Pay attention to this ... Really ... Today ...

New Web Sites Aim for TV Experience - Los Angeles Times

Watching video online in small, fuzzy boxes is heading the way of rabbit ears.

Some highly anticipated Web sites are being modeled on making the experience of watching video online more like watching television. These sites rely on software that enlarges the interface so that it fills your computer screen -- from edge to edge.

This new wave of applications is led by Joost and includes VeohTV and Babelgum. Though all are in beta (testing) phases, the hype has been mounting -- leading many to claim the next big advance in online video is imminent.

- Veoh (Windows and Mac)
- Babelgum (Windows PC only)
- Joost (Windows and Mac; invitation only)

Women so do too use games online ...

50 Million Adults Play Casual Video Games to Bond with Children, Grandchildren - MarketingVOX

Some 79 percent of those "family gamers" were female and 95 percent were age 30 or older - figures that closely reflect the overall casual gamer audience, according to PopCap.

As many as 44 percent of survey respondents identified themselves as mothers of children who play casual games, and 36 percent said they were grandmothers. Among males, 16 percent and 6 percent of respondents identified themselves as fathers and grandfathers, respectively.

Super Surfing Moms Rely Heavily on Search for Purchases - MarketingVOX
Moms rely heavily on search engines for both online and offline purchases, and when coordinating travel and planning a host of other activities, according to a study unveiled by DoubleClick Performics last week, reports MarketingCharts.

The "Searcher Moms - A Search Behavior and Usage Study" was conducted in cooperation with Microsoft and ROI Research.

"Of the nearly 1,000 moms surveyed, 89 percent use the internet at least twice per day, and 90 percent have been using it for more than seven years," said Stuart Larkins, VP of search for DoubleClick Performics. "A whopping 86 percent of respondents said search engines are the most efficient way to find information."

Draftfcb Paris Gets Funny in Second Life ...

Graham Cousens writes ...

Interesting article entitled "Marketers Start to Use Social Networks for CRM
Instead of Ads" in Adage at the following URL:

http://adage.com/digital/article?article_id=119918

In addition to the article, I'd like to share a current State Farm campaign
that's happening on MySpace that is pretty cool.

In addition to a nifty microsite at http://nowwhat.com, they have a
community site at http://www.myspace.com/nowwhat.

Right now there is a 6 hour webcast concert featuring Linkin Park, My
Chemical Romance, Taking Back Sunday, Him and Placebo. In 3 weeks, they've
built up 65,000 friends.

MySpace is regarding this as best practice in leveraging their site.

Essential Web 2.0 Reference ...

From quirky applications to venture-funded startups, a wide variety of new services are being launched leveraging Google’s APIs, helping users perform a multitude of tasks. Here is a non-technical introduction to some of the company’s most popular APIs and some of the most interesting applications built on top of them.

Dow does it the right way ...

Advertising Age - Rance Crain - Dow's Corporate Ads Have Great Chemistry, but Will Respect Follow?
The "Human Element" push, now a year old, has boosted Dow's brand-equity rating, as measured by Core Brand, 25%, but here's how Dow's CEO Andrew Liveris reckons the campaign will be successful: when a Dow employee in a bar anywhere in the world can tell the guy next to him where he works and get the response, "Oh, Dow. That's good."

Simple solutions, people ... Tag your ads with a short code not a URL.

Mobile Shortcodes Boosts Advertising Recall
The research revealed that 44% of mobile users between the ages of 18 and 60 fail to respond to advertising campaigns because they simply forget the brand name and contact details when the moment their interest was captured by the advertisement had passed - with many people wasting time later, trying to find the company, and eventually giving up.

Other key findings highlighted that more than one in three mobile users have sent a text message to a five digit shortcode, primarily in response to TV and radio advertisements, and competitions. When asked if they would find it useful using text as a response mechanism to an offline advertisement, to then be forwarded to a mobile internet site for more details, more than 51% of consumers said they would be quite keen or extremely keen to use it.