Some, perhaps including Rupert Murdoch, might find this story uplifting.
While there has been much recent bellowing, whining, and general cat-on-heat griping about Google making money from the fine work of others, now I can report that some are finding ways to make money piggybacking on the broad spine of Google's engineering.
Two enterprising entities, different in their form but united in their purpose, have attempted to use Google's Street View as a medium for their own commercial messages.
First, there was car rental company AutoShare, the Canadian equivalent Zipcar in the U.S. You know, the folks who are always reserving spots in your favorite parking lot. Well, AutoShare thought it would be fun to ask its customers to look out for its cars on Street View and offer a limited number of them prizes for their vision.
(Credit:
Autoshare)
The prize wasn't much: 100 strong Canadian dollars. But with some astute ad targeting in locations such as Facebook and Google, their "In-The-Wild" promotion seems to have entertained the world-weary citizens of Toronto.
Indeed, the AutoShare Twitter page shows that people got rather excited about looking for AutoShare's 200 cars on Google's public-spirited cameras.
This enterprising thought process was, perhaps, topped by Editors. Editors is an indie band (don't most bands have to be indie these days?) from the British town of Birmingham, where the people who claim to be my parents say I was born.
To launch their latest album, Editors used a little Flash trickery to hack into Street View, London version, and create their own custom locations where people could enjoy some of their really very fine music and even see some of the band's fans. (Video embedded)
Editors were rather clever in choosing locations that were not normally accessible on Street View.
Recently, I wrote about IKEA's wonderful use of Facebook to launch a store in Malmo, Sweden. And I know some people thought one should point out that this use was not entirely in accordance with Facebook's promotional guidelines.
However, when companies decide that on occasion they'd prefer to use information you thought might be private for commercial gain, when companies ask you to opt out (if they ask you at all) rather than opt in, there are those who might feel that some enterprising uses of, say, Facebook and Google Street View, should be classified as pioneering.
Great commerce, just like great art, sometimes breaks a couple of rules, doesn't it? In fact, Murdoch has done it quite brilliantly on occasion.
It seems that Apple doesn't respect Verizon's Droid phone quite as much as it does Microsoft's PCs. But two new ad spots, launching Monday evening, come as close as Apple has done thus far to directly attack the allegedly do-it-all robotphone.
The Droid, you see, went after Apple in its teaser campaign with some telling remarks and the hearty claim that Droid does what the iPhone doesn't. Then Verizon decided it would be fun to knock both the iPhone and AT&T's spotty 3G coverage with its "Misfit Toys" concept.
AT&T has already replied by hustling a hastily-dressed Luke Wilson into directing a few resentful pins at Verizon's effigy. However these new ads, while entirely in keeping with the iPhone tone and style, end with a line that expressly assaults the doings of Droid--or rather, its alleged non-doings.
Both ads focus on the iPhone's ability to allow you to use voice and data capabilities simultaneously over the AT&T network. By asking gently at the end of each spot "Can your phone and your network do that?" Apple is bursting what it sees as the inflated stealth bombing that accompanied the launch of the Droid.
Apple iPhone Ad - Did You See My Email? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
Apple iPhone Ad - What Time's The Movie? from Arik Hesseldahl on Vimeo.
These ads don't mention the Droid or Verizon by name. But the fact that Apple has decided to address its rivals, however obliquely, suggests that one can look forward to more accusations, more bickering, and more attempted one-upmanship.
'Tis the season of goodwill, after all.
No, this isn't The Onion.
But just look at that headline and wonder how it could possibly be true.
Well, according to Newsday, Canadian teen sensation Justin Bieber was due to conduct an album signing at the Roosevelt Field mall in Garden City, N.Y.
It seems that thousands of teenage girls turned up to mob the wondrous teen hope, a happening perhaps so frightening that Bieber did not turn up.
The Nassau County police became rather concerned that the crowd might break the glass in store windows with its shrieking. (The official word seems to have been "unruly," but teenage girls are never really that.)
So they asked a senior vice president from Island Def Jam Records (Bieber's record label), James A. Roppo, to do what record label executives often do when solving a difficult situation: tweet.
However, he is alleged to have not complied with this endearing request and thus found himself arrested, pending charges that might, according to the police, comprise criminal nuisance, endangering the welfare of a minor, and obstructing government administration.
Kevin Smith of the Nassau County Police told the AP: "We asked for his help in getting the crowd to go away by sending out a Twitter message. By not cooperating with us, we feel he put lives in danger and the public at risk."
What is somewhat peculiar is that a tweet was sent from Justin Bieber's account around the time of the arrest, reading: "they are not allowing me to come into the mall. if you don't leave, I and my fans will be arrested, as the police just told us."
Bieber followed this message up with another tweet pleading for the high-pitched wailers to disperse, just three minutes later.
All this occurred Friday. And, thanks to Bieber himself, I have embedded YouTube footage of the melee at the mall.
Bieber posted a link to this footage Saturday and tweeted, "wow. this upsets me. the mall should of had proper security. They wouldnt let me in! Gotta make this right 4 the fans."
Well, yes, it should of. Just look at the worried faces of the parents. Just listen to the screams of the aficionadas. This is the kind of nightmare many will have experienced after a large tub of dulce de leche eaten well past midnight.
I cannot imagine what Roppo might have said to the police in order to incite their wrath. However, looking at this footage, I suspect that something like "Look at these people!!!! They're outta their minds!!! You really think a tweet is going to stop them from screaming?!!!" might have been part of the dialogue.
It is also pleasantly reassuring that the mall staff appears, near the end of the footage, to have resorted to analog crowd dispersal means. Yes, someone found a loudhailer.
However, I can find no record of any arrests from the scene other than Roppo's. And certainly, no one else appears to have been arrested for refusing to tweet.
Therefore, this truly seems to be a world first. One can only look forward to the day when someone's Facebook friends cause them to be arrested for not updating their status.
I often wake up with a tune playing in my head. I don't know why it's that particular tune, and sometimes I waterboard myself for hours trying to find the reason for this apparently random madness.
This morning, for example, it was that Spanish Lullaby song that Madonna numbed us with some time around the last century. (I never said it was only good songs that blared in my internal jukebox.)
So why might one's mind have been invaded by "La Isla Bonita?" Was it because this time last year I was in Spain, sipping sangria with some dubious Europeans? Was it because last night I saw a trailer of a new film directed by Madonna's last husband? Was it because I hadn't had enough sleep?
All this thinking is painful and useless, but it has brought me to an idea for Apple: it's time the company took the apparent randomness of the iPod Shuffle and made it mean something.
Might I propose that Apple creates an iPod that, whenever worn on your person, can immediately discern your mood? Please imagine that this new iPod, let's call it the iPod Shrink, is a tiny little thing that has within it even tinier sensors that monitor your heart rate, your blood pressure, your digestive calm, even your sweat level.
On the basis of this entirely factual information, the iPod Shrink would then select the precise piece of music that would match your mood. It's important to consider just what is meant by "match your mood."
Perhaps you, the moody consumer, might have the ability to ask the iPod Shrink to enhance your mood or to counteract it.
If you ask for counteraction and the machine sees that you're miserable, the iPod Shrink would bypass "My Immortal" by Evanescence, "Creep" by Radiohead or anything by James Blunt and go straight to "I Feel Good" by James Brown or the utterly classic Manilow rendition of "Copacabana." For enhancement, it would do the reverse.
If it detected anger, it could soothe you with some Bebel Gilberto or stoke your fires with some Sex Pistols. If it detected concern, it might offer the Goo Goo Dolls' "Iris." Or, alternatively, something from Disturbed's fine little album "The Sickness."
Perhaps the greatest surprise for you, the iPod Shrink owner, would be to discover what mood you are actually in. After all, your little device would be more familiar with the true scientific nature of your innards than would you. So your own self-knowledge would surely be enhanced by such a wickedly wily machine.
This could be a very big seller. It would certainly make me look more kindly on the self-absorbed, frustrated, preening, angst-ridden waddlers in the gym.
Spontaneity doesn't come naturally to everyone. Neither is it welcomed by everyone.
So please imagine how those who visited the new Microsoft store in Mission Viejo, Calif., a few days back must have felt when store employees suddenly decided to drop their trousers, wave their Zunes in the air, and sing a couple of Maria Callas' greatest hits.
No, it really wasn't quite like that. However, I feel sure that one or two people might have preferred the trouser-dropping and Zune-waving over the spectacle that actually occurred.
As the Black Eyed Peas were forced to propel some of their entirely commercial stimulation down the sound system, the employees performed their own version of the line dance for the one-legged. Because I am consumer-focused at every moment of my waking day, I found myself concentrating more on the reactions of the customers than on the techniques Spike Jonze might have used to make this an MTV VMA winner.
As the employees line up for this troubling, tourettesy Texas One-Step, one already feels a strange squeezing sensation on behalf of some of the customers.
Around the 1.15 mark, a little girl, her hair ponytailed with a yellow scrunchy, makes as if her vicinity has not been invaded by dancing, clapping, or stray employee sweat. She sits. She stares into her screen. The adults make fools of themselves.
Yes, this is the Microsoft store version of "The Ice Storm."
Two minutes of constricting visual constipation are temporarily saved by three ladies who rush in from the mall to join in. These women, their purses held in place by a determined gravity, begin to show the employees just why Fergie's tunes are precursors to a fiery personal life.
Look, I'm lying. But they are definitely better than the tall, blond string bean of a chap whose twisted movements are rather too similar those of certain people who bought Vista and couldn't make it work.
I want to like this microcosmic flash mob of dance. I really do. However, once the balding chap holding the Brookstone bag joins the shifting knee-lifting, I find myself searching again for the little ponytailed girl staring into a very fine PC. She has not turned her neck one degree to observe these escapees from reality. She seems to have decided that this is not Miley Cyrus, this is not even Cyrus Vance, ergo this is not happening.
But it did happen, spontaneously, in Mission Viejo. That's the place where the mission is old, right?
Early on Monday, we learned that the new Verizon Droid does, indeed, swap "semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity for a bare knuckle bucket of does."
Now, we have the visual evidence. It's evidence a defense attorney would rather enjoy.
The Droid is, apparently, not a smartphone at all. It is a robotphone, according to Verizon's latest TV ad. Yes, it punches its way through steel walls and crushes rocks. Which, I believe, is known in English classes as poetry.
The lyrical content is only heightened when the giggling-brat-vanity words are uttered by an announcer who sounds like he had a previous career as an enforcer with one of the Gambino bambinos.
As the contempt drips from his lips, we see various iPhone-like devices all blinged out in pinks and purples and sequins. They look like purses.
And the subtext, which is about as covert as a right cross from an inebriated wedding crasher, is that the Droid is for boys and the iPhone is for fans of "Project Runway" and "The Real Housewives of Orange County."
Yes, your Droid is your Mixed Martial Arts-lovin', bone-crushin' robot that's going to turn you into a man. And that's what all boys want, right?
Everyone and their band seems to be leaping on some kind of wagon with an Apple logo and attempting to rob it of its jewelry and gold coins.
The latest to try to capitalize from poking a little fun at Apple's treasure chest are the Florida Keys and Key West.
In an ad that would feel like it was for the iPhone if it was executed with slightly more style, the Keys hope to persuade you that "There's no app for this."
"This" refers to the fun of wondering if a disgruntled local houseboat resident who believes tourists are venal vermin might ruin your vacation.
No, wait, I think I have read one too many Carl Hiassen novels, in which pretty much every resident of Florida is trying to cheat every other resident of Florida (or unsuspecting visitor) out of house, home, dog, wife or, well, life.
So, in fact, what I meant to say was that the Keys believe that no iPhone app can substitute for a real Florida Keys experience, in which the sun will set beautifully, the canoe will never capsize, and no shark will ever approach you as you snorkel your way to a new level of consciousness.
If you were to choose an app over a vacation, one imagines that several schools of psychiatric medicine had already given up on your ghost.
I am concerned, though, that should someone from Apple be making like Grumpy the Dwarf, they might be upset at the Keys' use of the iPhone's rather characteristic finger wipe.
It seems as if Verizon Droid's avowedly male positioning will now include finger-pointing, high-pitched taunts, and echoes of "na-na-nana-na".
After revealing that Verizon has placed the iPhone on the Island of Misfit Toys, Ad Age is reporting that in the next Droid ad, the iPhone will be the subject of another touching description.
Apparently, the ad says the Droid "swaps semi-functional, giggling-brat-vanity for a bare knuckle bucket of does."
One can never have enough buckets of does in this complex life. And it is refreshing to see someone spending $100 million in an attempt to take on the prom queen of cell phones.
However, these ads heap pressure on the Droid to perform as a phone and, indeed, as an item to be seen with.
Functionality can only take one so far. Somehow, I recall General Motors being the brand of supposed functionality. And that didn't quite, well, function for the company as things turned out.
Verizon has decided to take the spirit of Christmas and shove it into the part of iPhone users' chimneys where Santa would need a pick ax.
Some who viewed the first Droid teaser ad, just a couple of weeks ago, were stunned to see Verizon so baldly declare that the Apple uber-machine was, in some ways, deficient.
Rumor had it that this was an isolated attempt at leveraging publicity for the new Motorola device. However, this new ad shows that the iPhone is firmly on Verizon's list. And it's not Verizon's Christmas list.
The ad places the iPhone on the mythical Island of Misfit Toys. It's an island inhabited solely by those things you don't need, don't want and don't work.
At first, the strange collection of pink spotted elephants and peculiar Grandads-in-a-Box-Wearing-Some-Very-Strange-Bits-of-Chiffon are astonished that the iPhone has come to their island.
But then the Verizon version of the little AT&T 3G coverage map helpfully points out that it might be harder to download your beloved apps in some parts of the country.
"You're going to fit right in here!" squeaks a strange little blue object with wings, a propeller and a hearty dose of gallows humor.
Can one ever imagine that Apple might create a version of the "Get a Mac" structure with a new human (Joss Stone, perhaps?) representing the iPhone and a rather more vulnerable human (Kirstie Alley, perhaps?) representing Verizon?
Somehow, that wouldn't quite fit, would it?
I know that many, especially those associated with making money out of music, feel that pirates who share files should be made to walk the plank to the rhythm of Fiona Apple's "Criminal."
However, a survey commissioned by the professional cogitators at Demos in the U.K., suggests that just because one might download illegally, it doesn't mean one never spends money on music.
Indeed, according to the Independent, this survey, performed by the omeletteheads at Ipsos MORI, showed that those who share files spend 75 percent more on music than those who have allegedly clean hands.
Another omelettehead, Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research, told the Independent that those who share files are simply more interested in music.
He added: "They use file sharing as a discovery mechanism. We have a generation of young people who don't have any concept of music as a paid-for commodity."
(Credit:
CC The Impressionist.co.uk/Flickr)
But perhaps it's not quite so simple. I'm still not entirely convinced that file sharers are only those who delight in technology's ability to let them obtain product for nothing. I'm not entirely convinced that technology has made free-fighters of us all.
Wandering around Alcatraz on Saturday (how else is one supposed to celebrate Al Capone on Halloween?), I was struck by how everyone who wanted a little guide book happily volunteered to slip a dollar bill in the slot provided. People still accept the quaint idea of exchanging money for something of an appropriate value.
Isn't the real philosophical heart of file sharing the idea that real, honest people simply felt they had been gouged by the music industry for a little too long? File sharing allows them to alter the imbalance between the listener and the music producer.
It doesn't mean they will never spend money on music. They will simply spend what they feel is the right amount of money on music they think deserves it.
This survey found that 10 percent of the respondents, age range 16-50, admitted illegal downloading. But what might have been instructive would have been to learn just how much music people bought for their average of 77 pounds (around $120) per month and how they made their choice as to what should be bought and what should merely be, um, borrowed.
The music industry is adjusting because it has no choice. And its goal, long-term, may well focus on the ability to earn more from those who love music, rather than from those who are rather more indifferent.
Perhaps the most important word in that thought is "earn."
