Chausse.org

Can’t you just FEEL the excitement surrounding the Vista launch?

Woohoo.

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I was doing something in iPhoto, when I noticed something very odd. I could drag a single image into an album, but couldn’t drag multiple images. After a bit of Googling, I found the following Apple Knowledge Base article:

What to do if you can’t drag multiple photos in iPhoto

Apparently, my computer was missing the Helvetica font (don’t ask). You see, iPhoto likes to draw a nice little number icon showing how many items you’re dragging, and it likes to do it using Helvetica. And if it can’t have Helvetica, it just won’t let you do the drag at all.

How Apple-ish to just completely remove a feature if it can’t execute it using the perfect font!

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Now about that manifesto I mentioned a few posts back. Um… writing a manifesto takes a lot of time… Something I definitely don’t have these days. So, I’ll just sum it up in one paragraph, yours for the taking:

If you think you’re doing “interactive marketing,” and what you’ve created doesn’t allow users to interact with one another, think again. Animation and clever interfaces are to 200X what plain HTML was to 199X. The Internet is now entirely about fostering human connections in innovative ways. Creating an interactive marketing site without a social dimension is like running a static text ad on television. Technically you’re using the medium, but you’re completely missing the point.

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For a while now - and especially since joining Hill, Holliday - I’ve been struggling with the question of what I should be doing with this site. It’s too personal to be a professional site, and perhaps too professional to just be a personal site. This site really reflects who I am - a marketing obsessed technology geek, who likes to dabble in a little of everything - but the topics I cover are far too varied to really serve as a solid backdrop for my role at Hill, Holliday, as the highly successful MIT Advertising Lab blog does for my teammate Ilya Vedrashko.

So I’m creating a new blog, one specifically designed around what I really do at Hill, Holliday. Or, more accurately, what I could be doing for clients, if they were to see things the way I do. It will be about using new technology for marketing. It will not be another Advertising Lab, which focuses on the future. This new blog will focus on things you can do right now, with a special emphasis on marketing-oriented startups and new online services.

One of the problems I’ve had with launching this project was coming up with a name. I dare you to try to find a compelling, available domain name that combines “technology” with “marketing”. Slim pickin’s. Well, I finally managed to find one yesterday that I’m quite happy with, that suits the cause perfectly. I’m not ready to reveal it yet, though. All in due time

So, what will this mean for Chausse.org? Not much, really, except that it will probably become even more scatterbrained, since I won’t feel so guilty about not treating my “professional” site professionally enough. That’ll be fun. It will likely also be rejiggered to be more than just a blog. I’ve toyed with creating a separate “family” web site (I do have that new baby and all), but with the new site taking on the role of potential-client-impresser, Chausse.org can probably double as my family site just fine.

Well, that’s what’s cookin’. I’ll reveal the new site to everyone here once it’s up and running. Hang tight.

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Either there’s a glitch somewhere in Google Maps’ routing logic, or I really don’t ever want to have to drive Route 1 in New Jersey.

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No, you’re not hallucinating. AARP is currently running an ad with music from the Buzzcocks. I’m speechless. And old.

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Shycast will be a social networking site specifically designed for brands to interact with individuals (via contests, etc.). Brands have been doing this on MySpace and FaceBook for a while now, but it’s always felt awkward and hackish. This looks like it has a lot of potential. Their #1 concern is getting enough brands - not individuals - to play along. This site fits in fantastically with the Hill, Holliday interactive team’s philosophy of moving brands into the realm of social media. If any big brands out there want someone to lead them into this brave new world, drop me a line. Also, if anyone from ShyCast is reading this, please contact me, I’d love to chat.

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In all the hubbub surrounding Apple’s new iPhone, I had been wondering how it would handle third party applications. Looks like it won’t. And Steve Jobs is claiming it’s to protect Cingular’s network infrastructure. Jobs argues that an ill-mannered app could bring down the whole network.

Uh-huh.

I have a Windows Mobile Smartphone which runs on the Cingular network, and that’s a very open platform. If it were conceivable to bring down a cellular network with a poorly written app, someone would have done it by now via Smartphone.

I’ll always think Jobs is a genius and a visionary, but even his Reality Distortion Field has its limits. Clearly he wants Apple to be just like the big carriers in restricting cell phone applications, to profit as gatekeepers. And that’s disappointing for a company that claims to be about enabling individual creativity.

I still want the damn thing, though.

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Thanks to Google’s PageRank, backlinks are the new currency of the web. An entire underground economy has spawned around tricky ways to get popular sites to link to your far less popular site. Of course, there are people who would be willing to pay good money to get backlinks from popular sites if only those sites would be willing to host them.

The most popular blogs and other sites are loathe to accept money for backlinks because it comes across as cheap and sleazy. Why not set up a system that would allow people to buy backlinks on popular sites, with the profits going to a charity selected by the site owner? This way small site owners get the traffic they need for a fair price, and the site owner gets to make good use of their “popularity capital” to help change the world for the better.

Of course, sites could simply sell ads as usual and donate the money to charity, but I think a little branding and PR could add some real buzz around the concept. And, of course, there’s always money to be made as an intermediary for this sort of thing.

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First off, I had no idea a video game controller could win an Emmy. Second, I have no idea why the Sony DualShock would win this Emmy. It’s got a nice design, but it’s not new enough to be exactly innovative, nor old enough to win a “Lifetime Achievement” award. Confused? So was Sony, who thought the award was for the PlayStation 3’s “Sixaxis” controller and released a press release to that effect. I guess they’ll try anything to steal the the thunder from the Wiimote.

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By now, you’ve all heard of Apple’s new iPhone. If you haven’t seen the demos of the user interface, do so NOW. As excited as I am whenever Apple launches stuff like this, it pains me that they are literally the only company on the planet putting this much innovation into computing devices. There is room in the market for another Apple, yet everyone else continues to rearrange cheap, poorly designed commodity parts into marginally interesting devices and calls that innovation.

Anyway, one interesting aspect of this launch that I don’t think many people have picked up on is this: By creating what is possibly the world’s most powerful PDA, but simply calling it a “phone”, they’ve stuck the first nail in the coffin for the entire non-phone PDA concept, which will likely go the way of the 5 dollar pocket calculator very soon now.

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Tivo will soon integrate with Rhapsody. I’m a huge Rhapsody fan, and a huge Tivo fan. Two great tastes tasting great together. Nearly any song on my home theater system at any time. I like it.

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Now that I’ve gotten settled in at Hill Holliday and gotten a sense of where the interactive marketing industry needs a swift kick in the pants, I’m working on a manifesto. Yes, a manifesto. Something that will guide everything I do professionally from here on out, and hopefully something that will change the definition of “Interactive Marketing” forever. A lofty goal? Perhaps. But what other types of goals are worth pursuing? Stay tuned…

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