Random Culture

Case Study In Shortsightedness: Scrabulous

You may have heard by now that Hasbro and Mattel are trying to get the plug pulled on Scrabulous, the user-created Scrabble application created for Facebook. It's one of the most popular applications on the site, with nearly 600,000 daily users... myself included. There's no argument that Scrabulous is violating their copyright, but why would Hasbro and Mattel stick their head all the way up the gift horse's mouth and rip out its intestines? I'm not sure if they've been paying attention, but with all the entertainment options available today, people aren't exactly tripping over themselves to snatch up all the board games on the shelves.

Clearly, anyone can see that Scrabulous has been the best thing to happen to Scrabble in a long time. I'm a case in point for this... I own the Scrabble board game, but I've only played it twice. Once Scrabulous came along, it gave me a renewed interest in the game. I have several games running concurrently now, and yes, I've actually played the REAL board game a few more times because of it.

I can only think about the sheer amount of angst that Hasbro and Mattel are creating because of this demand to pull Scrabulous from Facebook. Think about how much more positive press and brand affinity they would have created for rewarding the ingenuity of the Scrabulous creators by purchasing it from them. This is ingenuity they obviously can only pay for...

Yes, I'm a bit sore on the subject because I love Scrabulous soo much. And the folks at Hasbro and Mattel can rest assured that if they succeed in this dim-witted legal task, there will be one less Scrabble board game in existence, because I will boycott the tiles for life.

More from the BBC here.

Join the Facebook group, Save Scrabulous!

Simpsons Promo Swiped from Leo Burnett?

According to NPR's "Morning Edition" from yesterday, July 18th, it looks like the clever promotion for the Simpson's Movie may have been "co-opted" from Leo Burnett when they pitched the business.

Listen to Morning Edition's take on the story.

Sad to hear, if it's true, that one of the best promotions I've seen may have been the result of this kind of behavior.

Mark Cuban: Hating on YouTube Again

I don't quite understand why YouTube rubs Mark Cuban the wrong way, but it clearly does. You may remember his comments in September of last year when Google announced they were purchasing YouTube. Well, he's at it again, with some very strange comments in light of the Oscars. Mark is arguing that the Oscars, as well as other "content creators" are being hurt by YouTube because they're losing control of the content as well as the brand. So what does he advocate? From Mark Cuban's blog:

"To capture Youtube viewers, the first step would be to OVERWHELM Youtube with partial clips of full length that tease Youtube users and point them to Oscars.com. For this Will Ferrell clip, I would have created a video that showed the first 10 secs of the clip, then had 4 minutes of a billboard that said " Great videos from the Oscars telecast and exclusive behind the scenes videos are all available at Oscars.com"

IN addition to the billboard in the video  you would have an active link to Oscars.com on the Youtube video page. I wouldnt post this video 1 time. I would post this video 100 times."

Say what? Not only is the idea of Mark Cuban advocating spamming YouTube preposterous, what does he want to do, turn YouTube into nothing more than a 10 second preview site? Mark has a bias because he himself is a "content creator", with his entertainment ventures. But it's an irrational bias. There are plenty of other "content creators" who have embraced YouTube, and certainly not in the manner he's advocating. CBS, Showtime and many others have formed partnerships with YouTube to distribute their content, because they KNOW that it isn't going away anytime soon. In fact, YouTube traffic is still growing at an astronomical rate.

Why can't someone who's supposed to be at the forefront of technology not come to terms with this? Frankly, I'm surprised, Mr. Cuban. Read his full comments here.

Link via Podcasting News.

Filthy Wal-Mart

Technology has enabled even the smallest voice to be heard, and with camera phones and digital cameras in the hands of many consumers, every moment is potentially a photo op. As an example, take a look at this Flickr gallery showing, well, a "filthy Wal-Mart."

Yikes... Did the management of this store expect that photos would start showing up online, and that people would send these photos on to friends and post them on blogs?

Well, they should have expected it.

Thanks to Dave for the link.

Google Maps: Not Just for Maps

Markus Dressen puts the Google Maps API to use for something a little different... to display a collection of design books. Beautiful.

PopSecret Fan Site? Nope.

PopSecretMountain.com is just a fan site, right? I know so because in the "about" section of the site, it says the following:

Who made this stuff?
People who love Pop Secret popcorn that's who.

Pop Secret paid you to do this...
No, they didn't. We're not making a dime off of this.

I love a cat wearing a pirate suit just like anyone else, but in the first 2 seconds on this site, I could smell the "fake" user generated content from a mile away...

After the folks at AdLand received a strange email trying to spread the word about the site, someone pointed them to a little company called Your Media Coverage. If you check out their "projects" page, you can clearly see  "Pop Secret Mountain" right there. Way to go, guys!

When are marketers going to learn? You can't fake this stuff.

Update: It seems that one possible explanation is that these folks basically create everything as "spec" or as a part of contests and "user generated" submissions. The Toyota Yaris work they talk about on their site, for example, was created as a part of the "user generated" advertising that Current TV accepts. I could go on, but I'd rather not give publicity to a company that does bad spec work.

Goverment and Social Networking Don't Mix

Once again, we're offered proof that our government, even with the best intentions, doesn't understand technology. The example? House Resolution 5319, The Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA). This resolution, if it becomes law, will require schools and libraries to block social networking sites and chat rooms. If they do not, they could lose federal Internet subsidies. The law might also have an impact on a far larger array of websites using social networking features. Some folks, such as social networking expert Danah Boyd, see this as an erosion of our freedoms more than a protection for minors.

I'm all for protecting minors against online predators. Like I said, I think our elected officials in the house have the best intentions. However, technology has clearly outpaced the tech skills of our representatives in Washington. What we need is more Internet savvy politicians. I think the chances are pretty high that in coming elections, we will see MySpace profiles being used as campaigning tools.

Link via TechCrunch.

Save the Internet!

Hopefully you've heard about the Net Neutrality debate happening right now. Net Neutrality suffered a defeat when the House Energy and Commerce Committee voted down the proposal, but now, Net Neutrality is moving to the Senate. Net Neutrality is being called the Internet's "First Amendment", and we should all be pushing our senators to back the Net Neutrality proposal, and educating them about what it means. If we don't it could mean giving telcos ridiculous power over how we use the web.

You can learn more about what could happen if Net Neutrality fails in the Senate by watching this video from savetheinternet.com:

Everyone should be contacting their senator about this issue. I don't often post about this type of thing, but I felt it was important enough to bring up.

Universal Pictures' Big Mistake

Just last week, I was griping about Apple's indication that they might charge $10 for a movie download... That was nothing. News is now circulating that Universal Pictures will have movies available for download in the UK at a whopping $35.

I'm speechless.

Why the high price tag? According to this CNN article, it looks like that $35 price gets you a download of the movie for a laptop, one for a portable device and a DVD in the mail. The initial batch of movies available is limited to around 30, including titles like "The Bourne Supremacy", "Nanny McPhee" and "Bridget Jones Diary."

I'm not convinced that people are going to find this worth the money. You can buy "The Bourne Supremacy" DVD on Amazon for $13.99, and have everything Universal is offering. And when you look at that price point, I still think $9.99 is too much to pay for a movie on iTunes.

Come on Universal... just give Apple a call.

ABC iTunes Blunder?

Podcasting News points out that ABC is in hot water with the Screen Actor's Guild for selling episodes of their TV shows on iTunes. The Screen Actor's Guild has issued a statement about their intent to pursue arbitration against ABC. According to a statement from SAG president Alan Rosenberg:

"In violation of our collective bargaining agreements, ABC recently began selling Lost and Desperate Housewives for digital download to iPods without first bargaining with Screen Actors Guild. Today ABC advised the Guild that it intends to pay residuals to performers based on the videocassette formula - a formula that does not apply to this new platform."

This is something you need to pay attention to, particularly if you're repurposing content. As an example, if you are an agency releasing commercials and "behind the scenes" video on iTunes as a podcast, you need to secure the rights to do so.

Miller + Equifax = Consumer Wrath

Wow... this has to be one of the strangest examples I've seen of a company not understanding their customers.

According to BoingBoing, a reader used a junk email address in a contest to avoid further communications with Miller. Months after she dunped the junk account, she received an email from Miller in her main account. Here's a screenshot of the email she received.

How in the heck could this happen? IP address maybe? According to this post at Ad-Verse, Miller is using Equifax... that's right, the company that keeps credit data on you. The author of the O'Reilly "Spam Kings" book has some more details as well.

Link via Adrants.

Coke's Fake Blog

Uh oh... another story of blog marketing gone bad. As a part of the Coke "Zero" launch, Coke set up a "fake" blog at: TheZeroMovement.com. The blog, which doesn't disclose any affiliation with Coke, is described by AdRants as follows:

"...a guy rants about why life is so full of stuff to do and how it would be so much nicer if there was, well, zero to do. It's written in typical character blog prose, devoid of personality and full of whiny banter which comes off like it's a product of a creative brief. There's even fake, supportive comments to go along with it."

And AdRants isn't the only site giving Coke grief for the badly executed blog. There's now a website dedicated to criticizing the blog, called "The Zero Movement Sucks."

Proof once again that a lack of transparency causes backlash.

Link via Adrants.

MySpace Asshattery

News Corp doesn't get it. It's really that simple. The company that purchased MySpace apparently doesn't like the freedoms associated with the web, and enacted a campaign of censorship that seriously pissed off many MySpace users.

The censorship took the form of a systematic attempt to get rid of YouTube references. YouTube is an online video service, like Flickr for videos, that many MySpace members have been using to embed videos in their pages. News Corp didn't much care for this, and modified user profiles to remove YouTube content.

This angered some MySpace users so much that a number of them formed a group on MySpace opposing the censorship. Guess what... that group was deleted as well.

Recently, however, the YouTube blog pointed out that they had been in contact with MySpace, and that the fiasco was "a simple misunderstanding, and MySpace has re-enabled all YouTube embeds." Yeah, right... a "simple misunderstanding." Chances are that MySpace is on the verge of releasing some type of video functionality that would compete with YouTube. But that's no excuse, particularly if their users are flocking to YouTube. You have to listen to your users...

So News Corp has clearly demonstrated a couple things through this incident:

1.) They can't communicate well with their own users
2.) The organization is willing to censor content on MySpace
3.) The organization doesn't understand the open nature of the web

And I'm sure the list goes on and on... This was a bad move, no matter how you slice it.

Link via Adrants.

Cyber Monday is a Myth

That's right... the Monday after "Black Friday" is NOT the most active online shopping day of the year. According to a Business Week article that tries to set the record straight:

"Contrary to what the recent blitz of media coverage implies, Cyber Monday isn't nearly the biggest online shopping or spending day of the year. It ranks only as the 12th-biggest day historically, according to market researcher comScore Networks. It's not even the first big day of the season.

For most online retailers, the bigger spending day of the season to date was way back on Nov. 22, three days before Black Friday. What's more, most e-tailers say the season's top spending day comes much later, between around Dec. 5 and Dec. 15."

The truth is, "Cyber Monday" was created by Shop.org just to create some excitement. I think the idea that online stores have a day similar to "Black Friday" is a great idea. Who knows, it could become the biggest online shopping day of the year... as long as other online retailers jump on the bandwagon and start offering online deals on that day only.

NY/SF Transit Envy

Apparently, the New York and San Francisco transit authorities want you to get lost. Both have sent cease and desist letters to William Bright, a New Yorker who started iPodSubwayMaps, a site that allows users to download handy transit system maps of around 20 large cities. According to an article in Wired magazine, the MTA contacted Bright, saying he had "infringed the MTA's copyright and that he needed a license to post the map and to authorize others to download it." BART officials essentially said the same.

The good news is that Bright has since created his own custom map for the bay area, which should circumvent copyright issues with BART officials.

Link via B.L. Ochman.

The New Gap.com?

I posted a link yesterday about how Gap.com has been shut down for a while the site is being redesigned. Of course, this doesn't seem to be a good call on their part, and you can read about it here, here and here.

BusinessLogs points out that now some people are being served the new site. I was able to access the new site by first visiting the Gapinc.com corporate site, and then navigating a link to Gap.com.

Update: Chrysler Blog

Recently, I posted about Chrysler's blogging effort, and agreed that they're making a mistake by hiding the blog behind a login and catering only to "established" journalists. Adrants was one of the first to point out that this might not be a great idea. Apparently, Chrysler PR Chief Jason Vines has used the blog to accuse Steve Hall of Adrants of being a "cowardly, anonymous poster." You can read more about his comments in this Detroit News article.

Um... Wow. Here are a couple pointers.

1.) Steve Hall isn't an anonymous blogger... I am, sort of
2.) Understand a blog's influence before you start bashing
3.) Even when you require a login, content finds a way out

Link via B.L. Ochman.

Chrysler Blog: The Firehouse

Adrants posts about Chrysler's new blog, The Firehouse. It's a blog created for journalists, that's hidden behind a login. According to Adrants, only those who can prove they work for a "known and established media organization" can apply and read. I agree that this pretty much undercuts the whole idea of participating in the blogosphere... Sure, they may have found a good way to keep journalists updated, but don't they see how much more leverage they'd get if they opened it up?

Gay Batman vs. DC Comics

DC Comics apparently thinks it can threaten a Chelsea art dealer for displaying Mark Chamberlain's "gay batman" watercolors. This is yet another case of over the top trademark enforcement. According to the art dealer, "D.C. Comics wants me to hand over all unsold work and invoices for the sold work!" You can see the gay batman watercolors at ArtNet. Actually, ArtNet has been given a cease and desist from DC Comics for hosting the images.

What a load of crap. Trademarked images have worked themselves into our culture, and artists routinely make work that functions as commentary on that culture. And artistic expression is a protected right.

Link via BoingBoing.

comScore schmomscore

Uh Oh... It looks like there are some serious issues surfacing with the comScore blog study released yesterday. Questions started to be raised by some bloggers that had problems with some blog rankings that appeared in the study.

For more on the issues surrounding this study, check out this, this and this.

AOL Misbehavior?

Uh oh... I came across this screenshot, that's apparently of the new AOL Instant Messenger beta. Check out the size of those ads! If it's true, this won't make users happy at all.

50 Cent: Shanghai Style

There's a rap festival happening in Shanghai this weekend. It's billed as "Music from The Streets of Shanghai." Well apparently, some music from the streets of Shanghai is pirated... Check out this audio clip of what appears to be a 50 Cent cover. Interestingly enough, there doesn't appear to be a Chinese translation for the word "Motherf*cker."

You can find more Shanghai rap downloads and lyrics here.

Link via Shanghaiist.

FT.com Link Trickery

It looks like the Financial Times has been caught using "hidden links" on their site. This is one of the oldest search engine tricks in the books, and has brought up some interesting questions. Is the Financial Times charging for these hidden links? Is this knowingly being done? For a more detailed look at the issue, check out this post on the Linking Matters Blog.

Link via Adrants.

Urban Outfitters Misbehavior?

Crownfarmer makes some cool shirts. Urban Outfitters agreed... From the notice on the Crownfarmer site:

"the hip, mega chain store, urban outfitters, has taken two of our familiar t-shirt designs... cut them up and sewn them onto the backs of vintage blazers, essentially re-branding them to create all new pieces that appear to be crownfarmer garments, but they are not"

Crownfarmer contacted Urban Outfitters, and were told that the items would no longer be sold, but they've been offered no compensation, and have been told not to contact Urban Outfitters any more about the issue.

Huffington Post Redux

The Huffington Post is making waves even in its second day of publishing. In my earlier post I was complaining a bit about the new site... and the complaints just keep on coming.

Remember Hilary Rosen? The chair of the RIAA and the scourge of music downloaders everywhere. Here's an article to refresh your memory. Well, she's on The Huffington Report griping about the digital rights management on her iPod... Here are some of her exact words:

"...keeping the iTunes system a proprietary technology to prevent anyone from using multiple (read Microsoft) music systems is the most anti-consumer and user unfriendly thing..."

Furthermore, she advocates the following:

"If you are really a geek, you can figure out how to strip the songs you might have bought from another on-line store of all identifying information so that they will go into the iPod. But then you have also degraded the sound quality. How cruel."

That's all she's worried about? The sound quality?

Guess what she does now? She's a talking head on TV... Like I said, less empowerment of the talking heads is what we need.

Link via business2blog.

CNN and Blog Spam?

Nick Lewis, at SmartCampaigns.com, claims that CNN is engaging in some pretty shady blog spamming tactics to create buzz and affect search engine rankings. Nick saw some strange comment activity on his site and decided to see is there was a pattern... and there was. He noticed the same activities happening on other blogs commenting about CNN. Nick is convinced that CNN is behind these spamming activities, however, there was no solid connection established between these activities and CNN. No IP addresses have been traced back to CNN, and CNN hasn't commented on the subject. Right now, it's just a pretty convincing hunch, and a pretty scary hunch if Nick is right.

I do have a hard time believing that CNN would knowingly give the thumbs up to marketers openly insulting their programming. The most likely scenario I can see is that CNN is involved with a bad company, and much of this activity is happening without their knowledge. Stranger things have happened, though...

The point that Nick Lewis made that really struck home with me was the fact that if companies start adopting these tactics, we'll be in a world of hurt. While I have reservations about big brands being okay with this type of stuff, I realize that many companies feel powerless in the blogosphere, and some may resort to extreme measures to provide responses to flames about their brands. Of course, we'd all prefer honest conversation to "tactics."

Here's another article on the subject.

Link via B.L. Ochman's weblog.

Opera CEO Must Have Heard About My Post

Opera CEO Jon S. von Tetzchner, has cancelled his swim from Norway to America.  Because his partner's raft was punctured.

Not impressed, Jon.

The Apple Crusade

Some new developments in Apple's crusade against online journalists to reveal their sources. Apple's crusade has made the blogosphere pretty irate, but it's also brought many influential people together to show support and fight for the rights of us all. A number of influential folks including Feedster, Gawker Media, Doc Searls, Joi Ito and many others filed an Amicus Brief in the case.

According to the EFF site: The amici urged the court to adopt "a functional test for the newsgatherers' privilege that does not discriminate between reporters, regardless of the medium in which they publish." They urge the court to "adopt a test that will not impede journalists' use of the Internet to report news by limiting their constitutional protections when they publish there."

And that's just the beginning. According to an AP story in the Mercury News, "Eight of California's largest newspapers and The Associated Press submitted a court brief Thursday asking that the online publishers be allowed to keep their sources confidential."

It feels like Apple almost wants to take their reputation down a notch...

Links via BoingBoing and Kottke.

Fake DVDs in Shanghai

Slate has a great article about DVD and software piracy in Shanghai. Henry Blodget, the author, shows how casually the average Shanghai resident views buying these "pirated" materials. One of the most thought provoking comments, I found, was the following comment about how some industries try to liken the theft of digital property and physical property:

"When someone steals a physical product—a car, say, or a DVD from the shelves of Blockbuster—the owner has lost more than a potential sale; he or she has lost inventory. When someone buys a copy of a digital product, however, for which the owner of the copyright has paid nothing, the owner has lost only a potential sale."

And it's clear that this isn't going to stop anytime soon.

Link via Kottke.

Sapient Doesn't Get It

InfoWorld has an article about Sapient's lack of understanding when it comes to blogs. Apparently, their CTO calls blogs the "pet rock" of the 21st century, in a "media alert" entitled "Blog tech doesn’t live up to blog talk, according to Sapient CTO.”

Ben Gaucherin, Sapient's CTO, seals his fate with the blogging community by remarking that blogs “are a fad fueled by pop culture’s desperate search for the next big thing.” I wonder if Ben realized that he just called more than 27% of the US population desperate...

The funny thing is... Sapience is supposed to mean intelligence.

Link via Michael Gartenberg's Blog.

Tremor: The New Bzz?

Remember all that bad buzz recently that centered around BzzAgent, and all the ethical questions surrounding their tactics? Well, yesterday I received my monthly Trendwatching newsletter. In it, they mention a Procter & Gamble initiative called "Tremor." According to Trendwatching,

"In only two years time, this focus group cum sample/coupon dispersing network signed up 280,000 US teens, ages 13 to 19, who actively promote new products to their peers, and may be asked to place coupons and product samples in living rooms, schools and any other relevant location."

Hmm...

Best Corporate Hate Sites

Generally speaking, many companies have NO idea how their brand is being talked about online. And with the rise of blogging and the Internet in general, one very pissed off customer can make a HUGE difference...

The good folks at AdPulp point to a great Forbes article on the "Top Corporate Hate Web Sites." What's great about this article is that they interview the people who created the hate sites, as well as what the company has to say about it. While several companies declined to comment, Verizon had the following to say:

"What's really pathetic is not Verizon but this sort of lame Web site. In this day and age, anyone with a gripe can put up a Web site and make outrageous claims as the authors of this one did."

That's the typical response I'd expect to hear from a company that harbors some animosity about how empowered their customers are... And to get an idea of just how empowered their customers feel they are, Forbes asked the creators of these sites what the companies would have to do in order to get them to take down the site...

The person responsible for the United Airlines hate site said: "Replace their current staff. I'd need to see a shakedown from the top." If one person believes that they would shake down an organization by putting up a website, that's a pretty empowered consumer.

New Dr. Who Episode Leaked

Looks like the premiere episode of the new, much anticipated Dr. Who show has been leaked weeks before it was scheduled to air. Where did it show up? On several BitTorrent sites, of course.

Fred Durst Sues Gawker?

I seem to have missed this posting on Friday, but the folks over at Screenhead point to a rather curious item. Fred Durst is suing Gawker...

The lesson: blogs are a great way to showcase ineptitude.

Wal-Mart Fact Checker

About a month ago I posted about the PR campaign Wal-Mart had started to "set the record straight", launching a website and running full page newspaper ads to dispute claims about the companies' treatment of employees...

Well, it seems that not everyone is swallowing it. In fact, some people are fighting back. Check out the Wal-Mart Fact Checker.

Hallmark Valentine's Blunder

CNET has an article up today about Hallmark's colossal Valentine's Day blunder.

Outages swept across the network on Valentine's day, leaving many people unable to access e-cards from loved ones. According to the article, Hallmark has had similar problems in the past, but they still weren't prepared.

Link via MarketingVOX.

Tecmo Suing Gamers?

CNET has a story that game maker Tecmo is suing the admins of a website that offered hacks for DOA Xtreme Beach Volleyball that allowed gamers to put new "skins" on the scantily clad women in the game, rendering them naked.

Wait a second... this time last year, it was announced that Tecmo was offering a life size pillow (dakimakura) for a DOA promotion with XBOX in Japan...

Regardless of the fact that I think game makers need to see these "hacks" as an integral part of the marketing of games, this seems like contradictory behavior on the part of Tecmo.

Google Policy: "Be Evil"

So much for Google's "don't be evil" policy... They've fired Mark Jen, and it was related to his blog. This has been confirmed by Jeremy Zawodny. Jeremy has a great post about the incident, and explains the difference between Google's handling of company bloggers and Yahoo.

I thought Google was supposed to understand blogging... It's now apparent that they do not.

Heard of the Big Shocker?

If you think the Go Daddy ad was the most shocking part of the Super Bowl, think again. While the NFL was trying to keep advertisers in line, and wooing the baby boomers with Sir Paul... Our beloved troops slipped under the radar. Gawker has a great post that explains the "big shocker" to those who don't know.

You can view the "big shocker" Super Bowl cameo here. And learn more about the "big shocker" by visiting the official website.

Shillin' Like a Villain

There's some possibly interesting stuff happening via a post at Adfreak. They posted about Funkmaster Flex joining the ranks of celebrity endorsements, as he just inked a deal with Castrol Syntec.

However, AdPulp posted a follow up, and one of the users pointed out in the comments section that Funkmaster seems to have also been promoting Quaker State, which seems to be a competitor of Castrol. Here's a link to the Quaker State Ad. I also found some stuff online to corroborate this:

Funkmaster Flex is listed as a partner on the Quaker State website.

And it looks like he just inked the Quaker State deal in the fall of 2004.

So is Funkmaster Flex "endorsing" two competing products? Or are we missing something?

CEO = $760/hour?

Thinking by Peter Davidson points to a Reuters article about Krispy Kreme's new CEO, Stephen Cooper. Apparently, Krispy Kreme will be paying him $760 an hour. According to the Reuters article, this is the standard hourly rate charged by his financial consulting group...

It's not a $40 million inauguration, but that works out to about $1.5 million per year if he only works a 40 hour week, and who knows what other type of incentives he's receiving.

CEOs have always been making money... and Cooper is probably a bargain compared to some other CEOs. But my hunch is that investors are much more informed than they used to be. How long will it be before we hear about stockholders rebelling against these huge compensation packages? Or demanding more from the companies they invest in.

Wal Mart & Kenneth Lay?

What do Wal Mart and Kenneth Lay have in common? They're both trying to sway public opinion through marketing.

According to the Fast Company Now Blog, Wal Mart has launched a huge PR push with full page newspaper ads defending the company's employee wages and benefits... What's more, they've launched this website to "set the record straight" and give you the "real" facts.

The Fast Company Now Blog points out that Wal Mart could have used the MOUNTAIN of money it spent on this PR campaign to give their employees raises and increase benefits...

Forbes.com & Cheap Creative

Adfreak has a great post about Forbes.com: "Wanted: dirt-cheap creative."

Apparently the "Home Page for the World's Business Leaders" doesn't want to have to pay for creative. They'd rather turn the creative process into a contest and offer gift certificates as payment...