Megazoa - Online Marketing & Love

"Assist Me Out Of Iraq" - A New Wrinkle on the 419 Spam Scam

Every once in a while I have to tip my hat to the soulless creativity of spammers. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall during the all-night brainstorming session that spawned this inspired work.

"Some money in various currencies was discovered concealed in barrels with piles of weapons and ammunitions at a location near one of Saddam,sold palaces during a rescue operation, and it was agreed by all party present that the money be shared amongst us, this was quite an illegal thing to do, but I tell you what? no compensation can make up for the risks we have taken with our lives in this hell hole"

I mean if you're gonna try to rip people off, at least try to be somewhat original. I for one appreciate the extra storytelling effort.

You Lost Me At Rights Lockers

A new BusinessWeek article documents the efforts of a new consortium called the Digital Entertainment Content Ecosystem (DECE) to set up some standards for digital downloads movie content. Cisco, Sony, Phillips, and the studios are backing this consortium. The idea shows that the studios are inching towards common sense land, "No matter where you are in the world, if you previously purchased Spider-Man 3, you should be able to access Spider-Man and stream it," said the group president. However the use of words like "stream" and "rights locker", no APPL, and the track record of the backers raise more red flags than a Worker's Day parade. Sounds like the partners are still in denial about today's marketplace. "They Still Don't Get It" as synesius said. Time will tell, but it sounds way too complicated and too much like "Play for sure" to get excited. Story also at Engadget and Ars Technica.

Soccer Moms, Take Your Protein Pills

There's no shortage of lame commercials using beloved rock songs, but the new spot for some Lincoln using a Cat Power cover of Major Tom makes me groan. Hope the White Price got paid well.  I never really got Cat Power anyway.

Clandestine Bboys @ the Apple Store

So, I finally gave in and got an iphone the other day. Fairly happy with it so far.
While I was in the Apple Store (Chelsea, NYC) purchasing my phone, there were 2 kids using the demo iMacs to record their new dance moves and upload them to youtube. Some customers seemed annoyed, some liked it an watched, but no employees interfered. Fortunately, I managed to stay just out of frame, but got me thinking what other store/brand would let 2 kids come in and create some youtube clips, much less encourage this sort of interaction? Best Buy? Circuit City? Samsung Style? yeah right.

New Vlogging Reddit

I'm excited to be one of the moderators of the new vlogging sub-reddit http://www.reddit.com/r/vlogging/. Trying to build it into a place where people can find out about new face, opinions, and ways to waste time! Starting by going through vloggers I like on youtube. Going to hit Justin.tv next. Submit something and help build this baby out!

Rick Sanchez - CNN Tweets?

Watched the CNN Newshour with Rick Sanchez today. I was skeptical of his plan to use twitter to get feedback in the live broadcast, but it was pretty good. A bit cumbersome at times with laptop wires and instructions to the camera person making their way into the broadcast, but these behind the curtain moments add to the "live" feel. There's got to be a better way to display tweets on air than pointing a camera at a computer screen. Good first step overall.