Do People Hear Ads When They Are In a Coma?

"...when they run to the bathroom" is what I meant to ask.

In case you are wondering, some studies show that people in a coma can hear.

Pinterestorama

Pretty -- a panorama made of Pinterest boards.  Saw something similar on Flickr a few years back.
- via Grant

Play Scrabble Over Twitter With TwitterScrabble

Arrange 100 characters into the highest-scoring tweet of the day to win your box of Scrabble Trickster with this brilliant Belgian Twitter Scrabble promotion. Alas, only in Dutch.
- via Digital Buzz Blog

Google Still Indexes AdSense Ads As Content; Top Search Result Are PDFs

Four years ago, I noticed that Google was indexing AdSense ads as if it were content on the host pages. I thought I'd check to see if they were still doing it.  The reason I care is that,  for Google,  indexing ads it serves creates wrong incentives around ordering pages in search results. Here's a hypothetical scenario.  "Hey, look, here's a page with just the query you are looking for". The user clicks on the organic search result and then clicks on the AdSense ad. (My own experience with site analytics has shown that organic search visitors are the best AdSense clickers.)  Ka-Ching! Google is a dollar richer.

Putin, Viagra, and The Unfortunate Ad Placement of the Day

A new puppet show in Russia shows Vladimir Putin fighting the loss of his penis, according to this Reuters story that was accompanied by a I Can't Believe It's Viagra banner.

California Dogs Tune Into Their Own TV Channel

Cats can has cheezburger, but dogs are getting their own TV programming.

San Diego dogs subscribed to Cox or Time Warner now have their own 24/7 TV channel called DogTV, soon to roll out nationwide. "DOGTV offers scientifically designed content for dogs of all ages, and all breeds. If your dogs can hear or see, then DOGTV is right for them. DOGTV is working hard to produce fresh content all the time, so your dog will always get new, exciting visual and auditory stimulations."

DogTV will make money through monthly subscriptions, although dogs look like a promising advertising audience. According to the site, "nearly half of those surveyed had dogs that showed some interest in what was happening on the television screen." Which is more that can be said about most people. Besides, dogs are also afraid of remote controls.

For the busy dogs on the go, DOGTV also offers a YouTube channel and a Twitter feed.

How To Hijack Facebook Likes, and Other Social Engineering

The Pinterest Giveaway Scam got pretty big today; at one point about 10% of Pinterest homepage pins were scam pins. In addition to the Starbucks offer, I counted at least three others -- for H&M, iPhone (of course), and GAP.

What fascinates me about the scam is the authors' crafty use of recognizable social media symbols to create an illusion of authenticity, and -- more importantly -- an illusion of endorsement. In other words, exploitation of cognitive biases, also known as social engineering.

Let's take a closer look at the "Starbucks" page (now available at http://giftinterest.com/coffee_4y8l1 but likely not for long). What do we see?

The Illustrated Anatomy of a Viral Pinterest Scam

Update: Part II - How The Scammers Hijacked Facebook Likes

It started with a tweet from a friend:

Never one to pass a scam, I dutifully clicked and landed on a page with this URL: http://giftinterest.com/coffee_ob9ve

Instead Of Sales, They Seek Applause

From a book about which David Ogilvy is quoted as saying: "Nobody, at any level, should be allowed to have anything to do with advertising until he has read this book seven times":

 "Advertising is salesmanship. Its principles are the principles of salesmanship. Successes and failures in both lines are due to like causes. Thus every advertising question should be answered by the salesman's standards.

Let us emphasize that point. The only purpose of advertising is to make sales. It is profitable or unprofitable according to its actual sales. It is not for general effect. It is not to keep your name before the people. It is not primarily to aid your other salesmen. Treat it as a salesman. Force it to justify itself. Compare it with other salesmen. Figure its cost and result. Accept no excuses which good salesmen do not make. Then you will not go far wrong. The difference is only in degree. Advertising is multiplied salesmanship. It may appeal to thousands while the salesman talks to one. It involves a corresponding cost. Some people spend $10 per word on an average advertisement. Therefore every ad should be a super-salesman.

Why Facebook Will Do Search And Why Google Needs Social

Mark Zuckerberg posted a picture of himself in front of his computer, and an eagle-eyed blogger noticed that his version of Facebook sports a larger-than-usual search box. An unintended leak or not, Facebook competing in search is only a matter of time just as, in retrospect, it was inevitable that Google would integrate social elements deeper into its main product.

This is why.