DETROIT (Automotive News) — There's a new power broker working in the 15th floor executive offices of Chrysler LLC's global headquarters — a man who might give dealers a feeling of deja vu.
It’s a sad day in floating castles, cursed forests and Dorito-flecked basements everywhere. Gary Gygax, co-creator of Dungeons & Dragons, died this morning at his home in Lake Geneva, Wis. He was 69. Together with Dave Arneson and a few others in the early 1970s, Gygax developed an open-ended game that sparked the role-playing phenomenon. The original marketing for D&D left something to be desired, with its bland description of “Fantastic Medieval Wargames Campaigns Playable with Paper and Pencil and Miniature Figures.†But D&D still exploded in popularity and began sparking copycats within a year of its 1974 release. As you can see from this commercial from the 1980s, D&D was optimistically marketed as a game for the whole family, but it settled into a niche hobby of a certain demographic. Still, there are countless games, movies and books that owe their existence to Gygax. So let us bid him a fond farewell and roll one last 20-sided die in hopes of resurrecting him with only a -1 Constitution penalty.
—Posted by David Griner
(TrendHunter.com) Talk about cool cribs. The 16-foot circle of flooring is fitted with four motors and some wheels beneath the steel frame of the floor. This allows the home theater to rotate 180 degrees at the press of a button to face the second row making it possible for the space to be used for parties and gather…
(TrendHunter.com) Mariana Rivera is turned on by sweaty men. Sweaty European men at footballs games. Since her bf is a Trendhunter and never leaves the computer, she invented a shirt that makes sweat. A mic picks up the ambient noise and measures it. When it reaches a certain level, a water pump wets the shirt. I ha…
The Wave Tower is the newest high rise building to be built in the city that has too much money. A-cero Architects are incorporating the waves of the oceanfront property into the overall design of the place.
It is supposed to appear as if it is floating and the gently rolling bridge connects it to…
(TrendHunter.com) The Wave Tower is the newest high rise building to be built in the city that has too much money. A-cero Architects are incorporating the waves of the oceanfront property into the overall design of the place.
It is supposed to appear as if it is floating and the gently rolling bridge connects it to…
CHICAGO (AdAge.com) — Kentucky Fried Chicken is hoping this time's the charm when it comes to more-healthful products. Over the years, it's tried marketing non-fried fowl, once even changing its name to KFC to distance itself from the "f" word. But there was one problem: The products didn't sell well.
It's now being confirmed by two different blogs: Little Jonathan Winery is indeed the brainchild of rapper and budding mogul Lil Jon. While so many of his colleagues are promoting harder stuff, Jon is offering his own merlot, chardonnay and cabernet sauvignon in slick black bottles.
For the past several weeks I've been consumed by a seemingly endless new-business pitch, which made me wonder: Is ours the only business where people compete without ever seeing what their competition does? Maybe that's yet another reason the pitch process is so broken.
NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Facebook has appointed a No. 2 for 24-year-old CEO Mark Zuckerberg in Sheryl Sandberg, a Google veteran who most recently served as VP-global sales and operations.
Anderson Analytics mines large amounts of text — consumer surveys, call center logs — and fishes out insights: “We use state of the art natural language processing software which combines linguistics, statistics, and machine learning to code and classify text data. We can then apply data mining and other analytical techniques to uncover the hidden value of this information or link it with other sources.
These techniques can be used for call center customer files, customer suggestions and complaints, survey open ends, focus group or discussion board conversations, blogs, or it can be combined with projective techniques for exponential learning.”
Ad Age just wrote about them: “Starwood hired Anderson Analytics for several projects, including the one that culled through the more than 1 million customer-feedback surveys — 250,000 with comments in 20 different languages — to find that “good” vs. “outstanding” insight.”
(TrendHunter.com) This really unique piece of architecture reminds me of something you’d see in the Myst computer games.
The details are really quite remarkable, with trinkets like plates in different colours grouted to the walls to make a vibrant mosaic. The pointy needle like towers look like they were sculpted b…
NXT blog comment: “hahaha holy crap. never thought my bathroom wud be trippy.”
A story in NYTimes about a new line of men’s care productss that will come in a package that lights up lava-lamp style: “NXT is sold in an arresting triangular container that lights up from the bottom, illuminating air bubbles suspended in the clear gel. The plastic is tinted blue, and when the AAA batteries in its base are lighted, the whole thing looks like a miniature lava lamp or a tiny fishless aquarium.
To call attention to themselves, the products, which are aimed at 18- to 24-year-old men, will glow on the shelves, inviting customers to pick them up. Every 15 seconds, a light-emitting diode (LED) in the bottom of the container flares on, stays lighted for a few seconds, then fades out.”
Lots of other interesting details: the units are shipped upside down, different lights signal different ingredients, it’s better to position units on lower shelves. Innovative enough to get Target, Wal-Mart and CVS on board without any supporting ad spend.
Try to see if you can Google the product up, though. Seems like someone needs some SEO. The site is here. The only “Hello, World” entry on the blog already has a few comments.
(TrendHunter.com) Let’s face it – we can’t all be glamorous celebrities. For those parents who wish to push a more achievable career on to their children, consider this paparazzi play set. The figurines mimic realistic photography stances – the red carpet, push-to-the-front motion, the jump-out-of-the-bushes, “surpri…
(TrendHunter.com) There is television show that I love called “Extreme Homes” that features modified, tweaked, and customized houses. The owners/builders of these fantastical homes have dedicated a portion of their lives to creating an image that started inside of their heads – sacrificing countless hours and a wad o…
(TrendHunter.com) The USA’s leading plumbing manufacturers Kohler Co., has put out an ad campaign “The Bold Look of Kohler” designed to portray the company and its products as cutting edge, sexy and, well, bold.
“As I See It” is Kohler’s print campaign. These ads are more reminiscent of high-end fashion than calls …
Ever wonder why it seems that Nancy Grace and Greta van Susteren cover only stories of missing white girls? The folks behind a new online campaign do too. They want your help finding minority children — and, just maybe, some respect from the media.
Bill Gates’s LinkedIn profile, via a story in NYTimes blog. A related thought: celebrity endorsements through social networking sites sound like an idea.
(TrendHunter.com) The number one most watched comedy viral video on YouTube, The Evolution of Dance, has just been spoofed/covered by none other than Optimus Prime. A new viral of the infamous Autobot has been released in which Optimus goes through the Evolution of Dance moves. The original has 76+ million views. We…
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