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Business 2.0 has an interesting article on how some companies are going from broke startups to multi-million dollar enterprises almost overnight on a shoestring budget and minimal employees. The article discusses how these clever entrepreneur used outsourced workers and free “Buzz Marketing” tactics such as exploiting blogs and online forums to beat much bigger rivals. I especially found interesting the list of companies/products that became successful due to being featured on high-traffic blog sites. Buzz Marketing, a trendy name for word-of-mouth advertising, has been a hot topic over the last few years as ad firms try to figure out how to get people talking about products and services without being sniffed out as blatant advertising. Some even go so far as to hire people who post in forums and chat rooms under the guise of fans, customers or just you average Joe asking questions to start a conversation about the product or service being promoted. Buzz Marketing (or “guerilla marketing” as I like to call it) can make your business a success at little to no cost. Just make sure that if you launch a campaign of this type, you keep you methods low key and relevant to the content of the sites you post on. Being seen as “trying” to advertise can not only wined up getting you no customers but can get you a bad reputation. Here’s an old but still good article on Buzz Marketing from BusinessWeek online.
Read More 
| Business 2.0 (subscription required)
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Widescreen LCD panels for desktops are becoming ever so popular; however, finding the right size wallpaper can turn out to be quite the difficult task. Luckily there is at least one good place to find some. MRitche has a good sized collection of wallpapers in 1920x1200 for your widescreen viewing pleasure. Check them out and grab a few for your collection.
Read More | MRitche.net
Each year at E3 there are the great booths/vendors and the bad ones. Well one of the baddies from last year returned this year and it seemed to be a waste of money. Here’s a quick little clip of the sarcasm of Andru and Jesse.
Watch the Video | N-Gage at E3
Latest Gear Live Videos
I’m sure Bill Gates’ home is “tricked out” as far as the most advanced technology is concerned. I’ve heard of rooms that change the artwork and temperature as it detects you entering. A very lucky British family of four will be trying out what looks to be a run-of-the-mill 5 bedroom home which rivals anything I’ve seen on MTV Cribs. The home that will be closely monitored, and will include such extravagant features like:
- not turning on the sprinklers when its raining
- viewing live camera feeds from your cell phone when not home
- censoring television and Internet content for individual tastes (and the kids)
- garden awning retracts/expands according to the weather
- self cleaning windows
- automatic shirt ironer
- phone/intercom systems in all rooms
- blinds automatically open and kitchen brews coffee every morning
- can detect flooding and shut off water valves to prevent excessive damage (even text messages you to call the plumber)
- control lights via SMS to make potential burglars hesitate
- control your heating system before you enter in from the cold
Read More | CNN
I can tell you that portable usb drives can be quite convenient. They fit right in your pocket and hold a decent amout of storage space. I can also tell you that growing up Swiss Army knives were very handy to have around. Need a toothpick, scissors, nail clipper, corkscrew? I’d whip out my SAK and go to town. For $69.99 , not only is this defenitly a cool way to display your drive in public, it has a built in ballpoint pen and LED light. Disguised as a knife, you’re bound to see longer lines at airports.
Read More | Amazon
SanDisk 2GB Cruzer Micro USB Flash Drive
Posted by Edwin Soto Categories: Accessories, Portable Audio / Video,
If you bought a 1GB drive in the past few months, you’re kicking yourself in the pants right about now. Sandisk now offers their smallest flash drive in 2GB format for $199.99. Of course, this item is currently backordered on their site, and probably will remain that way for some time. This version of the Micro complies with their MP3 companion (shown above) that allows you to listen to your mp3’s that you’ve dragged and dropped from your computer. Very cool.
Read More | Sandisk
Absolute genius is the only words that can describe this product. If you live by yourself, don’t bother reading this and consider yourself lucky. If my wife eats my Chocolate Chocolate Chip one more time, it’ll be because she cracked the code on this baby. Keep your roommates and kids guessing with this one of a kind ice cream lock and guarantee that people in your household will hate you for it. They’ll only hate you because they know that if it wasn’t there, they’d be in your stash.
Read More | Ben & Jerry’s store
Samsung announced May 30th that they had begun to mass produce a new, more dense memory module. The “new” chip was actually designed in 2003, but it’s taken a while for the technology to catch up to the concept. Based on 70 nanometer technology, the new chipset from Samsung promises 50% faster memory - approaching 16MB per second - along with 4GB of storage.
Read More | Softpedia
American Idol Digital Camcorder Impressions
Posted by Charles Leake Categories: Cameras, Product Reviews,
Okay, we know that when you first hear that an American Idol Digital Camcorder exists, your first reaction might be to leave the site, never to return. However once you actual see and play with Digital Blue’s American Idol Digital Camcorder, you discover how wrong your first reaction was. You see, the product is powerful and yet easy to use from both a hardware and software standpoint. This is the camera I dreamed about having when I was a kid.
Click to continue reading American Idol Digital Camcorder Impressions
In an interesting turn of events, it appears that Apple may be prepared to release 2 GB and 4 GB iPod shuffles. The suspected timeline for release according to DigiTimes would see the 2 GB shuffle hitting the market sometime next month, with a 4 GB model to follow in August. Why is it that I think this is interesting? Well, flash memory is more expensive than a hard drive of the same capacity. This would mean that a 4 GB iPod shuffle could potentially end up costing more than a 4 GB iPod mini. Not sure how well that would go over with the masses.
Read More | DigiTimes
