Cool Blog : One Old Green Bus

Imagine . . . you have achieved financial security, are confident in your employment, looking forward to a future planned and secured through your diligent efforts. Then your entire world collapses in an instant. No job, no money, creditors at the door, wife loses job and your child needs dental work. Most would chuck it all. . .

One Old Green Bus is the ongoing story of one man's dream. A dream that helped him and his family survive all the bad experiences described above. Something positive on which they focused their energy and imagination. The wife wanted to use the bus to take trips to the beach, the child wanted the upstairs made into an area for playing Nintendo. He just wants to own and restore this old green bus.

This Regent Low Height Bus (RLH3) is one of only 76 ever built in the 1950s in England. RLH3 and was used with London Transport until 1971. The bus is currently in a barn near Santa Rosa, California. Visit One Old Green Bus and offer your comments on and support to one family's dream. Tell them that CyberCelt sent you.

Tags: one old green bus, doubledecker bus, Regent Low Height Bus, dreams

What Women Want ...

According to Euromonitor International, woman dominate online retail sales. Analyzing online expenditures by gender, age, wealth and education in over 70 market sectors and 35 countries, Euromonitor found that the influence of women in household expenditures is growing.

Female purchasing decisions were particularly dominant in skin care, colour cosmetics, baby food, depilatories, hair care and premium cosmetics. Male purchasing decisions were dominant in cigars, camcorders, beer, men's grooming products and video games.

No surprises here. For more information on women and their shopping behaviors, see eMarketer's Moms Online and Women Online reports. For basic differences between men and women online, please view Differences between men and women on the Internet on CoolAdzine for Marketers (May 13, 2006).

Tags: women dominate online retail sales, differences between men and women online, Euromonitor International, eMarketer

Communications Industry Forecast

The Advertising Spending data of the 2006 Veronis Suhler Stevenson Communications Industry Forecast indicates that consumer spending on media increased 2.8 percent to $185.90 billion in 2005, the lowest growth rate for the communications sector in 30 years. Overall ad spending is expected to increase 6.4 percent to $210.9 billion in 2006.

According to Chris Russell of Veronis Suhler Stevenson:

Some of the traditional media companies are catching up by getting products and services into new media. Advertising and entertainment go into movies and music, but you don't historically link the two... New models are forming based on iTunes that don't sell advertising but could get into the commercial market.

Internet spending for keyword search or user-generated online advertising is expected to increase 25.8 percent to $13.95 billion in 2006. If traditional media-related online advertising is included, overall internet advertising will increase 26.9 percent to $22.27 billion.

There is more information in the data here, broken down by communications industry segments (broadcast television, cable and satellite television, broadcast ans satellite radio,entertainment media, Internet and mobile services, newspaper publishing, consumer book publishing, Yellow Pages directories, consumer magazines, B2B media, educational and training media, and professional and business information services). Data for marketing services by segment (direct marketing, branded entertainment, custom publishing and out-of-home media) are also available.

For a summary, you may want to view this Advertising Age article, Media Advertising Spending Will Grow 6.4 percent, by Andrew Hampp.

Tags: consumer media spending, Communications Industry forecast

Marketing Bytes, Bites and Bits

Marketers will pay up to $700,000 for a 30-second spot in the midseason hit, American Idol (FOX), according to Advertising Age. That is $23,333 PER SECOND. Talk about pressure in writing advertising copy and media design. Some of the best commercials come out of a crunch like this. Also some of the worse.

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Tidbits from Telephia:

The mobile TV audience grew 45 percent to 3.7 million subscribers in the second quarter of 2006. Among all mobile TV users:

• ABC News was the most watched mobile TV channel in Q2 2006, with 40 percent of the total mobile TV audience
• Thirty-two percent of the total mobile TV audience watched The Weather Channel.
• Fox Sports was third at 31 percent
• ESPN next with and 29 percent of the mobile TV audience
• Fox News fifth at 22 percent.

Nearly 13.5 million mobile subscribers downloaded a game in Q2 2006, representing average monthly revenues of $46.9 million for the quarter.

• Tetris by EA Mobile led all game titles with a 5.1 percent share.
• Namco Pac-Man came in second place with a three percent share and Ms. Pac-Man drove 2.3 percent of total revenues
• EA Mobile mBejeweled game was a close third with 2.8 percent
• ue share.
• World Poker Tour— Texas Hold em Hands-On Mobile secured a 2.2 percent share.

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) continues to gain subscribers in the home telephone service market, with 2.9 million in Q2 2006. Vonage continues to own the largest market share of pure-play subscription VoIP consumers with a 53.9 percent share.

MapQuest Mobile was the top revenue-generating downloadable mobile application, excluding mobile games and mobile TV, with 21.9 percent of the total share of revenue for mobile applications. The Weather Channel came in second, with 5.7 percent of the total revenue share, while Verizon Superpages 2.0 came in third posting a 5.3 percent share.

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Ari Rosenberg of Media Post Publishing Insider listed the three things he would change in the advertising world:

1. Ads that float or pop (give me a gun)
   
2. Ads that speak before spoken to (shut up)
   
3. The term users (try listener, readers, visitors, consumer)

I would agree with all of these (my comments in parentheses). However, he wants us to use brand ambassadors. I think that is a bit ostentatious.

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Bytes: listen to eMarketer Daily on your iPod or PC using iTunes or another podcatcher program. Simply add the XML feed to your program.

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Please visit Forward-and-Share today.

Cool Promotion : Forward-and-Share

Cool Blog of the week is Forward-and-Share-a cool, fun and free way to promote your blogs and websites...

F-a-S is a metablog and an interesting demonstration of power linking, user-generated content, RSS and a three-column layout. Whatever you are seeking--video, tapdancing, cartoons, Halloween, quizzes, toys or astrology--you will find it at Forward-and-Share

Quote of the Day for September 21, 2006:

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously. Hubert H. Humphrey

Please visit Forward-and-Share, and tell Loup that CyberCelt sent you. On this journey into the world of Loup Dargent, prepare to be WOWed. This blogger has so many connections in the blogging community that I had to shut the browser window. LOL

Tags: Cool Blog, Forward-and-Share, cool, fun and free blog promotion, metablog

Click and Comment Monday

Monday is Click & Comment Day. Please click my renter or a link on my blogroll. Comment on that blog and then click their renter or someone on their blogroll. Then you comment on that blog and click their renter or someone on their blogroll. Do this for as many blogs as you can. Sometimes the blogs go full circle, and you end up at the originating blog, then just look up a blog in the blogroll and start the cycle again.

Leave a comment here so that I know to visit your blog on C&C Mondays!

Tags: Click & Comment, click and comment Monday, visit blogs and leave comments

Cool Blog : Driving Barefoot

The Cool Blog of the Week is Drivin' Barefoot.

Please click the blog thumbnail on the sidebar to journey to Drivin' Barefoot.

Drivin' Barefoot with the only Red~Headed, Blue Eyed, Freckle~Faced, Left~Handed, Colorblind, Guitar Pickin', Harpoon Blowin', LDS, Wisconsin Army National Guard Retired, U.S. Army (Airborne), Disabled Vet, On the Net

Please visit Ted's blog and argue politics with him. He loves it! Ted will email you to tell you that he has posted a rebuttal to your comment. Then you can go back and start all over again. When you look at his credentials (Army, Army Nat'l Guard, Disabled Vet), you know he deserves the right to wage any debate.

Nothing is sacred on Ted's blog. While everyone was writing a sappy post about someone who died on 9/11, Ted wrote the 11th day of September. Even his family is not immune to lighthearted ridicule--"where I come from, I a’m either related to you, or I a’m related to someone that i’s related to you."

Visit Drivin' Barefoot.** Tell Ted that CyberCelt sent you.

** Side effects that may result from this visit are lowered blood pressure from relaxing, blurred vision from tears in your eyes, dry mouth from smiling, sore muscles from laughing, and heightened sense of humor. Visit this blog at your own risk.

Join Blingo Friends with Me

Blingo is the search engine that gives away prizes every day like Apple iPod Nanos, $150 Visa Gift Cards, movie tickets and more, just for doing what you already do: search the Internet. It is powered by Google, so you get the same results.

You can also invite your friends to use Blingo, and when one of them wins a prize, you win the same prize. That's why I'm inviting you! Just click this link to join. It's free and it only takes 15 seconds.


Tags: Blingo, search engine, powered by Google, search and win prizes

YouTube Anthology

Here is a YouTube anthology showing the best and the worst of You Tube videos. I recognize some of these people, maybe you will too. Whoever they are, most are authentic, courageous and outgoing people who put it out there for us to see and critique. God love them all.



If you cannot see YouTube screen on this blog, please click on this link.

Tags: YouTube, utlimate YouTube video, Who Are You?, viral video

The Economist Goes Green for Special Edition

The uncertainty surrounding climate change argues for action, not inaction. America should lead the way ...


Many magazines have published special green issues. Designed to raise awareness and bring attention to rising concern over global warming, these issues usually pollute more than they enlighten. That is, until the The Economist. They directly addressed the impact their own special edition had on the environment.

Emma Duncan, deputy editor for the London-based newsweekly, wanted to do something unique for the magazine's 16-page green section, on newsstands tomorrow. So she arranged for the spread to be carbon-neutralized through the Carbon Neutral Co. in London.

The process entailed calculating all the carbon dioxide burned from all the traveling, production, printing and distribution of the issue. Carbon Neutral trapped 118 tons of carbon dioxide to counteract the emissions created by producing the magazine.

Tags: The Economist, green issue, Carbon Neutral, environmental impact

Google Image Labeler Game

Google is hoping to improve its image search service through the use of labels and categories. This project is now a game where searchers compete against each other to match image labels and categories. Using a volunteer Internet work force, Google is removing some of the bias that is inherent when the image source is the image labeler.

According to the Google Image Labeler web page:

You'll be randomly paired with a partner who's online and using the feature. Over a 90-second period, you and your partner will be shown the same set of images and asked to provide as many labels as possible to describe each image you see. When your label matches your partner's label, you'll earn some points and move on to the next image until time runs out. After time expires, you can explore the images you've seen and the websites where those images were found. And we'll show you the points you've earned throughout the session

Using Crowdsourcing, Google will use Internet-based volunteers to categorize the image database in about two months. The process will be cost free for Google. So if you have 90 seconds to spare, visit Google Image Labeler.

It is slightly addicting. Try it.

Tags: image labeler, label images game, google images, label images

Cool Blog : From Tracie

Cool Blog of the Week is From Tracie. Tracie is many things: Christian, wife, mother and survivor of childhood sexual abuse. She is an advocate and activist for causes that matter, lives in Florida, has a three year old named Katarina (love that name). Tracie speaks fluent pig latin, likes PBS, golden oldie music and is an avid reader. You do NOT want to sit next to Tracie on a plane.

From Tracie has a cool blog and template. It takes awhile to load; I think it is the blog rolls that slow it down, but it is well worth the wait. Please visit and comment on a post. Do something to justify the big bucks I get for rent (LOL). Tell Tracie that CyberCelt sent you.

Happy Labor Day in the USA

Labor Day, the first Monday in September, is a creation of the labor movement and is dedicated to the social and economic achievements of American workers. It constitutes a yearly national tribute to the contributions workers have made to the strength, prosperity, and well-being of our country.

We are going out of town for the weekend, so I will just leave you to relax and enjoy the long weekend.

Please visit my renter as they might be lonely. Thanks!