Nebraska Punk'd Into Ugly License Plate Design

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So the Nebraska design community is up in arms over the state's new license plate design calling it "boring, uninspired and ugly." A site, Get Ready For Action, has been launched telling "The Story of How Gov. Dave Heineman Got Punk'd and an Entire State Was Shamed."

You see, four submissions were made to the Governor's office. College Humor saw then and told their vast audience to all vote for the ugliest of the four designs. That design won and is now destined to become the state's plate. That is unless this group of disgruntled creatives can mount enough support to get the thing changed.

In addition to the website, there's videos, images and a blog.

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by Steve Hall    May-20-09    
Topic: Opinion, Outdoor, Strange



Lady Dior, Gay Celeb Twitter Awards, Free Daft Punk

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- Chanel and Audrey Tautou's adlicious love affair brings the sin of envy out in rivals. Christian Dior fights back with Lady Dior, featuring the darkly glamorous Marion Cotillard, who played Edith Piaf in La Vie en Rose.

- This makes us want pest control.

- THE HARVEY MILK MEMORIAL GAYEST CELEBRITY TWITTER AWARDS.

- Kindle 9 XXXD har har. This spoof tries a little hard in our opinion.

- Starbucks courts social media scene with print ad effort.

- Daft Punk leaps upon the piracy parade -- offering a remix album, Human After All, as a free download at participating blogs. (Each blog hosts one track.)

- Something about oh, what the fuck.

by Angela Natividad    May-20-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Online, Opinion, Social



Stop Soot, Non-Biodegradable Barbie, Comment Troll Etiquette

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- Stop soot (by Underground Advertising of San Francisco).

- Big reveal on YouTube HD Camera Trick (kinda neat if you're an optical illusions kinda chap, plus lots of YouTube users got called out). The original video was an effort for Samsung.

- Create your own ville courtesy of Johnsonville, the creators of their own ... sausage.

- When to delete a nasty blog comment.

- Pretty paper dioramas.

- Who'd've guessed: "you guys shoulndt even put something about the barbies... they are NOT earth friendly.."

by Angela Natividad    May-12-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Cause, Online, Opinion, Trends and Culture, Video



POLL TIME! The Sexploitation Round.

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This poll was sparked by an Amnesty International effort where a woman is smushed into transparent luggage to illustrate the cause of sex trafficking.

Compare with PETA's 2008 Covent Garden stunt, where a naked mom is put on display in a plea for pigs.

Are sex trafficking cause groups walking the PETA line?
Yeah.
No.
What's wrong with PETA, bitches?
A little exploitation's cool if it gets the message across.
  
pollcode.com free polls

Granted, the causes are different -- sex trafficking versus animal rights -- but when are these types of tactics okay? Whether you do/don't have a problem with them, we wanna hear you. =P

by Angela Natividad    May-11-09    
Topic: Campaigns, Cause, Creative Commentary, Opinion



GOOG/Twit Search, Human Clocks, Horrors Make BeanCast

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- Dollplay for Dollhouse, ARG-style.

- Sprint's YouTube-tastic human clock. (Saucy.)

- Calling all yelpers. No, not the hipster elitist resto-reviewers.

- Yahoo Sideline is an app that lets you keep track of Twitter searches you make often, updates them in real-time, and lets you skim them in tandem. Think TweetDeck for the buzz-thirsty. (More thoughts at Mashable.)

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by Angela Natividad    May-11-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Online, Opinion, Social



Twitter Smacks Apple, Tacos for Stoners, MyKmart

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- Stoned? Jack's yer man.

- Sears and Kmart go "My" way.

- Palm Pre to associate heavily with Facebook.

- MTLB: righting fast food wrongs, one tweet at a time.

- All you need to know about Twitter. Minus this crap.

- No, Apple, Twitter is not for you. (There's a bird/worm/apple pun in this somewhere, but we can't seem to find it.)

- Deconstructing the psychological logic behind sex and controversy in advertising. Because you need someone to do that for you. < / s >

by Angela Natividad    May- 7-09    
Topic: Brands, Campaigns, Commercials, Online, Opinion, Social, Television



Curation v. Scraping, Oprah Over Twitter, Financial Fortune Smiles on Facebook

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- One man's curation is another man's scraping: more on the ongoing drama between pubs that report and 'net-based pubs that aggregate.

- Oprah over Twitter? Guess that means ... absolutely nothing, now that we think about it.

- Stats on motivations of Twitter users. Features graph intros like "A Large Following Doesn't Equate with Intelligence" and "Mixed Feelings about Reciprocity."

- Perspective on your perspectives on Swine Flu.

- Facebook has plen'y of cash, and expects interactive advertising rev to boost sales 70%, COO Sheryl Sandberg ballsily proclaims.

- Stolichnaya is the premier sponsor of Babelgum, which will air exclusive live concert footage from artists like Franz Ferdinand, Stereophonics and Kaiser Chefs; as well as "Bananaz," a film about the Gorillaz.

- Aerocles deconstructs Dominos' approach to social media.

- Saw the Loud n' Clear infomercial on TV last night. This is why we love America. Hold 'til 1:27 for when Enthusiastic Geriatric shouts, "Bingo!" It don't get any better than that.

by Angela Natividad    Apr-29-09    
Topic: Brands, Celebrity, Opinion, Publishing, Social, Sponsorship



You're a Nameless Troll. What Do You Need Rights For?

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Yesterday AgencySpy reposted an op-ed by Alan Wolk that generated a shit-ton of loose-cannon commentary.

There's a lot to be said about the culture of anonymous commenting -- that it lets people say things they wouldn't normally, which can be both good and bad.

But imagine a world where everybody who ever wanted to talk to you had to reveal all his name and contact information first. Sure it'd minimize a few random acts of verbal cruelty, but is a full-disclosure world one you'd want to live in? And can the ideal be scaled to the 'net in a practical way?

We went over other grays in this discourse last week while Wolk's post was still hot, but the topic's so milkable we figure this merits a poll.

Should anonymous comments be banned from the 'net?
  
pollcode.com free polls
by Angela Natividad    Apr-28-09    
Topic: Online, Opinion, Trends and Culture



ad:tech SF: Hashing Out Social Networking's Impact on Photo Storage

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The stuff that comes out after an interview is sometimes just as good as what you get during. After our audiovisual taste of the future of HootSuite (and a power-fail story about ZipCar), founder Ryan Holmes of Invoke Media and publisher Krista Neher of The Marketess riffed on the photo storage merits of Facebook and flickr.

Compelling factoid: while it may be true that flickr hosts over three million photos, the unlikely Facebook totally pwns that figure. As of October 2008 Facebook became the largest online photo storage site -- clocking over 10 billion pics and counting.

Obviously there are big differences between the sites. Krista argues that flickr's too public for comfort, and people are more inclined to curate personal images in a space where they can control who sees what. (Apropos to that, I like how Ryan murmurs, "...stalker" at :22.)

How has social networking changed online photo storage and personal life-whoring in general? What's coming? We contemplate these questions and others while I clutch a digicam with one hand and macaroon-gorge with the other.

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ad:tech: Jimmy 'Jimmidee' Wales, Post Keynote

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Shortly after his keynote at ad:tech San Francisco -- and David Spark's timely pre-talk grab -- founder Jimmy Wales of Wikipedia sat down with me to talk shop.

Expect to hear his dish on where consumer generated media is now and why brands should dive in (as well as where). We also talked about what-in-hell happened with Wikia, why branding's underrated, and what keeps Wikipedia afloat. (It ain't advertising.)

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by Angela Natividad    Apr-21-09    
Topic: Events, Industry Events, Opinion