O'Reilly Safari books online has been an excellent source of technical books for me. I really appreciate Hawthorne footing the bill for my subscription. It has almost completely eliminated what used to be a hefty personal and company spending buying physical technical books.

Josh Gaumer, has been working at Hawthorne on a school to work intern program on an advergame. Please check out the CMO Survival Game and give us some feedback. Great work Josh!

This is a really weird move for Taco Bell.  The content doesn't really relate but the implementation is cool.  You can pick locations and limited actions for the model and then proceed to take your own takeaway photographs from the the shoot.  The controls are limited to zooming in and cropping, but the play control sells through.  I can't help but notice it looks remarkably close the the Pokemon game that came out for 64 awhile back.  Check it out:
http://www.directdaniella.com/
 
 

There's a long tradition among news gatherers to hoodwink readers, listeners, and viewers on this day with some sort of bogus news story that seems "close, but not quite." Because we're all well-conditioned to treat stories on this day with some skepticism, it's pretty harmless fun for the most part.
 
When writing today's Videoactive Report, I considered continuing the tradition. Only problem was, every story I dreamed up didn't seem so far-fetched. More to the point, it seems I run something at least once a month that I greet with extreme doubt at first glance.

Check out the sample page peel ad in the upper-right corner. This is the default out-of-the-box sample of a new drupal module: http://drupal.org/project/pageear. I've seen page peels with videos under the peel which I think we could do by cleverly replacing the art assets.

The DRTV and Infomercial industry has had a history of scams and fast buck artists. Why? DRTV is an easy way to get immense mass media exposure (and revenues!) quickly - no matter whether you've got a legitimate product or a bogus one  And as long as I've been in the business (24 years), there's always a new article to be written with the age old Caveat Emptor warning.  As there should be. 
 

Last evening I conducted a Hawthorne Videoactive Report TV interview with John Yarrington, Publisher of Response Magazine, about his new web site www.asseenonresponsetv.com. John and Adam Carrillo, Response's National Account Executive, braved canceled flights, lost luggage and a 5 hour car trip from Chicago to Fairfield, Iowa in time for dinner and a fascinating demo of their exciting new venture. 
 

I returned last night from the International Home and Housewares Show in Chicago, where I have been every year for the past 15 years or so. Like every year, I had client meetings, made some new contacts and ended up with sore feet. It always seems that I have one meeting after another scheduled at opposite ends of the McCormick Exhibition Halls. Next year, I will be sure to wear my sneakers!
 

Call me a skeptic, but the latest DRTV products "review site" leaves me a bit underwhelmed. I came across AsSeenOnTV.info (http://www.asotv.info/) while trolling through YouTube. The comment there suggested that this new product review site had Web 2.0 geneaology, so excitedly I clicked, and pfffft ... nada. No *consumer* reviews, no networking, no commenting.
 

This article, and the term "think-to-buy" are just too cool not to repost. Scot, did you come up with think-to-buy?
 
Will Neuro Headsets Launch Think-To-Buy Ad Apps? -
Summary: