An uncomfortable similarity between new work for Jag Jeans and old work for Taco Bell

Jag Jeans has just lunched a site based on a very cool idea. In fact, I thought the idea was cool when we used it at Draft FCB used it more than a year ago for Taco Bell as the basis for a site called Direct Daniella. (Shout-outs to Brad Meyers, Andrew Lincoln, Jason Mitton, Kurt Suchomel and Scott Davis for their work on it.) In each case, the concept is that the user can “be” a professional photographer and take high-quality pictures with his mouse and keyboard at a “real” photo shoot. 

Now I hesitate to accuse anyone of blatantly swiping an idea. I understand that it is entirely possible for two people in different places to come up with the same “original” thought. That being said, Direct Daniella was pretty widely reported on when it came out in both the national and international press as well as the national and international blogosphere. I can’t prove anything. I’m just saying.

Terrible news for the PC industry: Mobile phones and data plans have found their mojo.

Vic Gundotra, VP of Engineering for Google’s mobile and developer products, makes a simple but compelling case for the direction that mobile phones and data plans pretty much have to go in the immediate future.  And if anything, the current economic climate will accelerate the stampede towards mobile devices. In Gundotra’s own words: “Worldwide phone penetration continues to climb at a break-neck pace, with over 4 billion mobile subscribers at last count. (In comparison, the PC industry is forecasted to see its sharpest unit decline in history.”

As data plans get simpler, web browsers get better and devices get smarter, mobile data use will continue to skyrocket. This is great news, especially here in the United States, the carrier networks have a history of pursuing breathtakingly stupid policies that seem to be designed to thwart the use of their own products (e.g. pay-as-you-go data plans). Finally, they’re wising up. How long will it be before we see a phone serving as the main computing device of the employees of a major company? I put it at 2 and a half years. 

Click here to see the full post on techcrunchit.com. 

Twitter, real-time search and the integrity of information.

Some believe Twitter could find its business niche in the area of real-time search, something Google and its army of algorithms still don’t do particularly well. The only barrier between something happening on one side of the world and your knowing about it on the other is the time it takes to type 140 characters. See the full story from Technology Review here.

While I see the appeal of real-time search, the real need in the marketplace is for authoritative search. In other words, right now no one is really in the business of providing search results based on the integrity of the information returned. The interactive space is the greatest propagator of hoaxes, urban legends, rumor, innuendo, slipshod reporting and outright lies in the history of civilization. This has harmed countless people, causes and brands. Mark Twain said, “a lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is still putting on its shoes.” Now technology has made lies faster still.

Is a move towards real-time search a good thing, or have we simply made it easier for the truth to be trampled by a stampede of tweets?

You spend 8.5 hours per day in front of a screen, and I can prove it.

The New York Times reports that, according to a study released by the suspiciously named Council for Research Excellence, Americans are exposed to screens of some kind–televisions, computers, cell phones, GPS devices, what have you–for 8.5 hours a day. Assuming we sleep 8 hours a day, that means we’re in front of a screen on which advertising can be delivered more than 53% of our waking hours. Brilliant news for the marketers of the world.

Not surprisingly, people from 18-24 spend less time watching television than the other groups (under 18s were not included in the study), but they still spent an equal amount of time in front of screens of some kind. What did surprise me a bit, though, is that people from 45-54 actually spent about an hour more per day in front of a screen than other age groups. Read the full story here and draw your own conclusions about what all this means for the future of advertising.

The television re-stakes its claim as the most important electronic device in the home.

Samsung has introduced a new television with an integrated Yahoo widget engine that will enable people to access the web while they watch TV. Similar products from Sony, LG Electronics and Vizio are on the way. It’s a great idea and one that Mark Cuban predicted would take the marketplace by storm quite some time ago.

Of course, the big losers in this could be computer manufacturers. It’s too early to say for certain, but a 52-inch HD screen that can access any kind of content you want–whether it’s live TV, video on demand, web sites or games–at any time is pretty stiff competition. Check out the full story from the Wall Street Journal Online here.

The interactive movie-watching jacket: Because great acting and brilliant writing just aren’t enough

The propeller heads at Philips have come up with something called the “haptics jacket,” which, when worn, is designed to “provide full emotional immersion in a film.” Now, it won’t allow the wearer to “feel” punches and the like. Oh no, it’s much more subtle than that. According to Paul Lemmens, senior scientist at Philips:

“The jacket’s purpose is to make viewers feel anxiety and other emotions through signals such as sending a shiver up the viewer’s spine, creating tension in the limbs, and creating a pulse on the chest to simulate a rapid heartbeat.”

Think how much money this technology could ultimately save the studios. No need to hire Philip Seymour Hoffman or Daniel Day-Lewis for $10 million a picture. Just slide a pizza under the door of the IT department, and you’ll have emotion coming out of your sleeves. See the full story here.

“No sex, no gasoline. Just give me some technology and leave me alone.”

A recent study by German boadband association Bitkom reveals that 84% of young people would choose having the internet and a mobile phone over having a romantic partner and a car. No word on whether the car was German or American.

What do you suppose the figures would be for other media? I suspect television would be nearly as high. MP3s and gaming consoles as well. While I take the study with a big grain of German salt, I think it’s not wrong to ask how technology is changing both what we feel we need to have a happy life and the social structure itself.

Perhaps Sartre got it right when he said, “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (“Hell is other people.”). Heaven, apparently, is an iPhone.

The Icarus Paradox: Why getting back to the roots of your success is a strategy of extinction

As corporate giants like General Motors–a company that 20 years ago we all thought would last until Jesus comes–teeter on the brink of bankruptcy, it’s worth taking a look at a Harvard Business Review article by Freek [sic] Vermeulen on the Icarus Paradox. Just as Icarus came to tragedy by flying too close to the sun, companies “become successful doing something but this makes them overconfident and blind to the dangers that other developments pose to them. This behavior often leads to their downfall.”

Want proof? Take a look at the Fortune 100 list of companies from 1966. 66 of them no longer exist. I find that absolutely stunning. 15 still exist but are no longer big enough to make the list. Only 19 still make the cut in 2009. There is no such thing as the status quo. Companies (like people) are always either getting better or getting worse. It is among the most pompous of all Bob Dylan lyrics, but in this case, I’m afraid it’s appropriate: “He who is not busy being born is busy dying.”

Agencies need to be pushing themselves and their clients to continue to be born every day, though  that’s a difficult proposition in today’s economic climate as there will be no easy labors. Depend upon it: Every birth will be like passing the Kaiser’s helmet, yet onward we must go.

The Brand Companions Hypothesis: All media will be free for high-value consumers.

Now and again, I like to try to imagine how media are likely to change in the future. Today I was thinking about what I’ll call high-value consumers–people with a lot of disposable income who tend to purchase products with high margins. Is it possible that a group of brands (i.e., the consumer’s constant “brand companions”) will come together to “sponsor” the media consumption of such consumers so that they no longer have to pay for cable TV, internet access, satellite radio, etc?  What if, for example, BMW, Heineken, Whole Foods, British Airways, Exxon,  Apple and Costco pooled their consumer intelligence data and together ascertained that consumers of a certain profile were extremely likely to use all of their products? Would it not logically follow, then, that these brands would want to do whatever is necessary to ensure that they get a hammer lock on said consumers’ wallets? The best and most effective way to do this would be to block other advertisers out of their lives as much as possible. They could do it by picking up the tab for whatever media these consumers use, and for high-value consumers, the math could make sense. 

Of course, different groups of brands would emerge and align themselves with consumers of various profiles; that goes without saying. What bears some more thought, however, is how this kind of arrangement would change the advertising the consumers would see. If brands “own” consumers, will there less hard sell and more of a partnership between the brand and the consumer?  Will less advertising suffice? Perhaps only PBS-style announcements that “the following program is brought to you by your friends at BMW, Apple and Whole Foods” will be more than enough. Perhaps even more to the point, will your free cable TV get yanked away from you if you buy a Lexus instead of a BMW? It probably should.

Also, what will be the effect on consumers who aren’t part of these groups of high-value consumers that are rewarded with free media? Will they do whatever is necessary–including buying brands they can’t really afford–to reap the benefits enjoyed by others, or will some other system evolve to serve them?

I think this is a fascinating idea. Please let me know if I am alone.

Stupid yet amusing new iPhone app; smart and profitable online idea from Prince.

Not happy with the way your lips look? Can’t afford Botox, zany lipstick or really pointy teeth? You’re in luck. Thanks to a new iPhone app, you can talk into the back of your phone and a cartoon mouth on its screen will synch-up with yours. Check out “Mouth Off” here.

In other less stupid news and nakedly capitalistic news, Prince is offering a new internet subscription services. For $77, he’ll perform for you live from his ever-so-tasteful LA rock-star pad. He’ll even take requests. I have already asked if he can do anything by Gene Autry. No response as yet.  See all the gory details of the subscription service offered by the Artist Who Formerly Displayed His Backside here.