- Maybe inspired by Apple's limited-edition U2 iPod, Microsoft is releasing a limited-edition Joy Division Zune.
- Expect downtime from Twitter when Steve Jobs takes the floor at WWDC.
- Speaking of Twitter, a lot of fed-up users are defecting to a fancy new site called Plurk. Plurk enables users to follow conversational threads, and encourages use with "karma" points and little gifts. Also, the colors are soothing.
- Facebook has launched an ad feedback feature.
- Filipinos aren't the only people featured in creepy dating ads.
- John McCain: put Obama in office if you want. But hey, if you do, EXPECT APOCALYPSE.
Guided by the belief that everything should taste like bacon, two whimsical dreamers named Justin and Dave launched a product called Bacon Salt. Flavors come in Original, Hickory, Peppered and Natural. Buy it here.*
If you're not sold by its merits, check out Operation Bacon Salt, a patriotic effort to bring the comforting flavor of bacon to American soldiers overseas. Bacon Salt's blog keeps readers updated on Operation Bacon Salt and, as a bacony, salty bonus, provides health news and sassy Bacon Salt recipes.
Also -- also!!! -- there are shirts!
This is what the American Dream is all about. (Well, this and girl-on-girl roller derby.) Thanks blood and milk for the tip.
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The quote at left comes from a banner ad for The Ideas People, a "knowledge" campaign meant to school you on the modern pioneers of great ideas while slyly promoting The Economist.
It reads, "No one becomes perfect, but some become great." I thought it was apt in light of the launch of The Economist's fully redesigned homepage.
The current print edition says the designers sought to wed clean usability with informational depth. (In less diplomatic terms, it's another web 2.0 casualty. Think AJAX! Big FONTS! And widget-looking things!)
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If you're one of those beach police dudes, you might want to make sure you take your keys out of your little beach cart before you inform a beachgoer they're on a private beach lest you want an angry walrus to drive off with it. That particular scenario is part of a Saatchi & Saatchi LA-created campaign for the beach protection cause group Surfrider.
Along with an amateur-style video with the walrus antics, which, let's be honest, is pretty lame, comes seafood packaging placed in local farmer's markets which don't contain fish, rather various collections of trash collected from the beach. Not exactly the sort of thing you'd want to see when digging through the cooler for that prefect cut of fish.
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- Based in Japan? Imbue your iGoogle page with spirit of cheetah. Via @michaelallison.
- Because moms need $100 jeans too. Tummy tucker? Better still.
- This online effort for Absolut's "In an Absolut World" campaign lets you spy on the prime minister of Australia from four security cameras. Prank call or order him Chinese food. Sometimes he does Tai Chi. By TEQUILA\ Australia.
- The Missouri Lottery invites you to answer the call of Viper. I wouldn't. Well, maybe if I got lotto money for it.
- Buzzd put together a product demo to show off its "killer features." Get this: It HAS NO SOUND. Dude, these days even PowerPoints have sound. Was the brains of your operation out sick?
It's a teaser for Grand Theft Auto IV! There's girls with thongs, multiethnic gangsters (so Epcot), bloody cops, and one-liners that would make Scorsese shoot a puppy. (What is it about bad dialogue that makes violence funny? Maybe Elmo knows.)
GTA IV comes out on April 29th. And did we mention in-game music will be available for purchase? True story. Earmark the croons you like, in the next car you steal, with a handy-dandy in-game mobile phone. Amazon keeps track. The song in this spot is "Real McKoy" by Mavado.
Ahh, the sweet smell of sex, drugs and urban misery. We have officially wandered out of the Coke side of life.
The Massachusetts Office of Travel & Tourism went on a $4.5 million spree and produced 90 different ads, shot by Mullen, to illustrate Massachusetts and its uninspired "It's all here" slogan.
Each spot is a quick-and-dirty tour of things in Massachusetts you might want to experience: kayaking, the Mayflower, the Norman Rockwell Museum, the Franklin Park Zoo, Chatham, Provincetown... Geez, naming all this stuff is tiring. See it all live on MassVacation.
You know what would really have spiced this whole thing up? A Mooninite or two, Where's Waldo?-style.
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Check out Blue, Dots and Blips, three ads by ATTIK for the Lexus IS F. The trick is to drive home the message, "The new Lexus is F."
And what is F?
"F is everything you thought we weren't," the saucy new microsite confidently croons.
Okay, then.
Apple's getting sued because the marketing material for its new iMac desktop monitor promises people "millions of colours." In actuality, the 20in version only displays 262,144. Those bastards!
(For the record, the iMac 24in screen does display millions of colours. 16.7 million, to be exact, 9.7 million of which human beings apparently can't even see.)
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To draw attention to climate change, the World Wildlife Federation (WWF) made special mugs with the world's land mass printed on them. The land disappears when you fill the cup with something hot, leaving parched parties with scathing food for thought:
"A global climate increase of just two degrees Celsius will have irreversible, catastrophic effects. www.wwfchina.org."
WWF disseminated 250 of these sunny mugs to attendees at the UN Climate Change Conference in Bali. The Dutch Environmental Minister said it "dramatically captured the critical nature of the global warming issue."
Dismal. Also, reason No. 546 to pick up an ice-cold Coca-Cola.
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