As Predicted, Firebrand Flames Out

Less than five months after its launch, Firebrand, the all-ads-all-the-time cable channel and online site is, as we predicted from the start, closing operations. Investor's from NBC Universal to Microsoft to GE have pulled the plug and will no longer fund Firebrand and its ill-conceived belief people actually want to seek out and watch advertising as a form of content on equal footing with network programming or movies.

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For Hardcore Green, Revisit Penguin Basics

To persuade people to Do the Green Thing, Play With Us put together this documentary about penguins in Antarctica. Except the penguins aren't penguins; they're naked people that seem at least partially catatonic.

All this to get us to huddle? We've seen cozier arguments.

Lightning Bolt Terrorizes, Body Spray Saves the Day

Check out this crazy Dove viral based on Japanese puppet theatre. It reminded us of that scene in Funny Face where Audrey dons black garb and does interpretive dance at the existentialist bar. Except imagine the protagonist is Ugly Betty, and body odor -- not materialism -- is the source of the world's problems.

Put together by Ogilvy Brazil for Dove Invisible Dry.

Online Cult of Oprah Guides Users to the Light

We never cease to be amazed by Oprah's power and pervasiveness in the culture. She can hang out with liars and just generally unpleasant people and still come out of the association reeking of rosebuds. And she's probably the only woman in the world who can get away with putting her own face on her own magazine every month without looking like a narcissist or a dictator. Do you get how amazing that is?

Anyway, Oprah has launched a 10-week class to promote a book called A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purposes. The class is entirely online and free to take. The first session, which went down last night, pulled in over 700,000 fawning Oprahlytes hungry for "East-West-hybrid mysticism." Future sessions will take place every Monday.

Homegirl could brand a Bible and change every third word to "chewbacca" and she'd still come out of it making more money than Easter Island.

Honda Fit Sponsors Evite Party Personalities

Honda Fit is sponsoring Evite's new Party Personalities, a section which allows people to create custom user profiles to make their Evites more customized with party avatars to match either their personality or the theme of the created party invitation.Oddcast's Voki powers the feature which also allows for the inclusion of voice messages within an invitation.

Come on send us one. Even a fake one.

YouIntern Pairs Co-Eds with Agencies

To drum up some business, YouIntern -- which launched in February -- is giving a $10 iTunes gift card away to one lucky person who registers on the site.

YouIntern is where ad students and creativity-starved agency execs can find one another. (Just ... not in the craigslist hook-up sort of way.) We love its simple but totally self-entitled "Freedom from coffee and copies" manifesto.

Agencies can post internships and give advice, like the CSO of StrawberryFrog does here. And internships can be rated. Modernista, for example, scored a 4.4 out of five.

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Soap Opera Weekly Launches ... Casual Games?

Passions got you all hot and bothered? Cool off with Sudz, one of the eight puzzles that Soap Opera Digest debuted in its new casual gaming section, courtesy of Arkadium. Also available: Mah-jongg, Sudoku, Spider Solitaire and Word Search.

But wait! This isn't just a cheap effort to cash in on idle traffic. Two of the games, Jigsaw and Wordsearch, can be customized to feature the faces of soap stars or current magazine covers. (Looking for love, or at least the right letters? Let Blair Redford show you the way.)

Words and themes can also be given a Dynasty twist, as needed.

Dorky White Chick Magnet Loses Running Man Rights to MC Hammer

We love a guy that's man enough to kiss his own ring, shortly before molesting an empty dance floor with the old-school running man.

Except in this 1989 revisionist history piece for Utah Saints' Something Good '08 (produced by Between the Eyes, London and Sleeper, LA), the running man is new-school, and MC Hammer's a gangster on the market for moves. Guess who he steals his trademark shake from? -- a white guy in Cardiff! Of course.

No word from the good reverend on where he managed to score those sassy genie pants, though.

Hook-Ups Come Easy for Pickups on TruckMatch

After March 1, which is when this site goes live, it may well be the case that finding your match was never easier. (If your match happens to be a two-ton 4 x 4 in gun barrel gray.)

TruckMatch.com is where truck buyers and sellers can find happy harmony with low transaction rates. To generate some love, Kelly/Russell Advertising put together a few B2B spots that draw a parallel between finding mates online -- a tricky business -- and finding the perfect pickup. Here are two more:

o "As with online dating, when it comes to truck buying, it's what isn't revealed that should worry you."

o "Finding the right match online can be tough. Until now, finding the right truck wasn't any easier."

We dig it.

SEO Firm Launches '26 Week Plan' for Internet Marketers

Think of it as Purple Internet Marketing's 12-step plan for online marketers. Except with more steps. The big premise: "A website isn't a marketing medium."

Wait, what?

"A website," the founders argue, "is a catalyst to marketing opportunities."

Ohhh.

But don't take our grimace for it; see trusty testimonials from people like you!