If you haven’t yet subscribed to (or even heard of) the Very Short List  … today could be your lucky day. VSL is a concise daily e-mail that brings you the latest culturally significant developments across a myriad of media … from music, to movies, to books, to web sites, etc.

Powered by ask.com, I personally welcome the interruption that I get when this handy little newsletter hits my inbox. Each day the content focus is on a particular piece of culture that typically makes me take notice.  Everything is laid out in a very succinct manner that let’s you quickly ascertain whether the subject matter is of interest, so even on days when it doesn’t twist your crank, the VSL never demands much of your time.

I strongly urge you to take a few minutes to subscribe. If you don’t find you’re getting the benefit after even just a few days, I will gladly refund every penny that you spend … oh and by the way … it’s free!

Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

A round watermelon can take up a lot of room in a refrigerator and the usually round fruit often sits awkwardly on fridge shelves.  Smart Japanese Farmers have forced their watermelons to grow into a square shape by inserting the melons into square, tempered glass cases while the fruit is still growing on the vine.

Since today is picture day, think about how you can view things differently…

You…

…have a good day!

                                       You got that right Freddy Mercury!

With the spring already here and summer just around the corner, I’m sure most of you have been enjoying the great weather and getting out for some fresh air.  PHD has even initiated a twice weekly walking club to help people get some

As most of you know, each year PHD is involved with the , which is an opportunity to raise money to help combat heart disease and stroke through riding your bicycle down the DVP and Gardiner Expressway.  Already there are a number of people who have signed up for the event, but there is still room for more on Team PHD. 

If riding a bike “just isn’t your thing”, don’t fret, there’s also an inline skating option.

Rollerbladers will have the opportunity to skate around a specified course (separate from the cycling route), in varying lengths (also different from cycling).

Registration ends soon, so please contact me to be a part of an amazing experience you won’t regret!

This morning, Canadian Living co-hosted, with Brandspark a breakfast presentation on food trends and Canadian consumers.  The purpose being to find out what Canadians think and feel about food.  Topics ranged from shopping & eating habits, to who does the cooking and what food trend products are top of mind to Canadian consumers. 

If you’d like to know what "ah-ha’s" came out of this research, contact your Canadian Living rep for more information. 

Or you can turn to Saturday Night Live, they always have an interesting spin on new products in the market!

http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/play.shtml?mea=239693

I know what you’re thinking. ‘Gossip Girl’? Really? Well, whether or not you’re a fan of the show, ‘Gossip Girl’ might just be at the forefront of the changing TV model – a model involving everything but a television.

‘Gossip Girl’ launched in September 2007 with mediocre ratings compared to those of teen dramas past. New episodes averaged just 526,000 viewers in Canada during the fall of 2007, and 2.5 million viewers in the U.S.

What was different then about ‘Gossip Girl’ - were people not as interested? It turns out they were indeed watching, just not as much on TV. ‘Gossip Girl’ was the number one streamed show on CTV.ca during the fall of 2007 and quickly rose to the top of iTunes’ most downloaded list. The show was tapping into a younger, tech savvy audience who didn’t need to make sure they were planted in front of the television at a certain hour – they were in control of when and where they watched the show.

In this month’s issue of New York Magazine, they speak about ‘Gossip Girl’ as changing the way in which we watch television. They describe the show as one, “…that may foretell a future of multiplatform entertainment whose success is determined not by traditional ratings but by what Schwartz and co–executive producer Stephanie Savage call “cultural permeation”.

Fans of the show can posts blogs online and speculate about characters and storylines. They can find out where to purchase the clothing or accessories seen in the show. There is even a ‘Gossip Girl’ component in Second Life. The show lives online and so do its viewers.

‘Gossip Girl’ is by no means the first TV program to experience online success. What separates this show from others, however, is its younger audience who already have the tools necessary to easily interact in an online environment. ‘Gossip Girl’ can capitalize on their viewers’ “tech knowledge”, enabling the program and the brand to expand quicker online than a show aimed at an older generation. 

‘Gossip Girl’ has started a conversation with its audience and the viewer doesn’t even need to turn on the television. The challenge to advertisers now is that the viewer is getting more out of this conversation than they did before and may refuse to settle for anything less. If viewers continue to interact with TV programming in this way, does the future of the TV model even include the TV?

The second annual Global Media Festival just wrapped up Tuesday night. It was 2 days of focus on the future of media. The organizers are C Squared the group behind Cream Magazine , which is dedicated to regularly celebrating the best of global media achievement. And although the organizers opted not to name this conference, for me the resounding theme was one of juxtaposition.

From the outset I was struck by the juxtaposition of a conference dedicated to the digital future of communications being held in the ancient city of Venice. There was plenty of juxtaposition of old and new. From featured speakers like advertising legend Sir John Hegarty to dot come millionaire and MySpace co-founder Brett Brewer… Venice was often a study in contradictions.

There was the juxtaposition of the shortage of natural and human resources and a healthy discussion about the industry need to address both. On Day 2, Peter Seligmann, the CEO of Conservation International addressed the conference on the issue of sustainability. He implored all of us in the communications business to use our considerable influence to make a difference. It was certainly a proud moment for PHD when the efforts behind PHD Sustain were recognized. I also learned that PHD has just recently entered into a pro bono relationship to work with Conservation International, which is great and inspiring news.

Other interesting juxtapositions that became apparent in Venice:

With the juxtaposition of the old mass communication model of one-to-many migrating quickly to become one-to-one (with the rise of social media and peer-to-peer communication) there was a very interesting observation that suggests … in the heyday of mass communication, brands used to tell stories to consumers. In the new digital age of communications, consumers will tell stories about brands.

There was the juxtaposition that Sir John Hegarty alluded to that revolves around experience. His thought for the new age is that we all come from a world where we learn and then do. He believes that we need to alter our behaviour for the new reality to “do and then learn”… and hey … who wants to argue with a man who has achieved knighthood?

There was also the juxtaposition of content and context. For years we have heard the mantra that “content is king”, but in an age where technology is enabling smart messaging to receptive audiences, we are quickly moving to an era where context is king. This is a major leadership challenge for us as media practitioners and there was certainly a resounding spirit of readiness from the media throng in attendance.

One final note on Venice … it was truly great to see PHD so dominant on the world media stage. Beyond the aforementioned sustainability initiatives, our ETNA planning interface was featured in one of the breakout sessions on Media Creativity, and our Global CEO, Mike Cooper, addressed the conference most eloquently on the future of the media business.

Like Venice once proved, it is quite possible for a culturally significant (albeit small) body to make a big and lasting impression on the world… we should all be very proud.

Wal-Mart, Sony and McDonalds have all tried to deceive the unsuspecting blog reader in recent months.  In the UK, they have decided enough is enough.

Specifically, the law would ban the use of ‘fake consumer blogs’ which mislead real consumers. Called the “Consumer Protection from Unfair Trading Regulations 2008”.

Several examples have been observed in the past, including the following:
- Wal-Mart created a fake blog called ‘Wal-Marting Across America’
- Sony created a fake “All I Want for Christmas” blog about a boy who only wanted a PS3 for Christmas. 
- McDonald’s created a blog called ‘4Railways’ where ‘someone’ wrote about their desire to get all four railway cards in the McDonald’s monopoly game.

Rest assured readers, this is not a fake blog entry.

I can relate to that visual image…

Tired of only being able to get 500 songs on your Ipod Nano?  Apparently so were the researchers at the University of Rochester who have come up with a way to reproduce music into a computer file that’s 1,000 times smaller than a comparable high-quality MP3 file.

Thanks to Alan Cross, program director at Corus radio station CFNY, the math is now evident - a 160 GB Ipod can now carry over 40 million songs.  It would take you over 450 years to listen to all songs before hearing a repeat!

Its really quite staggering when you think about it - the MP3 file has changed forever how people will share music files across the Internet.  Imagine what will happen when the MPEG goes next?

Full article on Yahoo.

Its been around forever…

To see how other people see objects from a different perspective, look at these modern products in vintage advertising .