The King of Pop’s Death Leads to Site Crashes

Read below for Tech Crunch’s look at the collapse of the web under the stress of Jackson-death related communication:

“In terms of well-known celebrities, few are bigger than Michael Jackson. Love him or hate him, pretty much everyone on the planet knows him. And that caused big problems for a lot of huge websites today with the news of his passing.

It was probably to be expected that Twitter would struggle as reportedly hundreds of thousands of tweets came in about Jackson in a very short amount of time. While I only got a couple actual Fail Whales, the site was really sucking wind for much of the hour that people were trying to get information about him. But Twitter was hardly the only site that was struggling.

Various reports had the AOL-owned TMZ, which broke the story, being down at multiple points throughout the ordeal. As a result, Perez Hilton’s hugely popular blog may have failed as people rushed there to try and confirm the news. Then it was the LATimes which had a report saying Jackson was only in a coma rather than dead, so people rushed there, and that site went down. (The LATimes eventually confirmed his passing.)”

For the full article visit Tech Crunch

Not Your Grandma’s Kmart

kmartdesign.com is a site which offers tips on apparel and home styles built around videos. That is cool in itself but even cooler is that the company was savvy enough to play to their online audience by first announcing the new site on Twitter.

The company is tying alternative media marketing with both online and store-level selling efforts to provide customers alternative ways of interacting with the company.

“Until now we concentrated on word of mouth and letting the story go from customer to customer. If we want to change the conversation with the customer, it’s one thing to go out there and tell our story, it’s another thing to put out the basic information and let them encounter it or talk about it. That way, it seems much more credible,” said spokesman Tom Aiello.

Do I hear $3,000!? Negotiating Job Costs …

I feel like whoever made this video has been in my email inbox…this really hits home. We have had a spell of potential clients trying to offer half or less of our job costs because they think they have negotiating power in this market. The worst is when they don’t understand why we charge for project management and just want to pay hard costs. It’s SO infuriating. I think this video does a great job illustrating these challenges.

Getting Attention in a Flush

If this B2B toilet company can create a hugely successful viral video anyone can!

You Can Dance If You Want To

T Mobile hired 200 dancers for this “impromptu” performance that was mirrored in train stations across Europe. I love it when companies actually get it about viral videos. Their cell service may suck (I’m counting the days until Chris and I can switch to AT&T) but at least their European marketing is creative.

The Genius of Jack Marketing Continues

Where do they come up with these ideas? Can you imagine the pitch for this concept?

“Ok so there are these mini cows…they are the size of schnauzers… a ‘little person’ (using quote fingers here) will wrangle them in. Then this ground hog will stick its head out of the ground and stair straight at the camera. The ad will end with Jack & company singing around a campfire.”

This comes on the tail of the Jack accident/Jack is back campaign. Love it!

Chris Cross

I love this photo at the Sonoma Mission

Bronco Wine Company

I’m going to branch out from my normal blog scope to cover something very cool I had the opportunity to experience today. My sister Jen works at Bronco Wine Company and she took us on a private tour of one of the company’s production facilities. Check out the pictures and videos of the process from inception to completion. This facility bottles many brands like Charles Shaw, Beringer and many others.  Click on the photos to see them full size.

Video 1

Video 2

 

Us 2 with $2 Chuck

The empty boxes travel up the conveyer belt

Inspectors make sure there are no cracks in front of the light board

Log the process progress

Where they wash the bottles if they need to remove the label

Some bottles get natural cork and others get synthetic

The inspectors make sure the bottle look just right in front of the light board

Bottles waiting to go to the warehouse

Best Video Ever

I’m a PC and I’m 4 1/2

A new favorite of mine.