Marketing

Mobile

RIM’s Cartoon Funtime Experiment Is Backfiring

6:30AM February 1, 2012 | Sam Biddle

RIM says so itself: it doesn’t need good phones and tablets, it just needs better marketing. Jonny Phone will buy a BlackBerry if he’s persuaded by a team of poorly-drawn cartoon characters and a hashtag, right? Right? Guys? Right? More »


Geek Out

Watch These Fake Flying People Freak Out NYC

4:45PM January 31, 2012 | Casey Chan

This is the best prank you can pull on an entire city. The marketing team behind the movie Chronicle tried its hand at viral marketing by flying three human-shaped RC planes around New York City to make it look like real people were magically flying. From the ground, it really looked like you were watching a superhero do its flyin’ thang. Video! More »


Online

McDonald’s Twitter Marketing Plan Backfires

11:45AM January 25, 2012 | Sam Biddle

Remember the #qantasluxury PR fail? It seems someone didn’t learn from it. Somewhere in corporate Hamburgerland, an ad executive with a penchant for “social media” and “the Twitter” thought a McDonald’s-themed hashtag would sell more food. Oh boy was he wrong. Mickey D’s Twitter push is backfiring harder than E. coli vomit. More »


Mobile

Microsoft Wants To Give Free Windows Phones To Android Users Who Got Screwed With Malware

1:00AM December 15, 2011 | Casey Chan

Windows Phone evangelist Ben Rudolph, with endorsement from Microsoft, is asking Android users to explain their #droidrage on Twitter. That is, to explain how Android malware has screwed Android users over. If people’s stories are epic enough, Microsoft will give away free Windows Phones. More »


Online

Tout: Obnoxiously Tell If People Read Your Emails

5:00PM December 6, 2011 | Andrew Tarantola

Anybody who’s worked in a cubicle is familiar the Outlook Request Read Receipt — that horrid popup that demands you confirm you have indeed read (and summarily deleted) the TSP report Ted from accounting had sent out. Now, Tout, a new email tracking app, does the same. Huzzah? More »


Online

Netflix Is Not Negotiating With Jason ‘@Qwikster’ Castillo

3:38AM September 21, 2011 | Roberto Baldwin

According to Steve Swasey, VP of Netflix corporate communications, the company isn’t thinking about marketing for Qwikster just yet. Which makes me wonder, who is Jason Castillo talking too? More »


Computing

How Can Android Tablets Thrive 2: The Rebuttal

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1:30PM September 15, 2011 | Alex Kidman

Last week’s opinion column regarding Android’s marketing efforts drew forth some hearty debate, and some interesting reader comments. I’m going to address them. More »


News

Manspresso Machines, Spotify Hacks, And Other Stories We Didn’t Post

5:00PM September 13, 2011 | Brian Barrett

So much news passes before our collective eyes every day that we couldn’t possibly cover it all. Mostly because much of it isn’t worth covering! But here are a some borderline tidbits we passed on, just in case. More »


Computing

Opinion: How Can Android Tablets Thrive?

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8:10AM September 10, 2011 | Alex Kidman

Leaving aside patent issues, Android tablets are struggling to make a real dent in the iPad’s armour. How can Android succeed in the wider market? More »


Geek Out

Rant: Companies, Please Stop Calling Things ‘HD’

1:10PM September 8, 2011 | Sam Biddle

HD is our decade’s extreme. People know the two letters well — and they like them! — because of HDTV. That’s fine, because HDTV actually means something: certain, set lines of resolution. But “Swiffer HD Clean”? I feel like screaming blood. More »