Are Marketing has continued to serve it’s legacy clients over the course of the last few months. However most of it’s staff have silo’ed out into our more exciting side projects – Pigelator, Followformation, and finally Kiip. What the agency model has taught us is that creativity and flexibility ultimately breeds the highest productivity in the form of focus and currency. I can’t wait to see what all three teams bring us next.

Verdict: PARK ANYWHERE, AND DON’T PAY EVERYBADY!!!

Verdict: The Court ruled against UBC, and ticketing is illegal, and people are allowed to recoup their losses.

More details to come (check this post for constant updates as they come).

• 4:47pm- full verdict document: Judge Goepel Re: Barbour v. The University of British Columbia (warning: it’s long)
• 8:19pm- areas of verdict to pay attention to:

[73]
Considering the merits of this matter, it is noteworthy that almost half of UBC’s tickets go unpaid. The person who has been penalized by UBC’s regime is the good citizen whose natural instinct is to trust that UBC has the power to impose the Parking Regulation Fines and pays the fine when it is demanded. There is something fundamentally unfair that those good citizens should not recover the money that UBC had no right to collect in the first instance.

[80]
The Parking Regulation Fines are ultra vires. UBC cannot enter contracts or licenses that incorporate the Parking Regulation Fines. UBC’s common law proprietary rights authorize the towing and storage of vehicles parked contrary to the Parking Regulations. UBC is entitled to collect the costs arising from such towing. UBC cannot, however, rely on its proprietary rights to charge or collect the Parking Regulation Fines. The plaintiff and other class members are entitled to restitution in the amount of the Parking Regulation Fines subject only to applicable defences under the Limitations Act, towing and storage charges and the applicability of UBC’s claim of set-off which has yet to be resolved.

• 10:27am – April 1st – CBC article about the verdict here.

• Cut, copy & paste
• Voice memos app
• Landscape typing on major apps
• Stream music over bluetooth to devices (i.e. wireless headphone, wireless speakers)
• Push notifications (instant messaging notifications while your app is off)
• System-wide search (spotlight for the iPhone)
• MMS!
• Tethering!!!!
• Play peer-to-peer games over bluetooth and wifi
• Ingame voice chat!
• Turn-by-turn directions for certain apps that choose to build it in
• Some apps can now charge you more money INSIDE the app for additional game levels and other features, etc etc. (this will be really annoying)

Google is taking over the world – as in, they are now prowling through your search behavior and serving ads based on what you’ve seen and what you’ve searched. Creepy, yes, effective, yes (has some caveats though, for multiple users accounts) – taking over the world, yes.

Obviously, this is significant to internet marketers because now ads are served in an even more targeted manner. My problem with this, however, is that as much as we think that targeting ads more specifically and more intelligently is the way to go – it’s the nature and look of the ads that are desensitizing people to even pay attention to them in the first place. Google needs to work on refreshing the look of their ads to make them look more purposeful and useful – we know how design can be manipulative – design can play on the shallow-nature of the average schizophrenic internet surfer – and turn these ads into an item of interest once again.

Link: Google: Interest Based Advertising

Quick! Everyone! Go to www.skittles.com. What do you see?

Everyone in the Twittosphere, the blogosphere, or whateversphere, is talking about this right now. It’s official: Skittles’ marketing team got lazy and decided that it would be a fun gimmick to make itself vulnerable to the social definition of their product.

Just kidding. I think this is half-brilliant and half-lazy at the same time. Making themselves vulnerable to the social definition of their product is a sign of acceptance, acknowledgment, respect, and transparency: many welcome traits that the online community will view as a bolstering element to the Skittles’ public image.

This idea caused quite a splash, and I’m sure there will be many copycats, but let’s just keep this an experiment, shall we? Sometimes I actually want to read marketing speak. It helps calm my nerves from buyer’s remorse.

Quick note: This idea was inspired by Modernista!. A all-round pretty cool agency.

Also on a fun note: Skittles’ webpage title now includes: Interweb the Rainbow. Funny.