“Happiness is good health and a bad memory.”
—Ingrid Bergman

You’re probably familiar with the idea of Easter eggs in video games, but have you noticed them yet in television?

My Name Is Earl is generating some buzz for placing Easter eggs in the show that only viewers with high-definition widescreen televisions will see. For example, in the screenshot you see here, that guy on the left in the background is holding a sign that says “High Def Rocks!”

My guess is that this is far from a calculated ploy to generate word of mouth for the show. One day, someone on set probably said something to the effect of, “Hey, why not stick a sign in the guy’s hand instead of having him just stand there?”

In-jokes are nothing new in movies and television, but Earl’s eggs are really capturing people’s imagination. And if you do have a high-def set and stumble upon “Hi def rocks!” (as I did), your reaction is probably very positive (as mine was): How cool! How creative! This show is really smart!

Connecting with your audience. You can cross that one off your list, Earl.

Takeaway for marketers: Details count. So do seemingly throwaway ideas.

eMarketer reports on a survey by Aquent that finds anywhere from 50 to 80 percent of Fortune 500 marketing departments are planning on hiring this year. (The percentage varies by region: East Coast is 50%, while the South is 80%.)

More than half of these companies (52 percent) expect spending on Internet marketing to increase in 2006. That seems like a low number, but it’s a significant increase from 29 percent in 2005.

Oddly, data analysis is one of two areas in which the expectation of a spending increase in 2006 is less than it was in 2005. (Project management is the other.) It seems that given the ever-increasing mountains of data companies are gathering on their customers, marketing departments should want to mine that data deeper than ever before.

“Tipping point” is reaching a tipping point for me. It’s everywhere, from the home page of AOL to the name of an episode of Everwood to the title of a CD by The Roots.

Speaking of roots: The phrase became buzzword following Malcolm Gladwell’s 2000 best-seller, but was actually coined about 40 years ago. Gladwell’s site clarifies his use of the term, and Wikipedia provides some interesting background.

The “tipping point” is a great device for making sense of a lot of things … maybe even the point at which useful device becomes useless cliche.

The 2006 Bloggie Awards have been announced. Winners in this, the sixth annual competition, receive $20.06 and bragging rights. Blog of the Year went to Postsecret, which deseves many more accolades beyond this.