Our blahg

Buzz Feed – for buzzworthy content

Hipster Runoff – for jokes

NY Times – for news

Slate – for more news

Digital Buzz Blog – for digital media news

901am – for new media news

Fecal Face – for art

Indie Soup Runner – for music

Broke Hipster – for Chicago deals

Made by girl – for interior design

Apartment Therapy – for more interior design

Geekologie – for gadgets and gear

Perez Hilton – for your guilty pleasure

Hautelook is one of my favorite of the online sample sale websites. They have amazing designers at a fraction of the retail price. But it’s invite only. If you want in click on the link below. Consider yourself officially invited.

Hautelook invitation

We are, thankfully, one minute further away from nuclear annihilation. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists were optimistic in New York when they announced that they were moving the clock one minute away from midnight, a symbol of our global efforts to, “bend the arc of history toward a world free of nuclear weapons.”

But in the wake of all the headlines, photographs and news stories capturing the hell on Earth that is happening in Haiti, the Doomsday clock and it’s measure of human caused cataclysm seems very abstract.

Each one is topped with icing styled and colored to represent a popular game. Go  try to guess what the game is at her web site.

I don’t mean Tropicana, Welches, Odwala, or any other juice you buy at the supermarket. I’m talking about raw, fresh-squeezed juice. My obsession started with a bad bout of allergies and a nasty sinus infection when I was still out in LA. I went to the corner store to pick up a smoothie for breakfast and the lady behind the counter told me to try the ‘Essential Greens’ juice instead. I looked at the menu board. Spinach, celery, parsley. I thought I was going to vomit right there on that poor woman. But she told me she would a put a red apple in it and if I still didn’t like it, it would be on the house.

I fell in love. With a juice. I had one every morning and I must admit, my allergies got much better. The sinus infection went away. My skin looked better. I had more energy. I was craving less junk. It was a miracle. A juice miracle. Then I moved to Chicago and realized I was not only an addict, I was turning into a juice pusher. I bully people in Brian’s deli to try this stuff. On the street, at the office, and now here on this blog. Please, take my advice, go out and get some fresh juice. It’s gonna change your life.

The morning blend: Spinach, celery, red apple, parsley

The afternoon pick-me-up: Ginger, lemon, apple

Listening to music might not be the specific purpose of YouTube, but it’s how a lot of people are currently using the site. Mintel’s consumer research shows that 43% of online respondents visited YouTube in the past week to listen to music, making it the most popular music site or program. It’s familiar, doesn’t require registration, you can make playlists, and there is no limitation on frequency of visits or plays. All of the above make a pretty compelling case for YouTube to take a stab at the market. And, if there is a different way people are using the site, hopefully there will be a different way marketers start using it too.

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People may have less in their wallets, but their palettes for the finer things haven’t changed. Gourmet meals, nights out on the town, designer threads, personal trainers–no one wants to give those things up. And people haven’t. They’ve just gotten a little craftier and learned how to do things for themselves. We’ve become a culture of doers. DIY chefs, DIY stylists, DIY party planners, DIY bartenders, DIY everything.

Some facts: (more…)

As one would expect, the recession left people more conscious of their money. With all the budgeting, deal-hunting and coupon clipping, our relationship with cash got, shall we say, a little more intimate. Hard $$ really is king.

More and more people are ditching their credit cards in favor of cash. “The shift from credit toward cash-like options is the desire for consumers to control their financing,” – Marwan Forzley, chief executive of eBillme. And the U.S. savings rate is spiking to a new high. The Huffington Post reports that in November the savings rate grew to 2.8%, economists are projecting it to be 3-5% in 2009 (Goldman’s projecting it to reach 6-10%) and this will be the sharpest reversal since WWI.

And, with the help of modern technology, a host of new services are cropping up to keep us even more aware of our dollars. From social media site Smarty Pig to Chase’s online tool Blueprint to the zillions of shopping apps for the iPhone, there are endless ways to montior cash flow.

A Small Agency’s Guide to Going Digital – Ad Age

Pretty self-explanatory, but I encountered a lot of the same takeaways in my experience at 72. Some of the most important to me were 1) Get used to including more people earlier 2) Pair up old school and new school 3) Keep your development in house and 4) Things like SEO, UX, usability testing and optimization practices are not optional.

Why Jon Stewart is Good for News – NPR

Brian Williams from NBC Nightly News writes that Jon Stewart has become a new standard for news stories. The metric is simple: will Jon Stewart rip this apart on The Daily Show? If the answer is yes, then don’t run it. I love this because of it’s simplicity. It is a very tangible metric for success. We had a similar benchmark at my last agency for our advertising content: is it worth sharing? We were pretty honest with ourselves. If it wasn’t something people would pass on to their friends it wasn’t worth the investment.

Hundreds Go Pantless on Subway – NY Post (more…)