Convenient, yes. Fair, no.

I'm really happy for the team that created this Exit Strategy NYC app. It tells you which car to get into so that you can get out of your destination station faster. Firstly, Exit Strategy Team, get out of my head! This kind of meticulus commuting is meant for one's own neurosis, not for public consumption. But also, this will flood the second to last car on the Downtown 4/5 between 59th and Grand Central. It took me 2 years to find that exact door/car, and I think others should have to learn the hard way. It's a perk of experience. But I guess it's still pretty great, I hope they get rich. It's compelling content, as soon as a brand attaches itself to the app. Perhaps its a watch company? Weak, but ill keep thinking about it. And I'll start using the app, too.

Hey GM, if you're gonna shrink, shrink your ad budget.

Get rid of your logos. Your taglines. Your campaigns. Your brand equity. Become the car company of the future. Keep Cadillac, maybe Saturn separate... but no more buick, chevy, geo, pontiac, etc.
Now it's all GM. One hood ornament. One logo. One ad look. One agency. Slim down the messaging and the red tape of delivering said messaging. Corvettes are still Corvettes if they're GM. It's just a fuel/energy/financially efficient way to keep your company afloat while honoring the history... and embracing a future. There can be one website. One boss. One marketing team. The subsequent savings would be visible.

This is awesome, but only in select Metropoli

So I can see this app working well in combination with Twitter--A twitter map with all my buddies, I can click on the map, their profile pops up with their latest Twits.
I could see this working well with Flickr. Same map, but with live pics.

The thing is, you need to be in a place, a geographically small city, where people are moving around, it seems only perfect for bar hoppers. Or bike messengers. If people aren't moving every few hours, why check their location? We'll see.

But what I WANT to see this working well with are live branded events. "Sometime today, somewhere in Manhattan, we will giving away free [INSERT PRODUCT HERE]. Watch your map." The map can be on the product home page. The guy who has the van full of free shit can "turn on" his location for 15 min then shut it off... It's an instant mad rush to the area, you can see how many users are there. FINALLY we can measure giveaways, product demos and events. It's a hotbed for compelling content of all sorts.

Whoa Fella, one too many questions

I liked the look of LivingSocial but they're asking too many questions to get started. It's a site where you list the consumed culture in your life and it helps you build on that. Great idea. E.g. list all the books you've read and are reading and want to read. Then you're linked to all others by that data. TV shows, movies, restaurants. Great.
But to get started you have to fill in all the data. Much more time consuming than starting a facebook page.

Oh, and it's a facebook app. But it's not. It's a separate page. It has the facebook link at the top, but so does my browser. Note the pictures to the right and below.

It's definitely compelling content. It's a place for advertisers to get SOOOO specific. And it's a useful kind of specific. If they know I love Scorsese movies, they may remind me about Raging Bull, which reminds me, I still haven't seen that. But my buddies have. Perhaps I'll buy it right here!

Better yet, maybe my Blockbuster delivery account could have a say in influencing me?

I might be jumping to conclusions here. I'll do more research and get back to me.

Award Shows are relevant, Dammit! Vol 6.

McCann was the big winner last night at the International Andy Awards for their work with Halo 3 . We've seen the ads, with the diarama on an enormous, detailed scale. It flipped the video-game-tv-spot norm of pure action and explosions and made it eerily quiet. But what took it further was the interviews of "veterans." It put a human face, a whole story to these video game characters.

But back to the title of the article: awarding work like this is good for advertising. It was a multimedia, highly interactive, thoughtful campaign. It wasn’t a goofy commercial. Nor did users didn’t have to buy anything to get involved, but it was oh so engaging. So, if we award work like this, then creatives will strive to do more of it, more of it will get presented, and more of it will get made. It's the natural selection of compelling content.

Oh, and results. The release of Halo 3 rocked Spiderman and Harry Potter.

Award Shows are relevant, dammit! vol.5

More to come. I'm just getting the excitement started. I forsee another smart move by the Andy Awards to be more modern, making modern advertising the star. Can't say more.

Clickable TV, the inevitable is here

I knew this would happen. We just gotta make a remote that, like the Wii remote, replaces the mouse. No one wants to have a mouse pad on their coffee table.

So this is TalkShoe. Its a place to participate in Live Podcasts, and to chip away at the old media business model. I like the idea that people can engage in creating podcast content, because dialogue is valuable. Why its compelling: you can find podcasts you would not download, but gladly give a listen to, since its streaming. Also, particularly for sports, it creates an old, but timeless radio talk show format into modern techonology.