Denuo - denuology.com

Oh, digital evolution. You surprise me every day. Today, you brought to my attention this little gem of a website called OMEGLE.COM, an online chat service that lets you talk to strangers. Forget Facebook and Myspace, which only let you communicate with people you might actually know in real life. This is the new digital hotness right here: total anonymity and an open forum for saying whatever you want to a total stranger.

However, the benefit of this site goes far beyond its intended purpose of being “a brand-new service for meeting new friends.” With my first few forays into chatting on this site, I don’t think I would be friends with anyone I’ve met on here. Hell, I’m downright frightened by some of these folks. No, this web gem is living proof of one of my favorite modern theorems ever created, via the geniuses over at Penny Arcade, and is a prime example of everything that’s right and wrong with The Internet.

Although I’m no designer – I am a bit of a design geek (especially when it comes to packaging and icons). So when I happened upon this story at The Dieline (one of my favorite daily blogs) I felt compelled to share it.

“Artist and Entrepreneur” Justin Gignac has been creating something and selling it on a website, New York City Garbage. He picks garbage off the streets of NYC, arranges it in a clear cube, slaps a label on it that says “Garbage of New York City” (in Helvetica, naturally), and sells them online.

Gignac initially sold the cubes as a “gag gift” for $10 – but has since raised the price to $50 – $100. The higher priced versions feature garbage from special events like New Year’s Eve in Times Square.

I think the actual cubes themselves look great, but I’m even more smitten with the concept behind them. The cubes, according to Gignac, were born to prove that “packaging matters” by “packaging something that absolutely no one in their right mind would ever want to buy.” Then why oh why do I want one oh so much?

President Obama yesterday held a fairly remarkable town-hall style meeting yesterday called Open for Questions. Anyone could go to the site and either suggest a question and/or vote on which questions the president should answer. For the debates that took place during the election, it seemed fairly random which questions were selected for answering. But this time around, it appears the president really did tackle those with the most votes, submitting to the will of the people. That likely seemed like a problem-free strategy until the administration realized that the top question across a third of the categories was about legalizing marijuana.

John Durbin demonstrating the importance of meh at a Denuo outing.

Generation Y seems to be plagued with the label of being…I dunno…indifferent. Marketers spend billions attempting to get through to us, and so far it looks like discordant jingles and are the only things worth acknowledging these days. Figures that we’re responsible for perpetuating the ultimate expression for apathy: meh (or “meah” if you’re nasal).

Yes, I know. It’s been around for a while, and became official last year. But has anyone ever figured out where it came from? Keep reading to find out.

The latest Snickers ads with Master P and Patrick Ewing got me thinking why this hasn’t happened more often.

Have you ever received a creative brief that left you scratching your head for great ideas? Me neither. But in a hypothetical case where that were to ever happen to you, this seems to be a fix-all solution to keep in your desk drawer.

What solution you may ask? Insert “has-been” celebrity*

Nothing breaks through the clutter more than content with an old celebrity. Currently, the leading benefactor of this advertising band-aid has to be MC Hammer. Mr. Hammer has promoted everything from Nationwide Insurance to ESPN Monday Night Football. He was even featured in Cash4Gold’s Super Bowl spot this past February. Seriously, he has become the Peyton Manning of former celebs. While I know his cameos help solve his past money issues, I wonder why Hammer won’t share the spotlight or better yet why haven’t brands moved on to other faded stars?

There are plenty of out of work former celebs that would make for great advertising.