Perhaps finally acknowledging the pointlessness of printed (or even online) TV listing, TV Guide has jumped full force into blog land with the launch of 65 weblogs. The blogs, written by magazine and web editorial staff, focus on individual television shows, movies, soaps and just about everything else that has to do with television. This should stir things up among the already hundreds of TV focused blogs already in existence but, as many bloggers know, it's not seen as competition but rather more fuel to fire the conversation.
We almost forgot that the Pink Panther has, for 25 years, been the Owens Corning mascot so we were scratching our heads when we saw AdFreak reference a press release announcing the launch of the Pink Panther Energy Blog. Like all marketers jumping into this blogging thing, Owens Corning will use the blog to "address hot button energy issues and provide information on energy-saving tips and products - all while
having a little fun." And we thought the whole character blog thing was over with the Barbie Blog.
Oddly, Owen Corning chose the very unfreindly URL saveenergy.owenscorningblog.com for the blog when, it seems, the more appropriate thepinkpantherblog.com and pinkpantherblog.com appear to be readily available. The Pink One will take on the persona of Chief Energy Officer on the blog and spout snarky witticisms about how to save energy....by using Owen Corning products, of course.
Just launched ShopWiki, a search engine that crawls 120,000 stores to create its index of products, is using the anyone-can-edit Wiki format for the site's buying guides. In this manner, we suppose ShopWiki has jumped into the social media space. While it's not that different from a bunch of Amazon reviews, the Wiki is a single, ever changing document as opposed to a collection of individual comments/guides written by users and manufacturers. While we do like the concept of this shopping meets blogging concept, we wonder just how fluid we want our product information.
ShopWiki claims its search engine, which crawls the retailer's site rather than relying on a data feed, is more accurate and can provide better results to complex queries. Currently in beta, ShopWiki plans to go global in Fal 2006.
Men's grooming brand Sharps has launch a blog called Barber Blog. Now if you think a blog about barbers would be weird, you would be right. But, that's the whole point with Barber Blog which likes to talk about the Chewbaca haircut, Puff Daddy's cologne and barber documentaries called Cutting Edge.
Launched in late March by Starwood Hotels, TheLobby promises "to help keep Starwood Preferred Guests on top of the latest travel trends." The blog offers general travel information as well as programs available at it collection of hotels including the Westin, Sheraton, St. Regis and W. The Wall Street Journal analyzes the whole thing but we'll sum it up. It's a blog. Great. They don't accept comments. Bad.
Subway has has signed a deal with USC running back Reggie Bush who is featured in the chain's recent commercial which just launched today. The commercial, which we like very much but aren't really sure why, promotes a...wait for it....yes, a blog called SubwayFreshBuzz. The blog launches April 8 and will feature 2-3 daily posts from Reggie (or someone writing for him but let's hope not) offering us his thoughts as he enters his rookie year. There's also chat, videos and other good stuff about Reggie and, of course, promotion of healthy eating habits via Subway's healthy menu. You can view the ad here.
Before there was Adrants or AdJab or AdPulp or Adverblog or Advertsing for Peanuts of AdFreak or AdHurl or AdPunch or AdScam or Adverbox or American Copywriter or Beyond Madison Avenue or Copyranter or creative Criminal or Jaffe Juice or Madison Avenue Journal or MediaBuyer Planner or MarketingVOX or The Media Drop or MIT Advertising Lab or all the countless other weblogs, there was Adland, the site/weblog that came before any of the rest of us even had the twinkle of a blog in our eyes.
Today is Adland's 10th anniversary. Yes, 10th. We thought four years was commendable but that's nothing compared to Dabitch's achievements over at Adland so congratulations Ask (sorry, I don't know how to do that "oomlot" whatever thingy).Great job. Keep going. You are an inspiration to us all.
Hearing Joe Jaffe talk about the three C's of consumer created content with Pete Blackshaw and Jackie Huba on his Across the Sound podcast, we were reminded of having once said to a male co-worker in front of a female co-worker in reference to something completely business-related and without regard to the the female co-worker's very curvaceous figure, "three D's are better than one." Needless to say, awkward smirks and giggles followed. Thankfully, that wasn't the case after listening to this week's Across the Sound podcast which discussed the many aspects of consumer created content, consumer generated media, citizen's media or whatever label you want to place on the trend.
more »
Underscore Marketing President Tom Hespos is out at OMMA West in Hollywwod and has offered up some observations about the first day's interactive online marketing conference. While Tom heard from many people today eager to jump on the blogging and consumer-generated media business model bandwagon, most of them didn't have a clue what they were talking about. He also mentioned that the blogging is being unfairly trashed with flawed stats and treated as if it were some sort of braodcast playground waiting to grow up into a "real medium." In listening to the various presentation, Tom noted much of what he saw seemed to have been lifted from other's mouths with agency wonks attributing their own names to the content. And finally, Tom realizes he's been mispronouncing Publicis' new agency wrong. It's De-NOO, not DEN-you-oh. The conference concludes Tuesday.
The PR industry is all a flutter over the launch of a new blog Media Orchard tells us about called Strumpette which promises to be the Gawker of public relations. It's written by Amanda Chapel who says "Strumpette is a totally naked journal of the PR Business." Apparently, she plans to take the lid off the industry and hold it up to a mirror.
In describing herself and her approach, we'd agree some serious gossip lay ahead. Amanda writes, "I am 5' 4" tall, athletic, Pantine shoulder-length black hair, perfect perky boobs. I present well and am most accomodating. I've slept with clients. I sleep with my boss. I am the consummate PR strumpette. When I was 7 my mother told me I'd "never get anywhere with that mouth." I've apparently dedicated my life in proving her wrong."
more »
|
@adrants
@stevehall
|
