ItsNiceThat.com. Updated several times a day with some stunning photos / art pieces - each with a short blurb about it. Here are a couple of my favorites:
I love Amazon's New Logo
I just noticed this tonight - Amazon has unveiled a new logo. When you hover over the Amazon Logo on all pages other than Amazon.com, a light frame is added and the word "homepage" appears alongside their famous smile.
I love it. Logos exist in consistent locations on a webpage (the top left corner). Adding a visual element from basic interactions - like a mouse hover - is engaging.
Until Dunkin Donuts Opens Up in San Francisco (or California for that matter)...
I still believe there is a ton of money to be made by bringing Dunkin Donuts out to California (there are enough east coast transplants in LA, San Jose and San Francisco)... but until someone pulls together enough money to do so, I will continue to use the only resource better than Amazon - my mother!
any time you get a package of dunkin donuts, life is grand!
Twitter Now Working on Gtalk; First Tweet is from JasonCalacanis
Ahh... I missed Twitter.
And while Twitter wasn't cooperating with Gtalk for the last couple weeks, I found myself not using the site or service. But today, at 1:42pm pst, I got my first Twitter message over Gtalk and I knew it had to either be Calacanis or Scoble.... Jason won:
Amazon.com - The Worst Cross-Merchandising Ever?
I love Amazon. I buy everything there - from toothpaste to food to electronics. They make buying easy. Amazon's finding experience and cross-merchandising technology is so superior to the competition that they are mentioned in nearly every e-commerce discussion I've been a part of.
But last night I received something so bizarre that it made me wonder if Amazon's merchandising talents haven't yet made their way off-line.
I purchased 120 'Doggie Waste Bags' using my Amazon Prime account. The package arrived within 24 hours with a gift: an individual box of Kellogg's Smart Start Healthy Heart Cinnamon Raisin Cereal. Huh?! Cross-promoting cereal with pet poop bags is a strange, strange combination.... even if it's loaded with fiber.
Ironic that Kijiji is Advertising via Adsense Here...
Cloverfield Warning Poster: "You May Experience Sickness"
It can't be a good thing when AMC is forced to put a sign warning movie-goers that they are likely to get ill while watching Cloverfield... I opted for Rambo IV today and it must rank as the bloodiest, most action-filled movie ever. The entire theater applauded when it ended (I certainly didn't expect that):
Is Google Testing a New AdSense Feature? The 'More Ads' Button
I wrote earlier about Google's bizarre AdSense behavior on this blog. Tonight, I noticed another strange occurrence which appears to be a new feature that Google AdSense in testing.
Tonight, I added an open air, text 468x60 unit atop the single posts. (As an aside, it took about 45 minutes for Google to start serving ads on the site - far longer than regular!). On the very first instance that the unit appeared, a "More Ads" link appeared in bold directly next to the Google logo on the bottom right corner. I had never seen this before. I pressed refresh about 30 times until I saw it happen again - making me comfortably confirm that this is a test.
The More Ads link arrived at a very strange page that had nothing but two units appear on it (essentially the same ad unit on a blank page). I have included a screen shot below. It's remarkably strange because you would expect the page to have, clearly, more ad placements than what had appeared on the initial viewing. But rather than a AdWords-only search results page, I get two units on a blank page. Bizarre.
Has anyone else had this appear? How does the 'More Ads' convert compared to normal blocks? And do you get paid on a click on the 'More Ads' text?
Apple Has Terrific Ad in New York Times: "Leopard is Better Than Vista"
Terrific ad on the New York Times homepage from January 17th that shows how brand advertising can be done correctly. It's smart, consistent with their TV campaign, and takes advantage of multi-ad sizes in a collaborative way. It really annoys me as a consumer and an advertiser when ads appear on the same page, in different formats (normally 728x60 and 160x600) and they are effectively the same ad.
See full image here.
