A Berry Cool Blog

Okay so I Googled craziest companies and came across an article which was featured on Forbes. It is then I learned about Talk O’clock; “The ‘social alarm clock’ with the tagline: ‘Let a stranger wake you up.’ Intrigued? I thought so.

Anyhow, so I registered, created my account, and now I only have to wait until 9:25 the next morning to receive a call from some stranger. He or she can literally be from across the world!

I realize that this is a little weird, and maybe expensive (I’m not quite sure if international, long-distance charges apply), but I may continue to use this site if it works because I cannot, for the life of me, wake up in the mornings. I’m sure there are more of you hit-the-snooze-button-15-times-type of people out there, and, if so, I would encourage you to try this site.

It’s pretty revolutionary if you ask me. SO revolutionary, in fact, that you can request to be called from either a man, woman, or automated robot. I requested a woman…..let’s hope it’s not some perverted lunatic who clicked the ‘F’ when selecting gender….

I shall post a comment to this blog to see whether I had a pleasant experience or not…

This is a response to Trevor Melanson’s blog.

Wellllllllllllll, I think the picture says it all. On the left is “Pope Benedict XVI passionately kissing top Egyptian imam Ahmed Mohamed el-Tayeb,” who is on the right.

More of a publicity stunt than anything, United Colors of Benetton used this picture as part of their ‘UnHate’ marketing strategy. The Vatican’s subsequent announcement to take legal action only made the matter worse for itself, however.

In the ad business, it’s called earned media. A company does something newsworthy and journalists write about it and people talk about it. It is also known as the Streisand Effect.

As Trevor Melanson put: “The Vatican appears to have Streisanded itself.”

It’s certainly interesting and eye-catching, but does it help your company? In my opinion, it may get people talking about your company for a short while, similar to your “15 minutes of fame”, but it won’t keep people talking about your company. According to a BusinessWeek article, Vivek Wadhwa says the secret to getting attention is “you have to have a compelling message then make sure that the right audience hears it.”

Here’s another picture for your enjoyment:

Since I’ve been at UBC I’ve become a coffee regular. All I can say is thank God UBC included Starbucks and Timmy’s on my meal card because otherwise I’d be broke-er than I already am.

I am writing in response to COMM 101’s Blog on the Keurig Single Cup Coffee Maker.

The Keurig system brews a single cup of gourmet coffee in under a minute, completely avoiding the hassle of selecting and grinding beans, measuring coffee, and cleaning up afterwards.

When I read this I immediately looked up the price of the Keurig coffee maker and its ‘k-cups’. The ‘Elite Collection‘ runs you about $160 and a k-cup box (24 coffees) runs for about $17–a pretty modest price for a gourmet coffee maker if you ask me. Doing some simple math on what my would-be spending for this year at average 1 coffee/day:

Starbucks: $720 on coffee!?!?!!?!?!?!!??!?!  HOLY %$#*

Keurig: $290

That’s a pretty considerable difference if you ask me, as well the $160 is a one-time expense.

I think Keurig has done well to create an instantaneous, low-hassle, gourmet coffee. It’s very appealing to cheap, on the go, lazy people like me.

Can you say Christmas present? 🙂

So why is Black Friday called Black Friday anyways? Well, Black Friday signifies the official start of the Christmas shopping season. It is the day after the American Thanksgiving, and to celebrate, stores hold massive sales. The term ‘Black’ describes the insanity of the day. Traffic jams, mobs of blood-thirsty shoppers and sometimes even violence all occur as a result of ‘Black Friday’.

In more recent years, an alternative to going out and physically partaking in the mad crawl of Black Friday has emerged; ONLINE SHOPPING!

While the savings from online shopping may not be as great as actually going out to stores, it is a pretty sexy alternative since it involves, literally, no physical activity (hallelujah!)—PLUS the deals are only going to increase as online shopping becomes more and more popular.

Surely, sometime in the future online shopping will replace traditional shopping. It may not be as ‘fulfilling’ for some people, but really who cares about fulfillment when you can save money and time by shopping online.

This also removes traffic jams and angry mobs from the picture.

…..wait, is an online mob possible?

As most of you know, the NBA has been on lockout for quite some time. Sabrina Rai just posted an interesting blog on Google’s ploy to use the lockout to its advantage.

It was announced that four of the NBA’s biggest stars–LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Paul, and Dwayne Wade–are to take part in a 4-game exhibition tour dubbed the “Google+ Homecoming Tour.” Not only will Google be the main sponsor, it will also be live streaming the games via the tour’s Google+ page. The scheme is, ultimately, supposed to increase brand awareness for Google.

I find it most interesting that Google is expanding into the live-streaming video market. A news-press on CNN just revealed Netflix is selling shares and hiking up prices in order to get a little security and protection from competitors “with much deeper pockets.” Big tech players such as Amazon and Google are jumping into the streaming game and making things very difficult for Netflix. If it goes as planned, Google should recruit tonnes more Google+ users and as well become known as a strong live-streaming site.

Google+ is interesting, it’s great to see a really well-executed product in the space. There have been a lot of Facebook competitors, but Google+ is the best so far.

-Dustin Moskovitz (co-founder of Facebook)

 

http://www.canadianbusiness.com/blog/tech/58419–google-plus-unlikely-winners-in-the-nba-lockout

Here is a link to the story which was featured on CNN.

To sum it up, an Afghan woman, Gulnaz, was brutally raped  2 years ago and as a result today she bears a child. Instead of receiving sympathy, she faces prosecution on the grounds of adultery–a 12 year sentence in Afghanistan.

Currently, she is in jail serving her sentence with her child. The only way around adultery in Afghanistan is to marry her attacker. Incredibly, Gulnaz is willing to take this action in order to “start a new life” for her daughter. Unfortunately, her situation is not as easy as that. In an interview with the man who raped her we discover that

“she would likely be killed if she gets out of jail. But he insists that it will be her family, not his, that will kill her, ‘out of shame.'”

Gulnaz’s story is just one out of thousands in Afghanistan. And while her predicament does bring some attention to women’s rights, sadly, it does not help them. Gulnaz is still left to face the reality of 12 years in jail, or to marry her attacker.

Adidas and Star Wars are not normally two things that go together—THAT IS until Adidas started its Star Wars collection.

I am an Adidas regular. From shoes to hoodies to t-shirts I love it all. A while ago when I saw Adidas’s new line of Star Wars gear I just about lost it. It’s just about the craziest thing any clothing company has ever done—and I LOVE it. By combining my favourite sports brand with one of my all time favourite movie series, Adidas has created my clothing heaven!

Why do I love Adidas so much? Apart from functional, reliable, high quality products, Adidas is so original. You can see it from its ads and its products that its originality is embodied in everything it does. For me, this is what differentiates Adidas from similar brands such as Nike.

Take these ads for example:   

Now if you didn’t enjoy those I think you are crazy. It’s just so random and refreshing and better than 90% of sportswear ads on TV. David Beckham, Snoop Dogg, and Han Solo in the Star Wars Cantina is just priceless.