Subtracting from ads
Posted: Monday, February 05, 2007 2:48 PM by Will Femia
I was interested to note Gael's remark about the HP Super Bowl ad last night, "I used to really like "American Chopper." And now I don't even know if it's still on."
That's kind of how I feel about Super Bowl ads in general. I mean, of course I know they're still on, and maybe we just got a bad batch this year, but I'm having a relatively easy time convincing myself that my regular consumption of clever, entertaining, and interesting (and also sometimes banal) Web video has taken some of the shine off Super Bowl ad day. Even if the best Super Bowl ads of all time were on last night, do they eclipse what we see online on a daily basis?
In spite of Seth Godin's very convincing explanation for why Super Bowl ads matter to us culturally, there's a daily Super Bowl on the Internet in which media and marketers are always in competition for my attention. Super Bowl ads may be "about creating a short little movie that spreads," but the Super Bowl is no longer the sole domain for those short little spreading movies.
And I have to think it's no coincidence that the "citizen created" Doritos ad is liked so much . It's borne of a new rich genre of short little movies that spread.
The Super Bowl analysis piece that seems to have grabbed everyone's attention is this one in the Times about the violence in the ads being a reflection of our wartime angst . I can't argue with the idea that violence was a way to cheap laughs, but I'm pretty sure that egg came long before the Iraq war chicken.
Also worth a click are these reviews from people in the ad industry.
Speaking of mainstream links and pandering to the lowest common denominator (and drawing broad conclusions from a small amount of info), does the use by General Petraeus of warrior-intellectuals signal an end to American anti-intellectualism? Will assessment of the next wave of political candidates draw more on their intellectual competence than their barstool filling character?
That article makes reference to a site called Small Wars Journal. If you're interested, they do a daily link round up as well as a blog .
As an interesting follow-up to Friday's item about bloggers moving to professional positions comes the point that they also carry with them all the baggage of their personal blogs . I'm not sure it rises to the level of scandal (if only because I can't see anyone really caring that much about the personal foibles of a candidate's Web master) but it does add a layer of complexity to the blogosphere-as-farm-team model. ADDING: As Chuck points out in comments, for the record this particular instance is not at all a scandal and turns out to be a misunderstanding about technical problems. Still, my point stands about the added complexity of hiring a blogger.
Through Digby's somewhat exasperated explanation ...
I had always known that Cheney was running the show, but I assumed he did it purely by using the power of the executive branch and manipulation of the president. I had no idea that he might have secretly carved out a previously unenumerated institution that derives its power from both the legislative and executive branches.
... I found this Talking Points Memo item about a new understanding of Dick Cheney's role as Vice President .
Photo of the day, and early entry for lightning porn of the week , which I would have posted here directly but it's a funny shape.
Speaking of photos of the day, Spontaneous Combustion - It's a photo (a smoke photo like we saw last week) of a light bulb with no glass burning out in a split second.
$8 Million Car, Still Worth Less Than a Taurus - I'm not sure why the video places so much emphasis on the $8 million dollars worth of R&D. That seems rather beside the point when you're showing off a 700hp car that looks like a conservative version of the bat mobile.
Speaking of fancy cars you can't buy, check out these concepts from Peugeot. (P.S. Did you see the feature on the new generation of three wheelers ?)
"Wifi Liberator is an open-source toolkit for a laptop computer that enables its user to "liberate" pay-per-use wireless networks and create a free, open node that anyone can connect to for Internet access." No PC version so I haven't tried any of this, but I'm certainly intrigued by the idea.
Speaking of things I haven't tried that sound handy, check out this video transcoder .
Hey, check it out, I can't embed YouTube videos in the page now.
Insh'allah: A Nighttime Raid with the Iraqi Army - We hear so much about "training Iraqi troops" that it's nice to see a report on what that actually means.
It appears that the recent demand by Viacom that YouTube take down its videos has resulted in some innocent bystanders having their videos taken down as well.
Bloggers can make money, but most keep day jobs - A nice primer on "contextual ads" and timely given Yahoo's launch of Panama , their answer to Google's AdSense.
Car sun visor DVD player - The FM transmitter is so you can play the audio on your car stereo. While the idea of watching TV and driving bothers me, I do appreciate the possibility of putting this luxury feature on a low-budget car.
Minesweeper beat in 38 seconds . Could this be a real time video?
8 Reasons Why the Masses Love Lists - Irony of the headline aside, these are good reasons.
In case you're struggling for ideas: DIY Valentines .
"The micro compact home [m-ch] is a lightweight compact dwelling for one or two people."
The folding chair - Actually probably better named the accordion chair. It'd be cool to bring one of these to a parade so the whole family can sit down. That's assuming it can be stretched that far out and not sag or pinch. The demo video here is interesting, but I'm not convinced of its durability by watching two tiny Asian women sit on it.
