Biz Stone Makes More Twitter Premium Noises.

Think for-pay add-ons. Stone maintains, though, that the services people and companies are already using will remain free.

Havaianas Blooms, Kevin Spacey for AA, ATL Goes Intramural

- Ex-Ofsted chief proposes that kids learn social media skills -- Wikipedia, blogging, podcasting, Twitter -- in primary school, alongside other communication skills like handwriting and keyboarding.

- How far would you go for some glacier-fresh Kokanee? As far as the dudes in this spec ad? (Gotta say: the premise is cheesy, but production is clean.)

- Pretty spiffy ATL ad.

- Havaianas footwear in full bloom around Paris. Almost too pretty to stand.

- Fallon Skimmer.

- Take it straight: we fucking hate this execution.

- Kevin Spacey to do Michel Gondry-directed ad for American Airlines.

- Killed Idea alert: "the following ad for Krystal Hamburgers created by the Johnson Group in Chattanooga was killed for fear of 'clown retribution.'" Ever read Jpod? This sorta reminds us of that.

Twitter Rolls Out Ads. Still Not Making Money.

This decade's "It Startup," Twitter, has finally incorporated ads on the pages of its website. The rather unobtrusive text ads are cutely marked up as dictionary entries and appear in a sidebar below a user's stats and above their thumbnail mosaic of followed users. Currently, the ads are not present on mobile or desktop Twitter apps...yet.

The ad space first appeared on March 16 (right in the middle of South by Southwest Interactive) containing promotions for Twitter's search function and branded widget; however, by March 23, the space contained ads for third-party apps: Tweetie (an iPhone app), Twittervision, and ExecTweets.

The marketing community breathed a collective sigh of relief heard the blogosphere 'round: At long last, the Twitter team had settled on a business model.

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Flight of the Conchords Rides High Tide of Unhip Lip-Syncers

Since you're probably a postmodern hipster, it's highly likely you love yourself some Flight of the Conchords.

Well, that's cool, we do too.

To promote Season 2 of the show, HBO partnered with Deep Focus to launch the Flight of the Conchords Lip Dub Video Fansterpiece. It's about as grand as it sounds, and one-time creators of fan fiction will probably relish the opportunity to reinterpret FotC's "Hiphopopotamus vs. Rhymenoceros" with their own wincey music videos.

And they are admirably wincey. (Okay, maybe not as much as that one time Jemaine dressed up like Labyrinth Bowie and appeared to Bret in his dreams.) Fan or not, feel free to relish in this most awkward pool of self-conscious exhibitionism.

According to Deep Focus, Facebook outreach generated about 470 comments and about 5400 "likes." The two top videos were edited into a single mumbo-jumbo one and incorporated into a Flight of the Conchords ep -- and yeah, that's on cable TV, man.

See Final Fansterpiece below.

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It Didn't Sell Us on Pastel Wayfarers, but Damned if We Couldn't Use a Chameleon Right About Now.

Gad knows we've seen more than our fair share of Never Hide videos by Ray Ban, but "Super Chameleon" had us going "Is that real? Is that REAL?!" all over again.

To the disturbingly appropriate Eat My Bear by YUKSEK,* a slow-moving chameleon changes his stripes according to whatever shade of Wayfarers is set in his path -- and there are some pretty ugly options to choose from. Easter egg blue! Cammo! But in the context of watching nature in action, as opposed to destroying our fine facial aesthetic, those shades suit us just fine.

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Numa Numa Guy Gets Down with GEICO Gecko

Remember Gary Brolsma, the Numa Numa Guy? Of course you do. Hoping to tie his lovable lip-syncing magic to a big brand, The Martin Agency tapped him to produce "Numa Numa Guy with GEICO," an amateur-style vid where he sings Somebody's Watchin' Me while GEICO's trademark gecko dances behind him.

What makes the video awesome is you don't really notice the gecko at first. But as you acclimate to the context, suddenly you're like... "WTF is that thing in the terrarium, shimmying in the background?"

And then you LOL, just a little.

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'...Ah, Feels Like 2006 Again.'

JetBlue continues pitching execs with tarnished golden parachutes in a tongue-in-cheek series of online videos. The objective is to acclimate bigwigs, accustomed to their own jets, to the somewhat-less-private JetBlue experience.

It's funny shit -- imagine that Old Spice Bruce Campbell campaign, except for down-and-out silver-spooners instead of green youngbloods.

We love it when dude makes an allusion to private jets on craigslist in Episode 3. And that douchey PowerPoint moment? Priceless. For those so inclined, worldly wage-earners with a sense of humour can "Have [their] assistant's assistant book now."

Royal Caribbean Gives VIP Status to Gushy Reviewers; Gets Spanked by Blogosphere

Okay. Let's nail this down once and for all: DO NOT start a lavish, perks-heavy club of people -- in this case, Royal Caribbeans' "Royal Champions" -- whose objective is to plug your company hither and yon without revealing affiliation.

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Vespa Does 'I Love You Man!' Cross-Promo Thing -- Poorly

In an ongoing misguided effort to make itself more appealing to a demo somewhat broader than Euro-philes and homosexuals, Vespa's inked a cross-promo partnership with Paramount to promote I Love You, Man, a comedy about two dudes that "test and stretch the boundaries of friendship in adventure after adventure."

Apparently a lot of those adventures involve a "fun and fuel efficient" Vespa LXV 150, which I guess is somewhat better than the bunk motorbike that served Ernesto Guevara and Alberto Granado so well in The Motorcycle Diaries.

Those inclined can enter a MySpace contest to win the Vespa used in the film. To get involved, you'll have to submit an example of how far you've gone for a friend. Deadline's tomorrow (although we PROMISE you the pressie was sent a mere TWO HOURS AGO) -- and the link, myspace.com/iloveyouman, doesn't seem to be working. This was the closest we could get.

The poster at left is available as a free download on Vespa's website.

Razorfish/Moroch Turn Travel into Contagion.

Visit ihavethebug.com to take a quiz and find out whether you've got the "travel bug." The exercise -- short, playful and mildly entertaining -- serves two purposes: to flatter you and drive you to the Travel Channel. (If so inclined, note requisite Facebook tie-in at bottom left. What, don't you want all your friends to know you've got "excellent gumption, chutzpah"?)

Internet stuff put together by Razorfish. The Travel Bug TV spot, orchestrated by Moroch, is done in a faux-serious Big Pharma tone. You've got sufferers, playfully agonized; you've got gratuitous shots of people running on beaches. The Travel Channel's the cure, but like all drugs, you're warned it may only aggravate the symptoms.

Ad's expectedly corny, even a little dated in its humour; but the site quiz ties the gimmick back to Travel Channel shows well enough. At the very least, it sparked discussion: last night me and a friend were all, "What exactly is a sexy beach?" Verdict's still out.

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