Creative Technology Ltd. is finally getting their just rewards. Under an agreement annoucned Wednesday, Apple Computer Inc. will pay $100 million to its’ rival. In June, the U.S. International Trade Commission agreed to investigate whether the Apple iPod infringed on Creative’s patent for a navigation system used to organize and access music on its Zen Player. Thankfully, the federal agency did not side with Creative and over 8.1 million iPods were sold in the three months following the investigation. Apple has admitted no wrongdoing and has filed two countersuits against Creative. (Yahoo News)

Announced Thursday, AOL has decided to do a little venturing into the online world of video distribution. AOL will now sell through its new video portal many major television shows and movies. The deal is expected to help AOL boost revenues after recently deciding to drop subscription fees for high speed customers. AOL will be partnering with News Corp.’s 20th Century Fox (the people who bought MySpace for half a billion), Sony Corp’s Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, NBC Universal’s Universal Pictures, and Time Warner Inc.’s Warner Bros. Visitors to AOL’s new portal will be allowed to download titles from those studios for $9.99 to $19.99 each and burn the movie or television episode(s) to a DVD. AOL will also be selling Fox television shows for $1.99 an episode.

I think this recent move speaks of AOL’s desperation to catch up with major competitors. Ad supported web sites powered by AOL have been slumming in the recent months and this video portal will hopefully bring a little hope for the company.

No doubt social networks are generating major revenues this year. After Google struck a deal with MySpace to be the sole search engine advertising provider for the site Microsoft has now aligned with Facebook to be the sole provider of banner advertising and sponsored links. “We chose Microsoft because it, like Facebook, is a technology company at its core and is committed to taking a fresh approach to targeting advertising to social media,” Owen Van Natta, Facebook’s chief operating officer, said in a prepared statement.

Facebook has over 9 million users and is the 7th highest ranked site in The United States. Although serious negotiations have only begun, the deal will likely bring Facebook’s creator Mark Zuckerberg well over $1-2 billion dollars I can only imagine.

Addirect, the same company that puts ads on mirrors came up with this new pre-loaded business cards dispenser. The company negotiated agreements to have many top retailers in the UK make space available for the dispensers. The machine can hold 150 cards for each advertiser. My only question. Who sees a business card dispenser and eye surfs across all the cards looking for a business that interests them?

Martijin Engelbregt, who apparently has not registered with the National Do Not Call Registry yet, has developed a counter script for consumers wishing not to have their dinners interupted by newspaper subscription calls. According to Mr. Engelbregt “Telemarketers make use of a telescript - a guideline for a telephone conversation. This script creates an imbalance in the conversation between the marketer and the consumer. It is this imbalance, most of all, that makes telemarketing successful. The EGBG Counterscript attempts to redress that balance.” It’s a good way to throw off a salesperson calling you and pretending to be your buddy if you ask me. Amuse yourself and enjoy.

Tuesday, Microsoft announced that it is finally taking cyber squatters to court. These cyber squatters have been buying up the domain names containing trademarked Microsoft product names, services, and common misspellings. Doing so has helped these cyber squatters profit illegally from pay per click advertisements. “This land rush on the Internet was to collect as many domain names as possible and monetize them using pay-per-click ads,” said Aaron Kornblum, a Microsoft lawyer in charge of its Internet safety enforcement. Microsoft filed the suit against three persons who have registered “324 domain names targeting the software maker” according to Yahoo! News.

I truly hope Microsoft succeeds with this lawsuit. I am sick of having to come up with ‘unique’ domain names for my websites. The web needs to be changed back to the free exchange network it once was. With these cyber squatting bastards out there no man alive can simply buy a quality domain name without having to go to one of these cyber squatters ‘bordellos’ of domain names and plopping down a few grand rather than $8.99 at GoDaddy.

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It’s the Worlds First Interactive Talking Men’s Bathroom Urinal Cakes! But don’t get too excited just yet. I remember when I was in Middle School (and in High School) when students would run for school office. There would be hundreds of posters, flyers, and tidbits around the school. As the mallicious trouble maker I sought myself out to be in a private school, I would unsuspectingly rip down the flyers with the candidates face on it and put it in a urinal. The rest explains itself.

Now, a company called Wizmark Interactive came up with the marketing niche of developing customized urinal cakes to send us even more unwanted messages per day. No doubt the device will stir up a form of word-of-mouth marketing and referrals. The device is more than just a 3 dimension marketing message though. It talks to you! The device senses a visitor’s ‘arrival’ and then plays an audio message for the company that decides to invest in this numbskull new tactic. First there we ads over the top of urinals. Now this. A talking urinal cake that you pee on. Wizmark’s developers say that they are hoping to “flush with excitement and expect a steady stream of sales.”

Glorious Day! The Snapple Lady is back! Unfortunately, my dreams didn’t come true and she is running around solo in the Big Apple - New York City. I was dearly hoping that …Crackle and Pop would show up. Helping tourists and visitors in Times Square and likely to cash in on the Fifth Anniversary of September 11th (those bastards), Snapple has set up a visitor’s stand to help find their way around town and hot spots of the city. The company’s tag line, “The Best Stuff” referring to their bottle drinks helped drive this campaign to help visitors find “The Best Stuff” in town. Visitors are also welcome to play a variety of games and win prizes.

Paris Hilton may not yet own the world but she’s headed in the right direction. Many thought and were proven right that Kevin Federline’s album would be a flop and it was. But no one could’ve suspected that Paris Hilton’s new album that just hit stores today would be a Top 20 Hit on The Billboard charts. What marketing tactics did she employ that would make people pay a “premium” for what many would believe to be a piece of garbage coming from a dimwitted celebrity? Clever Marketing is the only answer I can think of along with a legion of high priced producers and writers. Not too long ago Ms. Hilton “lost” a sex tape which helped drive her video across the world online. Then there was her hit TV Series “The Simple Life” which capitalized on Jessica Simpson’s “idiot” type personality on her show “Nick and Jessica” on the MTV Network. Don’t forget all of her public appearences and being world renowned as a paid party starter.

All of which led up to the release of her self titled album debut “Paris.” Ms. Hilton denies the rumors that her parents helped in the production of the album but no one can deny that top music producer Scott Storch has more than a ‘weekly allowance’ pricetag. But her estimated $30 million dollar inheritance would be a good start to hiring the team to produce the album. But without all the previous marketing that she’s done, along with a clever publicist, Ms. Hilton’s new album “Paris” would have flopped just like Britney’s beau Kevin Federline.

Late yesterday, YouTube annoucned that it will be launching several new advertising products including “Branded Channels.” I believe Myspace first understood that controlling their social networks and profiting from it will bring not only more revenue from their free service but helping the online community grow. Youtube and The Onion are quickly catching on to this growing trend of profiting from Viral Videos.

The first video launched by YouTube with it’s new form of “participatory video ads” features the Paris Hilton Channel. I almost fell of my chair when I discovered this. On the main page of the site on the right hand side (does YouTube not understand the F-Eye Patern study results of proper ad placement?) of the web site exposed to millions per day.

The estimated $74 billion dollar a year ad market is a piece of the pie that Google wants to devour. According to CEO Eric Schmidt, the company wants to creat target ads to TV watchers so they won’t be wasting their time watching ads for products they’ll never be interested in (think of the college students who have to endure all the Depends ads on The Price Is Right). I have no idea how Google plans on narrowing a target market such as this. It remains unclear. Online, monitoring demographics is obviously much easier and part to Google’s success with AdWords. They could target ads based on the time and channel your watching in conjunction with your web browsing. It might be some other way. We’ll have to play the waiting game and keep everyone up to date on the matter.

When I first ran across these new urinal advertisements for a horse track in Alberta, Ontario I thought about all the times I went to Night Clubs downtown only to be presented with a flat panel plasma television funneling advertisements for Xyience and other “you’re not good enough products.” What is it with marketers and the whole ‘pee ads’ form of guerilla marketing. There are many companies out there that actually sell advertising space over urinals like its their like an blood. For crying out loud son! When will it end. By no means do I feel this is an effective means of advertising. Who actively reads something 2″ from their face while having their hands down their pants doing “their business” only to think “WOW, that ad in front of makes me want to get a SMOOTHIE!”

Advertising Age said today that everyone interested in blogs, podcasts, and rss might need a marketing reality check. Ad Age found that adults, those with steady incomes prefer to get their news the old fashioned way. This extends across all demographics.

Amongst the interesting facts found are:

- 92% of brand conversations were taking place offline
- 7% of American adults write blogs and 22% read them
- About 8% listen to podcasts and 5% use RSS feeds
- 88% of the at-work audience doesn’t know what RSS is

Blogs have given the ability for non prognosticators and technophiles to develop a web presence. Moreover, blogs have helped created social networks that enable even the least web-enabled individual to connect their minds with the world. In many cases, with very much success. Have you become part of an online social elite with your blog, rss, or podcast?

If you’re me and without an iPod or MP3 digital player alternative then this is for you. Monday, SanDisk introduced a new digital music player that stores 2 TIMES as many songs as the iPod Nano for the same price. A perfect buy this holiday season. The SanDisk player has an amazing 8 gigabytes of storage capacity or 2,000 songs worth of music. The cost? Only $249.00! “The most costly ingredient in a flash-based (music) player is the flash memory,” said Eric Bone, director of audio/video product marketing at SanDisk. “Since we make the flash memory, we essentially remove the middleman and pass that savings directly to the consumer.”

This just goes to prove that South Africa is full of amazing retail business opportunities. South African women value shopping above sex, survey results suggest. Of women who took part in a “Fantasy Survey” promoted by a drinks company, 45% said they valued shopping over sex. Only 26% voted the other way round.

Three quarters of the women who took part described themselves as having a shoe fetish while 70% said they did not have enough clothes in their wardrobes. Almost half (48%) of women surveyed said men had no real understanding of their needs and desires.There you have it - as easy as a polititian scoring a ‘killer deal’ on new M-class Merc. All the marketing research you’ll ever need in one BBC article. Its either import and sell Jimmy Choo shoes; or someone please write a half decent manual on giving the loving touch for us okes to understand.