Yay! It's the end of the week. Let me tell you, I am excited about it. It has been a very very long week for me and now that I can somewhat breathe, I can enjoy my weekend. As such, I'm starting it with a kooky selection of carousel works for you.
Thanks to my job, I have been working very closely with facebook applications (unfortunately I cannot tell you what applications I am making). Now, I'm not a financial analyst, but if I had to point out the one Achilles Heel of Facebook, it's this:
Brands can basically advertise for free on the site by creating "applications" that ostensibly function as ads.
Brands can basically advertise for free on the site by creating "applications" that ostensibly function as ads.
Witness the "TopShop Fashion Fix" application, where every time you click, a new stream of TopShop outfits are unloaded onto your screen - then you vote on your favorites, and challenge your friends to do the same. There are hundreds of others, but the latest is particularly interesting: The Louis Vuitton application.
You send Louis Vuitton "gifts" to your friends - basically just graphics of expensive and very branded LV merchandise - then wait for them to do the same thing back to you. The more "gifts" you get, the more Louis Vuitton stuff appears on your profile - and the more "gifts" you send, the more new "merchandise" you're allowed to preview.
Setting up this application probably cost the Louis Vuitton people $5000 - assuming they hired an outside techie and didn't get the LVMH in-house computer team to design it. Meanwhile, they'll make hundreds of thousands of virtual dollars back in brand extension, product placement, and the priceless experience of getting young men and women to interact with their brand, even if they're not setting foot in an LV boutique.
I'd go so far as to say Facebook is losing money by allowing branded applications to exist on its network. But whatever, as long as I can play facebook stalk, I don't really care.
This weekend, Variety ran a smirky story, about Sacha Baron Cohen, the artist formerly known as Borat (and also Ali G, yo!), whose latest prank is playing Bruno, a flamboyantly gay fashion reporter from an unknown chiffon wonderland.
According to the Hollywood trade paper, several odd incidents involving a foreign fashion writer have been written up in local crime logs and also reported by regional Associated Press bureaus. Looks like he's got everyone fooled, though it's not like he's made a trip to Fashion Week. Meanwhile, I am hoping that Borat's wife, Isla Fisher, is part of this whole practical joke, and that's why she's wearing the stupidest outfit ever for her next movie, Shopaholic. Sadly, it doesn't seem to be a prank.
Quote du-jour: "If she comes past the shop, hopefully she'll just keep walking...I don't really covet that sort of thing." - Alexander McQueen, on Paris Hilton
In Bold political moves, Tanzanian president condemns witch doctors for harvesting albino body parts.
Media lovefest with Obama continues: ABC goes to Iraq, finds the three soldiers who support Obama, and then declares military is supporting him for president. That’s some fine reporting there, Lou.
At a Maine high school, students will be required to complete 40 hours of community service, 10 hours a year, to graduate. “I don’t think we should have it at all. We have enough to handle”. Shut up, you whiny complaining people.
One of Japan’s top bloggers makes regular “meet the fans” tours. His website gets 50,000 hits a day…but he’s a cat.
The FBI leaves you alone in the interrogation room. Do you A) Keep quiet? B) Ask for a lawyer? Or C) scream at your accomplice for messing up the plan? (with video goodness).
Bulk purchase of eggs and ketchup by persons under 18 years of age banned by Nanny State town to prevent “anti-social behavior”.
State senator gets a speeding ticket in a school zone the same day that he proposes legislation to increase the fine for speeding in a school zone. Oops!
Schoolgirl says she was beaten up over her anti-illegal-immigration poster. School surveillance tape shows her beating herself up.
No comments:
Post a Comment