1. An iPhone formatted site.  The site even lets you build your own car on the iPhone and locate a dealer
2. An iPhone game that’s 100% free from the APP Store.  The game relies on the physics of the iPhone rather than the touch screen.

So I’m basically 25% worse than I wa 11 years ago. Actually, that’s not too bad. My goal is to get up to about a 25 mile a week base and get back to the 6:15 per mile average for a 5K. We’ll see.

Too damn funny.

BMW will be using it in their dealerships as a way to feature cars for customers. This is a great example of how companies can start thinking about uses for Surface. The iPhone and Apple have done a great job of conditioning consumers to use, understand, and want touch screen driven devices. With so many people using touch-screen driven tools there really isn’t a learning curve anymore, which opens up the possibilities. So, what would you do with Microsoft Surface?

GoArmy.com Home Page

1. The site opens with a video intro that isn’t a splash page.  The main feature area serves up an entire library of videos, but does so in an easy to digest manner.  The videos can even be downloaded for use on your iPod.  Very nice.
2. I would have liked to have seen predictive search.  However, the use of a Tag Cloud in the lower left of the page, to surface the most popular items visitors are searching for is a solid alternative.  I’m shocked actually at how progressive and open they are being with the data.
3. Right next to the Tag Cloud area is a module that serves up the most recent posts from the discussion board.  It’s a nice way to serve up what other people just like YOU are looking for.  The only catch is you need to be a registered member to participate in the discussion.  It’s a smart move the Army’s part.
4. I love the use of the dual navigation.  They opted to leverage the top nav for the main sections of the site and the right hand NAV for content that is community driven or personalized.  I just wish the login call to action was more prominent.

Many of these ideas aren’t new.  Several are ones we recommended to the Army in 2001.  However, back then they weren’t ready or able to make the recommendations come to life.  Today though, tt looks like they have their eye squarely focused on being progressive.  Very cool!

This works for so many reasons. First, it shows how engrained in consumer culture EA is. They really are listening and paying attention. Second, the response offers a tongue in cheek approach to acknowledging the “bug.” Let’s face it, there is a bug. Third, this does great things for the Tiger Woods brand. After all, only Tiger could walk on water

Segway

Am I now supposed to want a Segway because people who shoot other people for a living use them?  I’m just seriously conflicted on this example of product placement, because I have no idea why it makes sense.  Thoughts?

1. The open isn’t usually the desired action.  The action is embedded in the email itself.  You/we want the recipient to click and ultimately do the desired response
2. The conservative nature of email programs, like Outlook, are blocking our images and thus not reporting email opens accurately.
3. Mobile and handheld devices like the Blackberry are great for instantaneous delivery and action.  However, an open on a Blackberry is not reported as an open.
4. Most reported open rates don’t take into account bounces.  If you send out 10,000 emails and 1,000 end up as hard bounces, you have a net delivery of 9,000.  We should key off of 9,000 and not the 10,000.
5. Spam filters have gotten so aggressive that many emails end up being seen as junk mail even though they aren’t.  Most of those recipients will never open that email.