This Folger’s commercial, albeit slightly creepy, is pretty cool in my not-so-humble opinion. What I like best about the whole she-bang, though, is the corresponding website for the commercial, toleratemornings.com. It’s very tangential to the direct sale of Folger’s coffee. It’s a website where people who have something in common, i.e. hating getting up in the morning, can go and play some games and have a little fun. It’s less “buy Folger’s, we’re great” and more “have some fun, and oh, by the way, we’re Folger’s and we sell coffee.” Works for me.

Wired has just come out with their “Wired 40” list of the most innovative and progressive companies. They identified 5 major trends, power to the people being one of them.

Look at the trend today around Internet-based technologies. There are millions of individuals sharing information on blogs, sharing photos & videos, and participating in forums. Business and government are slow to adopt these new innovations using the Internet because they are seen as “radical” and therefore scary and risky. Government and large corporations are much more comfortable with evolutionary improvements. Even though they have been developed by and for the masses (ie MySpace), the applications of these technologies hold great promise in the business world. Those that choose to adopt them more aggressively will make great strides in moving ahead of their competitors that choose a more evolutionary path.

Continue reading "Big Co’s resistance to “Radical Innovation”" »

While some people disagree, I think the new Brawny Academy is right on the mark.

Three female radio personalities in St. Louis mentioned it in one week. Well, it got me to go to the website. And how many other women/housewives heard about the hot new Brawny man and decided to check him out online? The bottom line – they captured the attention of their target audience. A+

I personally think the Brawny Man could stand to be a little brawnier, but hey, I’m still watching him aren't I?

I like the internet. I want it to be useful and interesting and novel. I want it to be beautiful.

I also like sarcasm and poking a little fun here and there.

So I thought I would enjoy perusing WebPagesThatSuck.com.

If I weren’t drowning in the irony of the fact that the website itself is one of the most hideous, poorly arranged sites, then perhaps I could have indulged in a little sarcastic cocktail. But I got so furious searching for a simple list of web pages that do in fact suck that I decided to put this site at the top of my own list. In fact, it’s the only item on the list.

To help keep your blood pressure at a reasonable level, here’s the link I wasted time looking for - http://bad.webpagesthatsuck.com.

It seems every kid, band, comedian, neighbor is on MySpace these days. At least in America. But what about the lesser-known orkut? Turns out it’s pretty well-known south of the hemisphere.

In fact, 67% of orkut users are Brazilian. Similarly, Friendster has millions of Brazilians (which is much more poetic than if they’d just had mere hundreds of thousands) and Fotolog is nearly half Brazilian.

Why? I’ll spare you the equations my math degree is trying to force out of me and just point out that since they’re social networking sites they increase their member community largely by current members inviting new ones. In theory, orkut members can ONLY join if they are invited by a current member. So you start with a few Brazilians and they’ll invite primarily Brazilian friends.

Additionally, Brazilians are relatively new to the Internet and for them it’s a craze and they’re all jumping on board. Everything is new and exciting and they want in.

However, there seem to be quite a few non-Brazilian orkut users complaining about all the Portuguese-language posts Many people want it to remain English-only. In the spirit of the web, I say let them in. Isn’t that what the web is all about? Connecting people? And more specifically, isn’t that what a social networking site is all about? Besides, people from the country that invented caiparinhas are considered heroes in my book.