Here’s another great ad… kind of. Reported over on Coolz0r, it’s an ad for something running/exercise/energy related. Too bad they didn’t make the logo bigger on the ad. My guess is that it is for Nike. Whatever company or product it is advertising, this is great because instead of big flashy lights to divert your attention away from the natural surroundings (like much of Time Square), the optical illusion that this advertisement creates in conjunction with its surroundings grabs you and makes you pause for a moment to think about it.

Could that really happen? You’d have to be strong. Maybe a super hero could do that… These were all the thoughts (yes childish) that flew through my head when I first saw this picture. What do you think of first?

Everyone knows Flickr, the wonderful Yahoo! company that enables photo sharing.  I am currently on a hunt for software that will run a linux screensaver that pulls photos from Flickr based on tags and/or usernames.  This is for another project, but I will save that for later.  During my hunt I found a few interesting tools that interact with Flickr, so I thought I would share them.

• Flickr Official Tools - These include the XP Explorer Wizard and Uploadr tool.
• FlickrLilli - Allows you to search Flickr photos based on tags and Creative Commons licensing.
• Grabbr - Useful for capturing screen shots of windows or desktop and uploading to Flickr.
• Slickr - Screensaver for Windows to show images from tags or users.
• FlickrDown - Useful for mass-downloading of photos.  Useful for backing up, or for grabbing original photos from friends.
• FlickrBackup - Haven’t tried this one, but sounds good.  Java tool to download photos to your hard drive.

Chevy has launched a new “viral” online advertising campaign that lets you create your own video advertising the Chevy Tahoe. This is both a great idea and a bad idea. It is a great idea because it turns the brand over to the public and not only draws on the creative talent of… anyone, but also gets people engaged with the brand.

To see why this is possibly a bad idea, check out the ad I made.

And here is another one among many others on YouTube.

Chevy has taken a big risk in doing this, but I think in the end it will be a good thing. Either way, it has already created TONS of buzz for them.

Scoble has a very interesting post on why myspace is successful.Secrets of Myspace

Among the reasons, get influential’s using your product, let your customers guide your actions, innovate quickly and frequently and finally make start up easy and friendly. While these all seem pretty basic, it is amazing how many companies either don’t buy into this thinking or simply loose this focus along the way. I would add one additional item to this list, and that is market creatively. In some ways myspace is the anti apple, their site is UGLY, however it has a massive following. By allowing for easy creation, easy sharing of music and the addictive addition of friends myspace has created a powerful network. For them the question is where do you go from here, how do you continue the growth while remaining hip and cool, something that is often not possible.

For the rest of us Scoble’s post is a good reminder of how important customer focus is, it is amazing how simple it sounds but listening to your customers really is a great path for success. One question facing much of the internet industry is how do you balance customer requests against monetization. I think the answer lies in changing the advertising game, for all the talk internet advertising has changed very little since it first blew up in 1996. I challenge all of the major online companies, MSN, Google, Yahoo, and who ever else to truly create innovation in advertising, then and only then do I think we will solve the challenge of Customer Focus v Advertising Focus online.  What about you? Any ideas for how to improve internet advertising?

Most people don’t live where they work, at least that’s what I would think.  Some people work across the lake, some work in different states, some work only blocks away.  People have to commute to work, and they use various modes of transportation.  Plane, train, automobile, bus, motorcycle or even a bicycle.  I live about 7 blocks away from work, so my commute is pretty much non-existant, and I don’t have too many options besides the 2 feet attached to me.  (It’s up a big hill so a bicycle isn’t really worth the effort).  Depending on costs of time, money, and effort people choose a specific method.  I am writing this post via Cingular’s HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) network (coverage map) or their EDGE network, and I have already accomplished 3 work related tasks, checked in with my girlfriend, and checked out some news.  It is so great that I think this changes my needs!  I NEED to have this kind of internet access if I ever need to commute to work.

Seattle’s Sounder offers 802.11b/g wireless, but just not on the trains that go to Tacoma yet, but I hope they will do it very soon.  The pilot beta program also has 5 buses that go from Redmond to Seattle on Route 545 that has been running since December.  The Wi-Fi is currently free, and I hope that it stays that way when they continue the program.  If they were smart and wanted to charge, they should offer a commuter rate that ties into your monthly pass.  Anyway, I think this would make a lot of people re-examine their use of automobiles.  I can now work, or play, instead of fighting traffic and have gained time back!

 Anyone know of other cities with commuter sponsored Wi-Fi access points?

This week Red Bull purchased the Metrostars of Major League Soccer and changed their name to Redbull New York. Red Bull is well known for their creative marketing, which includes air races, sky diving, F1, Nascar, Raves and now soccer. While certainly not the first company to self brand a sports team, this is one of the first in the US and the first in the media capital of the world. The question is will fans embrace the new team or will they see this as corporate marketing gone too far? For my money Red Bull is a fantastic brand, that certainly follows through on its events, crazy ideas and marketing plans. If that energy extents to the soccer team then I am sure it will eventually a smashing success, I still can’t seem my self cheering Lets go Redbull, here we go redbull…some how it just doesn’t seem right.

Red Bull New York

Apple is a brilliant designer and marketer, one area where this really shines through is their packaging. In this brilliant spoof, take a look at what the package would look like if Microsoft designed it. If Microsoft really wants to play in the consumer electronics space they need to rethink their design and marketing, and do it quick. 

So I came across Zillow.com, a much-hyped Seattle area start-up that was founded by the creator of Expedia. I must say, this is the most impressive website that I’ve seen related to home search/buying/selling. It has a logical and friendly user interface and it has an abundance of “data porn”.

The big questions for me is “how are these guys going to make money?” I have it on good authority that the goal of the website is to break down the inefficiencies between the average buyer/seller and the real estate broker. Think about it, what are we, as sellers, really paying that 6% for? If you think about selling a home as an end-to-end process (much like selling a company, raising venture capital, which are the processes I’m familiar with) it would include:

1. Posting the house on the MLS
2. Staging the house to maximize the look/feel and ultimately the price
3. Hosting open houses and showing it one-on-one to perspective buyers
4. Bringing in offers
5. Negotiating the final deal
6. Closing the sale

This may oversimplify things a little, but let’s just call it a 6 stage process - more or less 1% per service.

By day, I’m an Investment Banker, which means that it is my job to prep companies for a sale or financing, take them on the road, collect term sheets and negotiate the final deal. Basically, I do parts 2 through 5 of the list on a daily basis, so why can’t I just hire someone for steps 1 and 6 and only pay them for those services? The reason is that the real estate agent is able to leverage the inefficiencies in the market and as a result doesn’t have to unbundle his/her services.

In my opinion, Zillow is exactly what the real estate market needs - a nice shake up. There are far too many agents that do far too little and get paid far too much money because of these inefficiencies. This is capitalisim at its best.

This is a great video to promote Internet Explorer 7. I wish they would put it on TV since I think people would laugh so hard! It also does a great job not showing the product, which is exactly what so many companies do these days. Hype up the brand/name, and deliver something new and usable. Anyway you can watch it in WMV format, or click below to watch it via YouTube.

You have got a plethorea of services that start with “Windows Live”:  Windows Live Messenger (WLM), Windows Live Mail (WLM) [wait, which one is WLM?!], Windows Live Local (WLL), Windows Live Safety Center (WLSC), Windows Live Expo (WLE), Windows Live Favorites (WLF), Windows Live Search (WLS).  Then there is another set of “Live” services: Windows Office Live (WOL) and Windows OneCare Live (WOCL or WOL).  But the worst came today when I found out about the new Windows Live Local Search Free Call (WLLSFC).

At a company with over 60,000 employees, and a committee could ruin much of the work they do by making a huge mistake in naming.  I don’t mind getting rid of MSN, which has a slow, clunky, non-innovative history attached to it.  I understand that the naming works with the new organizational structure, but it makes no sense to the consumer to add extra words or letters. 

Why not make MSN into just Live?  Live Messenger, Live Mail, Live Search, Live Local.  You could even play off it for advertising Live (change it to live as in living).  They could do something even better, and get a whole new word/letter/phrase similar to “i” in iPod and iTunes.  Branding is a huge pain and I think they are digging a hole with the new naming pattern.  People can hardly tell what services are without long names like “Windows Live Local Search Free Call”.  That is an absurdly long name, which could have been called Live Search Connectoid.  I am partial to the word “connectoid” because I think it sounds interesting and unusual.  Microsoft is trying to continue domination of the desktop by keeping the word Windows as a top buzz word.  I think they are excluding users of Apple or Linux platforms who can easily access the Web 2.0 software being used.

When Lucent spun the Enterprise Networks Group out in 2000 it had to come up with a name.  They picked Avaya, pronounced uhv-EYE-uh, because it would set them apart and capture what they were doing.  Google was a made up word that came from the word googol, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros. Yahoo! is an acronym for “Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle” and the founders liked the definition of “rude, unsophisticated, uncouth”.  Red Hat came from a lost Cornell lacrosse team cap (with red and white stripes).  Cisco is short for San Francisco, Intel came from INTegrated ELectronics and HoTMaiL as it was originally spelled was constructed with the letters HTML, which were used to create the web-based software.

What do you think of this new naming scheme from Microsoft?  How would you change it?

PS: I do really like the name Microsoft, and it would have been nice to see them stick that back in.  They have made great software.  I know the name has had a bad reputation with games, but the Xbox has changed that around and given birth to Microsoft Game Studios.