The Thicket

the famous You.

remember that scene in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory where that kid gets shrunk/particalized and sent into the television? well, youtube's great and all but celebrity status might be so much more with the launch of appleTV. this is going to be quite a ride...

Apple Interns. Approve those reviews.

I'm a laggard I know, but I posted my first review on the iTunes store for the show The Riches, starring Eddie Izzard and Minnie Driver.  One can really start to see the power of iTunes for the smaller cable/satellite networks or shows without huge marketing budgets.  I would've never seen this show if it wasn't on iTunes and I wasn't searching for Eddie Izzard stuff.  Other than Nip/Tuck I rarely watch FX, so this was a nice find.  Something else that makes iTunes more viable -- the content is much higher quality than the first run broadcast on FX or SciFi.  BSG and Nip/Tuck look like crap on my 50" HDTV compared to how they look on my MacBook Pro.  Can't wait until my AppleTV arrives.

Getting back to my review posting on iTunes.  Doesn't seem like posting is an immediate thing as "it may be reviewed" before posting.  I'm not surprised by this flow since we have some clients (most clients) that require it.   I'm just wondering how much pizza and Coke the interns at Apple need to man the Review Postings Submission Desk. 

Are you having trouble figuring out how to effectively use the banner spaces your client bought (and they expect BIG results with)?

here's an excellent job of using online banner space to promote a mobile, time-sensitive reminder rather than another link that will pull you off the site you really wanted to be on.
[I also recall the ability for you to use this SMS + ZIP to find the nearest Starbucks.....too bad I mono-maniacally seek and drink Stumptown coffee.]

Coke...funny? for real?

coca-cola has really never spoken to me in the last 15 years however I've been taken by surprise by this fine viral idea of company foolery - the gist is that Coke is suing Coke ZERO for tasting so similar and 2 Coke employees are talking to real lawyers about their issue - a novel/fresh idea that works. I'm not sure about the whole viral "sue a friend" bit of the site but they shouldn't base their success on the amount of "suing friends" emails...rather the views of the video (and the brand impact on people in the pepsi posse).

check the site here.

the extra, bonus, learn more at Internet

in our current phase of technology transition is YouTube the perfect place for TV extras?
out-takes? alternate endings?
BBC takes a crack at cracking the power of YouTube here.

When will the Internet be accepted as the primary rather than the learn more call-to-action, extra special and second-class (for quantitative analysis) marketing campaign tactic?

"Soon"

I want my Joost

Will someone please send me an invite to Joost?  Anyone out there in the Thicket Army who brings me a Joost invite will have the honor of being mentioned on the site. 

As if Blog Software Wasn't Easy Enough...

I'm late to the game but just discovered two tools that makes it very easy for people to keep up with you and your whereabouts, or just plain write something down as stream of consciousness. 

• Twitter is a rolling "where in the world am I" lite blog tool that makes it very easy to post your whereabouts directly on the site, from your mobile phone or your IM account.  I'm constantly getting "where are you?" emails from my co-workers, especialy finance department on timesheets days.  Twitter will hopefully put an end to that.
• Tumbler is a very light blogging tool that seems to be custom built for Thicket editor Jeremy Lind.  Go back and read some of his posts and you'll see what I mean.  You can easily update these tumbalogs.  John C Dvorak says it's for crazy people because all the sample sites seem to have people who only use 64 point type, centered and bolded.  I don't know about that but Tumblr is a neat little tool.

Now is I can get Twitter to automatically send a note home that I'll be late coming home for dinner, then it will be perfect.