The Bookworm Issue

The world’s first $430 million book, college admissions on steroids, the little bookshop that took the click-and-mortar universe by storm, agency all-stars, how print may solve the global warming crisis, and why Philly’s 30th Street Station needs the best a man can get. Welcome to The Bookworm Issue.

GUTENBERG’S GHOST

Yeah, yeah. Print is dead. We’ve heard more iterations of this eulogy than there are pages in War and Peace. But, the thing is, print ain’t dead. It’s just different.

We’ve been highly skeptical about audiobooks since they first came around. Visions of meditation-tape voices and a tone that stresses all the wrong words plagued the imagined experience. But seeking a fair verdict, we finally decided to suck it up and try it, getting a book we’d read before for comparison purposes.

The pick: Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point from Simply Audiobooks. And, in all honesty, it was a pleasant surprise.

The CDs arrive fast. (We wanted all judgement points available, so we went with the hard-copy mail-based rental club, but they also have a neat download club and a purchase option for those who don’t care for the restrictions of monthly or annual memberships.) And there are no Netflixy restrictions on what you can do with the content — ours got sucked right into our iTunes library, so the “rental” ended up as ownership. Best of all, our book was actually read by Gladwell himself — granted, in a rather meditative voice, but nothing beats hearing an author’s interpretation of his own work.

An added bonus: subtle print on the neat blue cardboard boxes CDs come in tells you they are made from 100% post-consumer materials and are fully recyclable and biodegradable. There’s no mention of it on the site, there’s not boastfulness about it — seems like an authentic effort by these folks to make a small, tangible difference. You don’t get that a lot in the fanfare-driven eco movement.

Then there’s print that’s actually printed and just as 2.0. Initiated by the World Bank and funded through the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, On Demand Books created the world’s first print-on-demand (POD) device last spring: the Espresso Book Machine. It takes this media shaker 3 minutes to print and bind a 300-page paperback from a digital file. Which, come to think of it, would work great with Google’s Library Project, an effort to digitize the world’s libraries and make them fully searchable, once it leaps over the self-serving, pointlessly bitter naysayers and takes off full steam.

On Demand Books and Google seem to share more than functional compatibility: just like Google’s do-no-evil, empower-people-though- information vision, the Espresso is out to solve a larger problem. From a sustainability perspective, the gizmo will eliminate the enormous global shipping and warehousing costs for books and reduce paper consumption (in which the U.S. is a world leader, at 715 pounds per capita a year and growing at about 10% each decade). Thanks to Uncle Gore, we all know what this has to do with them glaciers. And from a socioeconomic perspective, it will give that smart, hard-working but incredibly poor student in Mozambique access to the educational tools that will empower her to pursue her dreams and passions. It’s hard, after all, to ignore the powerful role education and information access play in socioeconomic status, driving the dynamic between education, employment and poverty.

The miracle printer is expected to retail for about $100,000 — much less than what the majority of national libraries, including ones in the developing world, spend on stocking every year. Plus, given the machine’s workhorse capacity, it seems like a sound investment. See it all in action and marvel.

BETA VERSION OF YOU

We remember the days when CollegeBoard.com was as high-tech as college application got. But it seemed intended to ease the process on the administrative end, not the student end. Not exactly a hook these days when kids are all about being in control. That’s where 2.0 startup Zinch comes in.

They cater to one of the most powerful, universal human aspirations — to be recognized as unique individuals. Because, really, who likes being reduced to a standardized test score, a bunch of acronyms (hello, GPA, AP, SAT, TOEFL, and others), and a bullet-point list of extracurriculars? Certainly not budding twenty-something hipsters.

Still in startup-classic Beta, Zinch was inspired by the simple observation that the current admissions process seems to favor those in already favorable positions. (Hey there, private school all-stars, alum kids, extracurricular whores and grade-grubbers.)

Combined with various research findings that test scores and high school GPA are poor predictors of how kids do in college (known to some of ous as the keg effect), a vision was born: to level the playing field, giving students an outlet for showcasing their individuality without the traditional expensive resources like essay-writing courses, test preparation services, tutors, and other get-in-bed-with-the-Ivies plots.

Here’s how it works: students sign up and create detailed profiles, or “portfolios,” where they showcase what they’re all about. Anything goes — blogs, obscure art, a garage band gig, you name it. Portfolios are then assembled into a sophisticated database, which colleges and universities across the nation can search based on whatever criteria they think matter.

Sure, it may take some time until the admission process recognizes the human factor involved in sifting through applicants to select those who’ll make the greatest brains of tomorrow. (Because, really, it’s the successful ones that shell out the biggest alum donations.) But we dig that someone out there is starting to nudge things in the right direction.

Plus, there’s the “i am more than a test score” tagline. Simple. Honest. And sadly revolutionary.

UNTRIVIA

A recent partnership between STORES Magazine and BIGresearch produced the Favorite 50, a survey in which consumers ranked their favorite e-tailers. If anything, it’s a useful snapshot of how the contrast between the brick-and-mortar and online retail landscapes — offline many of the rank-toppers are either B-grade or nonexistent altogether. Here’s a top-line of the findings:

1. Amazon.com — The interesting thing is that if you were to walk into a traditional retail store that carries all the products available on Amazon, you’d be so overwhelmed with the paradox of choice you’d either pass out or walk out. But the success of this search-based system enhanced by personalized recommendations suggests the future of shopping may just be in online stores that operate as sophisticated, algorithm-driven retail databases.

2. eBay — The Barry Bonds of vintage stores seems to be hitting a home run with shoppers.

3. Wal-Mart — Despite various questionably effective attempts to be, like, totally hip and catch the young set (including the latest merciless milking of the green cow), this retail giant is doing well as ever.

4. Best Buy — Eh, not really “Best,” but “4th Best Buy” doesn’t really have the same ring to it.

5. JC Penny — We’re talking massive dollars here, not pennies. And it’s quite a jump for this lovemarked (see appropriate snark below) retailer. Can they really be better liked than…

6. …Target? — All the multiplying pretty people, the swirly stuff and the poppy tunes seem to be paying off.

7. Kohl’s — We’re guessing quietly kicking up their posh quotient with the Vera Bradley line didn’t hurt.

Also of note: Google (#9) and Yahoo (#16) are sending clear signals that search engines play a big role in e-commerce beyond your grandmother’s basic search optimization.

But most importantly, unlike “objective” spending-based rankings, the Favorite 50 assessed how people feel, subjectively, about the retailers they shop with. And while the dollar can’t be neglected as a business driver, it’s brand equity and love that keep it coming year after year. Refreshing to see some commercial entity out there actually cares about how consumers feel, not how much and what they bought today.

GLOSSY VS. GRITTY

While we’re on the subject of brand love and the number-five ranker above, it seems like for lovemarker K-Rob there’s no shame in being one justifiably smug, smart SOB. (You may recall JC Penny’s unexpected, pitchless shift of business to Saatchi & Saatchi, allegedly after top execs were blown away by Saatchi CEO Kevin Roberts’ Lovemarks. If this is the case, it makes it the world’s most expensive book, with a price sticker of the $430-million business.) Especially if he’s willing to put his money where his pen is.

Which he did, kinda. The lovemarketing campaign is a-rollin‘, replete with bouncy imagery, life-is-good cliches, and — our biggest gripe — commodification of formerly-indie acts in soundtracks. (To be fair, as much as we love Regina Spektor, we first thought she was showing symptoms of sellout after being prominently featured on the first season finale of addictive primetime soap Grey’s Anatomy, but this is a whole new level of commercialization.)

In any case, our biggest concern with K-Rob’s literary foray is that while it includes some superficially innovative gimmicks, it simply offers a glossy iteration of social and psychological research findings that have been around for quite some time. And while we have tremendous respect for the complex psychological principles behind it all, we’d have to go with the grittier, down-and-dirty reads on the subject.

And on that note, here’s a Brain Pickings rarity: a shameless endorsement and recommendation for those who care to dig deeper. Yep, we’re shamelessly endorsing and recommending Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence (and sequel Social Intelligence), an incredibly smart (yet very credible) foray into sociology, neuroscience, psychology and behavioral science that sheds light on why we ever care about anything. Bonus: Goleman is not an ad agency CEO and the book is not intended to be a new business hook.

ONLY IN PHILLY

Ever feel like you’re constantly climbing the (social, corporate, whatever) ladder to no avail? Philly, always the literalist, has taken that metaphorical concept to a verbatim level. Spotted on the concourse of 30th Street Station by a certain young lad is this architectural head-scratcher.

Of course, if we had a Gillette Mach 3 Turbo, that wall would be a piece of cake.

Big, Tall and Pushing the Other Dimensions

Flat world, 1 million stickies, food that serves itself, mummies, how to pimp your ride Philly style, what virtual reality has to do with the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and why parsley is the new Iron Maiden. Welcome to The Big-Tall-and-Pushing-the-Other-Dimensions Issue.

TIME FOR POP CULTURE TO POP

A few centuries ago, people believed the world was flat. Today, just visual media producers do.

Thing is, as audiences, we’ve become so accustomed to being entertained by the flat little people on our screens that this whole 2D experience is starting to feel a whole lot like devolution. Yep, we’re going back to the whole flat-world thing. And as the time we spend with screen media progressively increases (we now rake up 3,530 hours a year on average), we’ll soon be stumbling out the door into the real 3D world, flustered and tripping, not sure how to navigate it, falling into black circles that turn out to be manholes with…gasp…depth! It’s an epidemic waiting to happen.

Luckily, there are folks out there ready to battle it. Folks like those at Philips, who just released the latest addition to their WOWvx technology: WOWzone (yep, it’s a Windows Vista lawsuit waiting to happen), the world’s first major 3D TV screen. Although it’s more “major” than “TV screen.” At 132 inches, it’s more like a multi-screen TV wall. That’s a 3×3 setup of 9 42″ Philips 3D displays, making it pretty much as immersive as it gets. WOWzone is also the full package: the 3D screens come with a mounting rig, media streamer computers, control software, 3D content creation tools, and pretty much everything you need to get the ball (not the flat circle) rolling. Although we don’t quite see it taking American living rooms by storm just yet (plus, it’s not commercially available until 2008), it sounds pretty killer for public space stuff like presentations, events, even retail. We won’t ask about the price sticker. If you’re curious, check out the technology in action; you may have better luck than us understanding how exactly you’re supposed to experience 3D on your dinosaur 2D screen.

Meanwhile, you can train for your new sense of media space by checking out the King Tut Exhibit at the Franklin Institute — the After Dark program features the pretty cool IMAX film Mummies: Secrets of the Pharaohs. And as eternal as all those Egyptian marvels are, they’re only in Philly until September 30, so get your B.C. fix now.

And speaking of marvels in 3D, there’s now a whole new way to explore travel icons. Thanks to The New 7 Wonders, a collection of panoramic photographs by top-notch photographers across the globe, you can take a 360-degree interactive tour of the 7 world wonders (plus a few more iconic tourist attractions) and, well, marvel.

The brain child of Danish commercial photographer Hans Nyberg, The New 7 Wonders is intended to warm up the general public to immersive panoramic photography, a.k.a. VR photography (VR stands for “virtual reality.”) The relatively young medium has been hot in professional photography circles for some time, but it seems like with faster Internet connections and a booming tourist industry, the time is right to take it to the mainstream. To us, it’s fascinating mostly because you can’t experience VR photography on the printed page, which makes it a timely epitome of truly “new media” beyond your grandmother’s 2.0 definition.

JUICE COUTURE

Lately, we’ve been really into packaging, especially the kind that uses heavy, tactile materials (glass, wood, metal) in traditionally disposable CPG categories. Bonus points if the product in the package is actually smart and innovative as well. And even more points if it indulges our health freak side.

Which is why we dig Wild Bunch & Co., a brand of super-premium 100% organic juice. Okay, nothing too groundbreaking in this proposition. But the ultra sleek packaging and the novel fruit/veggie blends are a whole other thing.

With juicy medleys like Beet It (beets, carrots, celery), Pineapple Zinger (pineapple, ginger), Iron Maiden (spinach, carrots, parsley), Easy Peazy (carrots, peas, parsnips), Red Dragon (dragonfuit, beets) and a ton more, we think they’re fine cuisine in a bottle. Plus, they have shots like wheatgrass, horseradish and pumpkin. There’s a drinking problem worth picking up. Check out the entire summer menu for the full line of juice couture.

And while they’re so premium they don’t do retail (p-hsshhh…), the wild bunch is meant for more experiential outlets like spas, resorts, bars and restaurants. The juicy goodness is also available for event catering and office/home delivery, although we imagine the latter is mostly targeted to the 90210 zip code. With a price sticker like $300/month (and it’s not like you’re gulping gallons, you only get a single 250ml a day), it’s another product we don’t see hitting Middle America just yet.

Still, Wild Bunch & Co. remains in our good graces. Especially after we noticed it was run by fellow Maccies — their entire site is hosted on the dot-mac domain and the clear product of iWorks. How’s that for a tall glass of Apple kool-aid. Mm-mmm.

UNTRIVIA

Trust. One small word, so many big payoffs.

It can make or break a spokesperson’s value as a brand ambassador. It can make the difference between your mom searching under your mattress for porn and her letting you take those long “showers” without question. In politics, it’s the currency that wins elections.

The most recent American Pulse study by BIGResearch asked Americans to weigh in on the trustworthiness of various public figures. Here’s their answer to the simple “Who is more trustworthy?” question:

We could, although we won’t, make a comment about those delusional Middle-American 14.2%. Instead, we’ll focus on what we find far more fascinating: bloggers get more respect than members of Congress and members of Senate. Combined.

So if you’re brewing up your next spokesperson, think more Jorn Barger than Senator Barger.

AUTOMATION NATION

Technology is booming. Machines are replacing humans. Convenience is the new capital. If you’re having flashbacks to, say, 1781, you’re right. It’s the second Industrial Revolution. And automation is its Che Guevara.

All over the world, machines are popping up with value propositions only humans had been able to offer until now. Except this time, the commercial is rubbing elbows with the social and the cultural.

Take the old vending machine, a convenience revolutionary in its own right. In Japan, the hallway standby is now dispensing charity causes. Though the fruit of a quintessentially commercial global tree (hello, Coca-Cola Company), the project is still helping propel social causes in local communities, such as the White Ribbon Campaign by the Japanese Organization for International Cooperation in Family Planning. (And, speaking of, we’ve all seen the condom vending machines that are now practically a staple in bars and hotels.)

Then there’s the higher-concept stuff, like the decade-old but still hip Art-o-mat, conceived by artist Clark Whittington in 1997 and now dispensing the work of over 400 artists from 10-plus countries at various museums, galleries and other cultural centers in 24 states.

And let’s not forget the functionally inspired. Like Nike’s soccer ball vending machine at Pier 40 in New York, where soccer players at the nearby recreational facility frequently mis-kick the game centerpiece into the Hudson River.

But perhaps the ultimate automation comes from mechanizing the most human of industries: the service one. German entrepreneur Michael Mack has managed to take the human element out of the restaurant industry by introducing the world’s first waiterless grub joint, ‘s Baggers. At the self-described restaurant of the 3rd dimension, the entire ordering procedure is fully automated. Each table is equipped with a touch-screen display connected to the kitchen upstairs, where meals are made fresh and sent back to the table via metail railings. It’s all also connected to the main sever in the basement, which keeps track of supply stock. If you’re having trouble believing, check it out in action.

The bistro’s state-of-the-art technology also extends to their kitchen, where it allows them to prepare traditionally fat-laden dishes (pommes frites, anyone?) with significantly less fat while keeping the flavor. And it doesn’t hurt they use mostly locally grown and organic ingredients. Plus, their tapas-like small portions make for none of that supersized crap. How’s that for fast food that’s real fast and real food?

WHAT THE OTHER GUYS ARE DOING

Sure, we’ll give it to Bogusky: looking to other advertising for inspiration is constraining, narrow and bound to produce it’s-been-done-before work. But there’s some good work out there, work so aspiration that it’s stripped of the label “advertising” and thus, well, inspirational. So with this thought, we bring you two such bits of pure good work from across the globe.

From South Africa comes a killer stop-motion out of agency MetropolitanRepublic/JDR and production house Wicked Pixels, aimed at repositioning local mobile carrier MTN as younger, hipper and, um, cool. Call us easy, but we think it does just that.

The 75-foot Sticky Man himself took 19, 865 Post-Its to build, but he had to be moved and reshot across 14 locations. So the whole 60-second spot ended up taking 1 million Post-Its, 3 miles of 35mm film, 96 314 digital photos stored on 2.5 terabytes of space, a cast and crew of 300, 3 weeks of of editing (that’s what happens when you shoot 2 hours of footage but can only use 57 seconds) and 83 hours in Flame. Well, that bad boy better sell some cell phone plans. In any case, we enjoyed this tribute to imagination and man-hours, if only for the sweetly nostalgic trip to MTV Europe spots of the 1990′s and early Fatboy Slim videos. Ah, the days.
Then on a less commercial note, Serviceplan/Munich brings us this to-the-point guerrilla campaign for AOK, Germany’s largest insurance company.

The graphic glass lungs were installed in front of public buildings like hospitals, swimming pools, and restaurants in Southern Germany, as well as the AOK headquarters. And while we’re not big believers in using scare tactics for social cause campaigns, this one seemed to work: in the first day alone, 6,167 people in Munich alone visited the campaign website, which features empowerment tools to help smokers quit. (In case you don’t sprechen Sie Deutsch, the URL translates to “i-will-become-a-non-smoker.”)

ONLY IN PHILLY

Yep, your fix of random as-seen-in-Philly oddities and curiosities is back. From the streets of Philadelphia to you, via Brain Pickings, you get a sampling of local quirk and creativity.

This week, we pay tribute to Philly’s pride in being a bike-friendly city. With bike lanes aplenty and the country’s largest connected parks system for killer trails, it’s clear Philly has lofty bike standards. Spotted this week: a neat DIY project, or a clever collage of bike thefts. You decide:

Okay, we’ll give it lofty. Standards? Eh. Not so much. But who cares, it’s still pretty damn bad-ass in our book.

Mmm-Hmmm

Invisible furniture, molecular ad cuisine, pricing out the art of living, 1406 ways a photo lens can change your outlook, why the world is 774% friendlier than this time last year, and what Regis Kelly has to do with iTunes’ impending demise.

TUNING OUT OF ITUNES

No question the iTunes empire is one to be reckoned with. And many have. Last year, Microsoft released Windows Media Player 11 jukebox software, which included Urge, MTV’s digital music store. At that point, the Microsoft/MTV partnership had been around for a few months, so the new player/store platform sent bloggers and business analysts alike on a rave spree.

Well, all that stuff went down the crapper.

Take 2: Viacom is dumping the PC guys tribe for RealNetworks, whose struggling Rhapsody music service could use a symbiotic partnership with MTV, a brand so digitally challenged its iconic status pedestal is shaking like a polaroid picture.

And while the corporate powerhouses are busy forging all sots of anti-iTunes alliances, a grassroots army of boycotters is afoot. Remember how years ago non-profit Mozilla‘s free, open-source Firefox made Microsoft’s Internet Explorer obsolete even for hardcore PC-ers? Goliath iTunes may be headed down that same road thanks to Songbird, a fresh new David born out of open source king Mozilla. It’s a piece of web/desktop mash-up genius that lets you find and organize music, on and offline, in a beautifully integrated way, far beyond what iTunes can offer.

Besides the neat design, Songbird has infinite, mind-blowing capacities: it’s cross-platform (so Mac Guy, PC Guy and, um, Linux Guy can play nice and share), comes in 39 languages (so you can finally get original song titles for that Zimbabwean album there), and will play any music file format, including mp3, OGG, AAC, FLAC, WMV and more (suck that, MPEG-4). And that’s just the beginning. Best part? Songbird will pull all media files from a web page you’re viewing (say, Bitter:Sweet‘s band website) into a playlist you can, well, play on your desktop. Plus, it’s got all sorts of community features like blogs, forums, website buttons and super-cool merchandise (profits, of course, go to funding the project). Overall, that birdie is getting the Brain Pickings seal of approval right smack in the middle of its birdie forehead.

But the bigger point is, all these developments show one thing: the whole iTunes monopoly, with its proprietary bullshit and various usage limitations (how many computers have you authorized to listen to your library?) is quickly turning into Regis Kelly — old, pompous and annoying. We say time for change.

UNKODAK MOMENTS

The trouble with the whole digital thing is that it makes it super easy for everyone and their mother to take pictures and splatter them all over the web. They do it, too. And we can only take so many photoblogs and albums of people’s chubby kids playing with other people’s chubby kids. Good thing there are folks out there claiming photography back from the overexposed and the cliche. Folks like those at FILE Magazine, a “collection of unexpected photography.”

FILE mag aims to reinterpret our way of looking at imagery and the world at large. They also make a point of what they’re not: a photoblog, a photography contest, a home for family albums, a source of glossy fashion spreads. It’s an actual magazine in that involves actual editors curating unconventional photography wherever they spot it, then contact the authors and ask to include it in The Collection, currently 1406 photos wonderful.

We were pretty taken with all projects we looked at, but a couple of favorites did emerge:

Back of the House explores the culinary world behind the scenes, zooming in on the human element in the fine dining subculture. Endless Summer takes on the postcardish, touristy, aging-boomer-stereotype side of Florida and counters it by delving into its opposite. In Misspent Youth, photographer Andrew Newson takes a trip to his childhood school some 16 years later, looking at simple memory triggers with the complex eyes of a life-worn adult. The aptly titled Untitled steals glimpses of scenes, places and objects that no one seems to notice, letting their static, geometric qualities take on a hypnotic, haunting vibe.

Pick your own favorite projects or submit your own off-center photography.

ART IMITATES COST OF LIFE

A fundamental rule of art is that it’s not to be taken at face value. Another fundamental rule of art is that there are no rules. So a 20-something couple from New York, originally propelled by creative vision and starvation, has rolled with the latter and turned the former on its head.

Wants For Sale is a strikingly how-come-no-one-thought-of-this- earlier concept that challenges the starving-artist stereotype head-on.

Here’s how it works: Artist wants iPhone. Artist paints iPhone in acrylic on 2″-deep gallery canvas. Aritst posts painting for sale at $649.17, the exact price of iPhone. Art enthusiast sees painting, loves it and buys it. Artist gets iPhone. Genius.

Once a painting is bought, its online status changes from “Want” to “Have” so you can see the kind of stuff that people buy. Wants range from daily cravings like a buffalo wings (have; $12.70) and beer (have; $7.00) to nitty-gritty living stuff like one month’s rent (want; 1,056.07) to intangibles like financial security (want; $1,000,000) and a night of booze-induced amnesia (have; $100.00). So much for the whole artists-can’t-do-business-to-save-their-life notion. Although we do have to wonder why only beer snob beer would do and what kind of superhuman workouts are involved in getting a six-pack in just a month. (While having buffalo wings and beer.)

The folks even offer to paint anything you want, with the fair disclaimer that it has nothing to do with the Yankees. Yep, Christine and Justin seem like quite the characters, which is also evident in their minimalist, sweetly quirky self-intro.

AD SERVING A LA CARTE

Earlier this month, Australian ad-personalization-solutions pioneer Qmecom unveiled a platform truly revolutionary, a much-needed marriage of today’s two biggest marketing trends: customization and that whole 2.0 experience thing. No, it’s not your grandmother’s behavioral targeting. It’s a beautiful system of complex algorithms that goes by the (not-so-catchy) name of Personalized Video Advertising Platform and does just what the name implies: allows advertisers to personalize a video ad to the individual viewer. Their explanation of the platform is a bit wordy and confusing, so we’ll digest it for you and spit it out.

Here’s how it works:

The algorithm engine takes your regular Flash file and breaks it down into molecular-level creative components. (These can be any video and static elements, including colors, text, sounds, images, calls to action, offers, message tags and more.) The system then uses these to generate a library of possible creative templates. Next, the templates are matched against the viewer’s site visit patterns, any CRM and data profiles, or historical and/or real-time behavioral data. The template that best matches the viewer’s personal patterns is delivered, resulting in the most engaging creative possible.

So say you’re doing a shoe campaign for adidas. You decide to run a Flash banner on Amazon. Frequent shopper John Doe stumbles upon it after having just looked at desks and messenger bags. You know from his Amazon profile that he’s 19. And his user history tells you he always buys stuff eligible for Amazon’s “free super saver” shipping option. Oh, and he’s recently bought a couple of kelly-green shirts. A-ha, you say to yourself (if you’re a Qmecom algorithm, that is) and figure he’s a college student shopping for back-to-school stuff who likes green and is a sucker for price-related promotions. So you deliver that neat stop-motion animation of the green Campus sneaker and throw in your “free overnight shipping” promotion for shopadidas.com. J.D.’s all “oooh, check thiiiis out…” and you’re all “sweeeeet.”

If you’re still not buying/getting/fully appreciating it, check out some samples of campaigns they did. We were particularly impressed with the BMW 3 Series email campaign and Virgin Blue Airlines web stuff. We just can’t wait to see what Qmecom can do with ad delivery on social network platforms where info on personal preferences is rich and aplenty, supplied eagerly and willingly straight from the source.

UNTRIVIA

And speaking of social networks, anyone who hasn’t been living under a rock knows they’re on fire. But 774% on fire? That’s how much worldwide traffic to newcomer Tagged grew between June 06 and June 07 according to comScore. Boy-hee.

So while this may be standard fare for a newly launched net as it garners its first members, the major social networks (MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, Friendster, Orkut and Bebo) have also been rolling in the traffic dough. MySpace is keeping at its steady climb with 72% growth and development beast Facebook is soaring with 270%, probably largely due to the recent addition of numerous widgets, mini-platforms and other developer fare.

And just in case you’re suspecting traffic stats are driven by “samplers” who rarely visit the websites, rest assured daily visits are also growing like the number of celebrihoes making trips to jail: MySpace is up 72%, Facebook 299%, Hi5 65%, Friendster 96%, Orkut 75%, and Bebo 307%.

This leaves us wondering how much time and engagement all the online dwelling displaces from good ol’ face-to-face conversations, hanging out with friends and other such pre-2.0 social activities. But oh how much easier it is to befriend someone by clicking a shared music interest link than by, you know, learning actual social skills and getting out there. And who cares if your new buddy happens to be one of those 29,000 registered sex offenders, you both dig High School Musical. (Although probably for very different reasons.)

LACK-A-RACK

If you happen to share our love of minimalist design and our disdain for applied physics, then you’ll also happen to dig the Self Shelf.

It’s pretty much what it sounds like: a shelf that looks like a book. It attaches to the wall invisibly thanks to a back bracket and holds up to 8.5 lbs. (That’s almost 3 War and Peaces, or almost 23 US Weeklys. Your choice.)

Get it for $29.95 from Firebox or pass it on to your friend who, you know, actually has something display-worthy to put on it. (Nope, Harry Potter doesn’t cut it.)