We’ll be talking about public relations and publicity in class Wednesday. This article from the New York Times is a good example of a company creatively gaining some positive publicity.

Remember that little survey tool we used in the first class? Survey Monkey is a real business. They will have $45 million in revenue this year, with margins as high as 85%, according to Techcrunch. Now they have first rate venture funding, and top talent from Google, Ticketmaster, and Netscape. Not bad for just monkeying around. 

Introducing the launch of chefgino.com. This is a first draft, but it is pretty complete. Have a look around, leave some comments, and feel free to come back here and offer your opinions on the site.

McKinsey this week released another great visualization, this time summarizing results from their annual technology survey of 1700+ companies. If you want to know how fast ‘real' companies (the kind that hire McKinsey) are adopting web 2.0 technologies like Twitter, Facebook, etc. this is the place to find out.

We’ll be talking about  how web technologies have expanded the role accountable advertising in class Wednesday. Here is a good background article on the topic from the New York Times.

We talk a lot in class about how marketers are always switching between analytical and creative thought. The two articles demonstrate that exercise with respect to evaluation of advertising. The first article (free ebook actually), from the Ad Contrarian, gives a mix of the soft and hard logic behind advertising and branding.  The second, a research paper from Carnegie Mellon, presents a very rigorous analysis of how advertising and branding can shift the price demand curve. You need to absorb both to be a good marketer. Figure out why you’re advertising (shift the demand curve) and then determine how to do the advertising (get creative).

This is Microsoft's vision for retailing (back in 2004 anyhow). A fascinating look at the store of the future. There are a whole host of these videos on the Microsoft Labs site very much worth viewing. 

Personas is one of those things that is really cool, but almost impossible to explain. It is a visualization tool from the MIT Media Lab. Go there, type in your name, and be fascinated with the results.  http://personas.media.mit.edu/