Oscars Draw Lowest Audience in History
Last night’s broadcast of the 80th annual Academy Awards was the lowest rated show in its history, drawing just 32 million viewers. Couple this with the cancellation of the Golden Globes and this year’s awards season, typically a boon for the networks, was a total disaster for NBC, ABC and, to a lesser extent, advertisers.
Men’s Basketball Team Sports Sequin Uniforms
Oregon University, which provides its football players with a constantly revolving wardrobe of Nike-supplied uniforms, is taking their bold designs to the hardwood. The team debuted new basketball jerseys this past weekend that have the school and player’s names spelled out in, um, sequins. What’s next, leotards?
DDB Chicago ECD Dies
Sad news in the advertising world today. Paul Tilley, the creative chief at DDB Chicago, died this past Friday from an apparent suicide. Say what you will about his efforts — Tilley was responsible for the “Dude, you’re gettin’ a Dell” and the McDonald’s “I’m lovin’ it” campaigns — but his work brought success for his clients.
Starbucks Temporarily Closing Every Store
For three hours tomorrow afternoon, Starbucks will close all of its 7,100 stores in an effort to re-educate their baristas on the basics. The stores will close their doors in this unprecedented move at 5:30 pm local time.
For its part, Dunkin Donuts will attempt to seize the opportunity by offering 99-cent small drinks during the three-hour window.
Adobe Announces Release of AIR 1.0
Adobe AIR 1.0 was officially announced today. This is the company’s technology for integrating web and desktop application development, allowing developers to write apps that live both offline and outside of the browser. Several sample apps are available from AOL, eBay and NASDAQ.
Talk About a Steal
Keith Van Horn was sitting at home spending time as a semi-retired NBA player when he got pulled into the Dallas Mavericks/New Jersey Nets deal for Jason Kidd last week. To make the financials of the deal work, the Mavs signed him to a $4.3 million guaranteed deal.
The kicker? It’s expected that Van Horn will see zero playing time with Nets, making this one of the greatest multi-million dollar heists ever. Over the final 57 days of the regular season, he’ll earn $75,439 per day for not doing a thing. The Nets are not even going to make him available for interviews.
Jake and Amir: Barely Even Comedy
Original web video content isn’t usually my thing, but I find Jake and Amir to be strangely hilarious and addicting. The show is to twentysomething web geeks what The Hills is to 16-year old girls, I guess. It’s the latest from the guys over at Connected Ventures (College Humor, Vimeo, Busted Tees, etc.).
Best Buy Spills Beans on Refreshed Portables
Besides providing a less-than-stellar experience for its customers, you have to think Apple hates partnering with Best Buy for its inability to keep new products under wraps. This inventory list pretty much confirms the timing of a refreshed MacBook or MacBook Pro lineup.
Coca-Cola Introduces 100-Calorie Coke Can
Coca-Cola is joining the 100 calorie fad with a new mini can that will be rolled out as part of a new $10 million advertising campaign. The company will also begin running new TV spots this Thursday on American Idol that highlight its community efforts. It’s something customers were apparently asking for.
“Consumers let us know that by not talking about this, we were letting others define us as an uncaring company aligned with the pressures consumers are living with,” a spokeswoman told Ad Age.
Bees Mysteriously Vanishing
An updated 60 Minutes story documents the case of bees that are mysteriously disappearing and dying. Why should you care? Without sufficient bees to pollinate fruits and vegetables, this could mean higher prices and lower quality produce, something that many of us already face at our local grocery stores.
Electronic Arts Offers $2 Billion for Take-Two
Unsolicited takeovers are apparently the cool thing to do in ‘08. Today came word that EA has made a $2 billion bid for Grand Theft Auto-publisher Take-Two Interactive. The bid, which is a 50 percent premium over what Take-Two was valued at as of this past week, was promptly rejected.
Should the deal happen, however, competition in the sports video game market would effectively come to an end, as EA would own exclusive licenses in all of the major sports categories.
iPhone Social Network?
On TechCrunch, Michael Arrington poses the question on whether an iPhone-only social network will be developed and, if so, would it be successful. New ones will be created for sure; already there is iRover.com and Fon11.com, as well as others I’m probably unaware of. And plenty of developers will do tie-ins with the existing players. But unless total integration with the iPhone and location awareness are nailed, I don’t see a 3rd party developer having a huge amount of success.
Instead, I would look at Apple itself as taking the lead with this one, whether its through deals with Facebook or a service of their own. Over time, besides refining and reducing the cost of the hardware, they’ll need more software services to distinguish itself from the competition. Social networking will definitely be something they don’t overlook.
Obay, From the Makers of WhyBecauseISaidSo
A series of fake pharmaceutical ads promoting “Obay” have started popping up in Ontario and several US markets. They almost seem like SNL mini-skits, but are attention grabbing nonetheless. “My son had ideas of his own. Obay put a stop to that.”
Who’s behind them and what do they mean? The Toronist traced them to Colleges Ontario, an advocacy organization for the province’s 24 arts and technology colleges. They said they’ll have an explanation tomorrow.
Cloudo: The Computer Evolved
The so-called WebOS concept has been tried before, but Cloudo is certainly the first to wrap the idea in a glitzy marketing effort. Their product won’t be able for general usage until later this year, but it could be interesting to watch.
Asus Designers Have Really Great Ideas
The Asus Nova P22, a newish Mac mini-esque PC, features what CNET dubs an “attractive” design. I completely disagree. Not only is this thing downright ugly and the furthest thing from being what I would call attractive, it features very odd design choices. The big one is a piece of plastic that juts out from its right side. To me, it initially looked like a pen holder. Bizarrely enough though, it turns that it is indeed a pen holder. Are you kidding me? What computer user has ever said, gee, the one thing this machine really needs is a pen holder hanging off the side of its case.
Aesthetics aside, the P22 is pricier, physically larger and heavier than the Mac mini. It also got dusted by the mini in each of CNET’s performance tests. Perhaps a 2.0 version will improve in these areas, as well as maybe add in a paperclip tray or Post-it note dispenser.