Experience Manifesto

Boy, Is That Screen Expensive!

Well, I just broke the screen on my iPhone and let me tell you, you don't want to do that my friend! $249 to replace the glass. Plus shipping it back to them for a week or so. I haven't been happy with it since I got it and this sure didn't help. A number of people who have held it have commented on how slippery the iPhone is and those good looks come at a price. Guess if I get it fixed, I'll buy a case. Yea, it's going to one a long weekend!

The First Web 2.0 Burger Joint and 30 Menu Suggestions - CenterNetworks - News, Reviews, Insights and Interviews

A little fun for a Monday afternoon!

So today I am in a taxi in NYC and we are at a red light when I see the best name for a burger joint ever: brgr. It's totally Web 2.0! Remember the days before the Internet when every pest control company was named: AAAAAAAA Pest Control? It seems Web 2.0 names have invaded offline today as well! If you are interested, Gothamist has a review of the burger joint. I went into brgr and made some suggestions for additions to their menu that follow the Web 2.0 theme. I thought you might be interested in them as well so here goes:

The Mashable: Comes with 49 types of cheese, 16 sauces, 32 packets of salt and 9 varieties of beef.

The Calacanis: It's a simple burger, there are no fixins and you will not comment to the staff about the quality.

The Twitter: Small beef burger which may or may not arrive at your table but if it does, everyone will know you are eating it.

The Facebook: Burger comes without anything on it, you add whatever you like later on.

The Scoble: Burger comes with free video explaining how the burger was made, what's on the burger and a free Seagate burger manager.

The Digg: Twenty burgers are served tableside. Whichever burger receives the most amount of votes from the other guests is the burger which you shall eat. Some burgers will appear better than others.

The Skype: Burger will be missing one of the items you requested; the establishment will blame the store down the street for not including the missing item.

The Microsoft: It's not sure what type of burger it wants to be.

The Apple: The most beautiful burger ever.

The AT&T: Will be served with a side of 400 potatoes in a box even though you asked for no potatoes.

The Google: Upon purchasing The Google, all other burgers currently on order will be acquired by The Google.

The Zune: Probably tastes good but looks like crap.

There are a lot more on the full post and some great suggestions in the comments section!

Link: The First Web 2.0 Burger Joint and 30 Menu Suggestions - CenterNetworks - News, Reviews, Insights and Interviews.

BloggerSocial: Blogger Social ’08: Where, When, What…and What We Need From YOU!

Ever read through these blogs and wonder what it would be like to meet the writer? Well, here's your chance! Planning is underway for the BloggerSocial, to be held here in NYC next April. Read the info below and click on the link to register! I for one, am looking forward to putting faces with blogs!

What is it? Blogger social is like no other marketing event because it’s not about marketing and it’s not about blogging—it’s about the marketers behind the blogs. 

Neither conference nor summit, it’s one weekend, held once a year, where the online marketing community descends upon a designated city for a weekend full of events designed to allow everyone to get to know one another better—and designed to give everyone free time to design their own meetups, too! Where is it? We asked, you answered! 

Blogger Social ’08 will be held in New York City. Yep, the city of dreams, the city that never sleeps and the city that boasts millions is about to become even more populated due to marketing bloggers from all over the globe visiting for one very special, very social weekend. (funny aside: Both Drew and CK voted for Vegas, but NYC it is!). Yep, 31% voted to hold the event in the Big Apple—please see survey results (Download survey_results.pdf).

When is it? April 4th – 6th, 2008 (Friday through Sunday).

Marketing bloggers voted for early April and this date is clear of the world's major holidays.

What’s in it for YOU? The opportunity to meet—actually meet!—all your friends and colleagues through 3 (amazing!) events, as well as time for you to form your own meetups.

We are planning on:

A mixer on Friday night (think 7p – 1a)

An event on Saturday afternoon (think 12p – 3p)

And one special event on Saturday evening (7p – until dawn)

Friday night and Saturday afternoon events will be casual and Saturday evening will be a bit dressy. Sunday is all free time, giving you extra time to design your own meetups.

Link: BloggerSocial: Blogger Social ’08: Where, When, What…and What We Need From YOU!.

getFreshMinds.com | Creativity | Innovation | Ideas so fresh--they should be slapped!

Learned about a new blog today and this was the first post on it. Love stories like this and wish more brand managers took this kind of knowledge to heart. I'll bet that you can use similar information to track brands to see which ones will be successful based on what the brand managers are spending their time doing. I think that way too many brand managers spend their time on the minutiae of their job, pushing paper just to keep the status quo going. That’s why brands lose their relevance over time. Too many people at too many brands just look internally at what’s been done before and maybe checking to see what the competition is doing that they never get around to looking at the future. They’ll even tell you that if you ask. So, maybe they’ll look at this study and see if they can start looking to the future to save their brand! And make sure you check out the rest of getFreshMinds while you're there.

Companies whose chief executives speak about future events and external activities innovate more than those whose chiefs don't, a U.S. university study says.“By simply counting the number of future-oriented sentences in annual reports we can predict future innovation by the firm,” said marketing Professor Rajesh Chandy of the University of Minnesota’s Carlson School of Management.

CEOs who focus their attention on future events and external activities lead their firms to early adoption and invention of new technologies and greater and faster development of innovations, said Chandy, whose study appears in the next issue of the Journal of Marketing.

In contrast, firms whose CEOs focus on internal operations are slower to detect, adopt and implement new technologies, Chandy’s study found. Words, not just actions, of the CEO set the tone to inspire, propel and
motivate employee innovation, he said....

Link: getFreshMinds.com | Creativity | Innovation | Ideas so fresh--they should be slapped!.

At The Roundtable - Adweek Media

I was very active in the Adrants Soflow media discussion group, but for some reason, Soflow decided to shut down their groups. So I've been missing that list and the discussions that were there and was happy to see the Roundtable pop-up. It's still very new and I haven't checked everything out yet, but it seemed pretty easy to get started on it. Look me up if you join!

Connect At The Roundtable, and quickly communicate with media, marketing and advertising experts and enthusiasts like you. Start now and exchange expertise, develop partnerships, and share ideas.

This online community is a private web site where you can meet, build relationships, share ideas, contribute content, and learn from one another. Join us today At The Roundtable and explore dynamic and vibrant ways to collaborate.

Link: At The Roundtable - Adweek Media.

Petsmart Pethotel

Having two dogs, we've had to board them a great deal over the years. Our local, and favorite place, PREFERRED PET CARE, was booked during a recent trip, so we decided to try the new PetSmart PetsHotel. Now, we've always had a pretty good experience at Preferred Pet Care (although once they lost our medical records and we had to do lots of last minute scrambling to get that resolved!) and, more importantly, the dogs always seem to enjoy it. The very first time we took them there, they asked us if our dogs were allowed on furniture, since they had rooms with and without couches. They sleep in a big room, actually pretty close to the size of our bedroom and they have both indoor and outdoor play spaces. But the most important thing was that our dogs played with other dogs for about 10 hours/day, leaving them exhausted and happy.

But, the PetSmart PetsHotel was completely different. First of all, click on the picture below. Why have a map page if you're going to say "The position of this store was not determined with complete accuracy." They couldn't use Mapquest or something to show you how to get to their store? When you click in the map, they actually tell you to call the store for directions! Come on folks, it's 2007!

But, in all of the years that we've boarded dogs (and I've had dogs since 1992), they do something here that we've never encountered before. The boarding here did not include any play time at all! They were put in a 4' X 6' cubicle kinda' space and they would get two walks a day. If we wanted them to go to the playroom, that was all extra. A lot extra. Something we think they should've mentioned when we called to book the reservation. We would've had a pet sitter come to our house if we knew that was all they were going to get. At every other place we've boarded our dogs, the play time came with the boarding. For almost $50/night, they should be able to play with the other dogs!

In the end, it seemed that our dogs had a good time and I guess that's all that really matters. Just a little better communicaiton upfront would've made it a good experience for us too!

High School Musical 2 Most-Viewed Cable Telecast Ever - 8/18/2007 4:51:00 PM - Broadcasting & Cable

We went to some friends to watch High School Musical 2 and after a while, I was the only one really watching it. Of course, their daughter was only 6 too and, like Sydney, probably not really in the target audience. Other friends, whose children range from 5 to 15, have been waiting for months to watch HSM2! And now, the numbers are out and it was a huge hit. The biggest cable show in quite some time it seems. If you've seen HSM2 or HSM, you'd know that it's a pretty hokey, a throw back almost to the Beach Blanket Bingo (1965) movies from my youth. So, maybe you don't need violence, bad language, blood & gore and sex to make something a hit!

Disney Channel's High School Musical 2 rocked the ratings Friday night, drawing an enormous 17.2 million viewers -- the most for any basic-cable telecast ever and nearly 10 million more than the original movie in January, according to preliminary ratings from Nielsen Media Research.

The sequel also drew the most kids of any telecast ever on broadcast or cable, with 6.1 million, and stands as TV's second-most-watched entertainment telecast with tweens 9-14, behind the 2004 Super Bowl.

The musical comedy, which ran from 8 p.m.-10 p.m. on the non-ad-supported network, beat out by 8% cable's previous record-holder with total viewers, a Sept. 23 Monday Night Football game on ESPN, which drew 16 million.

HSM2 was also TV's most-viewed Friday-night telecast in more than five years and ranks as cable's most-viewed original film ever, beating TNT's 2001 flick, Crossfire Trail, by about 2 million viewers, or 38%.

Link: High School Musical 2 Most-Viewed Cable Telecast Ever - 8/18/2007 4:51:00 PM - Broadcasting & Cable.

adfreak: Piss-Screen debuts, sadly lacks multiplayer

Damn, they got this before I did. Must have been sleeping on the job!

That’s where the Piss-Screen comes into play. According to the Web site, this Saatchi & Saatchi project in Germany created “a pressure-sensitive inlay set within urinals, enabling users to play while they pee. ... The game itself was displayed on a screen above each urinal and would automatically start as soon as someone began to pee. The player could then control the car whilst relieving himself.” The idea here is that said player would pee his car into a purposely graphic wreck due to his impaired reaction time, and hopefully he'd connect that result with his own fate should he drive himself home in that condition. (It's an ad for a taxi service.) What they failed to recognize was that video games are fun, so people would probably end up drinking more just so they could go play Peed For Speed in the bathroom. No, what drunks need is a game so frustrating that it sobers them up, and fortunately, such a game exists. Hat tip once again to Presurfer.

Link: adfreak: Piss-Screen debuts, sadly lacks multiplayer.

Link: PISS-SCREEN.COM — // An interactive urinary experience – not to be mistaken with the Wii.

Idea Store - Created and Managed by Tower Hamlets Council - Home

You know, I wish I could remember where I first read about this, but what a cool idea. Totally changing the idea of what a library is and does. I love the idea of the library as an "idea store" too. Not a repository of information that is sometimes hard to navigate, but a place for you to get ideas. Read ore about their big idea by clicking on the link below.

What's the big idea? Idea Stores combine the best of traditional library and information services with first class lifelong learning opportunities in comfortable and friendly surroundings.

Library - a wide range of stock including best-selling books, CDs and DVDs

Learning - day, evening and weekend courses for a range of interests and abilities

Information - access to extensive reference and information sources including online resources and a local studies and archives collection.

Our objectives are to bring the community together and to empower individuals to help themselves, whether it is learning to read, pursuing hobbies, expanding their knowledge or seeking a job.

An Idea Store is an ideal place to browse and borrow books, read a newspaper or magazine, learn new skills, surf the net or to relax and meet friends over a coffee in a fun and stimulating environment.

The Idea
Through the new Idea Stores, Tower Hamlets Council will be investing millions of pounds to create a network of adult education, library and information services, in 7 state-of-the-art buildings, all in local shopping centres.

These buildings are more than just a library or a place of learning. As well as the traditional library service, much valued by residents, they offer a wide range of adult education classes, along with career support, training, a creche, meeting areas, cafes and arts and leisure pursuits.

Link: Idea Store - Created and Managed by Tower Hamlets Council - Home.

Halloween

Beneath the mask, behind the madness, comes a legendary tale as it's never been told... Seriously, how could they describe a remake of Halloween as a legendary tale??? As it's never been told??? Kid goes crazy, kid kills everyone, breaks out years later and kills a bunch of people again. Are they going to add some kind of subtext to explain how he became a killer??? It's a psycho killer movie, not classic literature for god's sake. Why are the remaking this movie???

Link: Halloween.