Where Starbucks went wrong
Posted Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008 9:59 pm by Dave Moyer
Okay, the title may be a bit misleading. I'm not talking about the great history of the coffee giant and the flaws in their corporation. I'm talking about the miniscule things that matter to me, and very few other people I know. The logo. If you're not a Starbucksian like me, I'll clue you in: Starbucks recently released a new brew of coffee, called Pike Place Roast. Along with the release, they temporarily changed their logo on their cups and advertisements to a slightly modified version of their original brown logo.
Though I'm not a big fan of the new logo, that's not really why I think it was a bad decision on their part. Think about it. The green and black logo is known worldwide as synonymous with "Starbucks". If you notice a white and green cup across the street, even if you can't identify the words or design, you assume it's a Starbucks! Even from a distance, a green circle with some black squiggles in the middle is instantly recognized as the icon of Starbucks. They have an absolutely amazing brand identity, and self marketing that any other business owner in the world would die for! They lose all that every time they switch out the green with the brown.What should they have done, if they really wanted to show their old identity was still there? Just put the new logo on the sample cups for Pike Place Roast. Put it on the bags of the new roast, or the advertisements touting the new variety. Don't change everything and lose the incredible identity you have and the phenomenal advertising you get when people buy a cup of your coffee each and every day. Bad, decision, Starbucks. (But I love your green tea lemonade.)House (and trampoline) appears in Google Street View
Posted Tuesday, April 8th, 2008 5:44 pm by Dave Moyer
Slashdot reporting that a couple is suing over photos of their private residence (and trampoline) appearing on Google streetview. According to the Daily Picture's post on the issue:The Google Street View vehicle drove down a gravel road named Goldenbrook Lane. At the end of this lane, the street becomes a paved driveway for the private residence of the McKees. The vehicle drove up this private driveway, eventually passing the house's front door and pulling up to the garage where it got an up close and personal view of the McKees' very private trampoline.I'm giving Google the benefit of the doubt, and assuming that the van, always taking pictures, unknowingly drove down the couple's long gravel driveway, eventually ending up right in front of their house!The pictures have been removed from Google Maps. I don't think I'm going to post the pictures here, seeing as Gizmodo removed their post, and I don't want to get wrapped up in lawsuits like Google. However, the Daily Picture post had them posted at the time of posting. (Google it.)
April Fool’s Day 2008 Roundup
Posted Tuesday, April 1st, 2008 3:14 pm by Dave Moyer
Mahalo Daily had STEVE JOBS on today!...or not. Oh well. Happy April Fools' day! Here are a few of my favorite jokes on the net today:- YouTube Rick Roll'd everyone who clicked links from their front page
- Google "introduced" Custom Time for Gmail
- Nestle "renamed" the Butterfinger candy bar to The Finger Bar
- Pizza Hut made a "name change" to Pasta Hut
- According to the Register, Jimmy Wales Resigns from Wikipedia
- Apple loses legal battle, forced to change name, according to MacUser. Apple is now "Banana", due to a name conflict with the Beatles' Apple record label.
That Thingie’s Jacked!
Posted Saturday, March 15th, 2008 9:54 am by Dave Moyer
For those of you who don't listen to the Gadgettes podcast at CNET, you should! Hosted by Molly Wood, Kelly Morrison and producer Jason Howell, they tackle the latest in gadget news each week.In episode 80, after the end of the theme song, Jason included a blooper from the show in which all the hosts were laughing and discussing a new phrase that had come up: "Jack My Thingie". They were shocked to find out that jackmythingie.com wasn't registered yet, and I was shocked as well, as it was almost a week since the show was released, and usually things like these are snapped up by fans! Needless to say, I took care of that problem.I sent them a voicemail notifying them that I had put jackmythingie.com on the web. Everyone loved it! Molly twittered: "Dude. Dave from Denver. You are my hero.", and Jason went crazy! Molly said, "YOU HAVE TO GO THERE!" Jason called it the "best thing in the whole wide world". I must admit I was very shocked and happily surprised to find that the most recent Gadgettes show, the "I Love You" episode, was "dedicated to Dave from Denver". For about 2 minutes of the show, all three hosts went crazy about the site, commenting on how there was "nowhere to go but down from Dave from Denver". I seriously love those guys. Go listen to the show (or at least the beginning) and you'll know why.What's the point? Not only is it super cool, but one of the things that Molly mentioned was, "I want this to become a thing, like the biggest thing there ever was! A thingie!". Throughout the segment, they encouraged listeners to Digg and StumbleUpon Jack My Thingie, and expressed how far they wanted it to go. After thinking about this for a while, I realized that this fit right in to one of my biggest theories about the internet and where it's going. Jack My Thingie received nine Diggs within 8 hours, and got over 250 visitors in the first three hours since the podcast was released. JMT was also added to Reddit, StumbleUpon, and del.icio.us multiple times, all within 12 hours of the podcast's posting.This is a prime example of the transformation that media has when it comes to the web. You'll never find anything quite like this happening on TV or the radio. Not only would the blooper that inspired jackmythingie.com never reach the public, but the website wouldn't even exist, the people on the show wouldn't have loved it, and it wouldn't have received the welcome it did in that small amount of time. We're in a new age of media, and this is a perfect example. Look forward to my first post in "The New Net" coming today, focusing on what I call passive vs. engaging media. And seriously- make Jack My Thingie a really big thingie.
