The Thicket

Matchbox Twenty on USB

We all use them to transport images, files, pictures, music, and other data. Now musicians and record labels are using the ubiquitous USB flash as yet another means of making music available to all of us.
I just bought the latest release (left), Exile on Mainstream, from Matchbox Twenty on the reusable USB bracelet, available from the band's site.

Matchbox Twenty's management got the idea from a similar project that lets Willie Nelson concertgoers buy a USB bracelet that contains a downloaded version of that night's concert, according to Digital Media Rants. Matchbox Twenty will sell bracelets with live concert recordings during its 2008 tour. Austin-based All Access Today, which works with the band and Nelson, also will release Ringo Starr's new album, due in January, on a USB bracelet and is in talks with all the major record labels. Matchbox Twenty's bracelets are innovative, if pricey. In this era of music is everywhere, everyone is trying to figure out how the new music fan wants music, and this very well could be it. It's a way to connect with a digital experience.

Leopards in Space?

Why are the visuals for OS X.5 dealing with outer space?
Every time I login to Leopard I feel like I'm a crew member on Star Trek.......where's Spock? or moreso where's the leopard in Leopard?

Unilever owns Dove & Axe - marketing clash & crash?

Did you see that Dove online video with a visual onslaught of some negative beauty industry advertising? It ends with "Talk to your daughter before the beauty industry does." IMHO quite a good campaign with some good creative innovation and draw (750,000+ views).

HOWEVER, the bar has now been lifted and Dove's parent company Unilever comes under scrutiny in a new video backlash to the Dove video. The video author uses components of the previous Dove film but replaces the onslaught of "evil" beauty industry ads with an onslaught of ads from one of Unilever's other products - Axe.

This new reply reaction emphasizes how ad, company & product authenticity is under tremendous new scrutiny. Do most companies have these kind of high, consistent morals? Do most parent companies get really involved in each product line (& each ad for each product line)? Will backlashes like these cause $ damage to all product lines?

Check out the reaction video below.

YouTube to Tube for Apple iTouch

So, I just saw on the old/offline tube the iTouch Apple advert produced by TBWA/Chiat/Day but first created by Nick Haley a young YouTube.com author/publisher.

is this more buzzworthy?
increase product/consumer authenticity? credibility?
will it unleash more consumers creating :15 & :30 second product spots on youtube?

see the original youtube.com bit here (250,000+ views):

See the TBWA/Chiat/Day on your old tube (and probably soon on youtube too).
Anybody think this is a bit fishy (Nick Haley joined youtube.com 1 year ago and has uploaded only 1 video? and this video is all choppy)?

This disaster brought to you by Twitter

As the San Diego fires unfolded we saw what has been criticized as the most inane Web 2.0 tool available, Twitter being used to help people who have been effected by this disaster.  Local NPR station KPBS launched a Twitter channel to keep people constantly updated on shelter information and much more.  With your computer gone, a Twitter feed and your cell phone could be a life saver... literally.  Would be really cool to see the mobile providers like Verizon and AT&T and T-Mobile comp any text message charges for folks living in the area. 

Less than one hour to Leopard. Am I ready?

I'm not sure if I'm anywhere near ready to install Apple OS X Leopard on this MBP tonight.  I know I want it working the second I get my hands on the discs, but I gotta free up an external drive in order to use Time Machine and wonder if I should blow away my boot camp as I'm out of HD space.  Why does a new release always come out just before a big presentation for me.  I'll probably take the chance.  Hope Time Machine works.

A USPS Vanity Zip Code: When you ARE the Neighborhood...

How do you start the conversation about the size and breadth of a new product offering? Get your own zip code! Saks Fifth Avenue has talked the US Postal Service into giving them a vanity zipcode (10022-SHOE). Interesting example of getting those in your neighborhood talking about you, especially when you are the neighborhood, in a space where few people would have thought to explore.
Being that I’m here in Washington DC, and geographically close (in the same zip code), as US Postal Service, I have now inquired about getting my own zip code for the area around my desk. I will keep everyone posted.

Leopard Faster, but just "Evolutionary," According to WSJ's Mossberg...

With Apple on a roll, the new release of Leopard will surely push them farther and faster.
While Walt Mossberg hails many of the new features as surpassing MS Vista, he's not sure for himself it's "revolutionary," according to today's Wall Street Journal.
Several of us will "geek out" at the Apple Store Friday night to see for ourselves.

Nike to Tap "Netfluencers" in Effort to be Hip...

...That includes hiring a tatoo artist. No joke!

Today’s Wall Street Journal reports that while it’s best known for mega-endorsers like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan, Nike
 CEO Mark Parker also sees a role for Mr. Cartoon, a Los Angeles tattoo artist
 whose ink-on-flesh flourishes are popular with rappers like Eminem and 50 Cent.

Mr. Cartoon–who Parker calls an “aesthetic influence and a friend”–
has designed six lines of limited-edition shoes for Nike (including the one shown here), ranging in price from
 $70 to $130. They include a version of the company’s classic Air Force One
basketball shoe that nods to what Mr. Cartoon calls the “old icons of the
gangsters”: skulls and roses, dark tenements and “sexy, female
 clowns.”

The drive to recruit under-the-radar influencers (the true Netfluencer) is a key part 
of Nike’s strategy, including the sharing the stealth sneaker culture in an episode of HBO's Entourage, one of my personal favorite shows. Following his own instincts, Parker has moved to
 aggressively link Nike with those who can help maintain the company’s standing
 among what he calls the “influencers of influencers.” Plumbing a global network
of friends, he has fostered Nike collaborations with a New York graffiti artist
named Lenny Futura and industrial designer Marc Newson.

This is your Facebook on Blackberry

Yes! I am the first Thicket editor to install Facebook for RIM Blackberry.  OK, so now what do I do?  Hmmm.  Ok.  Hmm.  Poke somebody?  No, then they''ll want to have a conversation.  Upload a photo?  No, no camera on this blackberry.  Ah, update my status to "using Facebook on Blackberry."