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There’s a new another browser in town called Blackbird. Actually, it’s only for PCs and it’s only for the African American community according to the release notes. Okaaaaaay. And it would know your race because of...? The patented Super Secret Race Detection Widget it plants on your hard drive? Who knows, but it claims to be a better way to search and experience the internet if you’ve found the all-whiteness of IE or Firefox too restricting. (Does anyone even use IE anymore? Oh yeah, right, forgot. PC freaks.) Forget the snark, I’m guessing the Blackbird people suspect that Google is not doing all it can to help African Americans when it comes to search results, and wants to change things in addition to offering other services. Least that’s what I’m inferring from their site. Check it out and download it here.
I get a lot of releases. In short, the stupid stupidity of some of the stupid ones is really stupid. Like this one: “Jewelry Exchange's New Marketing Manager to Promote Diamonds.” I. Would. Hope. So. What the hell have they been doing if they haven’t been focused on selling diamonds? Perfect set-up title notwithstanding, I’m also shaking my head at what the duties of the marketing manager will be online: “...responsible for CPC, banner and email campaigns” and “innovative creative.” So what you say. It’s just when I hear innovative creative, click-through rates are the last thing that comes to mind. Sexy!
CNN Pitches a Cheaper Wire Service to Newspapers? Yeah, it’s called Twitter. While Twitter admittedly takes a lot of shit for its mundane mundaneness, sometimes being nothing more than life’s unfiltered B-roll, people from Mumbai last week were reporting stuff before even Drudge was. So what? Okay, well, Drudge was always the one that had usually circumvented regular media and reported stuff first, but not this time. Forget the issue of vetting for a sec, I saw firsthand accounts relayed on Twitter as well as images up on Flickr well before any major media had them.
There was also a concern with the real-time coverage that could be used by the perpetrators to aid their attack. Possibly, but people did stop updates when asked. The problem though wasn’t Twitter-as-intel-feed. Try having relaxed hotel security precautions after a warning was issued ahead of time, or security guards who failed to return fire when confronted. Yeah, definitely could see how you’d blame Twitter for that.
CDs going, going, gone. Downloads now eclipse CD sales at Atlantic Records. Forget CDs, how long before the labels go the same way? They’re facing competition from streaming sites like iLike, imeem, Blip.fm and Last.fm. Play nice kids. These sites can give record company catalogs a second life in addition to helping break new artists to followers.
The only other strength of the majors lies in their ability to support headlining acts. Face it, while an artist on MySpace may have 20,000 followers without major label help, they can’t go to the next level without larger sponsorship or someone giving them a shot as an opener for top acts.
So Starbuck’s profits dropped 97% in 4th quarter. No, that’s not bad news, that’s actually a bottoming-out milestone for the company. Let’s celebrate with coffee! From Paul McCartney to serving breakfast pastries and smoothies. Hmmm. Just like Dunkin’ Donuts makes. Maybe the problem is that everyone else caught up with them. Nah. That couldn’t be it.
When Obama and Bush first met way back, things didn’t go as smoothly as planned when Bush offered him hand sanitizer. Still, could’ve been worse: he could’ve offered him a condom. Now after yesterday’s meetings, looks like Barack was measuring curtains during the visit. Hey, new guy gets to do what he wants.
Puns are dead? Say it ain’t so. Okay. It ain’t, not at Philips Bodygroom Manalogues. They missed the chance at a few more though: Instead of calling it a website, should be the testosteroom, where we don’t do trimming—we do manscaping. I feel better now.
It’s a user-generated promotional partner orgy as Intel, Dell, Autodesk, Facebook, Reel FX and Aniboom offer viewers a chance to animate part of a new film. Cool news for animators. Whole thing’s moving to the point where studios will eventually dump all their scenes on Facebook anyway so you can make your own happy ending(s).
Checks and balances—why Fox News gets to stay. As Thomas Jefferson said, he preferred newspapers without a government to a government without newspapers. Wait, that was before getting burned by the press. What he really meant was that “The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.” Look at Tommy Boy flip-flopping!
