Today is Towel Day, an annual celebration on the 25th of May, as a tribute to the late author Douglas Adams (1952-2001). On that day, fans around the universe proudly carry a towel in his honour.
Less formally, the X-Wing symbolizes an obscenely profitable partnership, now in its 14th year, that has sold more than 200 million building sets, 30 million copies of four video games (according to NPD Group), and 450 different Lego Star Wars mini-figures. Lego Star Wars has been a major contributor to a five-year run during which Lego has averaged 24 percent year-on-year growth in sales and 40 percent growth in profits.
Now that’s how to use PR and marketing to get a corporate story out there on the history of Lego. I just wonder who’s going to have promotional sets at Eurovision next year?
SniffPetrol nails it in their Monaco GP preview:
One of the most infamous ex-F1 drivers to live in the area is Taki Inoue who is regularly spotted attempting to cross Casino Square only to get hit by a passing car causing him to roll over its bonnet in an amusing way.
Windows 8 has backwards compatibility with Windows 7, even though there was a brand new look of live tiles, user interface, and the look and feel of the hardware. Xbox One breaks compatibility with the Xbox 360, significantly reducing the usability of the gaming and media device out of the box.
I wonder if Microsoft would have been in a better position at the end of 2013 if the Xbox One had the compatibility, and Windows 8 didn’t?
Unfortunately (a) digital is starting from a much smaller base, so in raw terms it’s still tens of millions behind print; and (b) it’s for the Daily Mail website. Still, lets take it as a positive sign for newspapers in general.
Just looking at advertising, DMGT said that digital advertising growth across DMG Media now exceeds print advertising decline: “This is a significant inflection point for the business”, the company said.
Or bad things will happen. Like being banished to a space station:
John Tracy was initially to be one of the main characters in the series but Gerry was never happy with his looks or voice and consigned him to Thunderbird 5 where he only made brief appearances.
Business Week look at Google’s X Lab. Next you’ll be telling me they have a single stage to orbit rocket that can fly through a round house, a transport plane in a cliff, and Mach 22 capable swing wing aircraft under the swimming pool.
Jaron Lainer in Salon:
At the height of its power, the photography company Kodak employed more than 140,000 people and was worth $28 billion. They even invented the first digital camera. But today Kodak is bankrupt, and the new face of digital photography has become Instagram. When Instagram was sold to Facebook for a billion dollars in 2012, it employed only 13 people. Where did all those jobs disappear? And what happened to the wealth that all those middle-class jobs created?
Let’s just say I doubt that Nokia would have signed up. Windows Phone 7 was just the break that Microsoft needed. Whether the jump was made in time remains to be see. Sales are still up, even if they’re not as high as Redmond and their partners would want. I still think that Windows Phone is doing far better than Windows Mobile ever could.
I know that Apple want to maximise revenue and present the user with options to do so, but the ‘always there’ presence of the Newsstand icon has always irked me a bit, but only now was it enough to go and Google an answer. Which is this.
Download StifleStand. Connect iOS device. Press the button marked ‘Hide Newsstand.’
Now why couldn’t Apple do that?
Looking for four experience Eurovision experts talking about the Contest live? Head over to ESC Insight and you can download the mobile app, or listen live through a (quick and dirty hack of a) web player. See you on the other side!
Just before the second semi final of this year’s Eurovision Song Contest gets under way, you have time to download the mobile app from ESC Insight, EscXtra, and The Lab (powered by O2) from the iOS store. Head to bit.ly/esccommentary to download it. I’ve also put together a ‘Spotters Guide‘ to some of the highlights for the show tonight on ESC Insight. Enjoy!
A big thank you to The Lab at O2 for all their help in the last few weeks as they developed ESC Commentary, an IOS app to support the Eurovision Song Contest communities at ESC Insight and EscXtra. What does it do?
You’ll get a live commentary from the team in the press room (and it’s not the same as our long running Alternative Commentary MP3, which you can find here).
During each Eurovision show you can hit the green thumbs up button, or the red thumbs down button, to share your view on the song, and the worm will show the combined thoughts of everyone using the app.
Its a free download from the Apple App Store. Head to bit.ly/esccommentary to download the app for your iOS device. Or you can search for ‘ESC Commentary‘ in the store.
What are you waiting for?
Bright colours as well. Not for me, I’m more a muted leather man for my organiser, but ‘Calypso’ continues a trend to push Filofax to the fashionista in the world.
In all the talk about the low sales of the HTC First (the so-called Facebook phone), there’s one bit of information, and one question, I’ve not seen answered How do the sales numbers of a mid-range Android device on a US network that runs the Facebook overlay compare to sales of a mid-range Android device on a US network that runs HTC’s own UI layer? Perhaps the HTC First sold in the same rough range as other mid tier Android devices targeted at regular consumers?
