ELECTRONIC PROTECTION FROM THE ELEMENTS

A couple years ago I was charging my cell phone which was plugged-in near the kitchen sink—as I was removing it from the charger, Murphy’s Law decided to intervene. You see, as I was removing the phone from the charger, some how I fumbled the phone and it went flying into the air. As if it were in slow motion I tried to catch it, but to no avail as it fell into a near empty sink...that was except for a lone glass full of water. $300 down the drain!

Today however there seems to be an interesting new product that could have prevented such a catastrophe, albeit it’s a bit expensive. Take a look at this CNET video on a spray product that can protect any electronic gadget…even laptops.

HAVE YOUR IDEA HEARD...

Pitching the next great idea to prospective business partners, investors, service providers and fellow entrepreneurs just got easier with Vator.tv—a new venture that combines online video and networking. Based on the proverbial elevator pitch—the notion that you should be able to sum up a new business venture in the few minutes it takes to ride an elevator—Vator.tv is an online marketplace for new ideas. “Anyone, across all industries, at any stage, can share ideas, products, services and businesses with the rest of the world, mainly through video.”

To learn more, watch this interview from Beet.tv

MAGAZINE COVER FLASHES…LITERALLY

When you compare the print industry with say, the web, or even TV and radio, not much has changed. The Web is not only a medium, but also a technology, therefore it’s ever-changing. Even TV and radio have evolved over the past decade. Print on the other hand, as a medium, has not changed in more than 150 years.

In celebration of its 75^th year in business, Esquire magazine is trying something new—a flashy cover…literally! They worked with an engineer to develop a super thin battery with lights that will flash, “The 21^st Century Begins Now.”

Check out the full article on the NY Times site.

Video Wrap?

You've all probably heard of cars being wrapped with large graphics, but have you heard of a building wrapped in video? Wild new stuff coming down from Obscura Digital, A S.F. based digital marketing company that can do some amazing things. Check out this interview video segment from News.com

New Domain Extensions on the Horizon

Have an extra $150,000 lying around? If so, you can have your own personalized domain extension…you know, the part after the dot in a web address. ICANN, the governing body for all things Internet had a public meeting in Paris last month where they approved the new guidelines that will pave the way for the creation of hundreds, if not thousands of new domain extensions. Various registrars will probably be buying these extensions with the hopes that you and I will be interested in buying “info.web,” or “info.blog,” or “info.news.”

While some domain extensions like dot biz and dot info have tried make an impact, dot com has continued to prevailed as the most coveted domain extension. However, this new foray may just give web developers and marketers an interesting outlet.

If you’d like to learn more, there is a good radio interview from a Tucows representative, just click here, then click on the play button.

"Image Search" is the next BIG thing...

Web based images have always been a challenge for web developers from an online marketing perspective as they reveal little data for the spider bots to gather information from. Well, this is all about to change thanks to Google and other search engines developing image processing technologies...in other words, "image searches" are being revolutionized. 'Search' as we know it is about to change...drastically.

Imagine this...the new search engine spider bots will be able to analyze the pixels in an image and tell you not only what or whom the image is of, but exactly where and when it was taken. This is some powerful stuff. Click here to watch a video from RJ Pittman a product management director.

BIG News in Search Engine Marketing

There is no question Adobe (previously MacroMedia) Flash can do some amazing things. Flash is the very essence of "rich media," and has always had that "coolness" factor. However, from an online marketing perspective, Flash and other rich media apps like AJAX have mostly been invisible to the search engine spider bots—thus websites coded in RIAs (Rich Interactive Application) have had a difficult time generating any search engine traffic, let alone even getting indexed by the major search engines. That all seems to be changing according to an article from News.com. Click here to read.