sent (after the tequila shot that sealed their doom) or received. The appeal of harmlessly voyeuristic TFLN? It’s become a pseudo-support group for all the victims of SMS-faux pas. The majority of TFLN’s subject matter is…well…sex and drinking. Not often a good combination, but the crafty messages it spawns are the site’s recipe for survival, and even what makes it thrive.One would think the site’s content would prove way too risky for potential advertisers (unless your name is Jack Daniels, José Cuervo or Trojan Horse), but the site boasted fresh American Apparel banners starting at the beginning of this week. Of course, the clothing store isn’t exactly known for its conformist marketing, but it will be interesting to see the stampede as TFLN grows more popular by the day. It begs the question: Are advertisers ready to steer away from their stoic relationship with content, especially during this economic catastrophe? TFLN will provide an insightful platform for comparison. If you have a cellular device, chances are you probably sent a text you wish you could hide from (at least once in your life), whether or not it was the result of a night of alcohol-induced debauchery. We can all relate. So forget your humiliation: Search your outbox, find a gem, and share it with the world. It’s likely someone else did (or said) something similar - or just a lot more mortifying.  

After the era of ‘carb-conscious’ comes another era of economic despair, where comfort foods are necessary. For this reason, Dunkin Donuts has found that people are buying their doughnuts again. Furthermore, they launched a campaign in which consumers could design their own treats on dunkindonuts.com  and enter a drawing to win $12,000. According to Dunkin Donuts VP, Cynthia Ashworth, site traffic increased dramatically and people were spending an average of 12 minutes designing their dream doughnuts.   Visit: DunkinDonuts.com/Donut to participate.   ___________________________________________________________________ 

These guys had the right idea… create a blog, fill it with hundreds of crazy ideas, offer the ideas up for grabs, and hope that some large brand steals an idea and gives you credit. Steal Our Ideas does just that, and in doing so has received notable publicity in the advertising world simply for the concept they created as a whole… the idea that there is such an infinite number of other ideas that we may as well share with each other as long as we’re getting credit in the process. Simultaneously, the blog manages to be witty and entertaining. One fan on Creativity Online even stated, 

Very clever. Wish I could’ve stolen the entire website idea from them.    

Here are a few sample ideas:  

Music truly is a universal language, and “Playing For Change” has demonstrated that by attempting to bring together our vast world through a series of intercultural songs. As they travel around the globe, numerous musicians contribute to the same song and create a flowing entity to promote peace, love and harmony throughout our world.

“Playing for Change is a multimedia movement created to inspire, connect, and bring peace to the world through music.”

Not only is the nonprofit corporation growing by the day, but the random musicians incorporate from each country are getting their 5 minutes of fame. The first performance, a rendition of Stand By Me is my favorite:

Stacy Nadeau is a nationally renowned speaker, a college graduate from Depauw University, and a “Dove Girl.” Now, eight years after Dove’s Campaign For Real Beauty began, Stacy Nadeau travels the United States speaking about her own beliefs in regards to “Real Beauty.” One of the campaign’s most successful trademarks was its effort to reach out to real women as well as simply talk about them. For example, this past week Stacy traveled to Denison University in the middle of the Midwest to talk to an auditorium full of listeners about the trials and tribulations that go into any advertising campaign.

In particular, Stacy and the 5 other Dove Girls have been “chewed up and spit back out” by the media more than any other models because of the extremely unique approach they took to selling a simple product like Dove Lotion. Even four years after the first ad with all 6 women was shown, Stacy said that she still receives mixed reviews by journalists who either love or hate the huge efforts she puts into discussing female bodies.

For more information, she has created her own website that acts as a branch off of Dove’s greater campaigns: StacyNadeau.com

“I’m On a Boat,” the newest single from The Lonely Island’s debut album, “Incredibad.”

“Teacher sells ad space on tests” / Bonner, Jessie L. / 25 March 2009 / The Daily Breeze

When Pocatello High School in Pocatello, Idaho didn’t receive sufficient funds for necessary classroom materials, a U.S. History teacher decided to take matters into his own hands by placing ads in otherwise unheard of locations. While financial tribulations are being dealt with everyday, some tactics are more impressive than others.

What better way to teach students about coping tactics during the Great Depression than by scrawling “MOLTO’S PIZZA 14″ 1 TOPPING JUST $5″ across each test, handout, and worksheet? I’m loving this idea for its relevance and creativity, but some feel it’s inappropriate on practical and even symbolic levels.

While we see this same concept applied on a much larger scale every day on highly visible broadcast and online platforms, it’s hard to criticize this underfunded teacher’s ingenuity.

Need the full story? Make sure to read Jessie L. Bonner’s entire article on The Daily Breeze.

Created by Leo Burnett Lisbon, and Brazilian design + animation studio, Lobo, this new Amnesty International spot proves you can equate mutual human responsibility with death and destruction.

Now even coffee shops have realised that if the servers take off their shirts, it will lead to more business. At the Grand View Topless Coffee Shop in Vassalboro, Maine, coffee is served by shirtless men and women in order to bring something unique to the town that would guarantee no competitive business.

Baby Mop from Chris Milk on Vimeo.

Has anyone ever looked at your child and said, “Yes, it’s cute, but what can it do?” If so, maybe it’s time for your family to invest in a Baby Mop. With absolutely “no child exploitation involved,” the Baby Mop lets you teach your offspring “responsibility and a healthy work ethic” while “doing what he does best anyway: crawling.”

Thanks AdFreak.

LA-based graphic designer Jonathan Harris’s visual credit-crisis creation. Enjoy.

The Crisis of Credit Visualized from Jonathan Jarvis on Vimeo.

I found it interesting that a recent Harris poll was conducted asking Americans to identify who they would classify as a ‘hero’ and the top three came back as Obama, Jesus and Martin Luther King Jr. Just missing the top 10 group was God and Hilllary Clinton…

Adweek has the full story.

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Have you ever wondered what your professor’s do “off the Hill?”

Though some may see their professors at the local coffee shop, drinking Chai and discussing Postmodern literary theory alongside a clamoring group of students and bearded townsfolk, the Romanticized scenario of your favorite scholar burning the midnight oil next to a mountain of pencil shavings and ungraded papers, smoking their corn-cob pipe and listening to John Coltrane may be a lie.

While it may be hard to believe, some of our most beloved professors lead dark and mysterious lives outside the classroom.

Behind his sly smirk and those big brown eyes lies the mind of one of the nation’s foremost Hammered Dulcimer players…or so he’d like us to think. What you didn’t know was that Visiting Professor of Music, Mark Alan Wade, is a criminal mastermind.

As a nationally accredited champion of music, Mark Alan Wade is better known as a musical prodigy than as a master of deception. In fact, Wade has been using the hypnotic tones of his Hammered Dulcimer to lull unsuspecting people into a life of treachery and carnage for years now. Preying on the naive, the insecure, and the generally fragile, Wade’s genius and ambidextrous fingering capabilities put him on a level all his own.

A little reconnaissance work brought us to Wade’s personal website where he waxes poetic about his wizardry of the occult.

With “a mastery of the subtleties and finesse of Celtic Airs and Chopin Nocturnes…Mark’s audiences are drawn into a broad spectrum of emotions that his music evokes.”

Need more proof? Take a look at what Mark Alan Wade doesn’t want you to see, and why his top secret plan to take over the world stops here.

At first glance, it’s as if this group of women performing the theme from the 1984 box office smash “Beverly Hills Cop,” are actually enjoying themselves, but to the more discerning eye, it becomes clear that these women have been brainwashed by the soothing tones of “Axel F.” It’s been years since these women were seen, or heard from again.

Now living in Granville, it looks like Wade’s chosen another group of naive, insecure, and fragile people as his next victims: Denison students.

This is a pretty interesting video that was forwarded to me about the incredible technological changes constantly occurring in our modern world. It was created for a conference and was posted on Flixxy. It is strange to think what our world was like before technology began to dominate, and what it may be like in the future.

I was browsing through Valleywag.com today and found an interesting article about Leon Craig Ramsden, age 19, who stabbed and killed Paul Gilligan, age 31, at the Pepper Alley bar six months ago.

Oddly enough, just hours before the murder, Ramsden decided to upload the picture on the left and update his Facebook status, saying: “I’m twisted at home. My head’s up my —–. I feel like killin some1 need to stay off the hard stuff ha —– it it’s Saturday ha.”

Sentenced to at least 17 years for the crime, Facebook’s role in the case is interesting…can we use the revolutionary social networking tool to help prevent crime, like in the film, Minority Report?

On January 21, 2009 I was fortunate enough to stand on the Mall outside the Capitol Building and experience firsthand the swearing in of President Barack Obama in Washington, DC. Here is a collage documenting the trip through my eyes: