Isaac Hayes: Seductive Serenade

Kudos to Sprint for this fun interactive app: The Isaac Hayes Seductive Serenade. It's reminiscent of the "Snakes on a Plane" call app which featured Samuel L. Jackson.



Perfectly timed for Valentines day. The app lets you send a custom phrase to your loved one courtesy of Isaac Hayes seductive voice. You can send it as a phone call or via email. The vocab is a little limited. I mean, how can you create a love song without the words like lips, hands or skin?

Still, the app is fun and well timed. Plus, I have to commend the all-around execution. I found it courtesy of a media buy on Facebook, encouraging me to add it as an application, which then links me to the microsite.

Nicely done.

Yahoo One Connect

Courtesy of Textually.org, this article from InfoWorld sounds intriguing. Yahoo has launched a new service that ties together your social networks, IM, email and mobile.

OneConnect draws information from social-networking sites such as MySpace, instant-messaging services such as Yahoo Messenger or AOL Instant Messenger, and e-mail services including Yahoo Mail and Google's Gmail to build a picture of the mood, location, and activities of friends and colleagues.

Sounds like a very cool and useful application, especially for Facebook stalkers. Even though users can opt out of sharing location info, I'm guessing there will be privacy concerns. Still, I'm very curious to play with this new tool.

2008 - The Year of Mobile? Maybe Not.

Courtesy of Branding Unbound, seems that US agencies are still struggling with embracing mobile marketing. Carrier complaints, handset variability, relatively low adoption rates and client education remain hurdles of US mobile marketing adoption.

When asked if 2008 would be the year that mobile advertising really takes off in the U.S., speakers agreed that there's still too much work and education to be done before mobile advertising is common place in America, predicting instead that 2009 or 2010 will see more traction.

I'd have to agree. For the most part, clients are interested, some are educated, and a few are testing, but we're still a long way from real integration of mobile into the marketing mix.

Al Qaeda Embraces Mobile Marketing

We know that Al Qaeda have been using mobile phones in IEDs for a while, now they are using them to spread their propaganda too. Apparently, Al Qaeda is distributing videos via mobile. Last year, it was Hezbollah launching a video game, this year Al Qaeda is producing mobile videos. It's hard to make any comment about this, other than the fact that it underscores that these terrorist networks are highly adaptive.

Barkley: Great Place to Work

Barkley got a little bit of positive buzz this week. CNN.com ran a story about great places to work, and we topped the list. Kidnap days, free bear, yoga classes -- not a bad gig at all. Of course, doing yoga after a couple of free beers isn't necessarily advisable. Everything in moderation (including moderation)

Buildabearville is Live

OK, it's not mobile, but it's something I've been spending a lot of time on this year, so I'm going to allow myself another diversion.

Today we launched the new Build-a-Bearville, it's a virtual world where kids can bring the Build-a-Bear Workshop animals to life. The team putting together the world has done an outstanding job, and the world looks wonderful and should be a ton of fun.

It's also a huge development that really enhances and extends the brand. It will be fun to see the population and play patterns develop over time.

Google Chooses iPhone

Google announced today the release of a new Google toolbar for the iPhone. The application consolidates Google's various services into a convenient interface.

Ars Technica has a comprehensive review and gives it mostly a thumbs up. Google's app is fast and mostly optimized for the iPhone interface, although a few holdover elements remain that are difficult to use with a touchscreen.