Hasta La Creative!

Our neighbors to the north are an interesting lot. Leaving aside their eerie friendliness, they also apparently drink what sounds like a noxious concoction: tomato-clam juice. This would be a tough sell here, but Tribal DDB is having some fun with it in Canada by creating a fake social network, Lamato.net. The premise is pretty simple: we’re not doing any real socializing while sitting in front of our computers throwing sheep at each other. Tribal has put together a bunch of video vignettes of real-life situations that correlate to their online equivalents. Clicking on any of the social network’s “features” pops up a message that it’s all a fake and a reminder to get out in the real world and suck down some liquored-up tomato-clam juice.

—Posted by Brian Morrissey

– It Didn’t Air – another awards show that aspires to tickle the creative babies that were too ugly or simply too flawed to make it into waking life. IDA’s strictly for radio ads — and only $75 to enter!!

(TrendHunter.com) Ray Caesar (b. October 26, 1958) is a visual surreal artist and digital painter residing in Toronto, Canada.

Caesar’s art redefines possibility and pushes the boundaries of digital art, moving away…

(TrendHunter.com) London advertising agency Profero teamed up with New York urban artist Paul Notzold to create two events for Channel 4’s “Disarming Britain” season. The events will show Paul’s work projected onto the…

Bloggers are not the only people pissed off at Associated Press these days.

According to The Wall Street Journal, a growing cadre of newspaper editors are upset with the 162-year-old newsgathering cooperative.

Some newspapers have attempted to reduce their reliance on the AP. This past spring, prompted by unhappiness with the AP’s fees and reduced coverage of state and local news, the eight largest newspapers in Ohio created a cooperative called the Ohio News Organization, or OHNO, which allows its members to sidestep the AP by sharing stories. Five Montana newspapers owned by the newspaper concern Lee Enterprises Inc. have also begun sharing more content. And editors in Texas, Pennsylvania and Indiana have quietly inquired about how the Ohio cooperative works.

Ben Marrison, editor of the Columbus Dispatch, says a recent trial in Akron involving the theft of state money epitomizes members’ frustrations. Before the trial Mr. Marrison placed a call to the AP Ohio bureau to find out if it would be sending a reporter.

When he was told the AP wouldn’t have a reporter there, he sent one of his own to Akron. Shortly after the story was posted on the Dispatch’s Web site, an AP staffer rewrote it for a broader audience and put the new version on the state wire. “So it was important enough for them to move, but not important enough for them to cover,” Mr. Marrison said. “What has happened is we’ve become the wire service for the wire service.”

(TrendHunter.com) Gustavo Santaolalla created Café de los Maestros as a project to show the world the beauty of tango. The documentary serves as a tribute to the surviving glories of this genre, highlighting the musicians,…

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Viacom's MTV Networks Entertainment group would like you to know two things about Atom, its newly relaunched version of Atom Films that has partnered with Comedy Central. One, its monthly audience of 1 million to 2 million unique visitors has been consistently larger than that of Funny or Die. And it has Will Ferrell too. "It just so happens that our Will Ferrell is a grad student in engineering at Ohio State University, and he doesn't make comedies. But he is ours," raves the site's new About page.

(TrendHunter.com) Any Star Wars fan should own this awesome, animated Darth Vader USB Hub.

It’s much more than just a hub in the shape of Darth Vader.

Once you plug it into your computer, Darth Vader starts to breath,…

LONDON – Independent producer RDF’s digital unit is to launch its first consumer content business, video site Comedydemon.com, next Wednesday, 2 July.

Here’s a bit of ambient street work for you.