MarketingSherpa has come out with their 2007 Ecommerce Benchmark Guide. It’s about $300, but you can get a taste of what’s in there over here with Sherpa’s free 18-page tease. Okay, 12 pages; six are an ad and a table of contents for the full report, but there’s still some interesting info in here, and the price is right.
Apple’s 1984 spot is back (again), this time mashed up with some Hillary Clinton footage to create something that is ostensibly a campaign spot for Barack Obama. See it over here on YouTube, where it’s fast closing in on a million views as of this writing.
The source of the clip remains a mystery, even as it’s being discussed everywhere from Huffington Post to Backstreets.com. It’s interesting to note that the YouTube account that posted the video, ParkRidge47, was created about two weeks ago, and that Hillary Clinton was born in Park Ridge, Illinois, in 1947.
Innocent mashup or Machiavellian use of the Web? Campaign connections or not? No one knows, but we’ll probably find out before too long. It’s not at all a stretch to believe it was simply created by a tech-savvy political junkie looking for something to do on a Saturday afternoon.
Whatever the source, though, the clip is a keen reminder that the barrier to entry into the national political discourse is lower than ever. Look for 2008 to be the first Internet election, the way the Nixon-Kennedy debate proved that 1960 was the first television election.
The future is now. Say hello to 1984.
MARCH 21 UPDATE: Well, this didn’t take long. Turns out it was done on a Sunday afternoon, not a Saturday.
Years ago, Lily Tomlin did a comedy bit about pairing up the crazy people in New York City so they would look like they’re having conversations with each other.
These days, maybe the solution would be to give them all Bluetooth earbuds.
For my money, the Bluetooth earbud has jumped the shark. Hands free in the car or at the office? Fine. But seeing fathers at the school basketball game or walking around the supermarket talking into these things just strikes me as downright silly.
You don’t want to know what I think when I hear someone uptalking into these things.
Last April I posted a link to Copyscape, a tool to find out whether your site’s content is being used elsewhere on the Web. Here’s another one: ArticleChecker, which not only lets you check your site URLs, but also chunks of text you cut and paste into the tool and even files you can upload.
Sony is creating a virtual world for PlayStation 3 gamers. Called “Home,” it’s similar to Second Life: You can create and customize your avatar, chat via voice and do a whole bunch of other virtual world stuff.
There’s probably a lot more that will be available in Home than you can figure out by watching this clip but one thing’s for sure: The graphics are terrific.
Too slick and corporate, or a quantum leap in the world of virtual worlds? This one will be interesting to watch.
Meanwhile, USA Today asks, “Is this the age of the online avatar?” Ya think?
