Selling When Shouting!?
Steve Ballmer selling Windows 1.0
After watching this video it is clear he hasn’t changed his attitude or technique of selling. :)
Product NEWS
When Brand Infection works…
… you know it must be Apple Inc. Picture taken in the Missouri School of Journalism (via Digg)
Unofficial Apple iPhone Details From Kevin Rose
I just read on TechCrunch that Digg’s founder Kevin Rose has some good inside information on the upcoming iPhone.
According to Kevin there are two models coming up, 4 GB and 8 GB, priced at $249 and $449. No word on whether they’ll be shipping an unlocked version of the phone, but Kevin says Apple is adding both GSM and CDMA radios into the iPhone, making it truly carrier-independent. The device will have a slide out keyboard, a touch screen and two batteries (one for the MP3 player, one for the phone).
Hello! Drinks Brand Evolves Interactively
It was in February 2006 when German Marketing-expert Jürgen Alker came back from the UK with a new business idea: smoothies.
A smoothie is a blended non-alcoholic beverage made from natural ingredients, usually fruits and juices but sometimes other natural flavors such as chocolate or even green tea. Smoothies and juice bars started becoming popular throughout the United States in the 90’s where Jamba Juice is the largest smoothie bar franchise, with 533 stores and sales reaching $345 million in 2005.
So what’s special about selling smoothies you say. Well first of all, there are no real smoothies on the German market yet and unlike following the usual and secret path of bringing a product to market he did a lot of things differently. Most importantly he created a blog and let everybody to participate in developing his vision: Hello! Drinks.
Rrrring. Pick Up Mouse. Hello?
Funky, dumb, cool(?) gadget by Sony in cooperation with Skype: a mouse-phone, eh phone-mouse, hm.
The Sony VAIO VN-CX1 functions just like any optical mouse, but when you press a small button on the side it transforms into a VoIP phone. Unfortunately not wireless, not that cheap (83$) but maybe still handy.
Why have 2 devices when you can have 1?
Because I don’t want to be tied to my PC? :-)
Coca-Cola Blāk - Want some more coffe(e)ine?
The Coca-Cola Company will be launching Coca-Cola Blāk early next year and France is first of many key markets. Coca-Cola Blāk is a new kind of beverage with an invigorating and stimulating blend that has a good balance of the effervescent taste of Coca-Cola and natural flavors, with real coffee.
The lightly carbonated, mid-calorie beverage, which is designed to appeal to adult consumers, is yet another example how The Coca-Cola Company reaches out to new audiences and addresses new beverage occasions.
The launch will be supported by television, print, outdoor and in-store communication. Advertising and creative for Coca-Cola Blāk will be developed locally and regionally.
Don’t Copy. Lead.
Creative’s Zen Vision:M does not fit this leitmotiv, a slogan actually used by Toshiba. Instead the Vision:M is just another copy of Apple iPod’s product design, exercised in a lower quality and less innovative way.
“When people see the Zen Vision:M, they tell us it’s incredibly cool,”
said Sim Wong Hoo, chairman and CEO of Creative.
What people? Creatives?
Sure some people say it’s incredibly cool, because it can do so much and looks quite nice. But if they have known the iPod beforehand they will see the Zen Vision:M as a me-too product, and let’s be honest, who wants to buy me-too products, ie. wouldn’t want to spend some extra bucks to get the original?
Even though Creative’s Mp3 Player has more features like recording and FM-radio, integration with music services, longer battery life, video playback and what not.
Maybe too much, less is more
Less is more:
originally not a web 2.0 term but the leitmotiv of architect Mies van der Rohe and Buckminster Fuller, demonstrated in their buildings and geodesic domes. Both have got it from the poem “Andrea del Sarto”, by Robert Browning’s in 1855.
Meet OQO - the Ultra Personal Computer
This device is so new, powerful and handy, OQO (Brand Directory: OQO), the company producing it, needed to create a new name. Not PDA, not MDA, not PocketPC, no. It’s called UPC as in “Ultra Personal Computer”
I’m yet to find a price but as I read from the specs this UPC should be pretty handy, especially for people like me always on-the-go.
It’s got (nearly) everything you need:
- WLAN
- USB/Bluetooth Connectivity
- 1 GHz
- 5″ screen with 800×480 resolution
- just 14 ounces
OQO has just received 20 million dollar of funding from Motorola which will be used for distribution, marketing and speeding up the development of upcoming devices, says CEO Jory Bell.
L.E.D. digital - Fashion Watch by Philippe Starck
For christmas, I would like to get this watch, designed by Philippe Starck.
It is based on L.E.D. technology and time or date are presented when the appropriate button is pressed.
Nothing special you say but look how pretty L.E.D. can be and apart from the extra-ordinary design, it is not that expensive ($125). For a Starck.
[via Indeterminacion]
blummy - The Tool to end all Bookmarklets
My friend Alex had a great idea: to get rid of all those bookmarklets one has in his/her toolbar: “add to delicious, add to newsgator, add to bloglines, blog this with wordpress, …”
You get the point.
blummy is a tool for quick access to your favorite web services via your bookmark toolbar.
It consists of small widgets, called blummlets, which make use of Javascript to provide rich functionality (such as bookmarklets). It works on almost every page on the web. Just click on it at your toolbar.
I designed the logo for him, did a little bit of CSS tweaking and added some bookmarklets.
Check it out at blummy.com
Watch Eminem iTunes + iPod Ad Video
The new ad for Apple iTunes + iPod features Eminem surrounded by great compositing effects and a catchy tune. The design and marketing departments have done a great job once again.
Garlic is Viral, Influence is King
Men are not waiting for a product to increase breast size. Women just laugh about tools to enlarge a penis.
You cannot infect anybody with anything but you can surely take the right measures to infect some.
Viral marketing works just like epidemics. A virus is spread to people using carriers. But unlike with sicknesses, not anybody can initiate the message to spread. You need to carefully select people with the right characteristics: sociable, enthusiastic and influential among their peers.
‘Influential’ is the keyword here as it plays an important role when you want to convince others to use your product or service. Imagine a heavy-weight guy telling stories about this great weight reduction product or a bookworm trying to convince others she/he is a partytiger. Would you trust those people? Are they influential? No.
What about an influential institution like Stockholm’s Museum of Modern Art or your good friend telling you that something is interesting, cool or worth visiting? And what about reading more about this product on various blogs on the net? I bet you would get eager to check it out yourself.
Even if it’s really silly? Yes, when it’s promoted in the right way.
Best example: the GarlicCard
A new gadget nobody needs, everybody goes crazy about, thus spreading the word to the world.
The GarlicCard, invented by Herman Rasmuson in Sweden, is a patterned card specially designed to grate garlic cloves, resulting in some sort of purée you can put on your dishes. Nothing more, nothing less.
So what could make this product worth spreading?
- it’s a little bit silly
- extra-ordinary
useful, nothing similar has been produced so far - accompanying information is amusing, interesting and unusual, for ex.: video
- a simple message, easy to explain and quick to tell
- influential initiator with an open-minded target group: in this case the museum of modern art
- gadget-like price, not too expensive. people won’t worry about the price so much
Martina from Adverblog puts it this way:
Actually the best thing about this gadget is the smart website: nicely designed and with an amusing video to explain how the garlic card works.
No virus unleashes better and more effectively than on the web. You just need to find people liking your product and they will spread it to the masses.
iSocks for your iPod anyone?
