defintely maybe
It is definitely cheeseburger in my mouth day.
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Just released by Apple the new iPhone “iDisco” hits stores on September 1st. Answering cries for a more usable keyboard and lower data fees the iDisco features giant push button keys that light up when dark and will not connect to the Internet nor allow texting. Measuring twelve (12) inches by four (4) inches in diameter and weighing in at five (5) pounds the iDisco has the look and feel of that push button phone you grew up with. Available in an array of colors (blue, red, green, yellow, and orange) the iDisco comes with a convenient wall attachment (belt clip no longer available nor necessary).
The iDisco also comes with a built-in answering machine, which will conveniently record the message of the caller along with the date and time they called. Personalize the answering machine with your own voice or use the pre-recorded robot voice.
Other features include: one ringtone aptly named: “briiiing, briiiing,” retractable metal antennae allowing for increased reception, ability to function as far as 50 feet from the phone’s base, and a 1 hour battery life.*
*unlimited battery life when phone is attached to the base with the long plastic cord thingy (not included)
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At the Standard Hotel you can get a “Standard Massage” that is anything but standard. After a brief consultation where you’re asked, “How are you?” you can skip the “I’m good” and answer honestly: “Doc, it hurts when I do this.” The massage therapist will then create an individualized therapeutic massage using multiple bodywork techniques, hydrotherapy, and aromatherapy. The whole experience will be so good, after 90 minutes, you’ll have trouble scraping yourself off that comfy massage table. Afterwards you are welcome to relax in the lounge area where you will find a steam room, sauna, fresh fruit, and fluffy towels.
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Sometimes you go to a restaurant, choose an item off the menu, and then gaze longingly at the entrée your friend chose, totally regretting what you ordered. Have no fear! At Poppy you can take advantage of the “tasting” concept Jerry Traunfeld (former chef of Herbfarm) created which consists of 7 or 10 different “tastes” of anything on the menu. This unique menu boasts seasonal ingredients, many from Jerry’s own garden. Enjoy dishes like the crunchy & tangy celery salad, or the crispy eggplant fries or the savory goat cheese and lentil pie. Take pleasure in your food in a simple, yet beautiful, intimate location in Capital Hill and get served by a knowledgeable, attentive and friendly staff. Random Fact: Jerry named the restaurant after his mother: Poppy. Awww. Isn’t that sweet?
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“Keeping your shape in shape has its rewards.”
“Don’t you want to have a good shape?”
“He wants you to have a good shape.”“Enjoy Tab and be a mind sticker.”
Ha ha…man, I could watch these old commercials all night long.
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Understandable. What advertiser would want to be associated with “occasional[ly] hateful” rhetoric?
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In-House Rack Card created for Kimpton Hotels.*
*Copy also used on the www.kimptonstyle.com homepage
Design by: Andrea Design Group
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Once in awhile, you want to take a step back and consider your options when creating a logo for your business. Maybe something as simple as asking your next door neighbor for his or her opinion.
It would seem “Qualified Plumbing Services” didn’t have any neighbors to talk to.
Photo Credit: Stephanie Lim
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Dove’s Real Men campaign. I’ll admit. I got a little teary eyed. Yes. At a commercial. I guess I’m a softie. <3
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This is the first advertisement I have voluntarily watched in quite some time: PEPSI
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Mitt Romney uses the Constitution to back his opinion that marriage should only be between a man and a woman: “I think at the time that the Constitution was written it was pretty clear that marriage was between a man and a woman…” Romney says.
So….um…Mr Romney? If you actually READ the Constitution, (and weren’t a complete moron) you would see that marriage is NOT mentioned at ANY point in the Constitution. Not in the least. Not in any way. Not at all. Do you really need another synonym for “NEVER” ?
In fact the 9th Amendment (part of the Bill of Rights), addresses rights of the people that are not specifically enumerated in the Constitution, specifically natural rights (i.e. marriage). Marriage is a natural right of the people, and as such, according to the 9th Amendment, is guaranteed exempt from government infringement.
And let’s not forget the 14th Amendment which, in it’s Due Process Clause prohibits state and local governments from depriving persons of life, liberty and propriety without certain steps being taken to ensure fairness. (I’m not sure exactly how “fair” Prop 8 in California is.) Under the Equal Protection Clause government is supposed to provide equal protection to all people within it’s jurisdiction. I’m not sure how you define “equal” but most people, specifically Webster’s English Dictionary define it as: A person or thing considered to be the same as another in status or quality. So if I’m a man and I’m in love with another man, am I being treated the same as another man (who happens to be in love with a woman) when I am prohibited the right to marry? Are my rights being protected? These are rhetorical questions. Because the answer is obvious. No, they are not being treated equally.
Why do I know all these facts about the Constitution and the Bill of Rights when a candidate for PRESIDENT(!!!) does not?
Maybe I should run for President.
And last but not least: why are we even talking about this? It is so obviously, under any moon, or any star, on any planet, in any universe, a BASIC human right to marry whomever you fall in love with, and what gives the government any RIGHT to say otherwise. Sheesh.
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Surfrider Foundation Ad for a healthy Ocean. Needless to say, my cats eat plastic too.
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My first perm (age 14) led the girls at my school to give me the nick-name Tina Turner. Needless to say, I didn’t have a boyfriend until age 17, the same amount of time it took me to grow it out. In my defense, it was an all girls school, I missed the boat on the make-up, ‘dress girly’ thing and played a whole bunch of sports. The side-effect of which gave me Tina Turner legs minus the $1 million dollar insurance policy.
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Recently I had a friend “follow” me on one of my twitter accounts. Basically, one of the dozens of twitter accounts I apparently have out there. And my first thought was: “Really?”
“Really?” as in, how many forms of social media do we really need? I, obviously, can not keep up.
My little path to becoming the social media conquistador, that I so obviously am (insert gut wrenching laugh), started with MySpace.
Everyone was on MySpace. You just had to be on MySpace. “We’re all doing it.” It felt really narcissistic to me, and I really didn’t want to join. But a co-worker of mine literally set up my account for me and was like: “See! It’s going to be so awesome.” So I became a MySpacer, and I’d love to say I had all the freedom in the world to truly “express myself” on MySpace, but because I had co-workers on there as my “friends” I had to edit my posts so as to not offend, aka: get fired. And needless to say I couldn’t use the F word, which is pretty much my favorite word on the planet.
So I’m on MySpace, and I have to admit, it was kind of fun.
· I photo-shopped a bunch of pictures of myself so that I looked like a super model
· I accepted friendship requests from old high school “friends” that never gave me the time of day when we were actually in high school (resentment?)
· I looked at all my friends pictures and wondered why my life wasn’t as good as theirs
· I asked myself why I hadn’t travelled as much as they had.
· I felt bad about myself because I didn’t own as many cars/houses/insert-material- items-here, as they did.
· I wondered what was wrong with me because I wasn’t married with a house in the suburbs, owned an SUV, and had 2.3 kids. (I really wouldn’t want a .3 kid anyway, I’d at least want a whole kid)
· I’d read fascinating status updates about what people had for breakfast.
· I’d look at incredibly cute pictures of dogs in sweaters.
· I’d keep up with what my friends were doing in their daily life (I recently saw a picture of a quilt my old high school friend had made. A quilt? Exactly when did we turn 85?)
· And I accumulated 400+ “friends” (most of which were really just acquaintances)
So, truth be told, I kind of hated MySpace, just like I figured I would. But like most of us, I was addicted. I guess there was some part of me that really did care what you had for breakfast, and totally wanted to see a picture of it. And I did actually like that I’d find out about a party or an event that was going on, or when someone’s birthday or anniversary was coming up. And I could keep up on the news, by “liking” things like the San Francisco Chronicle or the Wall Street Journal and that was cool.
And then: facebook. Same thing different space. I do recall everyone talking about committing “MySpace Suicide” and switching over to facebook. I never thought I’d do it, but I switched over too. I guess I must have felt lonely when my cat pictures weren’t getting any comments.
AND THEN: Twitter.
Ugh.* Another way to communicate with the world. Another outlet where I could read about how awesome your commute to work was this morning. Another avenue of narcissism. Blah. Blah. Blah. (my second favorite word)
*don’t worry, I’m not oblivious to the business benefits of these outlets, I’ll get to them. I just like being dramatic.
I didn’t get on board with Twitter for a very long time. I’m talking like, less than a year ago. I didn’t get it. If I wanted to tell the world about how cute my Winnie the Pooh jammies were, and post pictures of them, why wouldn’t I just do it on facebook? Why did I also need to do it on twitter?
And then I got it. (insert light bulb above head)
I could be totally anonymous on twitter and not so anonymous on facebook. AND I could have more than one twitter account. One that was rated G and one that was rated NC-17. (please refer back to paragraph three where I speak to my love of a certain word)
And THAT was awesome.
And so I created a whole bunch of twitter accounts. I’d create one and decide I didn’t like the name. I’d create another and decide my tweets weren’t “clean” enough. I’d create another one and get paranoid that my security settings weren’t private enough. And I just got really lost in it all, until I finally settled on one twitter account. Downloaded the app to my iPhone, and have been using that account for the past year. It kind of started off as a “professional” venue to talk about the news, or what was going on in the world of advertising, or politics, and it still does a lot of those things, but mostly, it’s just a way for me to vent to only those friends I chose to be twitter buddies with. But….
But so many prospective employers, when asking for my portfolio also want to see my twitter, my facebook, my blog, etc. etc. And some of these things are fine to show. But, am I not allowed to have a twitter account that I don’t want a prospective employer to see? Or post things to facebook without worrying about if what I’m saying is going to be ok with “the man?”(no, I do not own any tie dyed t-shirts) Should I not be free to say anything I want as long as I’m not hurting anyone in the process? And should these things not be required from future employers?
I think so.
But to appease prospective employers, I recently (yesterday) set up a second twitter account. A twitter account that I can put on my business cards, and act like a grown-up with. The only problem is: it’ll take at least a year for my twitter feed/followers to build up enough to actually be of any significance. Until then: as far as most are concerned: I don’t have a twitter account. Unless of course you’re reading this. Then you’re probably on to me.
So how does business tie into all this. I found out when I worked in the social media department at a local non-profit. People could “like” your company on facebook and get the latest updates on what the company was up to, get special access to offers, get linked to current news media in relation to the business, see informational videos about the business (such as “how-to” or interviews with the CEO) and connect with the organization by asking questions and getting real time answers. People could basically personally connect with the company and be entertained and informed by the business they are a part of, or interested in becoming a part of.
Twitter offered a lot of the above but with one big caveat. You don’t have to “friend” the business to get connected. All you have to do is be @’d.
For example: If someone went to your business, or interacted with them in some way, and thought it was like, super awesome, they might twitter something like: (with the handle “yummyinmytummy”)
@joeshmoeswafflehouse You rule so hard! Hands down, those were the best waffles I ever had!
And their friend, @peanutbutterjellytime sees the twitter and totally agrees and re-posts with a comment of their own.
@joeshmoeswafflehouse You rule so hard! Hands down, those were the best waffles I ever had! @yummyinmytummy I totally agree! Their chicken fried steak is even better!
So, not only did all the friends of @yummyinmytummy see the post, so did all the friends of @peanutbutterjellytime
And this could go on and on, and before you know it, 15,000 people just got hit with a little slice of Joe Shmoe’s Waffle House and you, Joe Shmoe, didn’t pay one dime for advertising.
Twitter basically takes “word-of-mouth” to a whole new level.
But what if @lamppost says something more negative like:
@joeshmoeswafflehouse I found a fly in my pasta! And you didn’t give me my money back!
And another person re-posts with a complaint of their own. All of a sudden 15,000 people have heard about the fly, and the bad service, and how no one should ever eat at Joe Shmoes Waffle House ever again.
Well, you can respond personally, and in real time. For example:
@lamppost sorry you had such a bad experience. We’d love to talk to you more and see if there is something we can do. Please email me personally at: joe@waffle.com
It’s possible @lampost will email you back. You can then privately* offer a $50 gift certificate and hope that s/he gives your restaurant another shot and tweets about how nice and personable you were.
*if you were to publicly say: “@lampost sorry you had such a bad experience, we’d like to give you a $50 gift certificate” it sounds like a bribe. It’s also against the “rules” to say anything along the lines of: “make sure to twitter your amazing experience with us.” This same rule applies to Yelp. You can’t really ask people to write a good review for you, especially if you’re offering them a free meal, or even cold hard cash. It will look like a bride to other social media users. A bribe is a bribe is a bribe.
Twitter and Yelp pretty much fall into the same categories when it comes to your being able to respond to your customers. facebook (I’ll assume you don’t want to be on LonelySpace) is a way for you to not only respond to your customers, but to connect with them on multiple levels through other types of media.
In my humble opinion this is how social media can actually make you cash monies, for virtually no investment. It will of course, cost you a social media department to constantly monitor and respond to twitter feeds, and facebook, and yelp. But if you’re not up for hiring an entire department you can take advantage of a new crop of companies that have popped up (Radian 6, Infegy) that will monitor your social media for you.
In conclusion: social media rules so hard, just make sure you don’t use the F word too much. It’s really bad for business, unless your name is Denis Leary. And if it is, you’re also free to use the word asshole.
:D
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I’ve been working as a freelance copywriter for quite some time now. The market let’s say, has forced me into it as full-time work (god I miss benefits) has been incredibly hard to find.
And I’ve been running into this little problem I like to call: nooneappreciatesawriter
A writer is educated. They’ve gone to college and have a BA in English, Advertising, or Journalism. They have student debt. While I’m not regretful that I got my degree in Advertising, I am surprised that the market is offering less than minimum wage for copywriting work.
On my twitter feed I have a reoccurring posting I like to call: Job Offer of the Day.
Here are some examples:Job Offer of the Day:
2 articles per day (40 per month) for $100-$200 a month. WTF
Write for WIRED magazine. A degree and journalism experience required. Pay rate: $12.00 per hour.
.06 cents a word, 300 words: $18.00. Yeah. It’s worth the $65,000 education I paid for.
5 sentence book review for $5. Um…read book, write review. Right. I should def work for $1.25 an hour
3,500 words. (approx 10 pages) = $25.00
And this isn’t even the half of it. Yesterday I got an email from a woman looking for 20, 250 word articles and had a budget of $100. That’s $5.00 for half a page of single-spaced text. The content she was asking for would require a small amount of research, and all-in-all would probably take about 45 minutes to an hour to write. Needless to say, once again, this is less than minimum wage.
I’ve had interviews where people have said things like:
“I could totally do this writing myself, I just don’t have the time.”
“I know this probably wouldn’t take you longer than five minutes to write.”Or my favorite:
“I’m just looking for someone to read over my 1,000 page script, edit it into a novel, do a little character development, and make sure grammar and tense are all in line.”
That guy was offering a couple hundred dollars; two hundred dollars to basically write him a full-length novel.And then of course, there are the job “offers” where they want you to work for free.
“This will be a great experience for you!”
“Build your portfolio!”
“We can’t pay you for your work but this is a great opportunity with a growing company.”Today, I saw an ad on craigslist where they were offering $9.00 an hour for a marketing writer with a background in insurance and finance. I live in California. Minimum wage is: $9.92 until 12/31/2011. It increases to $10.24 on 1/1/2012. They’re offering $9.00 for a talented writer. For a dollar more an hour, that talented writer could go work at McDonalds.
