Reviews

Mozes: secure your keyword

From TechCrunch:

“Mozes is a Palo Alto based startup founded by Dorrian Porter that is tapping into the U.S. SMS (phone text) market.

It allows you to do all sorts of things via sms. Hear a song on the radio that you like and want to bookmark? Text the radio station (ie, KROQ) to 66937 (which translates to “Mozes”). Mozes will note the time and station name and bookmark the song title in your Mozes page (and sms you the song information). Meet someone who has a Mozes keyword? SMS their Mozes keyword to 66937 and store whatever personal information they’ve elected to share. And online advertisers can use a Mozes keyword to give you more information on the product…”

This promises to be pretty cool! Here is the link.

Standard
Thoughts

Attack of the viral campaign ads

From Wired News: “It’s the hottest new trend in political advertising: Lampoon your opponent in an online cartoon, and hope it goes viral. By Steve Friess.”

Problem is, we tend to be less critical of critical cartoon ads… When an opponent muckrakes another in a real ad, we think he’s a schmuck. But when he does it in a cartoon, we think it’s cute, yet the same message is gotten across. Yes, cartoon ads are more powerful, and in that sense, more dangerous than real ads. This is a problem! Here is the link.

Standard
Thoughts

Free shipping worth more than a big discount

From TechDirt:

“For years, there have been controversies (especially among financial types) over whether or not e-commerce shops should offer free shipping, especially as some fear that it takes too big a bite out of the bottom line. However, there’s more to free shipping than just the saved money. Researchers are finally starting to look at the psychological draw of free shipping deals. It turns out that people are much happier with free shipping deals than if they just got a discount. There’s just something about getting free shipping that feels right — which could explain why some people get upset when they feel the free shipping is really a bait and switch offer. This points at an issue that isn’t really covered in the original article. One of the reasons why people like free shipping so much is that they don’t feel tricked at the end of a purchase. Too often, online retailers hide excessive shipping and handling fees and only make them show up at the end. This makes people feel tricked…”

Here is the link.

Standard
Thoughts

Where did the whole "give an apple to the teacher" thing come from?

Ask Yahoo! has the answer to this applelicious question: “Kids who really want good grades should consider giving their teachers Apple computers or iPods. If that’s not possible, however, fruit remains a tasty option. Apples have a long history of greasing the wheels of education. Take notes — here’s how the classroom corruption began…” Here is the link.

Standard
Thoughts

Catching the brain rain

From 43 Folders: “Warm, Partly Cloudy, 100% Chance of Brain Rain — I like James’ ideas for catching the “brain rain” — a way of setting aside a few minutes each day for firewalled creativity through idea generation and capture. This kind of habit could fit nicely into an end-of-day ritual, maybe before a quick review and daily cleanup.” Read the entire post for the how-to. Nifty! Here is the link.

Standard