Frito-Lay is doing a nationwide test with two new flavors of Doritos (Smokin’ Cheddar BBQ and Wild White Nacho in case you’re curious.) The campaign is “Fight for the Flavor - Two New Flavors; One Survives.” The company has a presence on MySpace, is running TV ads and is tallying votes online. Oh, they also have both varieties stocked on store shelves (including the dinky convenience store two blocks from my place in Seattle.)
For some reason, I started thinking about the complexity and logistics involved in doing this and the scale of the planning, coordination and investment required to pull this off. Definitely gives you new perspective on what’s involved in testing a consumer Internet website. We need to be doing more of this. (And by this I mean testing variations on our site, not manufacturing tasty, healthy snacks.)
Was bound to happen. Damn this company knows how to innovate and execute. From their page on Google Labs:
Google Voice Local Search is Google’s experimental service to make local-business search accessible over the phone.
To try this service, just dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (1-800-466-4411) from any phone.
Using this service, you can:
- search for a local business by name or category.
You can say “Giovanni’s Pizzeria” or just “pizza”.
- get connected to the business, free of charge.
- get the details by SMS if you’re using a mobile phone.
Just say “text message”.
And it’s free. Google doesn’t charge you a thing for the call or for connecting you to the business. Regular phone charges may apply, based on your telephone service provider.
Note: Google Voice Local Search is still in its experimental stage. It may not be available at all times and may not work for all users. We’re fine-tuning the service to get better at recognizing your requests. It’s currently only available in English, in the US, for US business listings.
Thanks to doggdot.us and the Google Operating System Blog for pointing me to this.
UPDATE: Used this in the morning to track down a couple of phone numbers. Quick, efficient and worked really well. Very cool. Also, I wonder how this will tie in to the Google Phone…
Alison just pointed me to this awesome ipod docking station. It’s gorgeous. And clever. Opening the lid amplifies the sound.
For the past three days, my girlfriend has been stolen by Intel. This isn’t some nefarious corporate espionage plot. Rather, they have sucked her into a web-based flash game in which you are the manager of a corporate IT department. I know, I know…who could resist?
I’m not sure what happened, but I’m sure this is related to her deep feelings for her Intel-based mac. I’ll let you know more as I get to the bottom of this.
PS: I realize that this post makes it hard to pick who the bigger geek is. She’s the one who got sucked in and I’m the one blogging about it.
Kathy Sierra’s blog ROCKS! This is no surprise to anyone, but everytime I cruise over there, I am driven to think and I love that. This is an older post of her’s, on the so-called ‘wisdom of crowds.’ Her graphic below pretty much says it all.
The post is fantastic. If you have any interest in product design, you should read it. Bottom line: Design-by-committee produces bland, boring products.
Posted on February 24th, 2007 in Cool | No Comments »
It was Alison’s turn with the clicker and she picked well. I was sitting through “Raising Helen” on the Oxygen Network (I know, I’m appalled as well) and I heard the following tagline during a commercial break.
“The most advanced piece of technology you’ll ever pee on”
It was an ad for a pregnancy test. Awesome. I’ll never forget it.
UPDATE: I was initially appalled at the movie choice and now I’m appalled that I’m actually sucked in…
Posted on February 20th, 2007 in Cool | No Comments »
Alison just showed me a cool pet weather widget she got from the Apple site. You upload an image of your pet and every time you mouse over it, your pet says something random to you. Cool, fun app.
It’s also smart marketing by Purina:
- Taps into a user passion - pets
- Makes people smile every time they see your brand
- Gets you word of mouth
Great to see supposedly stodgy brands embracing technology. There’s a lesson for the rest of us in there.
Switch to ‘Comic Sans.’ Ok, that’s not true. The power font of choice is Calibri .
Usability News has a fascinating article about the impact of the font of an email on the reader’s perception of the writer of the message. The article is dated January 9, 2007 and the results are really interesting and worth a browse. The three fonts tested were : Calibri, Comic Sans & Gigi (Study funded by MSFT Advanced Reading Technology Group.) While we would expect fonts like comic sans to be taken less seriously than other more formal fonts, it’s really interesting to see a rigorous approach to the subject. (I realize this is probably old hat to people in the offline publishing world so my apologies if I’m boring you.)
The table below lists the fonts that were chosen as most suited for email in an earlier study:
The study goes on to talk about the perception of the writer and attempts to correlate it to font choice. The conclusion from the paper was that font choice impacts things like the perception of stability, practicality, professionalism etc. These are all things that we know anecdotally.
As a side note, if you’re still sending out rainbow text in Script, please stop.
Posted on February 9th, 2007 in Cool | No Comments »
Samsung has an iPhone competitor due to be unveiled next week at the 3GSM conference. Not sure if it will be as sexy as Apple’s offering, but it’s great to see competition in the market. It’s a great looking device. I’m curious to see how it stacks up. It has a slide out QWERTY keyboard in addition to touch screen control.
You can read an in-depth review at Gizmodo. Enjoy. Can’t wait to check this out in the flesh, as it were.
UPDATE: I found out about this on MSNBC initially.
Just got back from my first hockey game at Key Arena. I was a fan not a player - me on ice skates is one of the funniest things you’ll ever see but that’s neither here nor there. Unfortunately, Seattle lost 2-5, but it was a great time nonetheless. The best part was the “Teddy Bear Toss” at the end of the first period. People hurl teddy bears onto the ice and they are collected and donated to charity. This was just cool. Hundreds of bears of the ice, the constant threat of being nailed in the back of the head by people who couldn’t reach the ice. If you can go to a game where this takes place, I highly recommend it.
The other highlight from the game was a fan seated five seats to my left who when there were only five minutes left was yelling - “Screw scoring a goal, just start a fight!” and “use it like a spear!” and “swing it like a bat.” The atmosphere was great and the crowd was yelling throughout the game. Run, don’t walk.
