"A short while into the process of making these videos, Alan Kay said, “The main question here is not is this technology probable but is this the way we want to use technology?” One effect of the video was engendering a discussion (both inside Apple and outside) about what computers should be like." On video not needing to be realistic to be useful.

"I only got to hang out with Rachael once: in San Francisco, for a week, during the Game Developers Conference...

Here’s how we did it: She shared my eyes and ears, and she wrote her impressions through my laptop and my BlackBerry. When we touched down at SFO, she wrote the first tweet, and she eavesdropped on the game designers that I sat with riding into town on the BART. We were working press—except I was the one sweating the deadlines, and looking for good ideas, while she was just loving it..." Chris Dahlen on writing pixelvixen707

"I am not naive and I am not a fool. I realize that gamification is the easy answer for deploying a perversion of games as a mod marketing miracle. I realize that using games earnestly would mean changing the very operation of most businesses. For those whose goal is to clock out at 5pm having matched the strategy and performance of your competitors, I understand that mediocrity's lips are seductive because they are willing. For the rest, those of you who would consider that games can offer something different and greater than an affirmation of existing corporate practices, the business world has another name for you: they call you "leaders."" Ian's whole article is great, and the comment thread is eye-opening.

"Unsurprisingly, having recognizable cartoon characters on the boxes caused kids to rate a cereal as better tasting, affecting their subjective assessment of it."

Nice write-up of the making of (the marvellous) Trainyard, both in terms of polishing and marketing.

"...the bullets biodegrade when they hit flesh, leaving nothing behind but a blog post." It is a little sad that, as ever, I'm the millionth person to write "I LOVE VALVE" on the internet, but seriously, as I keep saying: I love Valve so much. (I want my white earbuds).

"If there is a bigger Splinter Cell fan than myself, I haven't yet met them; but in their zeal to promote the newest iteration, Ubisoft has caused Sam Fisher to tweet. And I don't mean they've made him chirp, which would be preferable. They've given him a Twitter account where he tweets in a supremely earnest way about how tormented his shit is.

*No.*" Oh dear.

"...we’re still in talking-dog territory here, where the fact of socialness matters more than the outcome. This won’t last forever, of course. It probably won’t last out 2010." Tom is sharing some notes from that "140 Characters" conference; he's got some sharp insight/ideas.

"Using a simple correlation scale comparing marketing spend and sales against Metacritic rating and sales, Divnich found that marketing influenced game revenue “three times more than game scores”... “There is no compelling reason to focus on quality, you should literally just spend that money and time on marketing.”" I'm not sure he's suggesting this is a /good/ thing, but he is pointing out that it's what the numbers say. It's still depressing.

Marvellous - case study of all the packaging concepts for the bonkers House Of The Dead: Overkill. Lots of gnarly, grindhouse-inspired graphic design going on here, and many things that are as good as the final version.

Monster Hunter's success comes down to its local-only multiplayer, which has been a huge hit in Japan, but less so over here. To promote Freedom Unite, Capcom open a pop-up meeting-space on Charing Cross Road, simply to provide a space for Monster Hunters to congregate. You'll need a PSP to be allowed to enter. I have no idea if this is going to work out, but there's something about the idea - creating public spaces designed for the playing of videogames, together - that I rather like.

"Critical thinking is the key to success!" Professor Layton is on Twitter. Officially. This is good.

"In the case of European Air War, what management wanted was a very cool game to sell that customers would love. What the lead programmer did was present it to them so that they could see, clearly, that this was exactly what they had on their hands already. They, too, were having trouble digging through all those details and seeing the big picture." Lovely story about the importance of presentation on any kind of project.

"The lesson to be learned here is that when something screws with your careful plans, you take control of that thing, warp it to your every demand, and channel it into a concentrated stream of Awesome. That is how you do PR." Pretty much. Valve have handled this brilliantly - the achievement they awarded themselves being the icing on the cake - and not only have they been on-brand for a savvy, internet-enabled company, they've also been spot on-brand for TF2.

Yes, it's advertising, but that's really, really, really clever. Nicely done.

"I've always marvelled at the idea of a $25m game needing $35m of marketing. Doesn't that feel so wrong and weird? I'd make two $25m games, spend $8m on indies doing crazy new things, and have $2m left over for some nu-style publicity. Or better still, spend $60m across 60 indies full stop." Lots of good things in Alice's compainon to Matt's posts, but especially this; the constant shyness to 'spend less on more stuff' from the games "industry" always befuddles me.

"It’s an incredible precedent to set: making a game a success almost 18 months after a poor launch. It’s something that could only have happened now, and with a system like Steam." Well, of course. Well done, Epic.

"Ryanair can confirm that a Ryanair staff member did engage in a blog discussion. It is Ryanair policy not to waste time and energy corresponding with idiot bloggers and Ryanair can confirm that it won't be happening again." Ryanair's social media strategy is pretty much on-brand, it seems.

There are not expletives strong enough. In a nutshell: it's a pyramid scheme for following people you don't know on Twitter. It asks for your username and password. Terrifying.

"Are all these industries in such terminal decline that they’re grasping around for any revenue stream or way out? Or is this the converged future, where business and culture are one and the same? Not only can’t I tell whether things are real or marketing vehicles any more, I can’t even determine what’s being marketed." Chris has a point.

"The Wii has captured the imagination of millions of people who didn't consider themselves gamers at all. Why are we so surprised? All this has happened before." And, no doubt, all of it will happen again. Some good insight and quotation from Mitch Krpata on a history of Nintendo's console marketing and sales strategies.

"We don't provide the 'easy to program for' console that [developers] want, because 'easy to program for' means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?" It's good to see that Sony can still afford their weekly supply of crazy pills. Locking up potential inside a monkeypuzzle is a _good_ thing? "Official" leadership? What the hell, Kaz?

112 different games1 It's amazing to think that "Moving Shields" and "Zigzagging Laser Bombs" could be counted as different game-types, though, and presumably that number comes from all possible combinations. The videogame industry's obsession with bullet-points on the box is deep-rooted, it seems. (From Simon Parkin's lovely "Box Art" blog).

"Instead of encouraging you to join a group, find new friends, or spread the word, Burger King’s new Whopper Sacrifice Application is offering you a free Whopper if you DE-FRIEND 10 people from your friend list." Um.

"Here's the most important thing to understand about the mass market for videogames: these players – the ones who aren't even remotely interested in the kind of videogames the hobbyists want to play – have very specific tastes, and when something takes off with them it continues to sell, and sell, and sell. But these players don't buy many titles – when they find the game they want, they generally just keep playing that."

"I was startled to realize that stock photo and video purveyors actually create material in anticipation of demand... These suppliers of the world's commercial imagery are making bets on what life will look and feel like in the near future." But of course.

"Of all the adverts I’ve seen this year, I think this (late entry) surprised me the most. Not because of the concept - the hilarious coincidence that sometimes people who are not famous share names with people who are famous has been used before - or the clumsy copy. It surprised me because I actually know the person in the photograph. And she really is called Julia Roberts." So do I. She really is, you know.

"This is just one of many examples that show you can participate in online community without having to pretend to be something you’re not. In fact, participating with authenticity is not just morally good, it’s measurably more effective."

Powazek is right; this is definitely smart advertising, and full props to EA/W+K for just taking the credit and not trying to make it "viral"; it'll do that anyway. Although: it really is a glitch, you know.

"Timex sets their watches to precisely 10:09:36 while Rolex waits almost a minute until 10:10:31." Some lovely observations collated by Kottke.

"At the start it seemed reasonable to think that Mirror's Edge could stand entirely on the merits of its brilliant core concept, and not need to include extraneous and negligibly attractive features to appeal to as many people as possible. But, no, this is the video game business." This is the stuff that's scaring me most about Mirror's Edge.

This is wonderful "wilfully fictional" advertising: an affectionate pastiche of the geek's love of unboxing videos, with some wish-fulfillment as to what unboxing ought to really look like.

"This would be something different though potentially - not buying into a product design as a brand, but more like micro-investing in a product at it’s conception. Almost like a distributed commission of something that you’ve followed the progress of like a work of art."

"Marketing is a strategic function about delivering customers what they want. It isn’t a jazz hands and rubber chicken and t-shirts. It is the heart of successful companies..."

Wonderful.

"Microsoft may very well not be broken. The world needs reliable bureaucracies that mollify the needs of corporations and individuals in the center of the market. But if it is broken, advertising isn't going to fix it."

"Brands are built...out of culture...out of meanings from culture. In the Volvo campaign, the meaning was safety and symbol for this safety was a little girl. Pretty standard. But this book is interested in new ways to source meaning. Let's look at new, emerging brand tactics." More excellent posts from Grant.

"So we decided to treat Availabot as a world probe: it was decided that we would take Availabot through to the position of being factory ready, and in the process learn as much as possible about the processes of manufacture, and how to develop these kind of complex products with so many moving parts." And, best news of all: Availabot will be coming to market. Excellent.

Great selection of posts on how brands need to behave (and how they sometimes fail to do so) from Grant McCracken.

"Anecdotal feedback also confirmed that without exception, the PSP was regarded as the best sales presenter ever received. As a result, Foster’s is now reviewing further rollout of the tool." Fosters use a pre-loaded PSP as sales demonstration tool; it does very well.

"If you think of Matthew McConaughey as a celebrity product, he's one of the most consistently branded and immediately recognizable products on the planet... The man is a rigorously disciplined marketing genius." Amazing.

"Following up on these overviews of the book industry, I thought I'd share some lessons I learned from publishing Bit Literacy." Some useful advice.

"...making that context a part of your marketing is going to be much more relevant to customers than being dismissive of your competitors could ever be." Alex on marketing and copywriting, again. Good stuff (and: good snacks!)

"people... are going to judge your product on that single thing that you think is so important... Have you thought through everything about that? Are you happy with dealing with all those implications?"

"I think we need to change our philosophy of what a magazine is... We need to reinvent ourselves as a luxury item that people want and are willing to pay for... How long can we buy at a premium and sell at a discount? We can’t."

"I always want to see more marketing that solves problems, and liked the idea that a loyalty scheme could solve more problems than the fake “I have to pay for ten out of ten coffees rather than nine out of ten” kind of problem."

"I've never been satisfied with folks trying to build services that generate 'eyeballs' just to 'monetize' that traffic with ads." Charlie rightly lays into the monetizers.

"...the fact that Flickr has users who are passionate and articulate about what they love about the site is an asset. It’s also potentially a headache." A great piece by Tom Ewing on debates about brand values with an engaged audience.

"My current hypothesis is that there are at least three positions of prominence in each segment -- three ways to be number one, if you will: The First One, The Free One, and The Good One."

"Yesterday, I discovered that The Times (UK), a well-respected newspaper owned by News Corp., is involved in an extensive campaign to spam social media websites with links to Timesonline.co.uk articles." Andy Baio on the Times' involvement with SEO.

"I've just been mulling over why product design firms, which create value, don’t seem to be perceived as valuable as marketing design firms."

"Originally, I started a generic post on the business or marketing books I’ve read this year. But there’s only really one book I want to write about, because I think the ideas in it are incredibly important to anyone in marketing or product design. "

"in the 'sentences we never thought we’d be writing at the start of the campaign" category comes "Make the Japanese Fisheries Agency promise not to harpoon Mister Splashy Pants." Very thoughtful responses from Greenpeace.

"Strictly limited edition 4Gb USB stick, shaped in Radiohead’s iconic "bear" image and housed in a bespoke deluxe box." Full .WAV files and some natty packaging, to boot.

"For years Buckley’s Cough Mixture, available in Canada since 1919, has been highlighting the fact their cough syrup tastes horrible, but it works." Love some of the taglines; a smart bit of marketing for the kind of products you hate but need...

"Lotus Notes, an application whose awkward integration of multiple feature sets I’ve only ever heard spoken about with violent disgust, promotes itself as freakish software. This is a campaign that can only make sense in the ... world of enterprise soft

"It’s amazing how deeply embedded in our collective consciousness is the notion of the lethally impersonal corporation with a dead marketing voice."

"The Unit Command Climate Assessment and Survey System (UCCASS) (pronounced yoo-kas) is a PHP based survey script that allows you to create online surveys." And it looks like a nice alternative to PHPESP...

'The technology is called "tactile response," and it allows you to do things like dial a phone number without staring at your screen like a shit-chucking ape.' This is funny. It may also be true.

Stop buying broken products and then shrugging your shoulders when it doesn't do what it is supposed to. Stop buying products that serve any other master than you. Use older stuff that works. Make it yourself.

"That’s what it comes down to, again, after all this time: Regular phone buyers are Windows users, trying to get value for their buck..." true - but regular phone buyers also tend to be iPod buyers.

These marketing strategies are bogus forms of anti-capitalism, fraudulent denials of the unbreakable-but-contradictory relationship between quantity/exchange value and quality/use value. Between them, they promise a new economic culture, in which 'economy