mbAce’s blög
MScBA Marketing, web 2.0, etc.Archive for February, 2009
Bacon Buzz Marketing
J&D’s products Baconnaise and Bacon Salt are featured in online videos in a amateur PR way, but I it still has managed to generate a lot of buzz.
Word-of-mouth is the primary way of advertising for J&D’s, who have created an enourmous online following after their line of Bacon Salt products. Genious. They actually use Youtube video advertising as one of their main marketing media.
Well it seems to have generated a nice buzz so far, but I would personally want to see it in E.U. soon, or other wise
Recovery.gov is finally here!
It has been a long wait but it’s finally here. The recovery.gov website is now officially online and will be letting you know exactly what is happening to your tax dollars. Go Obama!
Oh yea, there is also a nice short clip from the Prez, incase you don’t want to dive right into all those glorious bailout statistics.
Game Theory in Lost and Damned
**Spoiler alert, this article will discuss the ending of GTA IV: Lost and Damned.**
Game Theory in essence is explained in the picture above. This scenario also plays out in the final mission of this particular game. Biker brothers Johnny and Billy battle it out in a criminal underworld in this mature rated video game and after all the carnage and mayhem Billy goes to jail.
A few mission later and Johnny finds out that Billy is going to rat on him and decides to take action in to his own hands. Johnny and his biker gang attack the jail and make sure that Billy doesn’t talk. Quite a feat to avoid jail time, but it made an almost decent movie style ending.
This new addition to one of the best selling video game franchises of all time is currently only available for the Xbox and is also only available via download. Even though many things should be new, the whole game is a lot of the same old stuff. Still it has a very nice story and better missions, so should be enough for $20. No exact sales numbers so far, but it seems to be an inevitable winner.
An another one for the books here and cheers for Take Two not selling out to EA and only having to face game theory in their video games.
Educational videos online
Many online video sites offer mind numbing excuses for entertainment, so that’s why today my focus is on educational video content.
One of the best places to go is the PBS, which to non-U.S. citizens maybe not be known. As the Americas public access TV it has gone through a lot of transformations and financial battles in its time. For a while now their offerings have been available online and offer a vast library of knowledge.
It’s more of a place for exploration than a just a site to take a glance at, meaning you will likely spend hours of going back to watch interesting documentaries on the topics you like and are interested in learning more about.
Also Discovery channel has their own web video library, but it is mostly small clips from their existing shows, so the programming isn’t that interesting, because you ultimately have to catch the show on TV if you become more interested.
Google Latitude opens up another privacy discussion
Google has just launched a new web application that lets user locate their friends on Google Maps and communicate directly with them over mobile devices. These kinds of programs could have an impact on the way social applications work, and potentially could be taking usage time away from Facebook. Or more likely facebook will just integrate a similar function into its system, if Latitude becomes popular.
The privacy issues that arise from the use of this service were already discussed on CNN with grave details. They refer to an issue brought up by Privacy International, saying that if someone installs this program on your phone they could stalk you without you knowing it. A reasonable concern perhaps, but Google persists that their application will let the user know if they are being followed.
This kind of technology has been available before, but never with the same level of functionality. Still most likely this new application will not create any real concern for privacy. It is apparent that people interested in this product will aware of its features and will be able to protect themselves.
The only concern might be in hacking this software. If anyone is really motivated to use these types of services for malice purposes, they will likely go to greater lengths to do so.
Literally funny clip, an actual viral success?
The music video clip featured in this annoying commentary by the guys at Revision3 has become a huge success and has sprouted dozens of copycat videos in just a short time. The creator of the video, Dustin McLean, apparently has a few film projects going is working for a company called Current, which just happens to be an internet based company providing video services. Funny coincidence or planned viral marketing?
I would say the latter, but still really lucky. For a longer read, check this article that looks further into the phenomena. The website he is working for is actually are pretty nice innovation that focuses on delivering user voted video content. Along with funny headlines.
History of the Internet, ending with the 3 Rules of the Internet
Explained with a more detailed look in this article, and ending up in this following realization of what the Internet has become. So many wasted hours online.
Best of the Betas: South Park Studios
Everything seems to be in beta phase these days. Gmail is apparently still in Beta and many other web oriented projects are indefinitely just chilling in beta. Why? Public testing helps further development, and remaining in beta allows for user feedback before launching an ad-campaign.
So if all this is just a effort to try to milk everything out of the word-of-mouth aspect of beta testing, why not get in on the creme on the top.
South Park Studios brings all of your beloved SP episodes to you for free. Everything is there, this has got to be the best idea ever. No more long boring downloads or crappy stream sites. Fuck yea.
Augmented Reality done by GE
The latest hubbub in augmented reality comes from an industry elder who wants us to look at green energy in a different way. Through our webcams to be exact.
This video shows how anyone can try this impressive tech on their computer and that’s about it. Sure it’s neat, but will it actually make GE sell better? Hard to tell, but at least hopefully they get enough geeks to spread the word so people who actually care about their electricity might notice.
Nice innovation. Try it and more flashy goodness at plugintothesmartgrid.com
![Framing #2 - Drottningholms slott/Drottningholm Palace (UNESCO World Heritage) [Explore First Page, THANK YOU]](http://static.flickr.com/7102/7204258846_3843eb8ecb_t.jpg "Framing #2 - Drottningholms slott/Drottningholm Palace (UNESCO World Heritage) [Explore First Page, THANK YOU]")
