Offline (read “old school”) media is quaking in its boots; magazines and newspapers are fearing the death of print any day now. Marketing professionals are being nudged with a faint hint of the same specter. Jon Friedman - editor of Media Web for MarketWatch - had some advice that can make marketing communications succeed as well.

Jon’s “8 Simple Rules for Magazines to Succeed on the Web”

1. Have an attitude.
2. Make it easy to read.
3. Stress interactivity.
4. Entertain.
5. Maintain an identity.
6. Live in real time.
7. Be true. Experiment.

Read the details behind each of these points - they are terrific advice for Web success regardless of your industry!

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Remind me again how far it is from London?

Looks like it’s just under 4800 miles as the crow flies…

I ordered my itsy-bitsy teeny-weeny MOO cards on May 30 - just 10 days ago - and today (!) the letter carrier smooshed the package through the letter slot. The box that came inside is about the size of one of those 25-piece packages of chewing gum.

What I like about Moo:

• Their lightheartedness! I love the site, but the shipping notification tells the whole story, “Remember, I’m just a bit of software. So, if you have any questions regarding your order please first read our Frequently Asked Questions and if you’re still not sure, contact customer services (who are real people)… Little MOO, Print Robot”
• I especially like the sentiment printed on the “belly band” that is wrapped around the box. Folks here are indeed thinking about their environmental impact! Click on the image to the right to read what they had to say.
• The print quality is terrific!

I’m sure I’ll come up with lots and lots of uses for their products and - some day when I have time - I’ll create some of my own designs.

In the meantime, take a look at this fun company at www.moo.com.

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After Steve Jobs told us that no one reads anymore, who tells us - once again that print is dead? None other than Microsoft’s Steve Ballmer, in the Washington Post, June 5.

While Steve starts out with the term “media,” he really means “print media,” and he believes that in the foreseeable future it will be gone. Here are the pertinent segments of the interview:

WaPo: What is your outlook for the future of media?

In the next 10 years, the whole world of media, communications and advertising are going to be turned upside down — my opinion.

Here are the premises I have. Number one, there will be no media consumption left in 10 years that is not delivered over an IP network. There will be no newspapers, no magazines that are delivered in paper form (my emphasis - DGNK). Everything gets delivered in an electronic form.

WaPo: 10 years?

Yeah. If it’s 14 or if it’s 8, it’s immaterial to my fundamental point. . . . If we want TV to be more interactive, you’ll deliver it over an IP network. I mean, it’s sort of funny today. My son will stay up all night basically playing Xbox Live with friends that are in various parts of the world, and yet I can’t sit there in front of the TV and have the same kind of a social interaction around my favorite basketball game or golf match. It’s just because one of these things is delivered over an IP network and the other is not. . . .

Also in the world of 10 years from now, there are going to be far more producers of content than exist today. We’ve already started to see that certainly in the online world, but we’ve just scratched the surface.

. . . I always take my favorite case: I grew up in Detroit. I went to a place called Detroit Country Day School. They’ve got a great basketball team. Why can’t I sit in front of my television and watch the Country Day basketball game when I know darn well it’s being video-recorded at all times? It’s there. It’s just not easy to navigate to.

You can also view the video segment from which this clip was taken on this link>> by waiting until the video “Ballmer on Microsoft’s Mission” starts. Pause it, then select “Ballmer on the Future of Advertising” from the right side menu.

Time to get on the wagon and start looking at the many flavors of “cross media marketing!”

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Well, now! It’s not often that your spouse suggests just the right birthday gift before you even hint, but today I got this e-mail from my hubby:

To: Gail
From: Ken
Subject: A Have-to-Have

It looks like for your birthday you’ll need to get a new Flip Video Mino mini-camcorder to fit with all the other stuff in your bag of e-gadgets.

Ah, he’s so right! And that birthday is coming up in just a couple of months…

Recommended by none other than the Wall Street Journal’s Walter S. Mossberg, here are a few of the product highlights:

• Price: $180
• Max record: 60-minutes (2GB flash memory)
• USB adapter on top of the camera
• Touch-sensitive buttonsability to lock the delete button
• Mute all camera sounds to record silently
• Rechargeable batteries - charges automaticaly when connected to a computer
• Built-in software enables editing and publishing to MySpace, YouTube, and AOL Video

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But it’s so cute!

This little item showed up on a number of “techno-gadget” blogs, so I went straight to the horse’s mouth, so to speak, to find out more. Vitorio Benedetti is a graphic and product designer, and I believe he may be Italian. Other than that, there’s not much personal information about him.

Here are his own comments about the Constant Garden:

Resulting project of the Industrial Sound Design workshop conducted in the Umeå Design School, with teams combining students from Interaction and Advanced Product design with Annika Ushio and Vanessa Satele.

A product that combines relaxation and information, helping you during the day with your appointments and besides that, displaying nice garden sounds inside the office to remind you that there is more to life than work.

In a coordinated audio visual approach, the constant garden displays messages according to your daily schedule, allowing you to concentrate on the activities themselves.

Inside each of the sprouts there is a small headphone, and the total sound is pleasurable and strong enough.

Visit his site here>> and see more images. You can also download a nice little flash document describing the intent behind the design and see a video of the “garden” in action. Complete with birds twittering and crickets chirping.

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