They’re back! The mentos experiment II

The experimenters from eepy bird productions are back with a Coke & Mentos sponsored video on Google video. They have over twice the mentos and diet coke they used last time and put on an amazing show. Check it out. They get into a lot of cool stuff with fountains and stuff this time, after the gratuitous “brand money shots”.

 As far as viral advertising goes, coke took a long time to get on board and get this together. Mentos got it quicker, but it wasn’t as good because I am not sure anyone submitted videos of their own experiments like their contest suggested.

Its hard to keep viral & traffic momentum going from the first videos to this when there’s a 4 month gap in between when they are available. I am glad they did jump on board though. Its a cool thing to see marketing change in a way that is more relevant, entertaining and genuine and less about shilling things in sneaky ways.

Mobile Ringtones

Mobile ringtones are cool. They are a huge business these days because there are no good ring tones available as a default on your phone when you buy it. You HAVE to get an aftermarket ringtone. This site MobileSidewalk Ring Tones has the best ring tones and a really easy sign up process. Its cool because all you do is enter your phone number, get the text that it sends you, enter the site and choose your ring tones. Its supported by all the major cell phone service carriers so it should work for just about everyone. I have to go look for a new ring tone now, everyone has the same cingular default one that I have and its weird to hear it and think my phone is ringing all the time. Check out mobile sidewalk.

New Marketing Trends

I love the springwise emails weekly because they inspire new ideas for my work and business. They are new business and marketing ideas that have been spotted and are revolutionary or evolutionary. Its a good thing. Check out this week’s list:

Our latest edition is now online at www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm
New business ideas featured this week:

1. Text it loud & local: Wiffiti is a service that enables people to send text messages to
flat screen displays in cafes, bars and clubs.
www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm#wiffiti 2. Shoes for good: giving new meaning to ‘two for the price of one’, TOMS donates a pair
of shoes for each pair that customers buy.
www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm#toms

3. Greensurance: British car insurer Ecoinsurance offsets 20% of a customer’s car’s CO2
emissions and works with environmentally aware repairers.
www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm#eco

4. Cone-shaped pizza: an update on one of our readers’ favourite topics: Kono Pizza.
www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm#kono

5. Designer garages: upmarket and stylish made-to-order garage furnishings create
a personal showroom for automotive treasures.
www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm#vault

6. Sophisticated soda: DRY is a line of culinary sodas that accentuate and enhance the
taste of food, offering a grown-up, non-alcoholic alternative to wine.
www.springwise.com/weekly/2006-10-31.htm#dry

Health & Nutritional Supplements

I have been looking into vitamins and nutritional supplements latley because I’ve noticed that I am not eating as well as I should. I’m always on the go and running from one thing to another and don’t have time to cook a balanced meal, so I end up grabbing something quick and not really getting the nutrients I need. I found this site N101 Nutrition online and they have a great variety of vitamins and supplements available and have a lot of good information about the health benefits for each product they sell. They make a point to keep the information updated and make sure they are providing the best shopping experience possible. They also offer natural beauty products as well through the site. Check them out if you’re looking to research and buy nutritional supplements and vitamins online.

Sick

All is fun in a new relationship until someone gets sick.

Luckily I have a good doctor that will prescribe something over the phone if the symptoms are some that you’ve had before and you both know what it is.

He called in a prescription just before pharmacy closing time and here I am an hour and a half later starting medication that should take care of this in a week.

I am though, out $123.00 for the prescription because my insurance doesn’t start until Wednesday. Ugh. Talk about price gouging for antibiotics.

Hopefully now, I will feel better by tomorrow or Monday. I’m glad I did something about it rather than sit around and worry. Its amazing how much can change in an hour.

CTA Fucking with My Work Commute

The past week has been hellish for my commue to work. I have taken the green line L train from OP/RF to the loop every day for a year and a half now and I have never had as many problems as  have this week. First there was a fire under the L at the ashland stop last Thursday. This caused them to skip the ashland stop but go really slowly through every stop and announce the new route at every station.  This added about 20 minutes to the ride. Then a second fire by the green line on wabash on Tuesday in rush hour. This caused them to reverse the route the green line takes around the loop. Instead of my stop being the first one in the loop, its the last. Plus all the time they spend announcing the change this adds about a 1/2 hr to my commute. They haven’t stopped the first change yet either. Its now taking me an hour and a half to get to work when it should take about 30 minutes. I hate public transportation as it is, and this isn’t making things any easier. Plus its mucus season again and everyone on the train is sneezing, coughing and dripping all over you with viruses again. Eeeewww…

Free Samples

I think everyone lights up when they get free samples in the mail, with the newspaper or in a magazine. Its like a little bonus for you that day. You may have had a $1,000.00 bill on fixing the car, but a free shampoo or gum sample makes you feel like you made up a little. Its fun to try new things too. Free samples from the grocery store are always fun.  Some people only shop on free sample day because it makes shopping bearable to have little snacks all along the way.  This free sample site has some great offers for the little stuff like trials and test offers plus some bigger deals if you’re willing to give a little bit of your personal information ike address and email. It could pay off big time, but make sure you read the fine print and are ok with the terms of the agreement. Remember these lead generating campaigns will pay you a lot for signups but you have to follow the rules explicitly in order to get your stuff. Check it out, and happy free stuff sampling.

Top Web Sites Worldwide

I am a big fan of Media Metrix data. They send out emails to update you on their statistics a gew few times a month and its a good way to see what’s happening in the web business world. Its interesting if you look at the top web properties for the US or for the world and see who generates the most traffic (unique visitors) each month and what it is that they do for their business. Do they do a lot of advertising or not? Are they a business or a consumer site? With 300 million people in the US why are the biggest sites only able to about 100 reach million people? These are only a few of the things that I lie awake at night worrying about being a web marketer. com Score Media Metrix continues to give me things to think about.

Mortgage Fraud

What a haunting thought. Companies that purposley decieve new home buyers in order to make an extra buck. It never fails, there is always someone out there looking to take advantage of you and your ambition to own a home. Mortgage fraud is more malicious than other kinds, because it can ruin your credit and your life. I’ve read about people’s loans falling through, the fees doubling on their loan and other hidden in the fine print penalties that ruined the deal and their ability to keep their home.

If you are in the market for a home and are shopping mortgage lenders be careful and research your lender thouroughly before singing on the dotted line. Be sure that they don’t have any Better Business Bureau complaints against them and ask for 3 references to verify that they have clients that are happy and will tell you what their experience was like. One place you might check out for mortgage loan information and lending is personalhomeloanmortgages.com. They make a point to protect customer data and comply with spam and do not call regulations.

Studio 60 Week 6

I missed last week’s episode of Studio 60 which wasn’t good for the sake of reviewing it, and I haven’t gotten a chance tio watch it online either…I don’t always have unlimited bandwith. I did see that the viewership went from 8 Million to 7 million last week and it seems to have stopped the hemoraging by staying at 7 Million this week too.  (thank god)

I did watch this week and here’s some thoughts…

1. Still 3 guys playing Josh Lyman. Its comforting and disturbing all at the same time. It would be nice if Bradley Whitford could just play Josh, and Matthew Perry and NathannCorddry can model their characters after different West Wing characters. Maybe Sam or Toby?

2. Jordan looks pregnant, explain it already, she can’t carry a coat forever.

3. What’s with the swearing? They said like 5 swear-curse words in 2 minutes there and the FCC doesn’t notice? I know its for authenticity but if other people can’t get away with it how did Studio 60? I am not opposed to swearing on TV, just that we know the rules and all. That hiring the standup guy had all the earmarks of a west wing recruitment scene, but somehow didn’t work. Not sure if it was just them looking at each other too much with blank faces or that he didn’t protest enough with reasons why. It just kinda fell flat and was un-dramatic. I did like though that the standup guy was kind of an african american version of Eddie Iizzard though. I always like the smart history humor.

4. Why do they always confuse improv, sketch and standup????? WTF? You don’t go to an improv theater to see standup. Not at all possible, and what’s the jab about a fake brick wall? Second City doesn’t have any of that although they do have great improv and sketch comedy.

5. I think that seeing Sorokin’s work is nice again, but this show doesn’t have the punch (stickyness) that West Wing had. Both because many people can’t relate to its subject matter (face it, most of TV watching America doesn’t work in hollywood nor care about how it works) and because the storylines and relationship/emotions aren’t strong enough.  Its like at about 50% of what it could be. 

Come on, lets save this ship before it sinks. Give us some storylines/drama to chew on and some stronger characters. Its not about big fancy sets or big names stars, its about the stories of these characters on the show, who they are, where they’re from, why do they do this, what brought them there? What are they up against? How will they succeed? What will they have to overcome? How does it relate to us as middle americans?

And dude,  hire some real sketch writers.

Home Office Hell

Do you need a better place to work from home? This contest ould be your ticket to a better office and workspace. There is a 12K prize (and lunch in NYC with George Ross from the Apprentice) for the worst home office out there from offices2share.com. They are a company that finds office rental spaces anywhere in the country for small businesses that usually work from home and have outgrown their space or need to seperate the work and home life a bit. They have very reasonable monthly rates because they know they are mostly working with startup companies and small businesses who have limited funds anyway. Click here to see the rules and entry forms for the The Home Office From Hell contest. All you need to do to enter is post your top 10 reasons you need a new office and post a picture of how bad your office space is now.  It sounds like a good idea to me.

Mobile Internet

If you’re like me you think that surfing the web on your phone is like surfign the web ala 1996. Its slow to download and the pages have no detail and not a lot of room for text or images. Its an ultra simple interface awithout a lot of usefulness yet.

Somehow though there are people out there surfing the net for things over their mobile phones. What they are doing with them I don’t know. but here’s a break down of what phones they are suing to access the internet. My guess thatthe palm Treo is in the “other” category. 

Quoted From comScore MMX:

Nokia Leading the Way
The study found Nokia to be the leading brand of phone for those who regularly access the mobile Web across five of the six countries examined, capturing share ranging from 50 percent in Italy to 22 percent in France. Only in the U.S., where Motorola has the greatest share (26 percent), is Nokia pushed into second place, with a 17 percent share.

____________________________________________________________________________
Mobile Internet Share of Market as Measured by Penetration by Phone Brand   
September 2006   
U.S., UK, French, German, Italian and Spanish Online Populations   
Source: comScore Networks — Mobile Tracking Study   

Phone Brand      U.S.   France   Germany   Italy   Spain   UK   
———–      —-   ——   ——-   —–   —–   –
Nokia            17%    22%      32%       50%     39%     39%    
Motorola         26%    13%      22%       18%     14%     14%    
Samsung          10%    21%       8%        8%     17%     17%    
Sony Ericsson     6%    14%      12%        5%     11%     13%    
Other            41%    30%      27%       19%     20%     17% 

Once, I was the King of Spain…

Well not really. That’s the title of of a funny song by Moxy Fruvous though.

If you like traveling to Europe and have thought about buying a property in Spain, its now easier than you thought with this mortgage company. We all know that Spain is fantastic because it’s got all the culture and history you can possibly want combined with great mediteranian weather. (so much better than Chicago)

Who wouldn’t want to spend time here??

Its a mediteranian wonderland. How can you not want to go to the place that brought us bull running, tapas and flamenco dancing? There’s so much to discover and enjoy in Spain. Check out the official Spain country tourism guide and see if there is somewhere you’d like to retreat to a few times a year in Spain.

Easy like a Sunday morning

After all the hubub about the Chicago marathon today, it was through Lakeview and the streets cleared by noon. What a welcome suprise. I was able to go where I needed and my car didn’t get towed. Yay for no towing.

In other news I plan on taking in some more shows at Io this week. They do have a lot of long form improv that I need to take in and enjoy. Check their schedule out for great Chicago Improv shows.

Marathon

Thousands of years ago greeks ran 26.5 miles and then just about fell down and died. Now in present day Chicagoans and other running fanatics from around the world run 26.5 miles and then brag about it. This is the Chicago Marathon and I have to deal with its closing streets, blocking traffic and the egos of the participants all year long. I am not happy about this. I wish there was a way that these people could find a hamster wheel to keep them occupied and not take over our city every year.  But alas, its perfectly acceptable to do something healthy and then brag about it for the rest of your life to make everyone else feel inadequate. Great, just great.