Recession Proof Music Purchasing from Zune

Well, maybe not recession proof, but I love this site You have to check out the Zune Pass microsite from Microsoft. Wes Moss makes a good case for the subscription model, especially since I have no free cash to buy music anymore. Too bad I don’t own a PC. Probably the one set back I can see right now to my Mac.

I worked on a promotional website for another financial institution a while back and wanted to do something very similar to this. The chips didn’t fall in our favor and we went another route… but I’m glad someone slapped this crap together. It seems really cliche, but I think it works. People get this sort of thing: Basic economics of saving… a smart dude telling you how much you can save with clean design and simple comparisons. I love this and wanted to share. The banner ad took me from Last.fm to the microsite and I wanted to subscribe… yet, can’t. Brilliant.

This is also a reason why I don’t like iTunes… if I’m going to pay that much, might as well buy the CD and have copies in multiple places. And even though iTunes now has DRM free music, it still still irks me to download music from them unless I’m desperate to hear some random Jesus Jones track. Remember them? Eh?

Knickerbocker Please! Old School Viral Clips…

Well, not really vintage… and not really viral… but I remember back when Ran and I would laugh hysterically because of these clips. I don’t know why I loved them so much, but after all these years, they still resonate and I still dust off quotes from them.

This clip dates back to the late 90s… pre-YouTube. Ha. I do love the fact that I can find almost anything on YouTube. I give you the 1988 Dodge Aries For Sale:

And then there’s this one. This is a series of spots for Fox Sports Network that were run around 2002 I think.

Alan and Jerome, you are a delight…

Okay… back to extreme house cleaning.

Truth in Viral Posts

Trust in Advertising and Marketing… viral pull can be dangerous… apologies to Frank and team.

Now I can see why it needed to be pulled down. Might not have been as good as some of the other parody stuff we’ve seen before like the “Truth in Advertising” series. First picked up on this at AdRants but the video was pulled. Still, a funny write up on it… wroth a read:

We all know clients can be abusive assholes but a good agency knows how to deal with difficult clients. It doesn’t curl up in the fetal position. It doesn’t bend over and say pack my fudge. And it doesn’t create some whiny-ass “disease” so pansies without a backbone can blame a medical issue for their lack of client management skills.

Passion Pictures – Beatles Rock Band Opening Sequence

If you haven’t seen the work of Passion Pictures, you should totally take a look at their site. Located in the UK, they’ve been a part of some amazing campaigns… and I recently discovered that they’re the ones that put together the opening sequence for the new Beatles Rock Band game coming out this September. Yeah… 09.09.09.

Number 9, Number 9, Number 9… I wonder if they put this off just so they could land that date. Watch it now:

Star Wars – The Old Republic Cinematic

With the last CG Star Wars film and the onslaught of spin-off games and novels, it all tends to become a big blur. I mean, it’s gorgeous, but I don’t think it’s written well. The last thing I was really happy with was the cartoon series on Cartoon Network. Remember that?

I can’t keep up on the damn books nor do I have time to look at the games. However, this did catch my eye. I really wanted to see a whole film, not play the game. I mean, the game will be cool, but the comments sum it up from Topless Robot: “Stand back Hollywood and let the makers of video games show you how it’s done.” Powerful words as you look at the revue generated by games compared to films.

Enjoy…

Stupid Spam Comments… Upgrade to Wordpress 2.8

Well, don’t know if you stop by this site, but it was broken for the last couple of weeks. Haven’t had much time to maintain things, but I discovered that the SPAM comments broke the site somehow. It was quickly fixed with a new install of the akismet plugin and putting the API key in again. In addition, I found this “Did You Pass Math?” anti-spam comment plugin that I thought was groovy.

On top of all that, I upgraded to version 2.8. Haven’t really gotten into customizing the layout and widgets, but it seems pretty groovy. Check it out: