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May 14, 2012 9:39 pm

Mini newspaper box is too cute

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Can tiny things get attention? The Metro newspaper chain in Canada recently deployed a collection of wee newspaper boxes on city streets. News for gnomes? Nope, a clever promotion of the newspaper's mobile edition.

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May 11, 2012 8:04 am

Obama’s gay marriage email pitch

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After President Obama announced his support for same-sex marriage, his reelection campaign sent out two fund-raising emails -- with two totally different copywriting strategies. Take a look at the messages below.

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May 9, 2012 11:00 am

Lincoln, Facebook and journalism

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A funny thing happened yesterday involving Facebook, patents and Abraham Lincoln. It's a good lesson about the difference between blogging, curation and journalism.

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May 8, 2012 9:33 pm

Obama’s “socialist” new slogan

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"Forward." Recently, Barack Obama began using that single word as a campaign slogan. Now his opponents are using it to brand him as a socialist. Behold the power of a word!

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May 7, 2012 9:42 pm

How to infuriate your boss, and the IOC

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On Friday, Young & Rubicam headquarters apologized for a controversial spot by its Buenos Aires office. "We are deeply regretful for the pain this ad has caused," the agency said. What could have been so painful?

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May 2, 2012 9:32 pm

Ashton Kutcher’s Popchips flop (updated)

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As soon as I finished watching the new Popchips commercial starring Ashton Kutcher as an Indian man, I thought, "I need to save a copy of this video immediately, because it's going to be deleted from the Internet fast." The video was gone before I had the chance.

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May 1, 2012 8:32 am

A shrewd survey from Facebook

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This morning when I logged in to Facebook, I saw a little box asking me if I wanted to take a survey. I clicked yes. One question really surprised me.

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Apr 26, 2012 8:56 am

America, the ad

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Here's a commercial you won't see in the United States. It's the first part of a travel campaign for Brand USA, a.k.a. the Corporation for Travel Promotion, a quasi-public agency Congress created in 2010 to promote U.S. tourism. Wait, America needs to run ads to get people to come here?

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Apr 24, 2012 8:00 am

On gaming the Internet

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I once worked with a guy -- let's call him Jim -- whom our company hired because he was influential on Digg. He could singlehandedly drive huge volumes of traffic to any website.

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Apr 23, 2012 8:00 am

“What’s Your Wild Rabbit?”

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I was riding my bike recently and saw a billboard with the line, "Few see it. Fewer chase it. What's Your Wild Rabbit?" My first thought was, "Damn that's good."

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