Thursday, March 29, 2007

BritePic - what? why??

The first thing I thought of as I awoke this morning was "boy I wish I could not only look at pictures online, but easily click on ads within the pictures I look at!" That is so brilliant!

Thats the business model of BritePic. You take your already boring shot of your pet sitting in a pot(oh how cute) and add even cheesier comments within the picture. In return for that "value" you are presented with a CPC add at the top of the pic.

WTF?

Why do people need this? Was there an outcry from the masses about not seeing enough advertising on the web? Does BritePic actually believe that its even remotely intuitive for people to think that the photo they are viewing should contain an ad?

Also I love the picture they choose as an example. Its a freaking puppy in a pot on a stove!

This site deserves at least a 4 out of 5 on the craptacular scale.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

A redesign and a new direction

I upgraded my Blogger account to the new beta version which forces one to assimilate into the Borg..oops I mean your Google account to log in. No big deal but it feels like one of these days I will wake up and have to inform Google as to what I feel like eating for breakfast, actually they probably will know what I want.

I am forgoing the focus of my posts on online advertising and marketing and instead looking at the more interesting world of (WARNING: buzzword alert) Web 2.0 sites (gasp).

The reason for the change? Well there is more innovation in that part of the web universe right now. I read through the articles about online advertising & marketing and yawn and realize that there isn't going to be a heck of a lot of "innovation" in the near future. There are still articles like "Should you advertise on Podcasts?" and "How to maximize your RSS feeds" blah blah blah.

That's not innovation, its confusion. Its the outcry of hundreds of marketing people who have a scant knowledge of the web wanting to "do something different" without a real thought into why.

So I am moving away from that world for a while and looking instead to the new generation of online apps that are pushing the limits of what people think of as web sites.

I test these apps out and most of the time a voice in my head keeps screaming "WHY?" as in why is this new site/app in existence? Why would anyone use this? Why do I need to do this or that task in a new way in the first place? I like taking a pragmatic, practical approach to this whole idea of Web 2.0 and break it down.

Hopefully I will rattle enough cages on my way there ;)