MIT Advertising Lab has interesting commentary on Burger King's use of video games. Here's a quote:

Burger King ... made the decision to sell the games at $3.99, an extremely low price for disc-based (as opposed to downloadable) Xbox games but, as it turned out, a potentially much better price than “free.”
By choosing to charge even a small sum, Burger King seems to have sent a message to consumers that its games had real value, unlike other advergames they might have played and been disappointed by in the past. Burger King further supported the games with a strong marketing campaign that included advertisements shown during Saturday Night Live and during NFL games. All this sent a very clear message to consumers: “There is something of value waiting for you at Burger King.”

This is actually one of a series of articles abstracting the book Changing the Game: How Video Games Are Transforming the Future of Business

MIT AdLab article Part 1
Part 2
Part 3

And Guy Kawasaki's post about it:
http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2008/09/winners-of-worl.html

Here's a post on Flash banner ads that hijack your clipboard, and won't let go until you've restarted your browser (or your OS, depending on who's talking...): http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=1733

And here's the thread on Apple's support boards - seems the first user to publicize this was on a Mac:
http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=7768848

The folks at Yahoo - who own Flickr - have asked a few of their Flickr users for permission to turn their kitty photos into emoticons for the Yahoo Messenger.

Here's a link to some of the results: Yahoo Messenger blog

Here's a reaction from one of the photographers (I have reason to know she's thrilled):

Tunie is Famous!! "Talk to the Paw" Emoticat™ Icon released today!

This is an interesting twist on CGM - pull consumer-generated media from your user base (it helps if your user base is photographers :-) rather than waiting for it to be pushed to you, and meet the consumer half-way (in this case by providing illustration talent). Wonder if they did this with any other classes of photo, or is it just cat pix?
Apparently this is to support a chat environment called Emoticats - more here.

Here's where to get the Yahoo chat client.

Thanks to Rob Webber for this one.


Shinoda announced a new flexible display technology that's light and thin, presumable making it easier to fit into dramatic and well-placed signage locations. Posts have focused on using these in home, but I see this as a digital signage play.

Gizmodo post

via Pink Tentacle

Shinoda's website (in Japanese)

Thanks to Rob Webber for this one:
CNN has this AP writeup on the growth of online ordering for the pizza business - focusing on Papa John's, but also mentioning Domino's and Pizza Hut.

Amazingly, Papa John's has made $1 Billion in sales online:

The nation's third-largest pizza delivery chain trumpeted the $1 billion milestone Wednesday, noting that its U.S. online sales have been growing at an average clip of more than 50 percent per year. In 2001, the chain's online sales totaled $20.4 million. Last year, its online sales approached $400 million.

"It took us seven years to reach our first billion in online sales, and at our current pace and growth rate it will take us less than three years to hit our next billion," said Jim Ensign, vice president of marketing communications at Papa John's.

CNN Piece

We covered Domino's BFD Builder earlier, and the current Pizza Hut offering is here.
But an upcoming advance from Pizza Hut in particular looks worth watching:

Pizza Hut, the nation's biggest pizza chain, also allows customers to order via text messaging and mobile Web. The unit of Yum Brands Inc. soon will unveil a new method for ordering pizzas, dubbed "Pizza Hut Shortcut," that it says will be the fastest in the industry. Customers will be able to download a "widget" onto their computers that will let them place their favorite pizza orders with just one click.

Big Blue brings us a thoughtful article on how to profile AJAX interfaces, with a view to increasing speed, of course.

Toolkit focuses on Firebug and YSlow.

Article

AJAX Resource Center

Adobe have opened their .flv and .swf formats, according to their release here.

Some key things they're promising:

• Removing restrictions on use of the SWF and FLV/F4V specifications

• Publishing the device porting layer APIs for Adobe Flash Player

• Publishing the Adobe Flash® Cast™ protocol and the AMF protocol for robust data services

• Removing licensing fees - making next major releases of Adobe Flash Player and Adobe AIR for devices free

From the CEO:

A consistent, more open platform for developers will drive rapid innovation, vastly improving the user experience.

My fondest wish in this is that third-party tools will flourish, hopefully making the Flash vs. DHTML/AJAX divide less of an obstacle.
Project Page

Press Release

From Drupal founder Dries Buytaert's blog comes this note on the singer Pink's new Drupal-based site.
It's a Sony MyPlay page; we noted last week how Sony/BMG's using Drupal to power their MyPlay platform.

Dries' blog
Pink's site

For those who think Microsoft and Google aren't our competitors, here's Microsoft's Steve Ballmer.

Quote:

"Over time, all ad money will go through a digital ad platform," Ballmer told a gathering of European ad agencies and clients. "All media goes digital, all advertising goes digital."

Link

More:

Microsoft became a player in the ad business with its August purchase of aQuantive, a U.S. company whose technology places ever-changing Web site ads in front of Internet viewers based on specific conditions.

Now, Ballmer is trying to convince media specialists that Microsoft is serious about catching up with Google in the $550 billion global ad market.