Wisdumb: Smart and Not-So-Smart

“The Real Hustle” is a good show, and this is one of the best bar scams on it.

My Something is jewelry, a necklace to be exact. The chain is especially cheap, but the charm on it is some sort of black stone or crystal. It did come in a very nice box with a ribbon. I will use stone on my key chain, I think.

I learned about this site from Allison of AliThinks.com fame. It is an intriguing idea. The concept is simple. Send them ten bucks, and then they send you something. What they send you is a surprise. It could be almost anything, or so they say. They have something called the “Something Tracker” which displays recent items sent to people. It looks like quite a few cost more than $10, while most do not. However, since shipping is included in the price, even the lower priced items would likely cost you $10 when you add in shipping costs. Anyway, like Allison, I ordered something and will report back when I get it.

Has anyone else done this? If so, what did you get?

I only give the execution a 7, but the idea is a solid 10.

Personally, I think they could have even upped the sarcasm and cut the time in half, but even despite these minor shortcomings, Agency Fusion’s site is definitely worth checking out.

Also, shouldn’t they have made this video available for embedding?

MySyndicaat is a service that creates a river of news from a group of news/RSS feeds. It basically combines these feeds into one giant feed so all you have to do is scroll down though one long set instead of a series of smaller blogs. I find this service useful, and I thought I would share it. I have a feed dedicated to Marketing/PR/Ad blogs. I compiled this list of blogs from the top portion of the Power150 list created by Todd Andrlik and now owned by AdAge. My 20 blogs aren’t the top 20 from the Power150, but they are all in the top 50, at least as of today’s date. I skipped the SEO blogs and some others that I either don’t like or am already checking regularly as part of my normal Bloglines activity. BTW, I added my own MySyndicaat feed to my Bloglines account as just another RSS subscription - that way I get all of my news and blog information from one source. You could do the same thing, or just bookmark or del.icio.us it.

If you aren’t familiar with any of the above hyperlinked services, I recommend you check them out. And please, feel free to share what you use by commenting on this post.

Here is another one of those marketing sites with interactive video in it. Like Shaveanywhere and Cleanishappy (click for my posts on these), I-NeedToGo is fairly crass compared to most advertising (excluding typical beer commercials). However, unlike “Shave ” and “Clean” which actually hit you with product details and have designed the site to engage the viewer with the product they are selling by detailing user benefits or demonstrating product features, “Go” doesn’t use the video to demo a product. The site just become a lead-in to an ad for a product.

As such, I think “Go” is ultimately a failure [though the logo makes me laugh] . I am sure it will generate some buzz and it will make the rounds as the newest viral thing, but I doubt this will in turn generate business. I didn’t try all the possibilities, but when I chose to urinate as a man, I was essentially taunted for having a small package. Then an old lady talked to me for way too long and in an almost condescending way, telling me she wasn’t really talking to me live and that it was pre-recorded. No shit? I could have sworn her eyes followed me. Anyway, after mocking my manhood and treating me like I’m stupid, I guess I am supposed to want use their sponsors financial services.

A site that does demo the product well is WillItBlend. I didn’t include this site with my prior examples as it isn’t really interactive (though they do request ideas for new things to blend - but this isn’t done via interacting with the video). Anyway, I met the creator of “Blend”, and he claims they have moved almost 500% more product as a result of these videos.

Do you think “Go” will deliver anything close to that?

I got about 80% of the references…

Who created this? These guys did.

A distraught and very sad letter ‘e’ contacted me this afternoon. It requested I speak on its behalf as it fears for its existence. From what I can tell, there are two main reasons for this fear.

It all started a few years ago with the iPod. Before the iPod came along, the letter ‘e’ was dominating the world - or at least in equal footing with the letter ‘i’. There was e-mail, e-commerce, e-loan, e-machines, e-money, etc. Then, with the popularity of the iPod, other iDevices started popping up everywhere. And quite frankly, in many cases, the ‘i’ was showing up where an ‘e’ would make more sense. I mean, a digital music player is an electronic device more that it is an Internet device.

But then, something even worse came along… FLICKR. Come on! It drops the ‘e’ for no reason and then mocks the fifth letter by leaving the ‘i’ in it. And for some reason, names like this practically became mandatory for web 2.0 sites. You’ve got zoomr, bloggr, grabbr and many other examples. I started to compile a list, but during my research I discovered a site that beat me to the punch (with 120 such names).

Anyway, in an effort to help out our old friend the letter ‘e’, I beseech thee to start speaking in Olde English whenever ye see an opportunitee or if ye desires in its stead, just forgo the letter ‘y’ at the end of words for the perfectlee capable double ‘ee’ if ye please.

…flock together. The list below are all different sites, but they share a common theme of finding, sharing and mocking common language mistakes:

• Literally, A Web Log
• the “blog” of “unnecessary” quotation marks
• Apostrophe Abuse

This next one is different, but I still include it because it finds and mocks like those above, and if you stretch the idea of language mistakes to include tone of voice, then it is literally “close enough” to the other’s.

• passive aggressive notes