The Swedish town of Malmo is a wonderful place.
Some feel it is wonderful because it is the spiritual home of a band that was once cool, the Cardigans.
But now all committed social networkers will think Malmo is wonderful because of its IKEA. You see, the Swedish purveyor of fast-food furniture decided to open a new store in Malmo and didn't really have a lot of money to let people know about it.
So it engaged a rather outre advertising agency called Forsman and Bodenfors to create a rather special launch campaign.
The agency created a Facebook profile for the store manager, Gordon Gustavsson. Over a two-week period, it uploaded images from of IKEA showrooms to his Facebook photo album.
Then it put out word that the first person to tag their name to a product in the pictures, won it.
Facebook being what it is, word got out and needy, enthusiastic Swedes begged for more pictures so that they could tag themselves to a new sofa, a new bed, or a new vase into which they could stick their plastic flowers or their dead grandparents' ashes.
Before Facebook could take credit for its own wonderful ingenuity in creating the world's most needed Web site, thousands of Swedes were spreading pictures of IKEA showrooms all around the personal galaxy known as their profile pages.
Please look at the video I have embedded, as this idea is, as the best always are, simple and inspired. Which, some would say, also perfectly describes the clever, affordable, if sometimes maddening-to-put-together little things made by IKEA.
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.
If it's five o'clock in the morning and you have to spend your time with far more people than you're used to, pushing, pulling and writhing your way to satisfaction, then perhaps a shopping mall is not the ideal location.
The tradition of Black Friday as the day when one attains negotiation nirvana seems a peculiar one. And one has to wonder whether people have learned that some of the deals really aren't deals at all.
As CNET's Rick Broida has already pointed out, many of the alleged deals aren't terribly enticing, as stores have been forced to reduce their prices all year in a desperate attempt to attract the cash-strapped.
However, CNNMoney.com has also written of some slightly tired tactics being promulgated by Black Friday peddlers.
It seems that some are using the rather more saliva-inducing tech items to snap people's sleeping patterns. However, the tinier print of the inducement reveals that there may not be many of these items in stock.
If this reminds you of car dealers, well, then it's perhaps not a good thing.
CNNMoney.com tells the story of Sears' trumpeting of a Samsung 40-inch 1080p LCD HDTV for $599.99. Would this make you slip you fur coat over your PJs, leap into your sedan, and rush to your local mall while it's still dark outside?
The tinier print might give you pause for thought. It reads "Only while quantities last, minimum three per store, no rainchecks."
This is not to suggest that Sears is the only retailer succumbing to these slightly tired mechanisms. But why does this remind one of Vegas casinos, who, when realizing that the gambler with a fine memory was in a relatively favorable position in two-deck blackjack, introduced multiple decks, just to increase the fun?
CNNMoney.com also revealed that some products on sale might be so-called "derivatives." For the less initiated, this might be translated as "inferior models." It might be an HDTV that enjoys a lower image contrast ratio. Or an iPhone that can't download apps. (Yes, the latter is an exaggeration.)
Edgar Dworsky, editor of Consumer World, was even quoted by CNNMoney.com as dampening the hopes that might dwell in a raincheck: "A raincheck doesn't guarantee that you will eventually get that elusive Black Friday deal. Consumers can go weeks waiting and hoping, and the retailer may never get more of the product shipped to its stores."
Might I make a suggestion as I watch the fast-moving train that is the desperate need for deals rushing headlong at the train that is the equally desperate need for profits?
Why don't stores offer a couple of truthful ads? Something like this: "Look, we've got three Samsung 40-inchers for $599.99. We won't make any money on them. But we're advertising them so that you can get excited. We promise there will be three of them and we'll sell them to the first person who comes in and guesses the middle name of our handsome salesman, Brad. We think that's fairer than having y'all fight, bite and claw outside our front door. Life is random. So are our deals."
This is a new era in the relationship between retailers and their customers. Social networking is forcing companies to be far more authentic with their customers than they have ever felt comfortable being before.
Why can't some of them use Black Friday as the first day of their new authenticity? It just might engender a little loyalty and a little trust. You know, for those other 364 days of the year.
I was just sending a tweet about some excellent chicken livers I'd eaten when I espied some information that made my acid perform a refluctive motion.
According to eMarketer, three different digital actuaries declared that Twitter traffic has performed a slight plummet.
While comScore suggested a drop of 8.1 percent in October and Compete estimated 2.1 percent, while Nielsen, that apogee of accuracy, declared a 27.8 percent decline between September and October.
It seems that these figures, blessedly inconsistent as they are, are not taking account of all the third-party and mobile methods of keeping everyone up with your eating, drinking, reading, philosophizing and socializing.
But is it also possible that some people will simply never participate in the Twitter phenomenon, finding it either annoying, uncool, or even too much effort?
With Twitter intent on becoming more businesslike (why does the word 'more' seem slightly redundant here?), 2010 seems destined to be the year that the microblogging service becomes either de rigueur or dazed and confused.
Will Twitter become a permanent habit or a disappearing, perhaps even elitist, fad? I'll tweet Nostradamus and ask him.
You didn't know Nostradamus is on Twitter? Where have you been?
Perhaps space travel has become old. Perhaps people have come to take it for granted. It's been seen in so many movies. So many space shuttles have taken off and returned to Earth that we think little more of them than we do of jumbo jets.
NASA therefore has to use its imagination to persuade tomorrow's generations that space travel continues to be a large step for man.
One small step in this process is a new public service annoucnement featuring that fearsome space creature, "The Rock." Dwayne Johnson himself, a man who has appeared in so many scientifically concocted movies such as WWF SmackDown, WWE Backlash, and WWE Crush Hour, is now telling kids that NASA is cool.
Why Johnson? Well, he plays Captain Chuck Baker in the new movie "Planet 51." The voice of Chuck Baker, to be precise. And that seems to be a sufficient connection for him to tell us that all of the clever things NASA discovers in the dark and beyond are also put to use here on the mundane round lump called Earth.
I know Johnson is trying to inspire, but when he tells us that NASA technologies allow us to enjoy the freeze-dried fruit in our cereal, I wonder how many viewers will look at their Raisin Bran with a jaundiced eye and quivering lips.
The Rock is a professional. He convinced when he played Agent 23 in "Get Smart," just as he did when he when he played Rick Smith in "Reno 911."
But even he struggles with the last line of this PSA. For reasons best known to someone, somewhere, perhaps even out there, Johnson is required to end this PSA with the words" There's no space like home."
Oh, goodness. He's Dwayne Johnson. He's the Rock. Couldn't they have got him to deliver an NASA smackdown? Or are we all just trying to nice-ify our images to the point of blandness?
You know this is serious because they've already talked about it on SportsCenter.
Wednesday saw one of the most painful pieces of cheating that soccer has enjoyed since, oh, since pretty much any other World Cup qualifying game.
However, this occurred in the dying minutes, featured one of the most famous players in the world (yes, he's been on the front of an EA FIFA game box), affected the result of the game, and was so crudely obvious that the world has decided to fight back by socially networking.
In case you were only recently released after being abducted by recalcitrant performance artists, France was playing Ireland for the privilege of going to the World Cup finals in South Africa. Ireland was winning.
Thierry Henry, contemplating moral philosophy, when he played for London's Arsenal.
(Credit: Cc BobbyMond/Flickr)A ball was hopefully pumped into the Irish penalty area. The French captain, Thierry Henry, reached out his left hand to control the ball, enjoyed the feeling so much he actually handled it twice, then crossed the ball for an embarrassed teammate, Willam Gallas, to score and eliminate the plucky Irish. (It is compulsory to use the term "plucky" when referring to the Irish soccer team.)
Henry, perhaps sensing his precious image evaporating, admitted Friday that the game should be replayed.
Even though the sport's governing body, FIFA, has declared no replay will happen, it now has to deal with perhaps the fastest-growing Facebook group on earth.
Petition to have IRELAND VS FRANCE REPLAYED!!!!! already has secured more than 250,000 members since its inception, as well as an increasing amount of media coverage.
What is clear from the group is that people from all over the world are incensed that FIFA has haughtily dismissed the power of the people, the socially networking people. The group has organized a protest in Dublin, 2 p.m. local time Saturday.
If I were one of the fine-dining, bouncy-bellied officials at FIFA, I would pay a little more attention to this Facebook group. The last time someone so blatantly ignored the will of the socially-networking people--who, in the Facebook group's case, include many from France itself--it was a lady who guffawed: "Let them eat cake."
Yes, she was Queen of France and it did not end well for her. I feel sure Marie Antoinette would have wished for a little replay in her own life. And I feel equally sure that, were she alive today, she would be joining the Facebook group "Petition to have IRELAND VS FRANCE REPLAYED!!!!!" in demanding a rerun of this most important game.
Just like everyone who grew up on something of a "Star Trek" diet, I want to believe.
I want to believe that Spock will rise from the dead, get married, and have pointy-eared offspring, who, regressing to the mean, will become sports-loving couch potatoes. I want to believe that Captain Kirk will shack up with Uhura on Pluto and lead a fight to have the planet recognized as one of the greats.
And I want to believe that d'Armond Speers really did only speak to his son in Klingon for the first three years of the little boy's life.
You don't remember d'Armond? Well, he first entered the Trekkie firmament in a 1999 Wired article, in which he told of how difficult it had been to communicate solely in the limited language of Klingon with his then 30-month-old son, Alec.
He even presented a recording of little Alec singing the opening bars of the Klingon Imperial Anthem.
The story has this week been updated with some extraordinary news.... Read more
There is a view that removing all 15-year-old boys from this earth would not only help global warming but also our cultural horizon.
Supporters of this view will then be heartened to hear the story reported by the Chicago Tribune of a 15-year-old boy who suffered a serious trauma. His parents took away his Xbox.
The boy, a resident of Buffalo Grove, Ill., which sounds like the sort of place where discipline is imparted along traditional lines, decided to express his feelings and exert his identity. He called 911 in order to ask the police whether his parents were, indeed, within their rights to remove his gaming equipment from his sensitive little fingers.
However, brave as all 15-year-olds are, he appears to have hung up. So the Buffalo Grove police which, on its website, declares that it is "dedicated to making our community a better place to live and work", wandered along to his house.
Where they may have just laughed until their shirts billowed like the kaftans of the late Luciano Pavarotti.
Commander Steve Husak told the Tribune that the officers not only told the little tyke that parents do, indeed, have the right to take away his gadgetry, but that it might be an idea to listen to what they had to say.
It is not recorded why the parents took away the boy's Xbox. Perhaps it was because he's a vastly intelligent youth who will soon be the governor of Illinois.
When you've lost the first round in your case against Verizon's persistent and persuasive mockery, who do you turn to?
Luke Wilson, that's who. After all, he starred in "Legally Blonde" and, well, "Jackass Number Two."
Actually, Wilson is lovable. Truly lovable. Perhaps if he'd dressed down a little and Justin Long had suffered an interminable hiatus hernia, Wilson might have got the part of Mac, the Microsoft Mocker.
Instead, he has the slightly more difficult task of persuading the folks who adored him in "Old School" that AT&T's 3G will serve them well on the 3.10 to Yuma.
The creators didn't give him much of a script, as I suspect they wrote it a couple of lattes and a shot of bourbon before this opus was filmed in what looks like the empty space above Victoria's Secret in Santa Monica, Calif.
Luke is forced to stand before a board and prove that AT&T has the fastest 3G network, lets you talk and surf at the same time, and offers you more apps that feature people making strange noises, half-clothed women, and animals that smile when you touch the screen. (Disclosure: slight exaggeration)
Sadly, it all looks a little analog. Luke looks as if he'd prefer to be surfing, as he really doesn't have the tools to make you believe what he's being paid to say.
His hair looks as if it's been hurriedly greased with Czech lard and his face offers a certain hemorrhoidal mien as it offers a little jape at the end of the spot. Yes, a jape about Verizon beginning with "V" and AT&T not beginning with "V." That rumbling you can hear is the collective guffaw from Verizon Central.
Verizon is hurting AT&T with its clinical, delighted unpleasantness. And I fear that before "Legally Blonde 2: AT&T's Revenge" can possibly be effective, the iPhone carrier needs to dramatize its argument rather better than the gospel according to Luke.
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?
