I’m not quite sure what this has to do with the price of tea in China but it seems that someone has taken the whole social media marketing playbook and added their own dash of courriel vérité. This email, which purports to be from a certain John Doe, is actually a veiled pitch for H T C phones. Who sent it? Perhaps we’ll never know, but this has been popping up more and more recently… → Read More
Hey, how many iPhone 3G’s were sold during that first weekend? Oh, that’s right. How could I forget? IT WAS ONE MILLION, in case you didn’t hear. Well, now with so many users accessing the Mobile Web, some are saying that it has reached a “critical mass”. Images of plutonium accidents race through my head, but in reality it has more to do with marketing and advertising than anything… → Read More
The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, or ICANN, has approved the sweeping overhaul we mentioned the other day. Now companies will be able to register their own unique top-level domain (TLD), which is sure to be as annoying as it sounds. But think of the branding opportunities! “Go to littlebigworld.ps3 to see the all new trailer!” ”Download a special coupon from… → Read More
If Apple is BMW, the everyone else is this. Dan Farber discusses Apple’s strategy and, all things being equal, comes away worried. While he cedes that Apple (namely Steve-o) is great at product design, their perceived exclusivity could hurt them in a market where Vista is and OK operating system and folks like Acer and Asus are making amazing strides in industrial design and features. In the… → Read More
Misleading marketing? Microsoft? Say it ain’t so. If you’re one of the many, many agitated consumers that bought a PC with a “Windows Vista Capable” sticker on it during the 2006 holiday shopping season only to find that it was mostly incapable, you might just be able to join a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft. The PCs in question here would have had XP preloaded with… → Read More
This is one of those ideas that I wish I thought of. I go to a lot of club nights, rock shows, and court dates. Usually they stamp your had, proof that you’ve paid the cover and are over 21 and are allowed to come and go as you please. Sometimes door persons or promoters will get kitchy with their stamps, but usually it’s something someone found on the bric a brac shelf at Goodwill, a… → Read More
Breaking! Bands and Artists in the recording industry are trying to make money! Apparently, it took days for people to realize that Radiohead’s In Rainbows digital download was a marketing tactic to entice fans to buy the CD. After all, Radiohead is one of those bands with a bunch of cutters and alternative dudes as fans (oh no he didnt’!), so you know damn well they’re going to… → Read More
The irony here is extraordinary, check out this pic captured just moments after a giant Razr 2 crashed through a Benz on a busy corner in Moscow. Looks like Putin didn’t see this coming when he began enforcing strict cellphone use laws. We have to admit the marketing here turned out awesome, who wouldn’t want a car crushing phone? For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet… → Read More
Yikes. Not good. Not good at all. South Hessia, Germany’s TrekStor has launched a new MP3 player in its “i.Beat” series called the “blaxx.” Put that all together and you’ve got yourselves a nice little marketing/PR nightmare. TrekStor Press Release via Gizmodo → Read More
Microsoft launches Halo 3 on September 25, just seven weeks from now, and boy does it plan on marketing the hell out of it. It’s lined up several partners so that, wherever you go, you’ll run into Master Chief one way or another. So far, Microsoft has enlisted the following companies to help make Halo 3 the system seller that it wants it to be. •Burger King: Terrifingly large… → Read More
Portable gaming would straight up not exist if it weren’t for Nintendo’s Game Boy. I remember receiving an ORIGINAL model back in 1989 as a gift and I fell in love with it instantly. Tetris, Super Mario Land. Almost every game became an instant classic to me. Now there’s word that Nintendo may retire the Game Boy for good. With increasing popularity surrounding the Nintendo DS… → Read More
Everyone’s favorite games writer (after Peter Suciu), James Wagner Au, went about debunking five major myths about Second Life. The myths he debunks — that it has a population of 5 billion or 5 lonely weirds, that it is full of porn, penises, and dancing vulvas, etc. — are aimed at marketers who might be thinking of advertising in the world and are put off by dancing vulvas. → Read More
I’m not very big on Second Life — I have enough trouble making my first one work — but it’s interesting to see SL grow and change from a group of geeks reliving Snow Crash to some sort of media darling. Wagner James Au is writing about a study from Komjuniti about marketing in Second Life. 72% of respondents didn’t like SL marketing while 40% thought the concept was… → Read More
If you want to watch the Nintendo Wii’s TV debut tonight, you’ll have to do something you’ve never done before: Watch the Dancing With The Stars finale on ABC. All part of Nintendo’s $200 million marketing plan, the Wii commercial will air during prime time. The commercial is actually part one in a series of four commercials, all of which have already surfaced on youtube… → Read More
Nintendo showed up this weekend at a convention one probably wouldn’t expect to be encountered by video games at: The AARP Life@50+ convention in Anaheim, Calif. The company was showing off its Wii in force, demonstrating to the 20,000 attendees that the Wii wasn’t just for kids. It also had demonstrations of “Brain Age” for the DS, with Nintendo operatives wandering the… → Read More
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Disrupt Europe: Berlin Hackathon
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