Mailbag

From the mailbox:

- Matt sent in this variation of a captcha ad where you have to click on the ad for it to reveal the security squiggle.  Why annoy your user once if you can do it twice?

- Buy cheap wooden furniture, not. Or else.

- People using Polyvore put together collections inspired by the royal wedding.

- Jared is hacking advertising.

- These Minis are actual cars.

AdLab in Snapshots

Explore the visual side of AdLab's archives with Blogger's cool newly released Snapshots view.

Useless

Next time you hear news organizations complain about the internets stealing their headlines and stories, show them this.  In today's mainstream media's coverage of Gizmodo's iPhone 4G stunt, there is not a single line, not a single angle that adds anything new of value to the original story. All they do is summarize what Gizmodo has already published.  Look:

AP: Pics of purported next-generation iPhone reach Web

AFP: Apple wants its iPhone back

Telegraph: Apple orders Gizmodo return iPhone 4G

Bloomberg: New IPhone Found, Has Front-Facing Camera, Blog Says (Update3)

WSJ: Web Site's Account Of iPhone Fuels Buzz

NYT: For Apple, Lost iPhone Is a Big Deal

CNNMoney / Fortune: Apple wants its secret iPhone back

P.S. Is Apple's missive claiming the device the mellowest legal letter ever? "Please let me know where to pick up the unit."

Subliminal Pokemon: Leo Burnett Is the Devil

This is the best explanation I could find for this very subliminal backwards message in a Pokemon episode that says "Leo Burnett and 4Kids are the devil". Amusingly, it was on my list of suggested videos on YouTube.

Nielsen's BlogPulse Down

Nielsen's blog tracking service BlogPulse.com looks like a cash-parked domain today. Did the domain get expired and then renewed? (the expiration date now is March 6, 2009).

Update [March 5 ' 08]: It's back to normal now.

What Goes Around: Google on Yahoo on Google

Wonder who's making more money: Google advertising its ad services on Yahoo, or the other way around.

Soviet Propaganda: The Art of Mass Persuasion

Ninety years ago today, the Russian Revolution began. Among other things, it gave birth to one of the most formidable mass persuasion machines in the world. Here, comrades, is a collection of images I put on SlideShare to showcase some of the tools and techniques used by the Soviet AgitProp (agitation and propaganda) as well as other governments, democratic and otherwise, and how some of the imagery was borrowed by brand marketers. 50+ slides. I'll be adding captions eventually, but if you have questions, I'm leaving the comment section open.

| View | Upload your own

Odds and Ends

Modern Mechanix unearthed a human head shaved for an ad that predates modern examples (and ad-blocking solutions) by some 70 years.




"So terrorist organizations have logos. It recently occurred to me that someone had to actually design those logos. But how did they decide who gets to do it? Did the job go to whichever terrorist had a copy of Adobe Illustrator?" (Ironic Sans)




"YouTube is a style now, an aesthetic of its own. It didn’t take very long, but it has lodged itself into our consumer psyche as a recognizable visual, aural and narrative convention." (Subtraction)

Seems like you can get iPhone on AT&T prepaid by failing the credit check. Not this one from 1983, though: