THE MEATRIX

"Thanks to Nick Usborne for a great link: THE MEATRIX. It's hard to catalog how many things this site does right (not to mention the Moopheus cow imagery, but that's personal). You don't have to agree with the message (though I do) to be in awe of how well executed the strategy and tactics of the campaign are. What's happening here? I think that as advertising stops being about cash for media and starts being about ideas worth spreading, we're going to see more vivid and effective work from organizations with a point of view."

Early Word on Amazon 'Stores'

"When customers make purchases on Amazon.com from another merchant, Amazon.com sends the order to the merchant, which then ships the items. In exchange for offering their goods to Amazon.com's shoppers - more than 15 million visitors a week during the holiday season, according to Media Metrix - merchants typically pay Amazon.com a commission of 7 percent to 15 percent on each sale, according to Forrester. If an item fails to satisfy a customer, it is the responsibility of the merchant that shipped the product to receive the customer service call."

Google Here, There, and Everywhere

"As the search giant keeps expanding into new services, it's becoming a rival to just about every other Net company out there. I woke up this morning and Googled my dry cleaner to see if my shirts were done. Then I Googled the weather to see what to wear to work. Before breakfast, I Googled my stocks to see how they did yesterday, and then I Googled the supermarket for sale prices and to schedule a delivery, right from Google. I Googled the movies playing at theaters near my house, and then I told Google to e-mail me with travel itineraries to Paris from June 24 through June 31. In short, it's just another good Google day here in 2006, in an all-Google world."

Nurses Use Web To Choose Shifts And Pay

"Here's how shift bidding works: Nurses log onto a hospital's Web site, view all empty shifts in units like cardiac, intensive care, or critical care, and make an offer to work for a rate within a specified range posted by the hospital. The lowest bidder wins with skill level and other factors being equal."

Raking muck in "The Sims Online"

"In the real world, Peter Ludlow is an academic, a professor of philosophy and linguistics at the University of Michigan whose books go by sober titles like 'Readings in the Philosophy of Language,' and 'Semantics, Tense and Time: An Essay in the Metaphysics of Natural Language.' He's well-regarded in his field and engaging enough on the phone, but Ludlow is, even by his own admission, not a very interesting person. That is to say, Peter Ludlow is nothing like Urizenus, Ludlow's alter ego in the virtual world of 'The Sims Online.'"

E-Shoppers Are Now E-Spenders

"It seems that the virtual world's top retailers are succeeding because they've learned the simple and time-honored tradition of keeping their customers satisfied. The idea is straightforward -- at least in concept: Provide a good experience consistently, and buyers will keep coming back. 'What defines a retailer is how well it serves a meaningful group of customers,' says Ken Seiff, chief executive of online fashion retailer Bluefly."

Tech Bloom in full flower

"When the markets crashed and the money steamed from high-tech like coolant from a blown radiator, most of us made a logical assumption: The engine of technological innovation was shot and things would settle down and act normal. If this is normal, I don't want to meet weird. In basements, garages and the empty warehouses that once held the Next Big Thing, tech-savvy folks are huddled over their laptops, working together online to give away the future. The result? We're seeing a surge of technological creativity that easily trumps anything we dreamed of with the dot-com PR guys crooning in our ears."