Entries from May 2005 ↓

A company called ThinkMap has invented a Visual Thesaurus, a kind of road map of word meanings — with word dots linked by straight lines.

It’s looks useful, practical, efficient, usable, but my online trial lasted two lookups which is hardly enough to demonstrate its usefulness. (Oops, apparently the trial limits the daily uses to two.)

There’s another catch for me, at least. The language is very British, both in written and spoken forms. (There is an audio pronunciation feature. But because I’m American, I really don’t speak like that.) Then, too, a synonym for dessert is “afters.” Say what? Again, this is British English. It might help me translate British to American English.

It found “copywriting” was related to “copy editing” as well as “typewriting, ” and distantly “employee.” (This last word looks like a full day’s drive from “copywriting.”)

As Truman Capote said of Jack Kerouac’s work: “That’s not writing, that’s typing.” (I don’t view “typewriting” as a close synonym of “copywriting.”)

I will consider this as a possible addition to my huge Synonym Finder by J.I. Rodale. The Visual Thesaurus may equal Rodale, but I don’t think it can beat that dog-eared old friend.

Prices? The online version of the new product is $20 a year or $3 a month; the product on your desktop with no internet connection needed is $30. At those prices, it is worth trying out, if you live in the UK or want to talk as if you do.

Apparently, the FCC is getting hot under the collar about product placements.

You know the type: James Bond doesn’t just have a cool watch, he has a recognizable Omega Seamaster ™.

Or famously, because of one of my clients didn’t want the gig, ET doesn’t just follow a trail of small candies to the fridge, he follows a trail of Reese’s Pieces. ™

But this fuss is about paid product placement on TV shows, which is against FCC rules.

“The use of covert commercial pitches is penetrating deeper and deeper into media,” said Jonathan Adelstein, a Democratic member of the Federal Communications Commission, quoted in a Reuters article.

For more on this, see AdRants.

Apparently advertising hoaxes on the internet are going around.

DDB France has put up a site promoting an undersea train called Transatlantys with 8-hour travel btween Paris and New York.

Though this engineering project will take eleven years to complete, you can register to be the first on this miracle ride.

But the fine print reveals your trip must take place before the end of this year. Not only that, but the visual shows a windowed submarine and yet the copy says it’s a tunnel. (Somehow the thought of seeing the ocean whizzing by at 400 m.p.h. makes me seasick.)

There’s considerable discussion on the internet about this and most think it’s a hoax.

Someone has commented the passenger shown in the futuristic drawing looks terrified. That’s true, but maybe he’s travelling faster than the speed of light to go back in time 11 years?

William Safire, of The New York Times , has written an enlightening little history of pop-ups, both online and off.

In it, he traces the pop-up ad back to children’s books of yesteryear as well real paper-and-glue pop-up print ads.The first mention he finds in the Times, is May 4th, 1967 when the Butler Manufacturing Company ran a pop-up ad in Nations Business.

I thought it was rather limited of Mr. Safire to simply review references in his own newspaper. But now I see why: Internet search engines do not know about print ads that pop up when the page is turned, only those pop-ups on the net.

Safire finds another early use of pop-up in describing the menus in Apple’s Lisa computer (Remember them? Think of a Macintosh’s ™ mom.) John Markoff wrote of this in InfoWorld in July, 1983.

Last month, Rep. Markey of Massachusetts decried the use of pop-up ads on the Internet. He has introduced a bill called the “Securely Protect Yourself Against Cyber Trespass” act.

Why the bad translation sound? It’s called the SPYACT, for short.

There were many postings last week about the new print magazine, Blogerity.

Unfortunately or not, it is now revealed to be a hoax. See Sean Bonner’s blog.

Oops, to quote their own site, “Blogerity is not a hoax.”

Whatever it is or will be, I’m sure it’s a way to turn this publicity into profits.

A Belgian company has begun releasing one-second commercials, complete with soundtrack.

The product is a new breath freshener called One Second. It is a gel you apply to the tongue for instant breath freshening that lasts for 20 to 30 minutes.

The spot, by the Duval Guillaume agency of Antwerp, will run on every commercial break on Belgian TV.

Heineken has a new spot out in Europe, promoting their smaller beer cans, I guess, just for a quick sip. They use a video game format as Mr. Pixel fights evil and enjoys the new can size. (It’s just another available can; they’re not doing away with twelve-ounce ones.)

In the US, Coors has several new spots. They have a Plastic Cooler box which is a 12-pack of plastic long necks just right for the beach. An attractive blonde explains the virtues of plastic to the young men who are entranced by the sight of the beer bottles, I think. (While the spot is not politically correct, I bet it gets remembered by the male target audience.)

And I’ve broken a few bottles in my time, so I’m glad to see plastic bottles. (Miller Brewing tried this a while ago. The product disappeared from our local shelves, so I don’t know if it’s still being offered or if it was a summer season item.)

A British firm, Asa Bailey Viral Advertising, is selling a viral marketing film on eBay UK.

If I had the 5,000 plus pounds sterling, I’d buy it. The commercials are super weird and strangely compelling. Look at their star, Victoria Beckham.

Viral marketing, apparently, is a full-fledged TV commercial that is shared for free by zillions all over the Internet. (Now I realize why I need a translator when I talk to my kids.)

A commercial out now shows Ms. Beckham shoplifting baby clothes from a department store and leaves a trail of baby things. As she is filmed leaving the store, she gets instant justice. She’s hit by a bus. Really.

I suppose they didn’t want to glamorize shoplifting?

Geico Insurance has changed its tv spots some lately. I’ve seen several. One shows bikers waiting for the guy with the new bike his wife bought him.

The good news, of course, it’s insured by Geico ™. The bad news: is it a scooter or a moped? “Nice color” as they say in the spot. Whatever it is, it’s no Harley.

I do like the mnemonic, the sound connection between Geico and gecko, but it’s beginning to get a little stale too — like paying an actor to dress up like Colonel Sanders to sell us more KFC. (Yes, Virginia there was a real colonel and he did do commercials for Kentucky Fried Chicken ™.)

The New York Times has given a surprisingly positive, and un-nuanced, review to the controversial book Freakonomics.

The new book is a rather meandering series of essays which attempt to apply the dismal science to everyday life in unusual (and nonmonetary) ways. Moreover, the book has been sent free to some bloggers (not me) to get the marketing buzz going.

Unfortunately, it is so controversial that at least one blogger has spent his time tearing down the book’s arguments.

Freaknomics claims that the legalization of abortion has 1) reduced unwanted children. 2) These children as they grow up commit a disproportionately high number of crimes. Therefore 3) legalized abortion is the main reason for the lower crime rate that started in the early 1990’s.

It analyzes other topics as well: cheating by Sumo wrestlers and Chicago school teachers, the prevalence of certain given names among different ethnic groups, and the appeal of crack dealing as a career among inner city youth. The topics seem certain to upset one group or another, even many different groups for different reasons.

My ability to summarize these arguments in a blog is lacking tonight. The topics and the conclusions reached are incendiary, and I prefer to stay out of the fire these discussions will ignite.