Chilligavva

This is probably one of the coolest ways to go!  Dr. pepper is paying gamers to do what they love doing the most, keep playing video games! Now my son has a career option too! Tom Tsquared Taylor must be on cloud 9!

I really like living in the present times.  No really!.  Even kings in medieval lands did not enjoy the progress we now have at our finger tips. Want to try out new software?  Download the evaluation version and check it out.  Want to hear the latest songs by your favorite singer? Listen to sample songs.  Go to the supermarket and come back with new products being given away free!  And this feeling got more emphasized when I was reading Seth Godin's article Taking photographs vs giving photographs this morning and had to conclude that I like the open style of marketing consisting of trials, evaluations and samplers.

The whole of last week I was amused to see Bill Gates and Seinfeld share their lives with common folk on TV. Then via stuff.co.nz I came to know that

The underlying principal of a good business is always based on a sound product. [Otherwise what can you sell?] But when I was reading this article, the extent to which the phone companies have become "Mafia" is pretty apparent. It obviously took another Moghul like Steve Jobs, and a in your face "ha ha" product like the i-phone to put back the power to products.

But as important as the iPhone has been to the fortunes of Apple and ATT, its real impact is on the structure of the $11 billion-a-year US mobile phone industry. For decades, wireless carriers have treated manufacturers like serfs, using access to their networks as leverage to dictate what phones will get made, how much they will cost, and what features will be available on them. Handsets were viewed largely as cheap, disposable lures, massively subsidized to snare subscribers and lock them into using the carriers' proprietary services. But the iPhone upsets that balance of power. Carriers are learning that the right phone — even a pricey one — can win customers and bring in revenue. Now, in the pursuit of an Apple-like contract, every manufacturer is racing to create a phone that consumers will love, instead of one

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I was watching TV when I saw a small news clip about this site. The site is a very netflix like service, where you can rent toys for a small period of time.  On one hand this is really nice, as one can introduce variety without breaking the bank.  On the other hand, we need to address a very common situation in this age group - "Falling in love with a toy and refusing to part with it." I just hope that the business has thought of a contingency in this case.Miti (my son) and I were thinking on these lines a couple of years ago, when he wanted all the cool toys which I just could not afford to buy. We of course thought more on NGO lines where we could run a free toy library based on donor inputs. I just thought, wow how neat and about time too!

And for all you neat freaks out there, as per the TV promo, I believe every toy between uses is sanitized and shrinkwrapped in

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I thought I had seen it all on the net.  I came across this site promoting a  different concept.  The website is not live yet, but is in alpha and soliciting beta testers via e-mails.  Of course I signed up, how could I not be a part of the process?SRC: a screen capture from  the website http://www.ourmemoryof.com/

On a different note not related to the above, this concept got me thinking.  From a marketing point, this is one way of gauging interest. Develop a website, with a certain product pitch or a concept,with a tag "launching shortly" .  Make sure you have a form for collecting e-mails.  If you think you have enough interest, actually start the site or service, otherwise, you have a database of interested people, and you can pitch your next idea.  I really don't know what the legalities of such a move might be, or if people have successfully done the same, without losing credibility.  But I think its a good approach.  What do you think? Would love to hear more from my readers on this..