Brian Massey at ClickZ published a great article this week on how businesses have evolved from their first display ad – a static Web site – to rich display ads than can be spread across the Web and targeted to specific customers. Read his article and find out if you're a Homo Webilisite ("Web site Man") or a more advanced Keyanderthal Displayis ("Contextual Display Man").

The Geico Caveman resent this analogy.



-posted by Lindsay

PC World just came out with an interesting list of its top 10 tech blunders.

In order to stay as neutral as possible, here's the list without any comments coming from me.

What do you think?

1. Yahoo Loses Facebook
2. Real Networks Punts on the iPod
3. Sony and Toshiba Agree to Disagree Over HD
4. Digital Research: The Other Microsoft
5. Xerox Goes in an Alto Direction
6. Recording Industry Plays the Same Old Tune
7. Compuserve Blows Its Chance to Dominate the Net
8. Newspapers Fail to Read the Writing on the Wall--Craigslist
9. The Google Before Google
10. Microsoft Saves a Rotting Apple



-posted by Andrew

CNN has posted a HILARIOUS article called "The 12 most annoying types of Facebookers." To the uninitiated Facebooker, this article may not make much sense, but I assure you, it is dead on. The article lists 12 Facebook "types," all annoying of course, any by golly I have at least one friend who falls into every category. From "The Let-Me-Tell-You-Every-Detail-of-My-Day Bore" to "The Bad Grammarian," I've seen it all. 

Other annoying Facebooker types include (humorous and detailed descriptions are found in the article):
The Self-Promoter
The Friend-Padder
The Town Crier
The TMIer
The Sympathy-baiter
The Lurker
The Crank
The Paparazzo
The Maddening Obscurest
The Chronic Inviter

I'm sure everyone has fallen into one of these categories at least one time or another. So, which one are you? 



-posted by Stephanie

There is a lot of nothing...er beautiful wilderness in the logging city of Cle Elum, Washington. Apparently the city's abundance of open space and unusually high volume of sun has made it the perfect spot for a 75 megawatt, $300 million photovoltaic solar plant. According to a story in TechFlash, developers are one step closer to building this massive plant, which will be one of the world's largest -- spanning 400 acres! The plant will bring power to nearly 50,000 households, create dozens of jobs and give the quaint, Leave it to Beaver-type city a modern technology tourist attraction. It's too early to tell if this site will detract from the number of visitors that head to the world's largest frying pan located in Long Beach, WA.



-posted by Lindsay

Recently, the honchos at General Motors reported the hybrid plug-in car the Chevy Volt will get 230 miles per gallon when it's available to the public in the next year. While the news created an initial buzz, there was almost immediately some cynicism and even backlash regarding that number.

That's because the Environmental Protection Agency has no way formal methodology to come up with HIGHWAY MPG for plug-in hybrids and it turns out GM came up with its own methodology. Also adding to the confusion is that the Volt fully charged runs for 40 miles before turning over to gas. To arrive at its controversial number, Tony Posawatz, vehicle line director for the Volt, said GM used a combination of the E.P.A.'s proposed methodology for measuring plug-in hybrid vehicles in city driving and the company’s own data on real-world driving.

Bottom line, though, if you have a place to plug in your Volt at least every 40 miles, you conceivably would never have to buy gas. Seems to me and plenty of others there needs to be new calculations for the value you're getting out of your car like cost per mile (electricity is 10 cents a kilowatt hour).  Of course that calculation doesn't give you a read on the Volt's environmental impact.

230 MPG... really?



-posted by Andrew

Hot on the heels of Amazon recently pulling George Orwell's "1984" off its virtual bookshelves for the Kindle and the company applying for a patent to post advertisements smack dab in the middle of e-books on the Kindle, the Seattle Times Danny Westneat has a critical article of the online retailer. I tend to agree with Westneat that having an ad pop up as you're trying to escape from reality by reading your favorite book can be annoying. However, having to support a business with new revenue streams is also the sad but true reality of the world we live in... cash is king and nothing's for free. Westneat, out of all people, should appreciate that because as we all know, the newspaper industry has seen better times.



(Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos)

-posted by Andrew